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 3. /, 1.1 
 LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 BV 4277 .T5 
 
 Thorold, Anthony W. 1825- 
 
 1895. 
 The presence of Christ 
 
 
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 IP 
 
r/iA; 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF 
 CHRIST. 
 
 BY 
 
 ANTHONY W. THOROLD, D.B., 
 
 LORD BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, 
 
 900 BROADWAY, COR. 20th STREET. 
 
EDWARD O. JENKINS, ROBERT RUTTKR, 
 
 Printer and Stereotyper Binder^ 
 
 20 North William St. 116 and 118 East 14th Street. 
 
THE FLOCK OF CHRIST 
 
 IN ST. GILES IN THE FIELDS, 
 
 GIVEN ME TO FEED FOR TEN HAPPY YEARS, 
 
 I OFFER THIS BOOK 
 
 IN UNDYING AFFECTION. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. CHRISTIAN ASSURANCE, . 
 II. DIVINE PROVIDENCE, 
 
 III. CHASTISEMENT, .... 
 
 IV. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH 
 V. THE TABLE OF GOD, .... 
 
 VI. ETERNAL LIFE, 
 
 INDEX, ...... 
 
 FAGfi 
 II 
 
 43 
 
 83 
 
 124 
 
 158 
 205 
 247 
 
 To facilitate the reading of this book in small portions, thi 
 
 subjects, as they occur, are noted at the side, and 
 
 the first word of the different sections is 
 
 marked by an initial letter. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 iHIS volume is the substance of some 
 lectures on the Twenty-third Psalm 
 preached in the Parish Church of St. 
 Giles in the Fields during the Lent of 1865, 
 and here recast, with a good deal of expan- 
 sion and some almost unavoidable repetition, 
 into a permanent form. 
 
 To the position assumed all through it, 
 that '' The Lord — my shepherd " is the 
 " Good Shepherd " of Christ's own parable, 
 no sound critical objection can, I think, be 
 made. 
 
 It is, however, quite possible, that some 
 may demur, either to occasional doctrinal ap- 
 plications of the psalm as plainly remote from 
 
 (7) 
 
8 PREFACE. 
 
 the inspired author's purpose, oi to certain of 
 the practical lessons drawn fiom it as over- 
 strained and irrelevant. 
 
 To any such criticisms my answer is to 
 be found in the deep conviction, that Holy 
 Scripture can not easily be too much trusted 
 and used, not indeed for rules, but for what 
 is far better. Eternal principles for human 
 thought and conduct ; also in the firm belief 
 that the Divine promises, when carefully 
 studied in the history of Him who is the life 
 and light of men, are " exceeding broad,' 
 just because they cover ground as wide as 
 life itself. 
 
 In sending it out to the world, the writer 
 feels to be parting from a dear and pleasant 
 friend, who has solaced tedious months of 
 sickness and inactivity now in God's great 
 goodness over. Those months will hardly 
 
 ave been endured for nothing, if some of the 
 lessons learned in them, and written here, 
 shall be of some avail in comforting and in- 
 structing others; and if the study of this 
 
PREFACE. g 
 
 blessed psalm shall ever so little help any, 
 who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, 
 to abide in Him as their Saviour, to walk 
 with Him as their friend, and to look for Him 
 as their King. 
 
 12 Chesterfield Street, Mayfair, W. 
 
I. 
 
 CHRISTIAN ASSURANCE. 
 
 '' THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD : I SHALL NOT WANT." 
 
 "^Que de per/ectionnements avant que Vhomine daigni 
 songer a celui de son dnte / N^est-il pas etrangt 
 de le voir penser h. s' assurer toutes chases excepts 
 son salut ? restaurer toutes chases^ exceptd sa con- 
 science ? speculer sur toutes choses^ exceptd sur 
 Vdternitd? "— Vinet. 
 
 OD for us, God with us, 
 
 n A ' 4.U Introduction, 
 
 Grod in us — these are 
 
 the ideas which describe our religion. 
 For they explain its motive, they declare its 
 meaning, they define its doctrine. The mo- 
 tive is, that God being for us, all things 
 shall work together for our good, if we are 
 for Him. The meaning is, that God being 
 with us, His Providence is ever ready to lead 
 us on by the right zvay [Psaimcvn.?]. The doc- 
 trine is, that an indwelling God is our salva^ 
 
 tion, 
 
 (n) 
 
12 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 Adolphe Monod, detecting a historical re- 
 lation between these ideas of God's favor, 
 God's presence and God's indwelHng, finds 
 the first in the Old Testament, the second in 
 the Gospels, the third in the Epistles. In the 
 Old Testament we see God both on our side, 
 and also with us, yet with us only occasion- 
 ally, and by means of angels. In the Gos- 
 pels, God speaks to us by His Son. Since 
 Christ went away, we have had the promise 
 of the Comforter. He dwelleth with you, and 
 shall be in you [johnxiv. ni. 
 
 Like blazing torches gleaming at long in- 
 tervals over a wide and dark plain, the vari- 
 ous manifestations of Jehovah in the interval 
 from the fall to the Incarnation kept fresh in 
 men's hearts the truth of a living God. As to 
 what, indeed, was the precise nature of the 
 intercourse between Adam and his Maker, 
 before sin made him hide himself from the 
 presence of God amongst the trees of the garden 
 [Genii. 8], it is easier to speculate than to prove 
 He heard a voice, but did he see a simili- 
 tude ? When he fled, was it from a face, 
 on which he had been wont to look, or from 
 a Holiness, which he had learned to fear ? 
 
CHRISTIAN ASSURANCE. 
 
 13 
 
 How, further, God told Noah to make the 
 ark, or bade Abram leave his father's house, 
 or spoke with Moses by the burning bush, 
 Scripture does not explain. Sometimes we 
 read of visions, as when Abram sat in his 
 tent-door in the heat of the day ; or of 
 dreams, as when God showed to Nebuchad- 
 nezzar what He was about to do to him ; or 
 of similitudes, as when Moses and Aaron saw 
 the God of Israel, and there was under His feet, 
 as it were, a paved ivork of a sapphire stone, and 
 as it were the body of heaven in His clearness 
 [Exod. ixiv. 10]. When Israel came out of Egypt, 
 the cloud by day and the flame by night 
 were the visible guarantees of the blessed 
 promise : My presence shall go with thee^ and 
 I zv ill give thee rr.?/ [Exoci.xxxin. u]. For the one 
 promise, by which God ever strengthened 
 the heart sof His servants, whether patriarchs, 
 or prophets, or kings, was the distinct assur- 
 ance of His Divine presence, saying to Isaac, 
 I will be with //^^^ [Cxen. xxvi. 3], and to Jacob, Be^ 
 hold, I am with thee coen. xxviii. 15], and to Moses, 
 Certainly I will be with thee CExod. in. 12], and to 
 Jeremiah, I am with thee to deliver thee [Jer. i. s]. 
 While of Hezekiah it wa.s written, The Lord 
 
f4 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 was with /mn [2Kin^sxviii.7i; and it was David's 
 joyiul boast, When I awake I am still with 
 
 Thee CPsalm cxxxix. 18]. 
 
 When Christ came, for a brief interval which 
 cut the world's life into two distinct halves, 
 God was manifest in the flesh [i Tim. iii. i6]. Sure- 
 ly it is most instructive to observe how, 
 by His words before His resurrection, and 
 His acts after it. He prepared the Church for 
 His protracted absence. The outward sym- 
 bols of bread and wine, in the solemnly-insti- 
 tuted sacrament of the Lord's supper, while 
 they convey to faithful partakers the blessed 
 sustenance of His spiritual body and blood, 
 are also to enable His followers to realize, 
 when they receive it, the fact of His continual 
 presence in their hearts. Of all His many 
 hard words to His disciples, none were so 
 hard as those in which He strove to assure 
 them that His going away would be for their 
 gain, no explanation at first so disappointing 
 as that by which He maintained it. He was 
 going away, but He was coming back. The 
 world should not see Him, but they should 
 see Him, and their joy should abide. It wa? 
 not, however, to be a mere sight of "-he senses 
 
CHRISTIAN ASSURANCE. 
 
 15 
 
 as it was then, but the beholding of Him by 
 faith in the power of the Spirit. His coming 
 back to be with them was not so much His 
 return to the world for forty short days, but 
 His coming with His Father to those, who 
 loved His words, to take up an abode in their 
 hearts. Abide in me^ and I in you iJohnxv.4]. 
 Henceforward the life of the Church was to 
 be His ever-present absence. Those manifold 
 and abrupt appearances and disappearances 
 after the resurrection were not merely to 
 show by many infallible proofs, that He was 
 risen from the dead, but by a process of kind 
 weaning to prepare them for the time when 
 He would have ascended into His glory. He 
 would teach them that He was always at 
 hand, though they did not see Him ; always 
 thinking of them and watching over them, 
 though He might seem to be far away ; ab- 
 sent in the body, He was present in the spirit, 
 and in the fullness of His Divine power. He 
 would not leave them orphans, He would 
 come to them. The vision of the glorified 
 Saviour at the right hand of God nerved 
 Stephen to die. To St. Paul at Corinth, set 
 in the midst of great dangers, the Lord spake 
 
1 6 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 in a vision : Be not afraid, but speak, and hold 
 not thy peace, for I am with thee, and no man 
 shall set on thee to hurt //z^^' [Acts xvni 9, lo]. The 
 tradition of paradise is also the hope of 
 glory. Interrupted by the fall, and restored 
 by the cross, it will be perfected in the resur- 
 rection. The Revelation, which in the begin- 
 ning tells us how the beloved apostle in Pat- 
 mos fell down as dead before the excellent 
 glory of Jesus, in the end assures us, that in 
 the new Jerusalem, tJiey shall see His face, ana 
 His name shall be in their foreheads [Rev. xxii. 4]. 
 We shall not fear Him then, for perfect 
 love casteth out fear [Uohniv. is]. and His pres- 
 ence will not only be a spiritual nearness 
 to soiled and earthly hearts little capable ot 
 it, little thankful for it, but the unveiled face 
 of the Lamb, which is in the midst of the 
 throne. 
 
 ^, ^ , , The practical difficulty, how- 
 The Gospel. . , , , r 
 
 ever, is to take these truths tor 
 
 our own, and to live daily in the strength of 
 
 them. The first question in theology is the 
 
 nature of God, but the second is His rela- 
 
 tionship to mankind. On this latter point 
 
 the Gospel gives us all the light we possess, 
 
CHRISTIAN ASSURANCE. 17 
 
 and, glorious as it is, it may be described 
 in two sentences : GOD IS RECONCILED, FOR 
 MAN IS REDEEMED. God is reconciled, not 
 because sin is made light of or forgotten ; 
 but because it has been expiated at an in- 
 finite cost, in the person of His only-begotten 
 Son. The Gospel is the good news of the 
 reconciliation to all men eveiywhere ; and the 
 men who are commissioned to declare it to 
 their fellows convey the zvord of reconciliation^ 
 praying men in Christ's stead to be reconcilea 
 
 to God [2Cor. V. 19,20]. 
 
 Doubtless there is still a barrier between a 
 holy God and His sinful creatures : but it is 
 not on God's side, or of God's making ; it is 
 on man's side, and of man's making. God 
 must ever hate sin with a perfect hatred, and 
 He can have no truce with it in any man ; 
 and wherever He sees it, while His desire is 
 to pardon it. His purpose also is to uproot it 
 and put it away. Yet He has proclaimed by 
 every means in His power, that a way is now 
 made open into His presence, by the precious 
 blood of His dear Son ; and He would have 
 us see and confess, that the only thing that 
 keeps us apart is not His refusal to be recon- 
 a 
 
/ 
 
 1 8 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 ciled to us, but ours to be reconciled to 
 Him. 
 
 Now, to put it roughly, quite apart from 
 any love of sin in us, or any willful resistance, 
 to God's Word, there are two chief obstacles 
 to our receiving the Gospel. 
 
 The first difficulty is in our accepting it 
 precisely as God himself describes it. It is 
 so marvelous in its history, so universal in 
 its application, so mighty in its blessedness, 
 so utterly unlike and beyond anything that 
 we could have imagined or invented for our- 
 selves, that while one man denounces it as in- 
 sulting to the Divine holiness, another resents 
 it as an encouragement to human presumption, 
 and a third, thinking it too good to be true, 
 goes on to argue that therefore it can not be. 
 
 Some, again, refuse to receive it, as God 
 bids them, in the light of a free and unmerited 
 gift ; either because they are unwilling to be 
 so cheaply saved, without cost or effort of 
 their own, or in a spirit of timidity which says, 
 *' If all this is true, and the truer it is the 
 more I wish for it, still how may I satisfy my^ 
 self that it is really meant for me, and that I 
 may freely claim it as my own." 
 
CHRIS TIA N ASS URA NCE. j g 
 
 To both these difficulties (to which allusion 
 will again be made in this chapter) a com- 
 plete answer is to be found in the Twenty- 
 third Psalm. 
 
 HRISTIAN assurance is Christinn As- 
 a humble, but firm sense surance. 
 of present acceptance with God in His Son 
 Jesus Christ. It is a doctrine which does not 
 indeed always receive the consideration it de- 
 serves from good and thoughtful men. Yet 
 it is so essentially bound up with our ideas of 
 God and our interpretation of Scripture ; it 
 bears so directly on our daily religious life, 
 whether held in sober cheerfulness or in igno- 
 rant presumption ; in plain truth, it has so 
 much to do with our happiness, and therefore 
 with our usefulness and our holiness, that, on 
 the threshold of a subject which can not 
 possibly be explained or understood without 
 some reference to it, it may be well for us to 
 try to think out, what it really means. 
 
 For we may regard it either 
 
 .,, , , -.1 J- Ti Objections to it 
 
 vvith contempt, or with dislike, •' 
 
 or with timidity, or with thankfulness. Those 
 
 who regard all religious consciousness what 
 
20 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 ever as a hysterical pietism will of course 
 ignore it as folly, or denounce it as fanati- 
 cism. With other arguments, from other stand- 
 ing points, we must approach minds like 
 these. Such persons, however, can not escape 
 the difficulty of finding some better interpre- 
 tation of the numberless passages of Scripture 
 which both express and imply it ; and they 
 may fairly be invited to explain, in what con- 
 sists the unreasonableness of our wishing to 
 ascertain if the greatest blessing a human 
 being can possess, is ours or not. 
 
 Dislike to it is commonly based on the sup- 
 posed presumptuousness of venturing to in- 
 terpret God's hidden purposes, and of taking 
 the keys of the kingdom of heaven out of 
 His hands into our own. Forgiveness, men 
 may say, is not so cheaply, lor so hastily, 
 granted. There must be time to test the 
 sincerity and to confirm the repentance. It 
 dilutes the malignity of sin to make pardon 
 too easy. It confers impunity on sinners, if 
 we permit personal feeling to be the guarantee 
 of the favor of God. At the close of life God 
 may possibly reward a long penitence by the 
 vision of His reconciled countenance ; but 
 
CHRIS TIAN A SSURA iVCE. 2 1 
 
 really-humbled men will be content to walk 
 softly all their days under the shade of the 
 cross, hoping for mercy when they die. 
 
 To this it may be replied in passing, that 
 it is not our own notion of what God's char- 
 acter ought to be, that may safely guide us 
 in this matter; it is His own account of it, as 
 He gives it us in His Word. If Christ our 
 Lord is the same to-day that He was yester- 
 day, it will be His rule now as when He was 
 on earth, if He forgives men, to -tell them so. 
 We should all think it cruelty in a human 
 parent to refuse to tell a penitent child that 
 it is forgiven. But as the heavens are high 
 above the earth, so is the pitifulness of God 
 compared with that of men. 
 
 Those, again, who regard it with timidity, 
 or a kind of softened distrust, mostly so re- 
 gard it, not so much from any sense of inher- 
 ent impossibility in God to forgive instantly 
 or entirely, as from a real feeling (deepened, 
 it may be, by a painful and long experience) 
 of the deceitfulness of human nature, the 
 shallowness of human feeling, and the weak- 
 ness of human strength. It is not that they 
 dishonor God by doubting His mercy, or mis- 
 
22 THE PRESENCE OF CilRIST. 
 
 represent Him through ignorance of His 
 Word ; but, knowing that they can not de- 
 serve pardon, they fear they may fail to ob- 
 tain it ; confession with the lips is easy, with 
 the heart is hard. 
 
 Most true. Yet, if God is willing to forgive 
 us, may we not forgive ourselves ? A very 
 slender knowledge of human nature (quite 
 apart from the gospel) is sufficient to assure 
 us that there is no real spur to amendment, 
 no genuine encouragement to new and per- 
 severing effort, without a reasonable hope 
 that the past will be forgotten, and the old 
 favor and kindness restored. Alienation and 
 distrust sadden the soul and weaken it ; 
 while confidence and esteem brace and en- 
 noble it. 
 
 Once more there are those 
 True idea of it, ^ , . . ^ /- n 
 
 •' who, groundmg it on God s ex- 
 press revelation of Himself, both in His Word 
 and in their own moral nature, unhesitatingly 
 and joyfully recognize it as the mainspring of 
 their obedience and joy. They are careful, 
 indeed, to distinguish between the rash re- 
 ligionism that asserts it to be necessary to 
 salvation, and the sober experience that de- 
 
CHRISTIAN ASSURANCE. 23 
 
 clares it essential to peace. For the one 
 foundation of Christian assurance is the per 
 son and character of God. It is not so m jch 
 what we are that we rest on, as what He is. 
 He gives, and we receive. He declares, and 
 we listen ; He promises, and we believe. If 
 our hearts deceive us. He is greater than our 
 hearty and knoweth all things \x^^'\^^'^\'i-'m\ but if 
 we pray not to be deceived, if we love the 
 truth and wish to know it, will He give us 
 over to believe a lie ? If there is danger of 
 presumption in our being too hasty to take 
 God at His word, is there no danger of it 
 in our doubting if He really means what 
 He says? Is there no dishonor to Him, when 
 we dwarf His infinite perfections by trying to 
 make His readiness to pardon to fit in with 
 ours? If through ignorance or hardness we 
 are slow ourselves to forgive others, does that 
 make Him like us" 
 
 This Twenty-third Psalm is the Old Testa- 
 ment doctrine on this most blessed subject. In 
 revealing the person of God, in describing 
 His relation to us under an endearing and 
 familiar image, it teaches us to rest the hope 
 of our salvation, not on our own changeful 
 
24 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 and erring frames and feelings, but on Divine 
 love. The New Testament tells us of three 
 kinds of assurance : the full assurance of mi- 
 derstandi7ig ccoi. li. 2] ; the fill assurance of faith 
 iHeb.x.22]; thc fill assuraucc of hope unto tlie end 
 [Heb.vi. 11]. Though sooner or later they almost 
 imperceptibly blend into each other, there is 
 nevertheless a real distinction between them, 
 and in a logical order they approach and pos- 
 sess the soul. That order is plainly discern- 
 ible in this verse, which is a confession of the 
 first assurance of a believing soul ; in other 
 words, its starting-point in that knowledge of 
 God which alone is eternal life. The Lord is 
 my shepherd ; I shall not want, 
 
 lET us observe here three 
 
 ,. ,. , . 1 ^1 t, Varieties of 
 
 distinct ideas. The soul s Assurance, 
 
 discovery of God, or THE FULI, 
 ASSURANCE OF UNDERSTANDING. Its dis- 
 covery of God's personal relation to itself, or 
 THE FULL ASSURANCE OF FAITH. Its COn» 
 fidence resulting from that discovery, or THE 
 FULL ASSURANCE OF HOPE UNTO THE END. 
 
 The discovery of God is the discovery oi 
 His name. In a sense, God is His name. 
 
CHRISTIAN ASSURANCE. 
 
 25 
 
 Here Jehovah calls Himself a shepherd, not 
 for the first time, nor for the last. So Jacob 
 had already called Him on his death-bed : 
 From the7ice is the Shepherd, the stone of Israec 
 [Gen. xiix. 24]. Thus Asaph addresses Him in 
 prayer : Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, Thou 
 that leadest Joseph like a flock [Psaimixx^c. u. 
 Zechariah, approaching the advent, applied it 
 to Messiah : Awake, O sword, against my 
 Shepherd. In the New Testament, it is the 
 title of the Lord Jesus. Of Himself the 
 Saviour said, I am the good Shepherd. In the 
 Hebrews we read of Him as the great Shep- 
 herd of the sheep m^^.yim.2^-\\ and St. Peter, speci- 
 ally impressed it may be by the figure from 
 having been himself thrice bidden to feed the 
 sheep and the lambs, in one place describes 
 the Lord as the Shepherd and Bishop of our 
 souls [1 Pet. ii. 25] ; in anothcr as the chief Shepherd 
 
 [;Pet. V.4]. 
 
 Now when we think of the confused, igno- 
 rant, defective way in which many men think 
 and speak of God, how thankful we should be 
 for this blessed name, on which to rest our 
 own hearts, under which to speak of Him to 
 others. He is, indeed, the Almighty Maker 
 
26 THE PRESENCE OE CHRIST. 
 
 of all things, who can create and destroy. 
 Yet mere sense of power never made a peni- 
 tent yet. To confine our notion of God to 
 that of a mighty artificer, is to ignore His 
 moral attributes and to place His redeemed 
 creatures on the same level with the earth and 
 the sea and the trees. Doubtless, also, He is 
 a judge, -who putt eth dozvn one, a7id setteth up 
 another cpsaim ixxv ?]. Yet, if He is ONLY this, 
 what hope is there for us? From the great 
 white throne the heavens and the earth will 
 flee away. The word SHEPHERD draws us 
 with cords of a man [Hoseaxi. 4] to One who can 
 save as well as condemn, for it includes KNOWL- 
 EDGE, and PROTECTION, and PROVISION, and 
 TENDERNESS. 
 
 First, there is individual knowledge. In 
 Europe, where a shepherd rules by fear, not 
 by love, drives his flock in front of him in- 
 stead of going first himself to show the way, 
 it is hard to appreciate this. In the East it is 
 far otherwise ; to borrow the Saviour's words, 
 the shepherd calleth his own sheep by name^ 
 and leadeth them out. And when he putteth 
 forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and 
 the sheep follow him for they know his voice 
 
CHRISTIAN ASSURANCE. 27 
 
 rjohnx.3.4]. Then the shepherd must protect his 
 sheep, sometimes at great risk to himself, 
 often with labor and fatigue. In the snow- 
 drifts of winter he must dig them out : in the 
 heats of summer they would die of drought 
 if he did not find them water ; in the stormy 
 wind and tempest he leads them under the 
 cover of the sheltering hill. The wolf would 
 come and scatter the sheep, if the shepherd 
 were not ready to lay down his life for them. 
 The shepherd knows his sheep, protects them, 
 provides for them, not only because they are 
 his property, and worth so much money, but 
 because he loves them. This idea is beauti- 
 fully brought out by Isaiah in reference to 
 Christ : He shall feed His flock like a shepherd; 
 He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and 
 carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those 
 that are with young [isa. xi. ii]. It has been 
 strikingly observed that, in that wandering, 
 dangerous life where the shepherd and the 
 sheep pass days and weeks together without 
 seeing any other living creatures than them- 
 selves, there springs up a kind of friendship 
 between the man and the brute. The shep- 
 herd feels a pitiful love to the dumb, helpless 
 
28 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 creatures, whom the Maker of man and beasf 
 has given into his hand. The sheep come at 
 last to connect him with their daily food and 
 safety, and in their way look up to him willi 
 a dependent grateful affection. 
 
 Such then being the office and qualities of 
 a good shepherd, this illustration may help to 
 show us, though in a very imperfect wa}% 
 what Christ is to His Church. He knows 
 "His sheep, every one of them, from the least 
 to the greatest. Each has his own name, each 
 his own place in the family of God. / know 
 my sheep f arid am known of ^nine [johux. 143. 
 And He protects them. Not, however, by 
 securing them immunity from " the changes 
 and chances " of life. It would be but a poor 
 manifestation of Divine wisdom and mercy, 
 to shelter us from that discipline of trial and 
 sorrow by which the elect of God are trained 
 for home. But in the temptations of Satan, 
 whether they be doubts that undermine our 
 faith, or sudden assaults that would take it by 
 storm, or anodynes that send it to sleep, or 
 allurements that enchant it, tJie name of the 
 Lord is a strong tower : the righteous runneth 
 into it and is safe [prov. xviii. 103. And He pro- 
 
CHRIS TIA N A SS URA NCR. 29 
 
 vides for them. The Son of man, who once 
 taught us to say, Give us day by day our daily 
 bread [Luke xi. 3], now hears that prayer, and 
 Himself answers it from heaven. And as foi 
 love ! How Christ can love, with all the 
 strength of Godhead, with all the sympathy 
 of manhood, let those try to say who have 
 once felt it, let those ask for it, who desire to 
 know what it can be. The love of God is a 
 boundless ocean, with neither breadth, nor 
 length, nor depth, nor height ; and while we 
 timidly stand on the shore, and only suffer 
 the rippling waves to cover our feet, instead 
 of bravely plunging in, and trusting all our 
 life, all our happiness, to it, we can know 
 but little of what it must be to saints and 
 angels. 
 
 UT the verse does not merely say, The 
 Lord is a shepherd^ it says, The Lord 
 is MY shepherd. This is a step further in the 
 soul's discovery of God. If, as we have 
 already seen, there are three kinds of assur 
 ance, and the assurance of understanding 
 comes first ; in this assurance of understand- 
 ing again, there are two steps or growths of 
 
30 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 knowledge: one, the abstract discovery of 
 what God is in Himself; the other, the actual 
 apprehension of what He is to those who 
 love Him. 
 
 For the former, so far from being neces- 
 sarily connected with the latter, is often sep- 
 arated from it by a long and painful interval. 
 Like a starving man gazing through a window 
 on a well-spread board at which he dare not 
 go in to sit down, the soul that seeks God, 
 but has not yet found Him, may, as we have 
 already hinted, appreciate with fatal distinct- 
 ness the riches of His grace and the counsel 
 of His love for others ; and yet, through hear- 
 ing without believing, may find its own 
 burden only more insupportable than before. 
 It reasons thus : I know what God is in Him- 
 self, and what He is to His people, but how 
 can I induce Him to be all that to me? 
 Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, 
 and bow myself before the high God [Micahvi.e] 
 Clearly I must in some way obtain His love, 
 whether by prayers or alms or sorrow. Who 
 then shall tell me when I have wept or prayed 
 enough to pay up in full the purchase-money 
 of my Redeemer's pity? When may I dare 
 
CHRISTIAN ASSURANCE. 
 
 31 
 
 to say, as I hear others saying, "Jesus Christ 
 is for me ? " When will He say to me, as 
 once He said to another, TJiy sins are for- 
 given [Luke vii. <8]. 
 
 It is something indeed to have got so far 
 as this, even to understand Christ's work, and 
 to desire a share in it. Yet such an one only 
 sees men as trees walking ; and, while looking 
 through a mist at the letter of the gospel, stag- 
 gers heavily on under the burden of the law. 
 
 Now the message of the gospel to the soul 
 in such a condition is this : *' He is yours, my 
 friend, simply because He tells you so ; and 
 what you have to do about it is to believe." 
 Faith, no doubt, is capable of many and vari- 
 ous definitions ; and there are different aspects 
 and phases of it, which one man may call 
 love, and another repentance ; but the one 
 result in every case is just coming to Christ 
 for life. To BELIEVE IS THE FIRST DUTY OF 
 MAN. The one essential truth to accept 
 about the gospel is, that no money can buy 
 our salvation, no suffering merit it, no repent- 
 ance procure it, no holiness produce it. The 
 utmost that our own moral action can do for 
 us, and this too is by the grace of God, is 
 
32 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 to create and enlarge the receptive faculty in 
 us. If we will not take salvation as a gift, we 
 can not have it at all. 
 
 The last step, and that which alone com- 
 pletes our knowledge of God, is to be able to 
 say, I know both what God is in Himself, and 
 what He can be to His people, not from 
 books, nor from hearsay, nor merely from His 
 account of Himself in His Word, but simply 
 from what He has Himself been to me. I am 
 not reasoning myself into what I ought to 
 feel ; I feel from what I possess, and what no 
 man can take from me, for no man gave it to 
 me. The Lord is my shepherd, for He has 
 been a shepherd to me. Not only from what 
 He has promised, but also from what He has 
 performed, I know in whom I have believed. 
 And a blessed truth it is, when God the Holy 
 Ghost writes it on the soul. The Saviour is 
 mine, and I am His : all to me that a shep- 
 herd can be to a sheep, all to me that God 
 can be to a creature. He thinks of me; He 
 cares for me. He shelters me. He understands 
 me. He is as much and as really mine as if 
 I were at this moment with Him in heaven, 
 faultless before the presence of His glory [jude 24i. 
 
CHRISTIAN ASSURANCE. 
 
 33 
 
 Once more, as the result of this discovery 
 is the soul's confidence, / shall not want. 
 The positiveness of this sentence is as striking 
 as its comprehensiveness. It is not the utter- 
 ance of a prayer, it is the statement of a con- 
 viction ; while memory unlocks the treasures 
 of past mercy, hope reposes itself on the un- 
 changeableness of God. 
 
 And if it is positive, it is " exceeding 
 broad." I shall not want. The psalmist, we 
 observe, did not even think it worth while to 
 specify any of the things he was likely to 
 want. Every need of his life seemed abso- 
 lutely guaranteed to him as he rested under 
 the wing of God. Security? The eternal 
 God is thy refuge^ and under^teath are the ever 
 lasting arms [oout. xxxui. 27]. PROVISION ? He 
 that spared not His own Son^ but delivered 
 Him up for us all, hoiv shall He not with Him 
 also freely give us all things ? CRom. viii. 32]. GRACE ? 
 My grace is sufficient for thee n cor. li. 9]. LoVE ? 
 That deepest, most unutterable, most insatiable 
 of all the needs of man ! When God can be 
 faint or weary, when He can turn His face 
 from the poor destitute in anger or scorn, 
 when He can grow cold toward those whom 
 
34 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 He has loved and redeemed and called, then 
 our doubts and fears may have some founda- 
 tion. But to think that God can change, is to 
 deny that He is God. For I am the Lordj 1 
 change not ; therefore ye sojts of Jacob are not 
 consumed cMai. iii. 6]. 
 
 Oh blessed truth of the sufficiency and 
 faithfulness of God ; would we but let it pos- 
 sess our hearts ! Whatever our needs, He 
 can supply them, for He is God ; He will sup- 
 ply them, for He is love. Incessant as may 
 be our wants, small and trifling as may be our 
 cares, harassing and anxious, as with the man- 
 liest and strongest of us, this daily earthly life 
 must sometimes be, the Son of God is still 
 Son of man. In His own human nature, 
 glorified indeed, yet human still, human al- 
 ways. He ever liveth to make intercession for 
 MS [Heb.Tii. 25]. Wc havc j7ot an high-priest 
 which can not be touched with the feeling of 
 our infirmities; but was in all points tempted 
 like as we are, yet without siit [Heb.iv.i5]. 
 
 Only let us believe, and our joy shall be full. 
 Let us honor God by trusting Him entirely. 
 Let us be as willing to receive as He is willing 
 to bestow. Let us give Him the only thing 
 
CHRISTIAN ASSURANCE. 
 
 35 
 
 in the world He cares for; the only thing we 
 have to give Him worth giving ; the only 
 thing He will not take by force, for unless 
 given freely it is worthless ; the very same gift 
 that He has Himself first given us, only it does 
 not seem worth our looking at — even the 
 heart : and then, not in a greater willingness 
 on His part to bestow, but in a greater capac- 
 ity on ours to accept, the Lord will be our 
 shepherd. He will possess what He died to 
 win ; we shall be the dwelling-place of God. 
 
 mm 
 
 wo thoughts more will tolerably com- 
 plete this part of our subject. Christ is 
 a shepherd for all who wish for Him. Christ 
 is a shepherd for all possible conditions of 
 place, and age, and time. 
 
 The former of these truths is good to 
 kindle hope in hearts, which have grown sick 
 over the deferred conversion of children or 
 friends, may even possibly stir a movement 
 of faith and repentance in a soul now half 
 paralyzed by the thought that it is cast away. 
 
 It is wonderful how fertile the 
 1 I. 1. t_ • • i.- Testimony of 
 
 human heart can be m mventmg ScriMuT-e, 
 
 reasons why God should not 
 
36 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 save US ; it is equally wonderful how the 
 blessed Saviour anticipated all such reasons 
 during His ministry on earth. Is it said, '' I 
 am lost " ? The Son of man is coine to save 
 that which zvas lost [Matt.xviii.u] Is it said, " I 
 can give no reason why God should save me, 
 except that I wish to be saved " ? Ho, every 
 one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he 
 that hath no money : come ye, buy and eat, yea, 
 come, buy wine and milk without money, and 
 without price Lisa. iv. i] Is it said, '* God re- 
 quires faith, and to believe is just the one 
 thing I can not do, for I am full of doubts and 
 difficulties " ? Come unto me, all ye that labor 
 and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest 
 [Matt. xi. 28]. Is it said, either of one by himself, 
 or by others about him, ** There is no fear, 
 no desire, no care about these things in that 
 soul. Would there were — for then he might 
 flee from the wrath to come. But now, how 
 can we hope ; what can we do for him ? " 
 The answer is, " That soul is redeemed, for 
 Jesus died to save it. Wait and pray." The 
 angel's message to the shepherds at Bethle- 
 hem is perhaps the fullest, freest gospel evei 
 preached to man. Let us learn it by heart. 
 
CHRISTIAN ASSURANCE. 
 
 37 
 
 Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, 
 which shall be to all people. For unto you .i 
 born this day, in the, city of David, a Saviour, 
 which is Christ the Lord [Lukcii.io.ii]. Not a 
 merited, not a purchased, but a BORN Saviour: 
 not only for Jews at Bethlehem, but for all 
 people everywhere : on whom the single 
 claim for mercy is our lost humanity, with 
 whom the only condition is, Come unto me 
 
 fMatt. xi. 28]. 
 
 And if the Word of God is not sufficient 
 to give confidence — not through any doubt- 
 ing of its truth or blessedness, but through 
 the inability of the soul to appropriate it to 
 its own needs — two points still deserve to be 
 suggested ; for we know not whether shalt 
 i)rosper either this or that, or whether they both 
 shall be alike good [Eccies. xi. 6]. 
 
 One of them is a fact, visible 
 r r 1 Of the Church, 
 
 before our eyes everywhere, -^ 
 
 even the Church of God. As an external 
 witness to the historical truth of Christian- 
 ity, the mere existence of the Church, apart 
 from any explanation of it, has yet to be 
 appreciated at its full value. If Moham- 
 medanism is a testimony to the existence 
 
38 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 of Mcthammed, Christianity is a monument 
 to the memory of Christ. Our present 
 object is, however, to consider it, in the visi- 
 ble body of its faithful and living members, 
 as an evidence of the mercy of God. The 
 Church, in one aspect, is a portion of re- 
 deemed humanity saved in Christ forever; it 
 is the possession of Christ, already purchased 
 by His blood, and presently to be ransomed 
 from death in the resurrection unto life. And 
 the question to ask is, If we behold here an 
 evident purpose of God to save some, why, 
 my brother, or my sister, should not that pur- 
 pose extend to you ? Why should not you 
 be among those whom God will glorify? 
 Why should you be shut out from the bene- 
 fits of that cross and passion endured for the 
 sins of the whole world ? If no one has come 
 from heaven to tell you that you are to be 
 saved, no one has come to any one else to 
 tell them so. Certainly no one has come to 
 tell you that you are to be lost. Even if you 
 were a heathen, and had only just heard of 
 Christ, that would be no bar to your salva- 
 tion. Every man and woman on this re- 
 deemed earth may plead the Saviour's name 
 
CHRISTIAN ASSURANCE. 39 
 
 with the Father who gave Him, and need not 
 fear to plead in vain. 
 
 But to be in the Church of 
 ^ , . ^ , . , . . Of Baptism, 
 
 God IS to have a special invita- 
 tion to His mercy ; and just as every circum- 
 cised Jew was justified in regarding himself 
 as one of God's peculiar people, so every bap- 
 tized Christian may plead the name which is 
 above every name, as the name by which he 
 himself is called. Whatever may be the dif- 
 ficulties of belief, or the diversities of doctrine 
 about holy baptism (and they chiefly spring 
 from the silence of Scripture about the bap- 
 tism of infants), if we believe anything about 
 it, surely we must believe that it brings us 
 into a more visible relation to God than we 
 were in before ; that if it binds us to filial 
 obedience, it pledges Him to fatherly love ; 
 that if it is a responsibility, it must also be a 
 privilege ; that if it is a reality and not a 
 mockery, it must be a sign of His readiness 
 to save. If we believe more than this about 
 baptism, as some doubtless do, then the argu- 
 ment for pleading it with God is made so 
 much the stronger. If we believe less than 
 
40 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 this, surely we are inconsistent in accepting 
 infant baptism at all. Whatsoever is not of 
 faith is sin [Rom.x1v.23]; and rather than treat one 
 of Christ's holy sacraments as a mere act of 
 ecclesiastical registration, let us altogether 
 postpone it till our riper years. Well, then, if 
 any one doubts God's mercy toward him, or 
 toward one he loves, let such a one, with all 
 reverence, but with all simplicity and earnest- 
 ness, plead this baptism with God. Let him 
 say, '* Lord, Thou hast begun the work, wilt 
 not Thou finish it? Thou didst look on me 
 in favor, when I could not with my own lips 
 pray to Thee. Now that I ask of Thee Thy 
 favor for myself, wilt Thou send me empty 
 away? If I do not deserve Thy mercy now, 
 I did not deserve it then. Hast Thou kin- 
 dled hopes only to disappoint them? Hast 
 Thou taught me to call Thee Father, only to 
 refuse to own me as a child ? I ask for Thy 
 love and for Thy grace, that I may walk 
 humbly with Thee as a son with a parent. 
 Not because I have a right to it, but because 
 Thou hast promised it to them that ask Thee, 
 give me Thy free, Thy full salvation." 
 
CHRIS TTA JV A SS URA NCE. 
 
 41 
 
 Once more, the briefest glance at this 
 psalm may satisfy us, that it traces David's 
 history over his entire life ; and so far from 
 being the sudden voice of a youthful enthu- 
 siasm, is the profound experience of gray 
 hairs. 
 
 The Lord Jesus Christ is a friend for life. 
 For all its seasons, whether youth, or man- 
 hood, or old age ; for all its risings and fall- 
 ings, its losses and gains, its joys and cares, 
 His brotherly sympathy is ready, and entire 
 and full. To wish to shut Him out of any 
 part of our life, or any possession of our heart, 
 or any crisis of our history, or any secret of 
 our experience, is to grieve Him — is yet more 
 to impoverish ourselves. 
 
 And if this is the area of our privilege, it 
 is the condition of our peace. No doubt it is 
 a solemn thing, if we adequately grasp it, to 
 take the Lord Jesus Christ with us wherever 
 we go, to surrender to Him whatever we 
 possess, to consult Him in whatever we do. 
 Yet life will be less frivolous if we try to live 
 it under His eye. It need not be less happy, 
 for He who gave His presence at the mar- 
 riage-feast in Cana recognizes and sanctifies 
 
42 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 all human and innocent joy. The Lord is my 
 shepherd ; I shall not want : here is at once 
 our safeguard, our dignity, our gladness. How 
 can we fear anything, how can we miss any- 
 thing, when God and Christ are ours? 
 
II. 
 
 DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 
 
 •he maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he LEADETH MB 
 
 BESIDE THE STILL WATERS." 
 
 *' God governs this ivorld^ governs you and fne, down 
 to the very depths of our being. And we possess 
 the power of choosing right and wrong: rights 
 by the grace of God ^ and wrong by our failing to 
 use that grace; and as responsible for such a 
 power we shall be summoned at last before the 
 judgment-seat of Christ.''^ — Archbishop Thom- 
 son. 
 
 HAT do we mean by Di 
 
 subject. 
 
 T) .J •) T -i. Nature of the 
 
 vine rrovidence r Is it ..,;,v.^/ 
 
 foresight, or is it govern- 
 ment ? Is it an interruption of order, or is it 
 included in the order which it may be sup- 
 posed to interrupt? Where does it begin, 
 and where does it end ? What does it include, 
 and what does it exclude? Is it special as well 
 as general, or does the general providence con- 
 
 (43; 
 
44 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 tain and imply the special? Is it for indi- 
 iduals as well as for nations, and for heathens 
 as well as for Christians, and for bad as well 
 as for good men ? Does it operate on us irre- 
 sistibly, or are we free to go our own way if 
 we please ? Are there any outward signs or 
 tokens by which we can infallibly discover its 
 leadings ? and if not, what is our best way for 
 ascertaining them ? 
 
 Put in its plainest and broadest form, the 
 one question underlying the whole matter is 
 simply this — " What is God willing to be to 
 us in our daily life ? " and precisely in propor- 
 tion to the importance of the subject is the 
 desirableness of thinking clearly, as well as 
 feeling heartily with respect to it. 
 
 Now on almost all the questions already 
 suggested the second verse of the Twenty- 
 third Psalm throws light. First, it teaches us 
 that the fountain of Divine Providence is not 
 a blind fate, but a living and personal God, 
 holding our world and all in it in His own 
 right hand, the Lord and King of men. He 
 maketh me to lie down : He leadeth me. 
 
 If the New Testament tells us of a per- 
 sonal Saviour, the Old Testament tells us of a 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE. ^t 
 
 personal God. This was indeed the essential 
 strength of the ancient Hebrew faith : and 
 though some narrowed it into the intolerance 
 and exclusiveness of denying to the rest of 
 mankind the care, or even the notice, of 
 Jehovah, they intensified it as few Christians 
 do now. It was the promise of God to Abram : 
 / will make of thee a great nation^ and I will 
 bless thee, and make thy name great coeu. xii. 2]. It 
 was the conviction that possessed Hagar's 
 soul when the angel found her in the wilder- 
 ness : Thou, God, seest me [gph. xvi. is]. It was the 
 substance of Jacob's vow after the vision at 
 Bethel : If God will be with me, and will keep 
 me in this way that I go, and will give me 
 bread to eat and raiment to put on, so that 1 
 come again to my father s house in peace, then 
 shall the Lord be my God iG^n.xxwiw 20,21]. It was 
 the Divine message to Israel in Egypt by the 
 hand of Moses: I have surely visited you, and 
 seen that which is done to you in Egypt, and 1 
 have said I will bring you up out of the afflic- 
 tion of Egypt [i^xod. iii. 16, 17]. The Psalms are more 
 or less the repetition, under every form of 
 expression and every variety of experience, oi 
 the psalmist's personal and abiding conscious 
 
46 
 
 THE PRE SEA CE OF CHRIST. 
 
 ness of a God above him and around him 
 ruling the world for his sake, covering his 
 head in the day of battle, listening to his 
 prayers, putting his tears into His bottle, 
 keeping him as the apple of an eye. In the 
 mystical language of the Canticles it is ex- 
 pressed by the idea of a mutual and personal 
 possession : My beloved is mine, and I am His 
 [Cant. ii. 16]. Yet neither David nor Solomon can 
 surpass the impassioned tenderness of the 
 language in which Jeremiah describes the 
 origin, and explains the proof of it : / have 
 loved thee with an everlasting love : therefore 
 with loving-kindness have I drawn thee uex.xxxi s]. 
 
 And here let us remember 
 Divine Provi- ,i , i. i. j. i. 
 
 dence to be ^hat we must not try, we must 
 
 viewed in the not even wish, to separate from 
 light of Divine ^j^-^ ^^^^ ^^.^^j^ ^^ ^ YiVrng, per- 
 b>07^ereignty. *=» &' jr 
 
 sonal, Divine Ruler, the equally 
 
 great, equally indisputable truth of a living, 
 
 personal. Divine and sovereign will. If man 
 
 could not be man without a will, how could 
 
 God be God ? Why are some of us so afraid 
 
 of the sovereignty of God? Surely much of 
 
 such fear must spring from ignorance of His 
 
 nature; much of it, also, from doubts of His 
 
DIVINE rROVIDENCE. ^y 
 
 goodness. Separate, indeed, will from char- 
 acter ; and then the more irresistible the will; 
 the more terrible may be its results. Nothing 
 in all the world is so intelligible or so rea- 
 sonable as devil worship, if the only God we 
 know of is a vindictive and cruel tyrant never 
 to be appeased but by blood and pain. But 
 our God is a Father. And the Lord descended 
 in the cloudy and stood with him there ^ mid pro- 
 claimed the name of the Lord. .... The Lord, 
 the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suf- 
 fering and abundant in goodness and truth, 
 keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity 
 and transgression and sin, and that will by no 
 means clear the guilty [Exod. xxxtv. 5-7]. He is a 
 Father, both merciful and holy ; merciful be- 
 cause He is holy, and holy because He is 
 merciful ; whose sovereignty is but the exer- 
 cise of His mercy ; for all the paths of the Lord 
 are mercy and truth unto such as keep His 
 covenant and His testimonies fPsaimxxv. loi. Yet 
 He is never indulgent to sin in any one ; He 
 never passes by those who willfully persevere 
 in it, whoever they be ; He hastens rather, 
 out of very love to them, to deliver them out 
 of it. The righteous Lord loveth righteous- 
 
^8 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 ness ; His countenance doth behold the up^ 
 
 right CPs;ilin xi. 7]. 
 
 Therefore, if we look at Divine Providence 
 in the light of the Divine sovereignty, and 
 then contemplate the Divine sovereignty, 
 whether as a general, universal truth, or in its 
 application to our individual case, in the light 
 of the Divine character, instead of being 
 startled by it, or never venturing to allude to 
 it save with hushed breath, we shall come to 
 look on it not only as one of the attributes ot 
 God, but even as displaying the glory of His 
 infinite righteousness : we shall exclaim with 
 the apostle, Oh the depth of the riches both of 
 the wisdom and knowledge of God [Rom. xi. 333. 
 Divine Providence is the acting of Divine 
 will ; a will irresponsible save to the harmony 
 of its own perfections, irresistible in the final 
 result of its eternal purpose, though rather 
 through the wise combination of various and 
 even opposing forces, than by limiting the 
 freedom and so destroying the responsibility 
 of men ; a will, on which the sheep of the 
 Good Shepherd repose the assurance of their 
 certain, because predestined, glory ; a will 
 which is the mainspring of all godly zeal for 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 
 
 49 
 
 the salvation of others, since He will have alt 
 men to be saved^ and to come to a knowledge of 
 the truth ci Tim. it. u] ; a will, which now, what- 
 ever it may be, we must learn to trust, and to 
 do, and to love, and to suffer; and about 
 which our daily prayer must be, that it may 
 be done on earth as it is done in Heaven. 
 
 J ND this brings us to the 
 
 1 . ^ . ,, Result of Divine 
 
 second pomt m the verse. Providence,— 
 
 the result of this Divine Provi- 
 dence : G?'eejt pastures a7id still waters^ or 
 as Mr. Perowne more exactly renders it, " pas- 
 tures of grass and waters of refreshment." 
 
 The imagery of the verse sketches for us 
 the pleasant picture of long, waving grass in 
 rich meadows, where the tired sheep can lie 
 down, sheltered from the burning sun, and 
 browsing as they lie. We seem also to see 
 glimmering in the thick heat the still, deep 
 pool of cool water, not bubbling noisily over 
 rough stones, and balking with its shallow- 
 ness the eager thirst of the impatient flock, 
 but accessible, abundant, satisfying. Taken 
 out of its figure the verse assures us that 
 there is always abundance, always refresh- 
 4 
 
50 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 ment, if we are walking in the ways of God. 
 What a truth this is, if we could take it alto- 
 gether for our own. It is true under all cir- 
 cumstances, if we meet them and bear them 
 in the right spirit ; it is true at all times and 
 seasons, in all places and countries; for Jo- 
 seph in prison, for Moses at Horeb, for Elijah 
 by Cherith, for Paul at Rome, for John Brad- 
 ford at the stake, for solitary Henry Martyi 
 in the Gulf of Persia, for Richard Williams ii 
 Patagonia, offering up his life to God, for Rob- 
 ert Hall in his Cambridge study, rolling in bit- 
 ter pain. In David's way of putting it, the 
 Lord is my shepherd. I shall 7iot zuanty for he 
 leadeth me to the pastures that are green, and 
 to the waters that are still. In St. Paul's way 
 of putting it, it is, My God shall supply all your 
 need^ according to His riches in glory by Christ 
 
 Jesus [Phil, iv- 19]. 
 
 But here some one will ask, " Is this always 
 true ? Ought it to be always true } Does any 
 one on earth so find it ? Are there no excep- 
 tions to the rule which prove it and maintain 
 it? Has not the soul, like the earth, its ap- 
 pointed changes, and its needful alternations 
 of heat and cold, of day and night, of summer 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE, 51 
 
 and winter, of drought and rain ? For indeed 
 my own experience is, that the pasture is not 
 always green, the water is not always still for 
 me: and tell me if this may not sometimes 
 be God's own will about me, and not, of 
 necessity, through my own sin ? " 
 
 Now, in the first place, the j^ .^^ ^^^^^^^ 
 verse does not so much express and final tend- 
 the uniform and unvarying pres- ^^^'^^ 
 ent effect of Divine Providence, as its general 
 purpose and tendency in the end. To borrow 
 two illustrations, one from the imagery of the 
 Psalm, the other from the actual dealings of 
 God with Israel : when it comes to pass that 
 the grass is all eaten, and the pool filled by 
 the winter rains drunk up, the sheep must 
 change their place of pasture, and while on 
 the road from the old halting-place to the 
 new, instead of rich herbage and cool springs, 
 there may be a glaring and waterless plain. 
 Israel in the wilderness had to pass Marah on 
 their road to Elim : and they could not stay 
 at Elim long, for they were on their march to 
 Canaan. Under such circumstances, memory 
 and hope are the springs of action ; the sheep 
 have still their shepherd leading them, the 
 
52 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 believer still is safe under the wing of his God 
 There are times (and when we look back at 
 them, we see they were blessed times) when 
 Christ himself is felt to be our only food and 
 joy and stay and friend ; when, in the weari- 
 ness of our life's journey, and in the entire 
 drying up of the wells of human gladness, we 
 fall back on Him, the shepherd of our souls, 
 that He Himself alone and entirely may be 
 our " pastures of grass and our waters of re- 
 freshment." We learn then, what afterward 
 we never quite forget, how to refer all things 
 to Him and to take all things from Him : we 
 understand then how the psalmist could say, 
 nay (though humbly and timidly), we venture 
 to say it after him, Whom have I in heaven but 
 Thee ? and there is none upon earth that I de- 
 sire beside Thee [Ps.ixxiii.25]. 
 
 Another truth, however, claims 
 Morale not only . r 1 1 1, j r 
 
 material. ^^ ^^ heard here, and of an im- 
 
 portance which it is impossible 
 to overestimate: namely, that the abundance 
 and refreshment spoken of in this place are 
 not only material, but moral ; in other words, 
 they are not so much, perhaps not so frequent- 
 ly, in the nature of outward circumstances, as 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 
 
 53 
 
 in repose and contentment of heart. For Di- 
 vine Providence means the arrangement of all 
 our life, not only of its bright side, but also 
 of its dark. It may mean sickness as well 
 as health ; death as well as life ; loss as well 
 as gain ; peril as well as safety ; shipwreck 
 by sea and accident by land ; murrain to our 
 flocks ; sickness in our homes. There is no 
 immunity for one man more than another 
 from troubles of this kind, whatever his er- 
 rand, whatever his character. St. Paul him- 
 self tells us that he tJirice suffered shipwreck 
 [2 Cor. xi. 25], and peril of all kinds was the unva- 
 rying feature of his missionary journeys. It 
 neither honors God, nor trusts Him, nor right- 
 ly interprets Him, to receive good at His hand 
 and not to receive evil. To let God choose 
 for us and to be satisfied with His choice, here 
 is the secret of peace. In returning and rest 
 shall ye be saved ; in quietness and in confidence 
 shall be your strength cisa. xxx. i5]. To be a sheep 
 of the Good Shepherd, to be a child of the 
 Eternal Father, to be a subject of the heaven- 
 ly kingdom, to be an heir of the exceeding 
 weight of glory, is to have the machinery of 
 the Divine government for our protection, the 
 
54 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 resources of the Divine treasury for our pro. 
 vision ; now the love of God for our possession, 
 presently the vision of God for our reward. 
 All that God is, all that God has, is for His 
 people. The outward features of our life ma}' 
 not be all that we should choose them to be ; 
 there may be things we wish for that never 
 come to us ; there may be much we wish away, 
 that we can not part from. The persons with 
 whom we live, the circumstances by which we 
 are surrounded, the duties we have to perform, 
 the burdens we have to bear, may not only be 
 other than what we should have selected for 
 ourselves, but may even seem inconsistent 
 with that formation and discipline of character 
 which we honestly wish to promote. But it 
 is faith that overcomes the world, not a sense 
 of enjoyment. The end of life is not personal 
 happiness ; it is the image and glory of God. 
 We need not envy others what God has given 
 them and denied us, as if He were hard to us 
 and kind to them. The same love that has in 
 this instance given them what was safe for 
 them, and denied us what was not safe for 
 us, has, we may be quite sure, also denied 
 to them in other instances blessings, which 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE 55 
 
 they wish for, but may not have, and the en- 
 joyment of which they behold and envy in 
 ourselves. God is just in His ways with all 
 men ; but He is also wise and kind ; and 
 knowing us better than we know ourselves, 
 fully understanding how greatly we are af- 
 fected by the outward events and conditions 
 of life. He has ordered them with a view to 
 our entire and final, not only our immediate, 
 happiness ; and whenever we can be safely 
 trusted with pastures that are green and wa- 
 ters that are still in the way of earthly bless- 
 ing, the Good Shepherd leads us there. 
 
 Once more, to point somewhat So77teizmes ac^ 
 higher, and to indicate yet an- companied 
 other aspect of Providence, ^^'^^ '"^^"^• 
 which to some may seem so far above them 
 that they can never reach it ; it is often God's 
 way with those who love Him best, not as a 
 chastisement for sin (on which something will 
 be said in the next chapter), but as a distinc- 
 tion and a piVilege, to teach them the fellow- 
 ship of Christ's sufferings, and so to make 
 them more conformable to His death. Our 
 blessed Master, though He were a son, yet 
 learned He obedience by the things which He suf- 
 
56 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 fered [Heh.v. s]. How does St. Paul describe hia 
 own life — a life, after that of his Lord, per- 
 haps the very noblest and hardest and most 
 successful life ever yet lived on this earth ? 
 In all tilings approving ourselves as the minis- 
 ters of God, in much patience^ in afflictions, in 
 necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprison- 
 ments, in tumults, ht labors, in zuatchings, in 
 fastings [2 cor. vi. 4, 5]. It is an utter, nay, a dis- 
 honest, confusion of terms to say that these 
 things can be in themselves pleasant to us, or 
 otherwise, at the moment we feel them, than 
 grievous and burdensome. Pain, hunger, 
 isolation, misrepresentation, disappointment, 
 mockery? To speak of such things, even 
 when endured for Christ's sake, as green pas- 
 tures and still waters, is to call evil good and 
 good evil, is to put bitter for sweet and sweet 
 for bitter. There is no evading the meaning 
 of Christ's words. If any man will come after 
 me, let him deny himself y and take up his cross, 
 and follow me [Matt, xvi.24]. St, Paul bore in his 
 body the marks of the Lord Jesus, and those 
 were marks of pain. But does it therefore 
 follow that there was no strength to bear the 
 pain, no blessed consciousness of a divine 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 
 
 57 
 
 presence, going with him and giving him rest 
 everywhere? When he fought with wild 
 beasts at Ephesus, was not Jesus with him ? 
 When they stoned him at Lystra, was not his 
 soul rejoicing in the thought that tribulation 
 was the way to the kingdom ? Therefore, 
 though the wilderness is not a green pasture, 
 though sickness is not health, nor toil rest, 
 nor loneliness a troop of friends, nor a prison 
 cell the liberty and happiness of home, to live 
 may be Christ, anywhere and anyhow. And 
 thus we find the same apostle at one moment 
 describing the sharpness of his outward suf- 
 ferings, at the next moment the blessedness 
 of his inward peace. We are troubled on every 
 side, yet not distressed ; we are perplexed, but 
 not in despair ; persecuted, but not forsake^i ; 
 cast down, but not destroyed : always beari7ig 
 about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesiis^ 
 that the life also of Jesus might be made mani- 
 fest hi our body [2cor.iv.8-10]. 
 
 Thus (to recapitulate) we must not so mis- 
 understand God's meaning in this promise as 
 to suppose that the processes of His Provi- 
 dence can always be as pleasant as the result, 
 or that any set of outward circumstances, 
 
58 THE PRESENCE OE CHRIST. 
 
 prosperous and desirable as they may be, can 
 bring us either happiness or blessing, apart 
 from the spirit in which we interpret them, or 
 the character in which they find us ; or, once 
 more, that the " green pastures and still 
 waters " may not sometimes to the eye of 
 sense be utterly devoid of all visible and 
 earthly prosperity, when, for the advancement 
 of Christ's kingdom as well as for his own ulti- 
 mate glory, the believer, like the apostle be- 
 fore him, fills up that which is behi^id of the 
 afflictio7is of Christ in his flesh for His bodys 
 sake, which is the Church [Coi. i. 24]. 
 
 UT there is yet another ^^^ persuades 
 
 consideration which may instead of cotn^ 
 
 even further help to explain to P^^^^^S- 
 
 us why the pastures are not always green, the 
 
 waters not always still. 
 
 " He maketh me to lie down — he leadeth 
 me." The divine government is a moral 
 government ; its method is not to compel, 
 but to persuade. The Good Shepherd does 
 not drive, but lead, and the sheep follow Him 
 for they know His voice. The words " maketh 
 them." may indeed sound like compulsion 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 
 
 59 
 
 yet they describe the purpose of His Provi- 
 dence, rather than any forced result of it ; and 
 no ingenuity can reconcile the idea of guiding 
 with that of violence. In solemn truth, God's 
 rule is the same in Providence that it is in 
 grace. By any and by all means He vj\\S. 
 cjraw us ; force us, never. A thoughtful 
 writer,* recently deceased, has drawn a subtle, 
 but I think a true, distinction between the 
 will of God, or what His nature and character 
 would desire as best for us, and the decrees of 
 God, as finally accomplishing what was act- 
 ually possible. As has already been hinted, 
 surely we may see this in the word " lead." 
 No one is compelled to follow a guide. 
 Scripture, again and again, in the Psalms, and 
 in the Prophets, and in the Gospels, intro- 
 duces the image of wandering and straying 
 sheep ; but nowhere is it assumed that the 
 sheep by so straying lost their original rela- 
 tion to their shepherd, or that mere wander- 
 ing can turn a sheep into a goat. The plain 
 fact is, that Divine Providence is to us just 
 what we suffer it to be ; and let any one, who 
 
 ♦ Professor A. J. Scott. 
 
6o THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 doubts this, read very carefully the last seven 
 verses of the 8ist Psalm. 
 
 Ye will not come unto me that ye might have 
 life [John V. 20.] was the pathetic complaint of the 
 Saviour, about those whom He yearned to 
 save, but who would not let Him save them. 
 He is of age, ask him ; he shall speak for him- 
 self [John ix. 21]. This, in the first instance, was 
 the reply of the blind man's parents to the 
 Jews. May we not, admitting its abstract 
 and essential justice, apply the words to God, 
 as He considers the actions of men ? And if 
 we at first shrink from this view, as on man's 
 side too much aggravating his responsibility, 
 on God's side too little recognizing His sov- 
 ereignty, let us apply two tests to it which, 
 in their combined force, may persuade us of 
 its truth. One is that of conscience, long ago 
 used with irresistible force by Dean Alford in 
 vindicating the human side of the doctrine of 
 predestination ; the other is that of experi- 
 ence, which, instead of speculating what men 
 can do, discovers it from their acts. 
 
 As we look back at the past, and muse on 
 the share we have ourselves taken in the at- 
 tainment of our position, in the use of oui 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE, 61 
 
 opportunities, in the improvement of ouf 
 talents, in the discharge of our duties, is there 
 no feeHng of regret, or of loss, or of shame ? 
 Have we always honestly consulted God ? 
 Have we always obeyed the voice of con- 
 science ? Have we never gone the way of 
 our own heart, though our heart and our 
 judgment were at variance? Do we not 
 sometimes feel that we might have been more 
 happy, more useful, than we are, but for will- 
 ful mistakes of our own ? In some things, it 
 is true, we are not the makers of our own 
 history. Our birth, our parentage, our natural 
 talent, our bodily shape and constitution, nay, 
 to some extent, our character, are the irrever- 
 sible and irredeemable lot which He who 
 worketh all things after the counsel of his own 
 will [Eph. i. 11] ordained for us before the worlds 
 were made. Providence, if we may so speak, 
 gives us our start, and the start tells on the 
 race. Promotion cometh neither from the east 
 nor from the west, nor from the south [p^aim isxv. 6]. 
 But it is for us to run with patience the race 
 that is set before us [Heb. xii. 1, 2] ; and while our 
 sense of dependence convinces us of the ex- 
 istence of an overruling God, and our con- 
 
ty2 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 science confesses that we do not always obey 
 Him, our instincts of energy, and self-reliance? 
 and ambition, and enterprise, are indisputable 
 evidences of direct responsibility. Gratit/ide 
 and humility compelled St. Paul to say, By 
 the grace of God I am what I am ; yet the 
 sense of his own use of that grace justified 
 him in adding, / labored more abundantly than 
 they all w cor. xv. lo]. 
 
 HERE is still, however, one ^^/t//;?^ Provi- 
 
 other word in this verse dence for Indi- 
 
 which contains a truth as im- '^^^^^''■'^' 
 portant as any we have yet considered, and 
 which makes all the difference possible, both 
 in our conception of God and in our view of 
 life. It is not us^ but ME. He maketh ME to 
 lie down — He leadcth ME. The Psalmist is 
 not describing the care of a shepherd over 
 the entire flock, so much as his care for each 
 individual sheep in it ; and the verse recalls 
 the time when he, who was afterward called 
 from following the ewes great with young to 
 feed Jacob his people and Israel J lis inherit ance 
 [Psalm ]xxviii.7i], was but a humble youth, his 
 sceptre a crook, his subjects goats and sheep 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 
 
 63 
 
 and lambs, his dominions wild open fields 
 between Bethlehem and the Kedron. 
 
 The doctrine of a Divine Providence, what- 
 ever we may understand by it, is peculiar to 
 revealed religion. The deities of the Pagan 
 world (as mythology describes them) inter- 
 fered with the affairs of men only for vice or 
 pride ; and the philosophers who found 
 themselves able to acknowledge gods at all, 
 preferred to think of them as dwelling apart 
 from men in a stately and perhaps contemptu- 
 ous repose. 
 
 Barrow, in his famous sermon on the Gun- 
 powder Plot, quotes a sentence of Cicero to 
 the effect that " the gods care for great things 
 and neglect small," a statement to which we 
 should be willing to give more attention if he 
 had gone on to explain what great and small 
 mean in the affairs of life, and how we are to 
 know when to apply the words. No doctrine 
 more than this one of Divine Providence ex- 
 alts God or dignifies man. It exalts God in 
 setting forth at once His power and His 
 goodness. It dignifies man in giving to each 
 redeemed human being his own personal and 
 inalienable position in the creation, and by 
 
64 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 placing the beggar and the king, the little in- 
 fant and the man in his prime, the lonely 
 widow and the powerful statesman, the de- 
 crepit pauper and the conqueror in a hundred 
 battles, on the same level of entire equality 
 before Him with whom is no respect of per- 
 sons [2 chron. xix. 7]. It is in no feeble, unhealthy, 
 self-loving, self-exalting spirit that a human 
 being, first looking into himself and then look- 
 ing up toward heaven, should ask, with all 
 reverence, but with all anxiety, *' Does God 
 care for me — will God help me ? " 
 
 We are all familiar with the suggestive re- 
 mark that the microscope was discovered 
 about the same time as the telescope : and 
 that the mighty Creator of the innumerable 
 worlds which gem the fields of space, was 
 thus found willing to put forth the resources 
 of His omnipotence, and to exert the secrets 
 of His wisdom, on a drop of water or a but- 
 terfly's wing. For no one who believes in a 
 God at all, really disputes His power ; there 
 are no degrees of power with Omnipotence. 
 The simple question is, What is the sphere of 
 His power? what the method and the motive 
 of its exercise? Nay, further, any one who 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 65 
 
 believes in God as a moral being, is prepared 
 to admit the general benevolence of His 
 character and the wisdom of His universal 
 government ; but that is not enough for those 
 whom God has so formed, so disposed, that 
 each needs God for himself. Man is not sat- 
 isfied to share only, with the beasts and the 
 birds and the trees, a general supervision. 
 Life is too vast, too solemn, to be spent alone. 
 He would come close to God, and feel after 
 Him till he finds Him. 
 
 The subject we are consider- ^^^ questions 
 ing actually includes two ques- for considera- 
 tions — one of less, the other of ^^^^' 
 greater moment ; the one, the use of a word 
 — the other, the meaning of a truth. To 
 take the last first : a Christian does not need 
 to be reminded that He, without whom not a 
 sparrow falleth to the ground, hath numbered 
 the very hairs of his head. We have not so 
 learned Christ from the history of His earthly 
 Hfe — we have not so seen the Father mani 
 fested in His Son, as to dare to do Him the 
 crowning dishonor of doubting for a moment 
 His full and tender sympathy for each one ot 
 His redeemed people, or of refusing to be- 
 5 
 
66 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 lieve that He, who made the worlds, watcher 
 over a little child. If there is no limitation 
 of infinite power, neither is there any of in- 
 finite love. God can, God will, God does care 
 for us. The secrets of nature, the marvels of 
 creation, the mystery of redeeming love, the 
 individual experience of millions upon millions 
 of reflecting and intelligent men — nay, almost 
 every page of that Book which is luminous with 
 the doctrine of a Divine Providence, and which, 
 if the doctrine be false, must itself be the 
 crudest delusion that ever mocked mankind, 
 — each of these alone, all of these together, 
 are a witness to the superintendence of God. 
 In all things, and at aJl times, and for all 
 needs, and under all difficulties, in things 
 temporal and things spiritual, in the necessi- 
 ties of the body and of the soul, in the choice 
 of a profession, in the arrangement of a home, 
 in work and in rest, in ;itudy and in holiday, 
 in marrying and in giving in marriage, in the 
 bringing up of children, in the selection of 
 servants, in perplexities of business, in the 
 entanglements of society ; however small our 
 cares may be, however insignificant our con 
 dition, however inextricable our confusion, 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE. ^y 
 
 nowever dark our future, He knoweth the way 
 that I take [Job xxiii. lo]. 
 
 It is, however, one thing to be infallibly 
 assured of the love and care and protection 
 of God for each human being in all the affairs 
 of life, and another thing to describe this 
 Providence accurately, and to explain it con- 
 sistently with the other operations of His 
 will. 
 
 The word ''special," as ap- Meaning of 
 plied to Providence, is often Special Prcrji- 
 somewhat loosely used by those 
 who do not sufficiently reflect on the logical 
 consequences of the language they are using, 
 and who, in their intelligible anxiety to recog- 
 nize and adore the providential care and 
 goodness which from time to time are merci- 
 fully conspicuous in their own case, feel 
 tempted to describe it as a peculiar interposi- 
 tion for their sake, when it is but a pre- 
 arranged element in a universal plan. 
 
 If we insist on a so-called " Special Provi- 
 dence," as an exception to, and an interrup- 
 tion of. the method of general Providence, 
 and on no other ground than that of our own 
 consciousness (more alive to it, or more grate- 
 
68 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 ful for it, at some times than at others), it is 
 difficult to evade the objection that with the 
 all-wise, all-seeing God, there can be neither 
 settled purpose nor predestined order; then 
 there is one kind of government over us to- 
 day, called general, and another over us to- 
 morrow, called special. Surely, however, 
 even in admitting the possibility of eccen- 
 tricity and change in the Divine counsels, we 
 impeach the wisdom, and complicate the 
 operations of God. 
 
 For some it is enough to believe that there 
 is one uniform universal government over us 
 all : always the same, always righteous and 
 merciful, by night as well as by day, in quiet 
 times as well as in troubled times, when we 
 are not conscious of it as well as when we 
 are ; purposing our good, contriving our hap- 
 piness, willing our sanctification. And though 
 at some times more than at others we are im- 
 pressed by its influence, or grateful for its 
 blessings, or solemnized by its judgm^ents ; it 
 is the same government, on the same princi* 
 pies, of the same God, for the same end. 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 
 
 69 
 
 HE word, however, is but Providence in 
 of slight consequence, so coftnection 
 
 • 1,1 ,■! with Prayer, 
 
 as we rightly grasp the -^ 
 
 doctrine beneath ; and there can be no harm 
 in our using the word '' Providential," when 
 speaking familiarly of the Divine dealings, so 
 long as we are careful not to think or speak 
 about ourselves, as if we were the only people 
 in the world God cares for : if also we beware 
 how we recognize His kind and special gov- 
 ernment only in those features of it which 
 happen to gratify self. The practical result 
 of our belief in Divine Providence is the one 
 thing to inquire about ; and whatever our 
 private theory may be, it need not give us 
 uneasiness, and it can not seriously misleac^ 
 us, if only it encourages us in prayer. 
 
 As has well been said, man is a creature that 
 prays ; and whatever may be the speculative 
 difficulties of prayer; however hard some of 
 us may find it to reconcile the notion of 
 prayer moving God with God's infinite and 
 unerring wisdom ; in spite of all the philoso- 
 phers and the thinkers, men and women will 
 go on praying as they have ever done : and 
 
70 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 what is more, will refuse to be convinced that 
 their prayers are in vain. In plain truth, all 
 the difficulties on the subject (and there are 
 difficulties) simply and solely spring (as Bish-' 
 op Butler has observed about revealed relig- 
 ion generally) from our imperfect knowledge 
 of God. A man will say, " Do you really ex- 
 pect an answer to your prayer ? For if you 
 do, you are only in other words asking for a 
 miracle." " Well, what if I am ? Can you 
 tell me, my friend, what a miracle is, what 
 nature is, what God's order is, what inter- 
 rupts and what does not interrupt it, what is 
 contrary to it, and what is merely above it, 
 or suspends it?" For it is quite begging the 
 whole question to speak of miracles as some- 
 thing against nature ; when possibly, as has 
 been observed,* " they are above it : not the 
 few caprices of Providence breaking in upon 
 ages of order, but glimpses of the Divine 
 spiritual cosmos permitted to be seen amidst 
 the laws of the natural world, of which they 
 take precedence, just as in the physical world 
 one law can supersede another." 
 
 * " Dictionary of the Bible," vol. ii. p. 1046, 
 
DIVINE FROVIDEXCE. yi 
 
 Let US, further, for a moment reflect on the 
 infinite wisdom of God both in Providence 
 and grace, and consider also on what condi 
 tions it is promised, that our prayers shall 
 prevail. Known unto God are all His works, 
 from the begimmig of the world i^cx.^^^-^^^- To 
 quote language well worth considering: " God 
 has so arranged His Providence, that He 
 provides an answer to prayer. When the 
 question is asked, How does God answer 
 prayer ? — it is by a pre-ordained appointment, 
 when God settled the constitution of the 
 world, and set all its parts in order," and 
 '' the answer to prayer proceeds on the fore- 
 seen circumstance that the prayer will be offer- 
 ed ; that if the man refuses to pray, he shall 
 assuredly find it fixed that no answer is given."* 
 
 For, anyhow God has only promised to 
 answer the prayers which are acceptable to 
 Himself. If we ask anything according to His 
 willy He heareth us [i John v. i4]. Many of our 
 prayers are not answered, because they are 
 incompatible with our real good. When, how- 
 ever, we pray in the mind of the Spirit (and 
 
 " Method of the Divine Government," pp. 222, 224. 
 
72 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 if we please we always may), then we pray 
 according to the will of God ; then we ask 
 and we receive, we seek and we find, we 
 knock and it is opened to us. Dr. Barry has 
 observed that the prayers of the patriarchs 
 were principally for personal or domestic bless- 
 ings ; those of Hebrews under the monarchy 
 for national blessings ; those of New Testa- 
 ment saints for spiritual blessings. We Chris- 
 tians may surely unite all these varieties of 
 prayer in our own case, some, of course, more 
 at one time than another; remembering that 
 the one thing we have to do is to pray every^ 
 where, to pray always ; above all, to pray and 
 not to faint [Lukexv. n. Prayer, rightly under- 
 stood, is but a child going into a parent's 
 presence, or a loyal subject asking audience 
 of his king ; only the parent's heart is always 
 bountiful, the king's sceptre is ever stretched 
 out toward us to bid us welcome. If there 
 be no Divine Providence, then, indeed, there 
 can be no prayer ; and not to pray at all im- 
 plies either that we have no need of God, or 
 no faith in Him ; but just as we trust in the 
 goodness and wisdom of our Maker, will 
 prayer be at once the relief, and the neces- 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 
 
 73 
 
 sity, and the habit, and the strength tii our 
 life : and whenever doubts flash across us of 
 God's power to help us ; whenever our own 
 will is in hard and painful conflict with His 
 will, let us think of the Son of man in the 
 shadows of Gethsemane, who, within sight 
 of His predestined cross, rested the prayer 
 that it might even then pass away on the 
 majestic truth, that with God all things are 
 possible. He nevertheless submitted His 
 own will to the Father's, and, in the deepest 
 sense of the words, was heard in that He 
 prayed. In the garden He said, Nevertheless^ 
 not my will^ but thine ^ be done [Lukexxii.42]; and 
 when His enemies seized Him, and Simon 
 Peter tried to rescue Him, He answered, The 
 cup which my Father hath given me^ shall I 
 not drink it ? [John xvui. n]. 
 
 NLY two points remain, one of which 
 contains a caution that may prevent 
 disappointment, the other a truth that will 
 suggest comfort. 
 
 Are there any signs, one will ^.^ infallzble 
 ask, by which we may infallibly signs of Divini 
 discover the leading of Divine ^^^^^■^'^^^^- 
 
74 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 Providence, and which will save us, not only 
 from perplexity and anxiety at the time, but 
 also from actual mistake? The answer is, 
 there have been such signs in the infancy of 
 the Church of God ; there are none now. 
 When Israel came out of Egypt, a pillar of 
 cloud went before them by day, and a pillar 
 of fire was over their head by night. The 
 Shechinah, with its mysterious gleam, flashed 
 on high-priests under the early monarchy, the 
 revelation of the Divine Purposes. Under 
 the Judges, seers or prophets had the power 
 of giving information through supernatural 
 means ; and it was on an errand of this kind 
 that Samuel first met Saul. But even in the 
 time of the Herods these signs had passed 
 away. The Lord steadily refused to give 
 signs of His Messiahship other than His own 
 miracles : and the reason He assigned for 
 His refusal — TJie kingdom of God coineth not 
 with observation. The kingdom of God is with- 
 in you [Luke xvii. 20, 21] — appHcs with equal force 
 to the evident fact, that the way of God's 
 Providence can not be known by outward 
 marks or evidences ; if it tarry, we must 
 wait for it, though sooner or later it will be 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 
 
 n 
 
 made manifest to the obedient and childlike 
 
 heart. 
 
 At some times, and under some circum- 
 stances, indeed, God's will seems to flash upon 
 us ; and we have nothing to do but follow it. 
 But our difficulty is not at all where God 
 works independently of us ; it is where He 
 works with us, and we with Him ; where 
 events are apparently as much our own bring- 
 ing about as His, and where, in the use of 
 means, at the best imperfect and unreliable, 
 we seem to take all pains sometimes only to 
 go wrong. What rules are there, in such a 
 case, beyond diligence, and patience, and 
 obedience, and prayer? Surely none. Dili- 
 gence in consulting friends (though indeed we 
 can not possibly do all they bid us when 
 they would have us do twenty different 
 things), and in procuring information, and in 
 weighing our case on all sides. Patience, for 
 half our mistakes in life come from being in a 
 hurry, and we are just as likely to go wrong 
 if we rush on in advance of God's Providence, 
 as if we lag idly behind it. Obedience, for to 
 be willing to do God's will is the leal crux of 
 the matter: too often we consult Him, going 
 
76 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 with the multitude of our idols, and then we 
 are taken captive in the toils of our own heart 
 and we deliberately pray ourselves into oui 
 mistake. Then prayer, honest, humble, sim- 
 ple, persevering prayer : and we can do no 
 more. But God knoweth this as well as we 
 do ; and He who hath promised wisdom to 
 them that ask it, until the time comes will 
 give peace ; when the time comes will give 
 direction. Anything is more possible than 
 that God should not guide the meek in judg- 
 ment. Nothing is more sure than that when 
 we have done our best. He will acknowledge 
 and bless it. His promise is, I will guide thee 
 with mine eye [Ps.xxxi.s]. The mere glance of 
 the eye or the expression of a feature in the 
 face of one we love and understand is quite 
 sufficient to indicate his wish and to express 
 his mind. So will it ever be between God 
 and His people. If Divine Providence guides 
 all who wish to be guided ; yet it must not 
 be held responsible for the mistakes of those 
 who love their own way. 
 
 It may often indeed happen, that when 
 after much perplexity we have taken the 
 course, and entered the path that seemed 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE. yj 
 
 best at the time, not only do we presently 
 fail to perceive how it is the best, and why 
 God should have directed us into it ; but dis- 
 asters and disappointments encountering us 
 in it, compel us to doubt if we have been 
 guided at all. In such a case let us remember 
 one thing, and do another. What we are to 
 remember is, that we walk by faith, not by 
 sight [2 Cor V. 7]. God has never promised to 
 make His dealings with us plain and clear at 
 the moment. It may take months and years 
 before His plan all unfolds itself, and we see 
 how the path, that seemed so crooked and 
 thorny, was at once the best and the shortest. 
 The thing to do is, not to hasten to leave it 
 in search of a better one, but patiently and 
 manfully to go on where we are, trusting that 
 God's wisdom will justify itself at last, and 
 that His love will bless to us our present per- 
 plexity. Paul* went to Rome round by the 
 prison at Caesarea. Moses first went into 
 Midian before he returned to Egypt. We 
 can not see the end from the beginning but 
 God can. What I do, thou knowest not nozv, 
 hut thou shalt know hereafter [j* hn xiii. 71. 
 
78 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 "Weary deserts we may tread, 
 A dreary labyrinth may thread, 
 Through dark ways underground be led ; 
 
 " Yet if we will our guide obey, 
 The dreariest path, the darkest way, 
 Shall issue out in heavenly day." * 
 
 NCE more, for those who jy-^-^^ p^^.^ 
 do not recognize the ex- debtee for all 
 istence of Divine Providence, ^"^^^' 
 whether they are heathens or Christians, 
 strangers to us, or friends and kinsfolk, — is 
 there a Providence for them, though they 
 shut their eyes to it ? Is there a purpose of 
 Divine love counseling and desiring their 
 good, though they steadily resist it, and will 
 not suffer it to bless them ? Nay, for those of 
 us who are conscious of wishing to follow it 
 and yield to it in our best moments, when we 
 disobey it and go wrong, what will be the re- 
 sult to us ? and will the sins, and failures, and 
 mistakes, and infirmities of past years never 
 be recovered, never be repaired ? 
 
 Divine Providence is for all men, and rules 
 
 * Trench. 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 
 
 79 
 
 all men, and provides for all men, and blesses 
 all men in proportion as they are willing to 
 be blessed. If His love is perfected in us, 
 then indeed we are safe and happy ; if it is 
 only on His side toward us, and not on ours 
 toward Him, then, though His sun equally 
 shines, His rain equally descends on us ; in the 
 higher purpose of His mercy He waits to be 
 gracious ; standing at the door of our heart 
 and knocking, He remains outside till we let 
 Him in. There are many ways, were they 
 needed, of proving this Providence of univer- 
 sal love. We who love Him now can per- 
 haps recall the time when we did not love 
 Him, did not think of Him, did not even 
 wish to please Him. Yet did He not watch 
 over us then, biding His opportunity? Did 
 our coldness quench the flame of His love, did 
 our turning away make Him less mighty to 
 save ? We love Him, because He first loved 
 ?^j- [ijohri iv. 19], Here is the account that every 
 soul conscious of its acceptance gives to itself 
 of its salvation. But what has been true of 
 us is true of others, or what a delusion mis- 
 sions must be ! God gave His Son to redeem 
 the world; because He loved the world ; and 
 
go THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 those whom He loves He would save. There- 
 fore, let us, thankfully, unhesitatingly, de- 
 voutly, recognize a Divine Providence watch- 
 ing over and waiting for all men, if by all 
 means He may save some ; and let this be 
 the ground of our confidence, the strength of 
 our hope, the backbone of our prayers, about 
 those dear to us, who are as yet without God 
 in the world. 
 
 *' I say to thee, do thou repeat 
 To the first man thou mayest meet. 
 In lane, highway, or open street ; 
 
 " That he, and we, and all men move 
 Under a canopy of love, 
 As broad as the blue sky above."* 
 
 As for ourselves, and all our past mistakes, 
 and follies, and blunders, and disasters, for- 
 getting those things which are behind, we will 
 reach forth unto those things which are befors 
 [phii.iii. 13]. Let us beware of fretful, feeble 
 anxiousness, which unnerves us for duty. Let 
 us have a bright, manly, cheerful trust in 
 
 "^ Trench. 
 
DIVINE PRCVIDENCE. gl 
 
 God. Perhaps we can not always be quite 
 right, but an honest purpose will save us from 
 serious mistakes ; and as we have observed 
 just before, it is in human nature, when we 
 have once decided and the result of our decis- 
 ion is yet in the distance, to wish we had 
 decided differently. Be this as it may, God 
 in the end can turn even our failures and mis- 
 takes to His glory and our own blessing ; His 
 wisdom can overrule our error, and His mercy 
 will forgive our weakness. If, through our 
 own fault, not His, our pastures have not 
 been as green, our waters not as still as they 
 might have been, we may thank Him if He 
 has made the way of our own will hard and 
 humbling for us. To be taught to trust God, 
 through suffering the consequences of mis- 
 trust, is a lesson worth learning, though at the 
 price of much sorrow. 
 
 Nevertheless, whatever our waywardness 
 and willfulness, as we look back and count up 
 our past blessings, they may well fill our 
 heart with thankfulness. Dark as the day 
 may have been, at evening time it shall he 
 light [zech. xiv. 7]. Sometimes our path in life 
 seems like a lane full of windings, where the 
 6 
 
8 2 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 steep banks shut out the light and air, and all 
 we can do is to trudge steadily on through 
 the thick mire. But if we look high up in 
 front of us we shall see, as Israel saw, the 
 faint blue hills of the Land of Promise rising 
 up against the sky. The path will come out 
 at length in full view of the Celestial City ; 
 and at last we shall be at home. 
 
III. 
 
 CHASTISEMENT. 
 
 '■E RESTORETH MY SOUL: HE LEADETH ME IN THE PATHS OF BIGHIV 
 
 EOUSNESS FOR HIS NAME'S SAKE." 
 
 ^^ Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testatnent^ 
 adversity is the blessing of the New^ which carm 
 rieth the greater benediction^ and the clearer 
 revelation of God' s favor ^'' — Lord Bacon. 
 
 F it is possible in the Twenty-third 
 Psalm to trace the outlines of David's 
 history, it is equally possible in the 
 third verse to guess the workings of his mind. 
 He had been exulting in his assurance of the 
 Good Shepherd's love. His lips were yet 
 trembling with that exquisite chant of praise 
 for pastures green and waters still, when sud- 
 denly, it may be, the thought flashed across 
 him — " Has it been always so ? " and while 
 memory recalled the interruption of mercy 
 conscience betrayed the cause. " Were the 
 pastures green and the waters still when Bath- 
 
 (83) 
 
84 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 sheba's child died ; or when Absalom drove 
 me from my home and my kingdom, and I 
 went up Olivet barefoot, weeping as I went 
 up ? when confusion covered my face, and re- 
 proach broke my heart, and all God's waves 
 and billows went over me ? No : yet it was 
 through my own sin, not through the un- 
 faithfulness of God. I had gone astray like 
 a lost sheep, to slake my thirst with draughts 
 of guilty pleasure in the way of my own 
 heart ; and the rough road by which He 
 brought me back was His way of bringing me 
 out of my sin. It was to restore my soul, and 
 to lead me in the paths of righteousness for 
 His name's sake." 
 
 The meaning Nothing SO much tests our 
 of Chastise- knowledge of God, or our actual 
 ment. standing-place in His kingdom, 
 
 as the way in which we interpret chastisement. 
 Those who are altogether without God in the 
 world are disposed to look on it as an unkind 
 and unaccountable interference with their 
 happiness ; an evidence, indeed, of Divine 
 power, but not of Divine goodness. They do 
 not hear in it a kind voice saying to them, 
 Return unto the Lord thy God [Hosea xi-. i]. They 
 
CHA S TISEMENT. 3 5 
 
 do not bow humbly to the rod, which deals 
 its stripes in this life, in the hope that thereby 
 they inay be spared in the next. There is 
 suffering, but no healing process afterward ; a 
 sense of uneasiness, but no real sorrow'for sin. 
 Who can wonder then that affliction hardens 
 instead of softening them ; that, instead of 
 coming out into the light of the reconciled 
 face of God, in the spirit of a penitent child, 
 they go back, like Pharaoh, into their Egyp- 
 tian darkness with hearts of stone ! 
 
 David, however, in a very different spirit 
 accepts that chastisement of which, with all 
 his prosperity, he had as large a share as most 
 men. He connects it with the Providence of 
 God, he beholds it in the purpose of God, he 
 accepts it as the mercy of God, he recognizes, 
 in it the character of God. And this, his ex^ 
 planation of it, teaches us that for Christians 
 there are two aspects in which it may be 
 profitably considered : the one, what God 
 means in it with respect to us ; the other, 
 what He means in it with respect to Himself. 
 With respect to us He means restoration and 
 holiness. Restoration in the case of our hav- 
 ing gone back : He restoreth my soul. Holi- 
 
86 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 ness, as the unvarying and ultimate end of all 
 His dealings with us, whom He has from the 
 beginning chosen to salvation through sanctu 
 fication of the Spirit^ and belief of the truth 
 [2 Thrss. ii. 13]. He leadeth me in the paths of right- 
 eousness for His name's sake [ps. xxiii.3]. 
 Chastise7ne7it ^he office of a shepherd is not 
 is for Restora- only to guide and protect and 
 ^^^^* provide for the sheep, but also 
 
 to go after them when they have strayed 
 away. Our Lord, in the first of the three 
 parables in the fifteenth chapter of St. Luke, 
 appeals to this as to a universally recognized 
 habit among men. What man of you, having 
 an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth 
 not leave the ninety and 7iine in the wilderness y 
 and go after that which is lost, tmtil he find it? 
 [Luke XV. 4]. But Ezekiel assigns this office to 
 Messiah : For thus saith the Lord God, Behold, 
 I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek 
 them out. As a shepherd seeketh out his flock 
 in the day that he is among his sheep that are 
 scattered ; so zvill I seek out my sheep, a7id 
 will deliver them out of all places where they 
 have been scattered in the clotidy and dark day 
 
 [Ezek. xxxlv. U, 12]. 
 
CHA srrSEMENT. 
 
 87 
 
 Restoration implies wandering or backslid- 
 ing, and is applicable either to a case of lapse, 
 where there has been a real, though not 
 necessarily a visible, falling away from God • 
 or to a besetting sin, which is seriously affect- 
 ing the spiritual state, and, like a rank and 
 noxious weed, must instantly and at any cost 
 be cut down to the roots. Of actual falls 
 from God, open or secret, David himself is a 
 memorable instance. When the man after 
 God's own heart went astray, God indeed re- 
 stored h'm, but it was with pangs and convul- 
 sions, as when a man all but drowned strug- 
 gles back from suspended animation into 
 life. The greater the height he had reached, 
 the deeper his fall from it ; the more marked 
 his holiness, the more scandalous his sin. If 
 ever man suffered in this life the temporal 
 consequences of guilt, it was David. 
 
 Yet there are other kinds of falling away 
 than his. Many, whose hearts are as much 
 estranged from God as the psalmist's, are 
 never surprised into an outburst of crime, 
 simply because they are too cold or too 
 cautious to commit themselves publicly. Nay, 
 their secret sins may be of quite another 
 
38 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 kind ; sins, it may be, for which they may 
 even gain credit ; men will praise thee when 
 thou doest well unto thyself [Psaim xiix. is] ; yet sins 
 far more abhorred by Him who can weigh 
 motives and pity weakness ; and known only 
 to Him to whom all hearts are open, and 
 from whom no secrets are hid. 
 
 We have an instance of this kind in the 
 Church of Sardis. / know thy works, that thou 
 hast a name that thou livest, and art dead 
 [Rev.iii. 1] Stronger language than this could 
 hardly be used of any within Christ's king- 
 dom. Yet it describes the actual condition ol 
 thousands upon thousands, who have lost 
 their first love, and are fallen back from their 
 early aspirations ; who pray and yet restrain 
 prayer ; who open their Bible, and sit with it 
 before them now and then, but in no sense 
 really use it as their spiritual food ; who give 
 away, but never really deny themselves of 
 anything for Christ's sake ; and in v/hom a 
 steadily lessening zeal for God, and a wofully 
 diminished anxiety for the welfare of others, 
 indicate but too surely the ebb of their inner 
 life. 
 
 Human judgment, indeed, must not pre- 
 
CHASTISEMENT. gO 
 
 sume to penetrate either into the recesses of 
 a fellow-sinner's conscience, or into the pos- 
 sible meaning of the righteous chastisements 
 of God. We ought to judge ourselves ; we 
 ought not to judge our brethren. Yet, per- 
 haps, these are cases which more than any re- 
 quire the knife and the cautery of severe afflic- 
 tion ; and when such a soul, writhing in its 
 misery, bitterly complains that its punishment 
 is more than it can bear, the not yet drugged 
 conscience may listen to the question — Is 
 there not a cause ? For when sin comes to a 
 head, and discharges itself from the system in 
 a complete, though in a virulent outbreak, the 
 scandal to the Church maybe greater, but the 
 peril to the sinner is less. Fever is often pref- 
 erable to paralysis. The loss of a limb may 
 be a less severe shock in the end than the 
 gradual corruption of the blood, or the steady 
 enfeebling of the vital powers. When a soul 
 is asleep, yet dreams that it is awake ; when 
 the discharge of religious duties, the use of 
 religious privileges, the companionship of re- 
 ligious people, and the uttering of religious 
 phrases condone to the self-complacent soul 
 for chilled love to men and suspended inter 
 
90 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 course with God, it is not a soft and gentle 
 
 voice that will whisper it out of its death 
 
 sleep : maybe only a life-long sorrow will 
 
 bring it back to the Shepherd's arms. 
 
 ^, ... But over and above the in- 
 
 Spectal in~ ui- r n 
 
 sta7tces of stances of a public lall or a se- 
 
 Chastisemeni ^ret decay, there is the yet more 
 in Scripture. _ . r • ^ 
 
 frequent instance of special acts 
 
 of sin visited with special acts of punishment ; 
 the act indicating the habit ; the punishment 
 not only suited to the sin, but in proportion 
 to it ; the purpose of God being, not to cast 
 off and destroy, but to admonish and restore. 
 Rebekah, Jacob, Moses, Josiah, Elijah, are 
 each of them instances of special sins and im- 
 perfections meeting with special chastisement ; 
 and these are written for our adino7tition, on 
 whom the ends of the world are come w cor. x. n]. 
 Rebekah's sin was that of favorit- 
 ism. Ihrough her scheming par- 
 tiality Jacob was successfully urged to sup- 
 plant Esau ; but her heart's desire when 
 it came, was as an apple of Sodom. Both 
 mother and son were punished ; but the 
 mother's penalty is the more significant. 
 Thinking to send her son away for a few days 
 
CHASTISEMENT. 9I 
 
 till Esau's anger was abated, unwittingly she 
 dismissed him forever ; and she herself found 
 the worm that was to gnaw at the root of her 
 gourd. 
 
 Jacob's characteristic sin was de- 
 ceit, the flaw that runs through his -^ 
 whole life, and robs his character of strength 
 and dignity. But as he sinned in deceit, 
 so was he punished by it ; as he conspired 
 to deceive his own parent, his sons con- 
 spired to deceive him. The heartless false- 
 hood of Joseph's pretended death, which 
 withered the patriarch's very soul, must also 
 have smitten him with a bitter remorse for 
 the fraud he had practiced on his blind father. 
 His sin found him out, and pursued him, and 
 would not leave him, till he laid himself down 
 in his grave. 
 
 But if we pass from sins to faults — that is, 
 from what is perverse and deliberate, to what 
 is simply infirm and imperfect — we shall see 
 how, in the case even of the most eminent of 
 God's servants, impatience and self-will and 
 unbelief cause us to wander from the path of 
 duty, and compel for us the firm, though 
 tender, admonition of God. 
 
02 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 Moses thought to serve God when- 
 he went to visit his Hebrew kins- 
 men, and when he desired, though at his 
 own risk, to assert their cause. But, so far 
 as we can see, he was not thereby justified 
 in taking the law into his own hands, and 
 slaying that Egyptian. It was hardly trust- 
 ing God, who knew His people's sorrows as 
 well as he did, nor was it really aiding his 
 friends. Anyhow, the result of it was that, 
 unable to vindicate himself, he had to flee ; 
 and though in the Epistle to the Hebrews we 
 read God's own approval of his final choice 
 between the reproach of Christ and the treas- 
 ures in Egypt, there is not a word to defend 
 that hasty homicide. For all that we know 
 to the contrary, he paid as his penalty an 
 exile of forty years in the wilderness ; and 
 though we can well understand how that time 
 was blessed to him and used by him, yet but 
 for that characteristic impatience Israel might 
 possibly not have had to wait so long for 
 their freedom ; he at least might have passed 
 more happily that third of his noble life. 
 
 Josiah is a signal instance of the 
 fota . £^^g_j errors into which self-will 
 
CHA S TI SEMEN T. 
 
 93 
 
 may sometimes lead a good man, and also 
 of the severity \^ ith which God must visit 
 it. The Chronicles, which give a fuller ac- 
 count than the Kings [2Chron.xxxv.2c-24], make it 
 sufficiently clear, not only that King Necho 
 had no personal design against Judah at that 
 time, but that he conceived himself to be 
 actually carrying out the designs of Divine 
 Providence, and did his utmost to dissuade 
 Josiah from hindering them. Josiah, how- 
 ever, for reasons which it is unnecessary to 
 examine, obstinately persisted in his purpose. 
 Bent on his own way, he had it, but it cost 
 him his life and his crown ; and that disas- 
 trous end to such a promising beginning is a 
 terrible proof that we may and must go 
 wrong, if we are resolved on it, in spite of all 
 warning to the contrary ; and that God will 
 not interfere to preserve His own saints from 
 the consequences of headstrong folly. 
 
 Elijah, strange as it may sound, 
 
 r J J J Elijah, 
 
 IS an mstance oi despondency and 
 
 unbelief, which God could not altogether 
 
 pass over. After the slaughter of the 
 
 priests on Carmel, we should have thought 
 
 him capable of any daring ; and had that 
 
p4 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST 
 
 great blow at idolatry been instantly fol- 
 lowed up by decided action, the worship of 
 Jehovah might have been restored in Samaria. 
 But when the message came from Jezebel, a 
 great panic smote the prophet with sudden 
 helplessness, and he who had defied a whole 
 priesthood, with a king at their head, fled 
 away in fear at the threat of a vindictive 
 woman ; and going a day's journey into the 
 wilderness, that no one might trace him in 
 his flight, at length asked to die. Bent on 
 even a longer flight, he was graciously 
 strengthened by God for so great fatigue ; 
 yet we need not interpret that as a certain 
 proof that God's Providence in the first in- 
 stance pointed him to Horeb. It merely im- 
 plies that, since he was resolved on going, 
 God would enable him to reach his journey's 
 end, that there He might meet him and ask 
 him about his fear. But surely had he trusted 
 in God that He would deliver him and yet 
 further use him, he would never have fled 
 there at all. In one point of view it was so 
 much lost time, if not also the throwing away 
 of an opportunity, which was never repeated. 
 The Question asked of him is significant 
 
CHASTISEMENT. 55 
 
 enough of God's interpretation of his con- 
 duct. Though his chastisement was confined 
 to reproof, even to be reproved was a fall for a 
 saint like him. What doest thou here, Elijah ? 
 [1 Kings XIX. 9] — this was his Lord's expostulation 
 with him for his sudden giving way to that 
 utter despondency. He was at once sent 
 back across the whole extent of the land, and 
 on an errand of as great peril as that from 
 which he had so lately escaped. 
 
 Let us then remember, that even our faults 
 grieve the good Spirit of God ; and our in- 
 firmities and imperfections, if not watched 
 against by us, must be chastened by Him. 
 Though God is not extreme to mark what is 
 done amiss, faults may grow into sins, sins 
 may harden into habits. Not having spot or 
 wrinkle J or any such thing, but that it should 
 be holy and without blemish [Epu. v. 27]; this is 
 the description of the glorious Church which, 
 in the day of His return, shall be worthy to 
 be the Lamb's wife; here, too, is the key to 
 the discipline, the secret of the purpose, which 
 13 in Christ's heart about us now. 
 
 Probably, moreover, if we had the same 
 opportunity for analysis and induction in the 
 
^ 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 moral government of God that we possess in 
 His natural government, we might come to 
 see that every moral act inevitably brings 
 about sooner or later its own result, as any oth- 
 er effect follows any other cause in the other 
 departments of His providential kingdom ; 
 that, in this respect, we are still under a sys- 
 tem of present rewards and punishments, the 
 form somewhat changed, but not the essence ; 
 the principle being everlasting, though the 
 manner of its manifestation transitor}^ Thus, 
 in this court of law there is no appeal, and 
 for these offenses (in the sense of a present 
 chastisement) no atonement. Of this I am 
 profoundly sure that Christian people need 
 to be very faithfully warned, and very care- 
 fully instructed on the close, and unfailing, 
 and continual connection between sin and 
 sorrow.* For Christ died, not to save us 
 from the inevitable consequences of our ac- 
 tions here (which would simply be impunity 
 
 ■* Let any one who thinks this language too strong, 
 read carefully the chapters entitled, " Dieu glorifi^ dans 
 la souffrance," "Jesus Christ notre example dans la 
 souffrance," " Le peche," " L'homme de douleur, et les 
 hommes de douleur, " in Les adieu.x d Adolphs Mofiod, 
 
CHA S TI SEMEN T. 
 
 97 
 
 in sin), but from the deserved penalty of our 
 actions hereafter. To spare us the needful 
 pain of chastisement would be to deprive us 
 of the only medicine which can remove the 
 cause, as well as heal the sorrow. It would 
 not only frustrate the purpose of Christ's 
 death, who gave Himself for us, that He might 
 redeem us from all iniquity^ and purify unto 
 Himself a peculiar people zealous of good works 
 [Titus ii. 14], it would also contradict the prophet's 
 explanation of chastisement, given through 
 the Spirit of God. Wherefore doth a living 
 man complain^ a man for the punishment of his 
 sins ? Let us search and try our ways, and 
 turn again to the Lord. Let us lift up our 
 heart with our hands unto God in the heavens 
 
 [T.am iii. 39-41]. 
 
 UT chastisement is sent not chastisement 
 only to recall the back- is for Sancti- 
 slider, or to set the mark oifi'"'^''''' 
 God's displeasure on some act or habit of sin ; 
 it is to sanctify us, to add to our positive and 
 personal holiness, to edify us higher into the 
 Image of Christ. Every branch in me that 
 bearpth not fruit He taketh away ; and every 
 7 
 
98 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it 
 may bring forth more fruit [John x v. 2]. 
 
 And here let it be explained 
 ^slZlification, wh^t sanctification really means ; 
 what is possible and what im- 
 possible in the way of growth in grace, and 
 in putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not 
 mending the old nature, which we inherit 
 from Adam ; it is cultivating and developing 
 the new nature which we receive from Christ. 
 The old nature can not be improved ; it is 
 under a ban and a curse ; it is to be crucified 
 with its affections and lusts, and mortified in 
 its members ; we are to put it off as we put off a 
 worn-out and defiled garment ; nay, w^e are to 
 count ourselves dead to it, as if it had no 
 more relation to us, since we are alive to God 
 through Jesus Christ our Lord. The soul is 
 like a house of which strangers have taken 
 possession, and lord it cruelly over the owner. 
 What shall you do for your liberty? Can you 
 change these strangers' hearts and make them 
 other men, so that you would be content or 
 even glad they should remain ? That is 
 impossible. Pride will never be humble, lust 
 will never be pure, selfishness v/ill never think 
 
CHA S TISEMENT. gg 
 
 of a neighbor's interests, envy will never ex- 
 ult in a neighbor's joy. " Old inbred habits 
 will make resistance ; but by better habits 
 they shall be entirely overcome.""^ The only 
 thing to be done is to turn them out by bring- 
 ing in others stronger than they, who will, 
 little by little, get the mastery over them. 
 Thus the way to conquer pride is to culti- 
 vate humility ; if we would be gentle, let us 
 practice self-control ; if we would think of 
 others and help them, we must day by day 
 try to bear their burdens. The old affections 
 must be expelled by new ; the invading 
 tyrants must be besieged and cast out by 
 the legitimate owners ; and though we shall 
 carry with us to our grave the roots of our 
 old nature, though not till we have cast off 
 the garment of our corruptible flesh shall we 
 have our full liberty as the sons of God, it is 
 of infinite moment for us to ascertain that 
 the only way of holiness is to overcome evil 
 with good ; and that practically there is nc 
 limit to the power of the grace of God, save 
 that which is imposed by ourselves. 
 
 * Thomas i Kcmpis. 
 
lOO 
 
 THE PRESENCE OE CHRIST. 
 
 In the light of these remarks the necessity 
 and the purpose of chastisement will be seen 
 more clearly. Blessed is the man wJiom Thou 
 chasteneth, O Lord, and teacheth him out of 
 Thy law [ps. xciv. 12]. Chastisement instructs us, 
 softens us, educates us, elevates us. 
 
 There are many lessons it teaches us of 
 God, and the world, and ourselves ; but the 
 one thing we have first to learn, and the lesson 
 it imparts to us more distinctly, more contin- 
 ually than any other, is the nature, and the 
 depth, and the complicatedness, and the de- 
 ceitfulness of sin. Thereby we see how sin, 
 like a foreign poison in the blood, affects and 
 corrupts our entire nature, tainting innocent 
 affections, perverting harmless dispositions, 
 and, like the roots of a noxious weed, spread- 
 ing itself secretly over the whole surface of 
 our being. Affliction detects our secret, and 
 perhaps unsuspected faults, much in the same 
 way that acid acts on litmus paper. It also 
 decomposes our complex character into all 
 its multitudinous and varied elements, laying 
 bare, to our surprise and sorrow, deformities 
 of which we never dreamed. We discover 
 (and any child of God can testify to the bit- 
 
CHA S TI SEMEN T. Id 
 
 terness of such discovery) what unbelief hirks 
 in us, what unthankfuhiess, what desperate 
 selfishness, what numbness of heart both to- 
 ward God and man, what petulance and way- 
 wardness, what obstinacy and self-will, what 
 real shrinking from close intercourse with God. 
 Then if we, tainted and cheated by sin as we 
 all are, come in any degree to hate and fear 
 it, it is only a step farther to regard it as God 
 regards it : and to see how it is not His hatred 
 of us, nor His desire to destroy us, but His 
 hatred of sin, and His purpose to save us from 
 it, that brings down His rod. 
 
 There are three distinct proofs of God's ab- 
 horrence of sin : Christ's cross, the whole crea- 
 tion groaning and travailing together in pain, 
 and hell. Pain, whether of body or mind, is 
 certainly sometimes the visible mark of God's 
 displeasure at sin ; and, as conscience is the 
 witness of God within us, sorrow MAY BE the 
 witness of God without us, that He hates it 
 with a perfect hatred, and v/ould have us hate 
 it too. The Fifty-first Psalm brings this out in 
 a remarkable light. If ever one man in this 
 world was cruelly wronged by another, Uriah 
 .vas wronged by David. Yet his sin against 
 
£02 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 man, in that hour of his overwhelming re- 
 morse, seemed nothing when compared with 
 his sin against God. Against Thee, Thee only, 
 have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight : 
 that Thou niigJitest be justified when Thou 
 speakest, and be clear zvJien Thou judge st [Ps. ii.4.] 
 Let us all see that there can be no real begin- 
 ning in holiness, much less no true growth in 
 it, no adequate and absorbing appreciation of 
 Christ's atoning sacrifice, no crying out for 
 pardon through His precious blood, and no 
 living gladness in it when it is found : no hon- 
 est wrestling with wickedness in our own 
 hearts, and no determined battling with it in 
 the world around us, without deep and abid- 
 ing convictions, through the teaching of His 
 Spirit, of its utter abominableness before God. 
 
 But there is another result 
 Chastisement is , ^ • i ^• 
 
 for Discipline. Purposed for us m chastisement, 
 
 which affects not merely the ap- 
 prehension of truth, but the molding of char- 
 acter ; which, besides enlarging our knowledge, 
 fertilizes our heart. Sorrow, as a discipline for 
 the soul, subdues the will, softens the temper, 
 curbs the passions, pulverizes, so to speak, the 
 rough excrescences of character, which, like 
 
CI I A S TISEMENT. 
 
 103 
 
 lumps of hard clay on the surface of a tilled 
 field, turn the edge of the plow, and balk 
 the skill oi the sower. It is not that we are 
 to lose our will ; that would be to lose our in- 
 dividuality ; but that retaining it, and subduing 
 it, we may offer it up daily as a living sacrifice 
 to God. I have surely hcm'd Ephraini bemoaji- 
 ing himself thus ; Thou hast chastised me, and 
 I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to 
 the yoke : turn Thou me, and I shall be turned ; 
 for Thou art the Lord my God. Surely after 
 that I was turned, I repented ; and after that 1 
 was instructed, I smote upon my thigh [jer.xxxi. 18, 19]. 
 There are thousands upon thousands much 
 chastened because much loved ; because much 
 loved, taken such pains with, that they might 
 grow like God. In a little while, instead of mur- 
 muring at it, we shall exult over it in a hymn 
 of praise which angels might ^wvy. Till then, 
 let us glory in tribulation also, for tribulation 
 worketh patience lroiti v. sj. 
 
 Another end of chastisement 
 . , 1 , c Chastisement is 
 
 IS to educate and prepare us for ^^ education, 
 
 life. He who knows what is 
 
 coming on us would help us to meet it. Not 
 
 only does He offer us blessing, but, what is 
 
104 ^^^ PRESENCE OF lHRIST. 
 
 much more, He would make us capable of re- 
 ceiving it, and enjoying it, and retaining it, 
 though by a process of trial which, at the mo- 
 ment of its coming, may make us stagger 
 through unbelief. So, where life is to be 
 busy, or prosperous, or brilliant, or much en- 
 cumbered with temptation, affliction acts 
 through the memory, like ballast on a vessel, 
 to keep us steady, and sober, and humble ; 
 and not unfrequently do we observe in the 
 lives of Christian men an interval, longer or 
 shorter as it may be, of inactivity, or sickness, 
 or sorrow of a marked kind divinely interposed 
 between the two halves of their life. 
 
 Joseph is an instance of this. For him the 
 prison may have been the only safe approach 
 to the throne. No one can govern who h^s 
 not first learned to obey. He had to learn 
 within the prison walls lessons of human nat- 
 ure, his own as well as other men's, which he 
 could not have learned before, which it would 
 have been too late for him to have learned 
 afterward. He was also to be instructed 
 how to suffer patiently, how to be silent undei 
 calumny, how to requite with justice, how to 
 recompense with mercy. 
 
CHASTISEMENT. 105 
 
 UT there is one othtr re- chastiseinent is 
 suit which chastisement a preparation 
 
 ai 
 
 , 1 • • i for Heaven. 
 
 ms at producing m us — greater -^ 
 
 nearness to God, and so greater meetness for 
 heaven. As it is impossible to overstate the 
 desire of God's heart, that we would receive 
 His love, and walk in fellowship with Him, 
 and consult Him in our difficulties, and wor- 
 ship Him with our entire souls ; so is it need- 
 ful to confess, humbling and saddening as the 
 confession must be, that few of us do this will- 
 ingly, or heartily, or entirely, though, so far as 
 we go, it may be deliberately and sincerely : 
 we too often give self and the world as much 
 as we can. Him as little. For, though we can 
 trust God for our salvation, we distrust Him 
 for our happiness. We look to Him to bless us 
 in the world to come, we look elsewhere to be 
 blessed in the present world. Health, money, 
 friends, advancement, society, knowledge, busi- 
 ness — these are the gods that we worship, on 
 these we rely ; and we do not discover that 
 they are but broken cisterns which hold no 
 water, until God shatters them at a blow, and 
 so we fall back on Him as our only abiding 
 
lo6 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 portion, In whom alone are the fresh springs 
 of our Hfe. Let us humbly confess that God 
 desires us and we do not desire Him ; He is 
 ever turning toward us to bless us, and we — 
 ve are ever turning away. His hands are fill- 
 ed with gifts for which we hardly care. His 
 heart is overflowing with love, which does not 
 content or gladden us, unless it flows in the 
 channels we ourselves choose for it. Idolatry 
 is still the characteristic sin of men : love of 
 this present evil world has far more power 
 over the best of us than we think it has ; and 
 with many of us, it is only when health is im- 
 paired or money is lost, or friends die, or oc- 
 cupation is suspended, that our eyes are fully 
 opened to discern good from evil, and we made 
 willing to say, / luill arise, and go to my father^ 
 and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned 
 against heaven, and before thee [Lukeiv. isj. 
 
 And thus, — for no one can be spiritually- 
 minded without being heavenly-minded as 
 well, — as earth attracts us less, heaven at- 
 tracts us more ; we confess that we are 
 strangers and pilgrims, we seek a city yet to 
 come. For life with all its burdens and anx- 
 ieties is still such a blessed thing, this earth 
 
CHASTISEMENT. 107 
 
 with its ties, and pursuits, and objects, and 
 possessions has so much in it to occupy, and 
 fascinate, and gladden ; friends are so kind, 
 home is so happy, knowledge is so noble, 
 nature is so fair, that, say as we will, think as 
 we may, that heaven is our home, and this 
 world a wilderness, were our health unbroken, 
 and our tasks unfinished, and our energies 
 fresh, and our homes full, we should follow 
 with very reluctant steps, and moistened eyes, 
 and a heart looking behind us, the messenger 
 that takes us away. We are meant to love 
 life ; nay, we are made to love it. Love of 
 life is no sin, it is merely a lower kind of love 
 than a desire for the fruition of life eternal in 
 the presence of the Lamb ; and the Divine 
 way of lifting us up from the lower level to 
 the higher, without contradicting, on the one 
 hand, God's purposes for our earthly service, 
 or, on the other hand, crushing the beautiful 
 human affections, which are the features of 
 God's own image in ruined yet not quite de- 
 faced souls, is by gradually weaning us from 
 earthly things, rather than by violently alien- 
 ating us from them ; by correcting and ele- 
 vating, rather than by destroying our natural 
 
I08 ^^^ PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 instincts and capacities, through the blessed 
 prospect of the inheritance incorruptible and 
 undefiledy and that fadeth not azuay n Peter i. 4]. 
 Nature of heav- ^or what is true heavenly- 
 enly-mmded' mindedness? Surely not a cow- 
 ^^^^^' ardly, feeble, sickly craving to 
 
 get rid of life because it is full of risks and 
 toil and change. If we wish for heaven only 
 because we are tired of earth, we shall soon 
 want to leave it and be back here. Heavenly- 
 mindedness, such as God would work in us, 
 is a weariness of sin, not of duty ; a desire to 
 see God, not merely to leave men. To be 
 with Him for whom we have been waiting; 
 to behold Him in whom we have been be- 
 lieving ; and to adore Him whom we have 
 tried and wished to love, /yet never with the 
 same devoted love which we gave to husband, 
 or wife, or child, or friend ; this is the desire 
 for heaven which God would ripen in us by 
 His dispensations of sorrov/, a desire which is 
 perfectly compatible with the manful and en- 
 tire and cheerful and patient discharge of all 
 our duties here. 
 
 '• When a soul has seen, 
 By the means of evil, that good is best. 
 
CHASTISEMENT. 
 
 109 
 
 And throu2:h earth and its noise, what is heaven's 
 serene, 
 
 When its faith in the same has stood the test , — 
 Why, the child grown man, you burn the rod, 
 
 The uses of labor are clearly done ; 
 There remaineth a rest for the people of God, 
 
 And I have had troubles enough for one."* 
 
 Such, then, are at least some of the pur- 
 poses which God would accomplish toward 
 His people in chastening them. But the 
 verse also teaches us that He has purposes 
 with respect to Himself: FOR His NAME'S 
 SAKE. He is holy^ and therefore He chastens 
 us, that no one may accuse Him of counte- 
 nancing sin. For His sake as well as ours, 
 and for the world as well as for the Church, 
 He must show Himself to be a holy God, 
 loving righteousness, and hating iniquity. 
 
 HERE have been three chastisement 
 distinct periods marking is to vindicate 
 His providential government of God's hoWiess. 
 the Church in its features of blessing and 
 chastisement. The first was under the theoc 
 
 * Robert Browning. 
 
no THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 racy, when the plagues on Egypt and the 
 destruction of the wicked Canaanites marked 
 the period when Jehovah himself was Lord 
 and King of His people, and made the rod of 
 His power to be known.* The second dates 
 from the Kings to the Incarnation, when God 
 was gradually withdrawing Himself from visi- 
 ble and supernatural interference, and teach- 
 ing His people to walk by faith and not by 
 sight. And this being a time when men, 
 whose forefathers had seen the very footsteps 
 and hand-prints of God, began to doubt — 
 since these had disappeared — if there was a 
 God at all, the Psalms abound in petitions, 
 not so much for a personal vengeance on per- 
 sonal enemies, as for a public and righteous 
 retribution on the enemies of God. *' Let 
 God show Himself to be a living and holy 
 God by punishing the wicked and rewarding 
 the good ; " this is the one thought that runs 
 through those scriptures, the tone and spirit 
 of which, when not precisely understood, 
 shock and perplex some of us now. Such, 
 
 * I am indebted for the above thought to a sermon ol 
 the Rev. James Moorehouse. 
 
CHA S TISEMENT, \ \ i 
 
 for instance, is the meaning of the prayer 
 A rise^ Thou Judge of the earthy and rezvard the 
 proud after their deserving [Psaim xciv. 2 (Prayer-BooK 
 Version)]. Such the gist of the complaint, How 
 long shall the wicked^ how lojtg shall the wicked 
 triumph? [Psaim xciv. 3]. Such the essence of the 
 question, Where is the God of judgment f CMai. ii. i7j. 
 Such the substance of the exhortation, Fret 
 not thyself because of evil-doers, neither be 
 thou envious against the workers of iniquity 
 [Ps;iim xxxvii. 1]. Such thc Spirit of the thanksgiv- 
 ing. The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth 
 the vengeance ; he shall wash his feet in the 
 blood of the wicked, so that a man shall say, 
 Verily there is a reward for the righteous, 
 verily He is a God that judgeth the earth 
 [Psaimiviii.io, 11], The third period is the present, ^ 
 in which we look for a judgment to come, 
 and are persuaded that whatever may seem 
 to be imperfect or unjust nov/, will be ex- 
 plained and vindicated, and set right by the 
 Son of man on the throne of His glory. We 
 do not therefore expect always to see sin visi- 
 bly punished, and we are expressly forbidden 
 by our Lord Himself to pass hasty or severe 
 judgments on others. Yet this does not re- 
 
1 12 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 peal God's law of personal chastisement, noi 
 does it forbid our asking Him, when His rod 
 visits us, "Lord, wherefore is it come?" 
 A holy God hates sin, and He can have no 
 truce with it, no forbearance toward it, no 
 halting of purpose, no slackness of hand. If 
 God did not visit sin at all, men would in- 
 stantly say, He cares not for it. But when 
 we see that He hates it all, hates it always, 
 hates it everywhere, then His name is consist- 
 ent with His government, and His character 
 with His acts ; and if we really desire for our- 
 selves to be holy as He is holy, though we 
 shall smart under His rod, we shall not won- 
 der at it, nor resist it, for He will be seen to 
 be doing the very thing for us that we have 
 asked Him to do, and that we can not do for 
 ourselves. 
 
 But He is also righteous. This is their song 
 who stand on the sea of glass, having the 
 harps of God, and sing the song of Moses the 
 servant of God, and the song of the Lamb : 
 Great and marvelous are Thy zuorks, Lord God 
 Almighty ; just and true are Thy zv ays, Thou 
 King of saints [Rev. tv. 3]. Sometimes, no doubt 
 we are tempted to think that this is not so 
 
CHA S TI SEMEN T. 113 
 
 When the punishment seems out of propor- 
 tion to the offense, or when it is sorrow upon 
 sorrow [Phu. ii. 27], or when it goes on year by- 
 year; or when it is final, in the sense that 
 there is no hope of ever escaping from it, we 
 hardly know how to reconcile it with our 
 ideas of God's justice ; the punishment is 
 greater than we can bear, if it is heavier than 
 we have deserved. 
 
 How severe, for instance, was the doom on 
 Moses that shut him out of the Land of 
 Promise, and which included him in the same 
 sentence with those whose carcasses fell in 
 the wilderness, because they thought scorn of 
 that pleasant land, and gave no credence to 
 God's word ! Is there a more touching prayer 
 in all the Old Testament than that of this 
 great prophet ? O Lord God, Thou hast begun 
 to shoiv Thy servant Thy greatness, and Thy 
 mighty hand — I pray thee, let me go over, and 
 see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that 
 goodly mountain, and Lebanon. But the Lord 
 zuas wroth with me for your sakes, and zvould 
 not hear me : and the Lord said unto me, Let it 
 suffice thee ; speak no more unto me of this 
 matter [Deut.iii. 24-26]. 
 8 
 
114 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 To glance at one more instance : the faith- 
 ful, but disobedient, prophet paid a very ter- 
 rible penalty for being the victim of a wicked 
 fraud. The same kind of thing, though in a 
 different form, continually happens now. Im- 
 prudence or impatience are sometimes as 
 severely visited as perverseness or malice. A 
 mistake in youth creeps after us through life 
 with the gloomy shadow of a crime. Caesar 
 crossed but one Rubicon : but for us there 
 often are countless Rubicons in daily life of 
 rash words, hasty impulses, unwise plans, 
 which are but the work of a moment, yet cut 
 our lives in two, and make a wide gulf be- 
 tween a happy past and a clouded future. 
 The loss of a limb is irremediable. The death 
 of a friend is irremediable. We can not live 
 our life over again : regret may prevent future 
 mistakes ; it can not repair the past. Well, 
 the one thing to do is to fall back on the 
 righteousness of God, and to say to ourselves. 
 Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord 
 pitietJi them that fear LLim [Psaim ciii. 13]. We can 
 not be fair judges of the equity of punish- 
 ment without knowing accurately the nature 
 and extent of the sin. It was a severe pun 
 
CHA STISEMEXT. 
 
 115 
 
 ishment on Moses ; but be it said with all 
 dutiful and loyal respect to that grandest of 
 men, it was for a great offense ; and had God 
 passed it over, it never could have been said 
 of Him, He will by no means clear the guilty 
 [Exod. xxxiT. 7]. As to the disobedient prophet, he 
 was deceived, no doubt ; but that was his 
 fault, not his excuse. To be deceived by 
 others may sometimes mean to deceive our- 
 selves : and though the punishment was final 
 in this world — though the true prophet suf- 
 fered and the false prophet escaped — in the 
 next world we may venture to believe they 
 will change places ; and the verdict pro- 
 nounced by the instinct of human justice will 
 be ratified by the sentence of God. 
 
 Let us steadfastly believe that God is never 
 hard ; never afflicts willingly [Lam. ui. 33], or 
 grieves the children of men ; never deals 
 with us after our sins, or rewards us according 
 to our iniquities vp&^^racm.xar Does not our own 
 experience tell us this? Heavy as may be 
 our trials, do not we secretly feel we want 
 them all, and that less would not do ? Our 
 sorrow is not to atone for sin, only to help 
 to deliver us from its power: yet it must be 
 
Il6 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 sufficient to effect this; and, therefore, to 
 touch the edge of the wound instead of prob- 
 ing it, would be but to trifle with our disease, 
 and prolong our pain. 
 
 For, once more, God is faithful^ who ivill 
 not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are 
 able ; but will with the temptation also make 
 a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it 
 [icor.x. 13]. When there is sorrow upon sorrow 
 [Phil. ii. 27], there \^ strength to strength [Psaim ixxxiv.?:- 
 and those who know most about affliction, 
 will be the readiest to confess what lessons it 
 has taught them of the tenderness and faithful- 
 ness of God. He knows exactly how far it is 
 safe to go with us : and He watches over us 
 in the furnace, waiting for the moment when 
 He may bring us out. Our powers are never 
 really overtasked, for they that wait on the 
 Lord shall renew their strength [rsaiah xi. 31]. Our 
 patience need never be exhausted, if we re- 
 member in whose hand our times are. Our 
 resources are never dried up, for the fullness 
 of God is at our disposal. Our faith can not 
 fail while we look up to Christ. My grace is 
 sufficient for thee [2 cor. xii. 9] ; this is a promise 
 for -js, as well as for the apostle. And if we 
 
CHA S TI SEMEN T. 
 
 117 
 
 ask, as many ask with Job every day, What is 
 my strength y that I should hope? and what is 
 mine end, that I should prolong my life ? [jobvi. nj, 
 let us lay hold of the blessed assurance, not 
 only to Israel after the flesh, but to Israel 
 after the spirit : / will not contend forever, 
 neither will I be always wroth : lest the spirit 
 should fail before me, and the souls which I 
 have made [isa. ivii. is]. 
 
 N conclusion, to repeat a 
 , , 1 ^ I'll 1 J Chastisement 
 
 thought, which has already individual, 
 
 been dwelt upon in former chap- 
 ters : the individuality of Divine chastise- 
 ments, or the fitness of each man's sorrow for 
 his own condition, is strikingly indicated in 
 the words, He restoreth ME, He leadeth ME. 
 Life would be intolerable, could we not 
 trace in it the plan of a Divine Providence 
 watching over us and guiding us ; sorrow 
 would be overwhelming, had we to look on 
 it as a chance arrow shot against us at a 
 venture, and not aimed by the hand of one 
 whom we can trust and love. When God 
 sends chastisement, He knows to whom He 
 Bends it, and why He sends it, and what He 
 
Il8 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 sends. His treatment of us is infinitely wise 
 in its precise adaptation to the circumstances 
 under which it is applied, to the result which 
 it is intended to accomplish, and to the char- 
 acter which it is sent to sanctify. Some 
 kinds of affliction, those, for instance, that 
 are tedious and lasting, are in the nature of 
 a systematic discipline and improvement, per- 
 manently to strengthen faith and hope, and 
 love in us. Others, such as sharp and sudden 
 trials, are tests sent to try what is in our 
 heart, whether we serve God for Himself, or 
 only for His gifts. If anything, so to speak, 
 is providential, affliction is. If in anything 
 whatever we are bound to trust God with all 
 the completeness of our judgment, with all the 
 strength of our understanding, with all the 
 adoration of our heart, it is when He is tak- 
 ing us apart to make us perfect through suf- 
 ferine. Therefore it is that God sends sorrow 
 to one man, and not to another; at one time 
 in this way, at another time in that. The 
 sorrow that might cure us to-day might not 
 cure us to-morrow ; the sorrow that might be 
 good for me, might not be good for you. 
 Each man has his own sorrows, different from 
 
CBA S TI SEMEN T. 
 
 119 
 
 any one else's in all the world, since he him- 
 self is different trom any one else. Each indi- 
 vidual believer is led his own way into the 
 wilderness ; each has Jesus with him there. 
 
 But what is the key to that ^^.^ ^^ ^^^^ 
 secret, which we all find so hard, the bicssmi; of 
 keeping the blessing of the sor- C^^^'^^'^^^'^'^- 
 row, when the sorrow itself is passed ? In one 
 sense it is impossible that the freshness of our 
 first impressions should- never fade, or that in 
 the heat and burden of the day the flower 
 should be as bright and as fragrant, as when 
 it dropped with dew in the first blush of 
 morning. But it is not the feeling of the 
 blessing that is so important, as the blessing 
 itself; not the echo of the Saviour's voice, 
 but the Saviour himself that we should really 
 desire to retain. And our Lord will not leave 
 us, unless we bid Him. The believer's heart 
 is far more precious to Him than the mate- 
 rial glories of a visible paradise with its walls 
 of jasper and its gates of pearl. Let us be 
 sure that we shall retain Him in proportion 
 as we cling to Him, and lay hold of the 
 hem of His garment, and say, Abide with us 
 Luke xxiv. 29J ; humbly reminding Him of all His 
 
l'20 ^^^' PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 goodness and pity when His hand was heavy 
 on us, and the dews of suffering moistened 
 our brow, and we had not strength for words ; 
 only the soul turned toward Him as flowers 
 to the sun. Ours be the psalmist's prayer : 
 O wJic7i zvilt Thou come unto me ? I will walk 
 witJiifi my house with a perfect heart [Psaim ci. 2]. 
 Ours be the prophet's complaint : O the hope 
 of Israel, the Saviour thereof in the. time of 
 trouble, why shouldest Thou be a stranger in 
 the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth 
 aside to tarry for a flight ? uer. xiv. s]. Then ours 
 shall be the apostle's thanksgiving : Most 
 gladly therefore will I rather glory in my in- 
 firmities, that the power of Christ may rest 
 upon me pcor. xii. 9]. 
 
 _,. j.^j This once more leads on to an- 
 
 Ttmes of Chas- 
 tisement need other thought of great consola- 
 
 not be useless tion, bearing on our supposed 
 times. ,' ^ , ... 
 
 uselessness under certam visita- 
 tions of God. For some are disposed to say 
 that their time of affliction is all lost time, and 
 it bitterly aggravates the chastisement, already 
 severe enough, to feel that they are but cum- 
 berers of the ground. When we discover 
 how lightly we valued our former opportuni- 
 
CHA S TI SEME NT. 1 2 1 
 
 ties, we wish for them back ; yet wishing does 
 not bring them back; we long, but long in 
 vain, once more to be permitted to give a cup 
 of cold water to one for whom Christ died. 
 Well, it is something to be humbled for past 
 remissness, and to discover mercy which we 
 have not valued as it deserved. Yet inac- 
 tion need not be uselessness. The land that 
 lies fallow under the winter frost is mellowing 
 for the spring sowing. It is very possible to 
 be useless amid a great deal of fussy and 
 showy activity, and to be seeking the praise 
 of men, not of God. We can not be useless 
 while we are doing and suffering God's will, 
 whatever it may be found to be. And we can 
 always do that. If we are bringing forth the 
 fruits of the Spirit, we are not useless. And 
 we can always do that. If we are increas- 
 ing in the knowledge of God's will in all 
 wisdom and spiritual understanding, we are 
 not useless. And we can always do that. 
 While we pray we can not be useless. And 
 we can always do that. God will always find 
 us a work to do, a niche to fill, a place to 
 serve, nay, even a soul to save, when it is His 
 ^ill, and not ours, that we desire to do ; and 
 
122 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 if it should please Him that we should sit 
 still for the rest of our lives, doing nothing 
 else but waiting on Him, and waiting for Him, 
 why should we complain ? Here is the patience 
 of the saints [Rev. xiv. 12]. 
 
 So, when sorrow comes to you, or to those 
 you love, do not shrink from it, as from some 
 cruel torturer, but welcome in it an angel to 
 bring you near to God. Do not fear, do not 
 fear. This light afflictioji, which is but for a 
 moinent, worketh for us a far more exceeding 
 and eternal weight of glory [2 cor. iv. i?]. Our God 
 is enough for every one of us, and when we 
 pass behind the cloud, it is that we may see 
 His face and our joy be full. We must not 
 indeed say, Env}^ those in sorrow. That 
 would be aiming far too high for human nat- 
 ure. But we may say, Bless God for His gra- 
 cious purpose toward them ; and let your 
 prayer for them rather be, that they may be 
 able to receive and retain all He offers them, 
 than that they may be too soon delivered from 
 their pain. It is natural to pity them, yet if 
 we could look into the invisible world, we 
 should see that they who are pitied by the 
 angels, and whom, therefore, we ought to pity, 
 
CHA S TI SEMEN T. 
 
 123 
 
 are not those whom Christ is taking apart into 
 the wilderness to rest awhile, but those who 
 are left alone to be filled with their own de- 
 vices, and whom an unbroken prosperity is 
 hardening against God. 
 
 Soon, very soon, the Good Shepherd will 
 no longer be restoring our souls, or leading us 
 painfully in the paths of righteousness ; for 
 sin will be a thing of the past, and we shall be 
 walking together on the everlasting hills. Yet, 
 if our glory depends on our service, it also 
 depends on our sanctity. In heaven we shall 
 still serve Him ; but only while on earth can 
 we drink the cup that our Master drank of, or 
 be baptized with the baptism wherewith He 
 was baptized. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF 
 DEATH. 
 
 YEA, THOUGH I WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OP 
 DEATH, I WILL FEAR NO EVIL : FOR THOU ART WITH ME * THY 
 ROD AND THY STAFF THEY COMFORT ME." 
 
 ^''Connditre la niort sans la craindre, c'est le plus 
 haul ddgr^ de perfection oil P esprit huinain soit 
 capable de parvenir : c'est le plus haut point de 
 felicity oit il puisse arriver dans cette valine de 
 ittiskre." — Saurin. 
 
 O ascertain precisely what ,,., ^ . 
 
 ^ -^ What ts not 
 
 we are to understand by meant by the 
 
 the " Presence of Christ," Pj-^^^^^ce of 
 
 Christ. 
 we must separate it from a truth, 
 
 with which it may easily be confounded, and 
 distinguish it from the doctrine, in which it is 
 virtually contained. 
 
 It is not, for instance, a mere physical near- 
 ness, identical with the truth of the Divine 
 Omnipresence, which, expressed more ac- 
 curately, is rather the presence of all things 
 before God, than God present to all things. 
 
 (124) 
 
THE SHADOW OF DBA TH. 
 
 125 
 
 For that truth may be as much a thought of 
 terror as of consolation, and equally affects 
 inanimate with animate things, irrational 
 with rational, bad men with good men, hell 
 with heaven. And though God can not 
 dwell in our hearts without blessing us with 
 His presence, though to have Him in us must 
 be to have Him with us, and so all that we 
 actually need for our provision and safety is 
 infallibly insured for those who trust in Him ; 
 the sun behind the clouds can never be the 
 same quickening and fertilizing power on 
 the chilled and wet earth, as when shining 
 out in its strength. Therefore we ask for the 
 light of God's countenance to give us peace ; 
 remembering that even Jesus, when His 
 Father hid Himself, found it heavier than He 
 could bear, for to be forsaken was harder than 
 to die. 
 
 The Divine Presence symbolized under the 
 rod and staff of the Good Shepherd means 
 the sense of Christ's sympathy, and the assur- 
 ance of Christ's aid. 
 
 Sympathy, let us observe, is 
 more than love, bemg love per- of sympathy. 
 fected by experience. It is im- 
 
126 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 possible to sympathize with what we do not 
 fully understand, and some things can be un- 
 derstood only by the actual personal endur- 
 ance of them. We must ourselves have been 
 ill, quite to sympathize with the sick ; the rich 
 may be kind to the poor, but to know what it 
 is to want daily bread, our own shelf must have 
 been empty. When we seek comfort, do not we 
 naturally ^o to those whose actual wounds 
 have shed the same kind of blood as ours? 
 Our little children love us, and when death 
 has robbed us of the best treasure of our 
 home, it comforts us that we still have them 
 to love ; we feel as we take them on our knee, 
 we are not bankrupts yet. But a great gulf 
 separates us from them ; they are sorry for us, 
 they try to understand our sadness, they look 
 into our face, and kiss us more tenderly than 
 ever ; they mean to be good, if only to make 
 us happy. Yet they can not understand what 
 we have lost, and we do not attempt to ex- 
 plain it ; neither do we complain that their tears 
 are too soon dried, or that in a few days they 
 are as merry as ever. The loud laughter ring- 
 ing down the nursery stairs, the wooden horse 
 running swiftly over the floor, somehow, after 
 
THE bHADO W OF DEA TH. 
 
 127 
 
 the first jar, do not really disturb us. We are 
 not so unjust as to think them unfeeling be- 
 cause they are not like ourselves : still, the 
 end of it is, we mourn alone. 
 
 Now Christ's sympathy is the 
 r 1 1 r 1 • r i 1 The sympathy 
 
 fellow leehng oi one who, lov- of Christ 
 
 fng us to begin with, and so dis- 
 posed to pity us, understands what we suffer, 
 for He has suffered it Himself, nay, suffers it 
 all with us, for His life and our life are one. 
 / am the Vine, ye are the branches [Johnxv.5]. 
 When the vine is pruned, and the sap runs 
 out, a living pain shudders through the entire 
 tree. But zvho shall separate us from the love 
 of CJirist ? [Rom. viii. 35]. Nothing, indeed, outside 
 of us can do it. Satan has no power over us 
 but what we are pleased to give him. Why 
 should Christ rob Himself of His purchased 
 possession? How can He change, or tire, or 
 forget us, who is the same yesterday, and to^ 
 day, and forever ? [Heb.xiii, 8]. If we lose this 
 blessed sympathy, it is because we ourselves 
 throw it away. No hand can cut us off from 
 Christ but our own. 
 
 Yet He is God as well as man, and the com- 
 fort of His presence consists mainly in this, 
 
128 ^HE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 that He is able as well as willing to save. 
 How often have we to confess, sadly, if not 
 bitterly, the helplessness of mere sympathy. 
 It is useless to inquire, when the end is just 
 the same, which is the more mortifying, will 
 without power, or power without will. But 
 our Master Christ has both. St. Paul had 
 learned not only his Lord's tenderness, but 
 also His strength. Let us learn with the 
 apostle that the presence of Christ means the 
 sympathy of a kind friend, and the help of a 
 strong one ; the right arm and right hand of 
 one who, rejoicing with us when we rejoice, 
 and weeping with us when we weep, can cover 
 our head in the day of battle. When pain is 
 sharp, when illness is tedious, when hopes are 
 disappointed, when temptation is strong, then 
 let our question be. Is anything too hard for 
 the Lord? [Gen. xviii. h]. Then let our consolation 
 be, In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the 
 Godhead bodily ccoi. ii. 9]. 
 
 For though He is not now on 
 
 ./ciXrri- earth to tell us, face to face, of 
 
 mimicated His love, He comes to us, He 
 
 %Trft^^^' speaks with us, through His 
 
 Spirit. The love of God is shed 
 
THE SHALfO Pi" OF DEA TH. 129 
 
 abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which 
 is give }i unto us [Rom. v. 5]. It is the Spirit's work 
 to glorify Jesus. He shall receive of mine , and 
 show it unto you [joim xvi. 14]. It is our privilege 
 to receive the Spirit, and we are bidden to be 
 filled [Eph.v. 18] with Him; and who shall say, 
 what light and joy, what liberty and holiness, 
 what power and usefulness might be ours, if 
 we would but believe. Yet this too often is 
 just what we will not do. Christ's sympathy 
 seems much less real, and much farther off 
 than man's ; and Christ's power, which is pos- 
 sible enough when we read of it in an in- 
 spired book, seems impossible when we try to 
 apply it to our present difficulties ; and our 
 hearts are so full of earthly cares and earthly 
 possessions, that once more it is true, there is 
 no room for Hiin in the inn [Lukeii.?]. Oh, our 
 inconsistency and insincerity ! Oh, the delib- 
 erateness with which we deceive ourselves. 
 Oh, the resoluteness with which we set our- 
 selves to the utterly impossible task of fol- 
 lowing Christ, without taking up the cross ! 
 If we could but make up our mind to decide 
 on one or the other, and to be honest about 
 it ; either to choose Christ and to be alto- 
 9 
 
I30 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 getlier Christians, or to choose Mammon, and 
 to be altogether for this world, there would 
 be gain each way, and no one would be dis- 
 appointed or deceived. But now Christ loses, 
 the Church loses, the world loses ; and, as to 
 ourselves, even if at last we are saved, as 
 through the fire, what a loss of peace now, 
 and of glory to come ! 
 
 Christ's presence is always blessed, for the 
 still moments and for the noisy moments, 
 when we are at work and when we are at rest, 
 when we mourn and when we sing. Is there 
 ever any moment, when we can afford to lose 
 Him, or when He can be an intrusive guest? 
 
 special times ^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^ ^1"^^^ ^^^^" ^^'^ 
 whe?t we 7teed s>^^Q\.2}Xy need Him, and when, 
 His presence, therefore, He specially offers 
 Himself How much we read in the Bible 
 about fear, and how continually we are 
 warned against it ! For though fear, like 
 anger, is an original element of our nature, 
 and the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom 
 rpsuim cxi. 10], there is much fear that dishonors 
 God and debases and enfeebles men 
 
 The greatest of the saints have had their 
 moments of fear. Abram feared, when he 
 
THE SHADO W OF DEA TH. 
 
 131 
 
 went down into Egypt ; Moses, when God 
 sent him to Pharaoh ; EHjah, when he fled 
 from Jezebel. One of the grandest passages 
 in the Old Testament is the Divine expostu- 
 lation with Israel : /, even /, am He that com- 
 fort eth you : who art thou, that thou shotildest 
 be afraid of a man that shall die, a?id of the 
 Son of man which shall be made as grass ; and 
 forget test the Lord thy Maker? [isa. ii. 12,13]. One 
 of the most blessed promises in the Old Tes- 
 tament is in the book of the same prophet : 
 Fear not : for I have redeemed thee, I have 
 called thee by thy najne ; thou art niirte. When 
 thou passest through the zvaters, I will be zuith 
 thee ; and through the rivers, they shall not 
 overflow thee : when thou walkest through the 
 fire, thou shall not be burjied ; neithe? shall the 
 flame kindle upon thee cisa. xiiii. i, 2]. 
 
 ERHAPS the most com- 
 mon, and human, and re- L'ear of death 
 
 reasonable, 
 sonable of all kinds of fear is the 
 
 fear of death. Yet even here, as the psalmist 
 tells us, the Divine presence is sufficient : Yea^ 
 though I walk through the valley of the shadow 
 of death, I will fear no evil : for Thou art with 
 
J 32 Tf^E PRESENCE OF CHRIST 
 
 me ; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me 
 
 iPsalm xxiii. 4]- 
 
 The expression, " shadow of death," occurs 
 eleven times in Scripture, viz., five times in 
 Job, four times in the Psalms, once in Jere- 
 miah, once in Amos ; and we are yet more 
 familiar with the image through its introduc- 
 tion into the " Pilgrim's Progress," where 
 Christian, after his victory over Apollyon, 
 and long before he reaches the Celestial City, 
 passes through the valley with terrible con- 
 flict, and is joined by Faithful soon after he 
 comes out. 
 
 I have called the fear of death 
 Why reason. reasonable, and it is surely fair 
 to say so, if love of life is a di- 
 vinely ordered law for us, and if but for that 
 fear men would rush much oftener than they 
 do into its mysterious darkness with all their 
 sins on their head. The great bulk of men, 
 indeed, whom youth and vigor seem to sep- 
 arate from it by an almost infinite interval, 
 seldom think of it, will not look at it ; and 
 what we steadily ignore can hardly cause us 
 acute alarm. Besides, it is hard really to face 
 it until it faces us. Human nature will not 
 
THE SNA DO IV OF DEA TFT. 1 3 3 
 
 needlessly, can not easily, by mere force ot 
 fancy, or in the gratuitous indulgence of a 
 morbid whim, lay itself down with Charles V. 
 within the narrow walls of a tomb, to drama- 
 tize its dissolution. Only, when sentence of 
 death is pronounced, and we feel that there 
 is no postponing it, do we rouse ourselves in 
 earnest to think what it must reallv be. And 
 then, let us confess, it is a dark valley that 
 opens out before us, and many ghastly 
 shadows are flitting through it. It is a real 
 enemy, and it must be conquered. For most 
 men it is something more than the mere flut- 
 tering of the wing of the impatient spirit, it is 
 somewhat harder than the unconscious drop- 
 ping of the garment of our mortality. We 
 must not overrate it, but we dare not despise 
 it ; and if in a few rare natures there be the 
 sublime spectacle of triumph in death ; if 
 some, like Hopeful, through the exceeding 
 vividness of their faith, and the ardor of their 
 hope, and the intenseness of their love, long 
 for it, and welcome it, it will be safer for most 
 of us to wait quietly till it comes, knowing 
 who bids it come, neither shrinking from it 
 
 / 
 
134 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 in unmanly terror, nor rushing to meet it in 
 hysterical joy. 
 
 " When the shore is won at last, 
 Who will count the billows past ? " * 
 
 Thou art with me : this is all we care for ; it is the 
 presence of Christ that robs death of its sting. 
 Here, however, let it be ob- 
 ^hadoJlf death, served that the valley of the 
 sometimes dis- shadow of death is sometimes 
 ^jP^^Jf^om death ^^-^^ ^ distinct thing from death 
 
 itself. We may pass through it, 
 as Hezekiah passed through it, and contend 
 with all its terrors, and yet live for years 
 afterward ; though, indeed, the bitterness of 
 death will be forever passed, and the shock 
 of his conflict broken. It is also possible to 
 die without passing through it at all ; as when 
 men die suddenly, or with so short a transi- 
 tion from time into eternity as never really to 
 have faced what was at hand. 
 
 The valley of the shadow of 
 Explanation of ^^^^^ -^ ^ chapter by itself in 
 
 human experience. Religious 
 * Keble. 
 
THE SHADO W OF DEA TH. 
 
 135 
 
 men pass through it, as well as irreligious, 
 and often it has nothing whatever to do with 
 that all-absorbing sense of sin and unworthi- 
 ness, which has an object of its own in the 
 Divine purposes, and which no one need won- 
 der to feel, when approaching the Throne of 
 God. It is, perhaps, commoner in middle 
 age than in childhood, which can not appre- 
 ciate the full blessedness of life, or than in old 
 age, weary with the toil of it ; and is most 
 frequently seen in men who combine a strong 
 vitality with peculiar powers of enjoyment. 
 This, moreover, is certain, that those who have 
 not gone through it, can not know it by hear- 
 say ; those who have, will never forget, if 
 they live fifty years afterward, the sadness 
 and solitariness of its gloom. 
 
 But a brief illustration may 
 
 , 1 , 1 . • Illustration of 
 
 help to explam my meanmg. ^^ -^ 
 
 Travelers, who have crossed 
 from Switzerland into France by the old post 
 road over the Jura, will remember their fare- 
 well gaze on the Lake of Geneva, and the 
 green plain, and the white crest of Mont 
 Blanc losing itself in the clouds ; will recall 
 also the grand prospect of Burgundy with its 
 
136 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 fertile meadows and golden vineyards sud- 
 denly opening out at their feet. But both 
 these views are not to be enjoyed at the same 
 moment. Between the turn of the road, that 
 shuts out the panorama of Switzerland, and 
 the opening in the pass, which gives us our 
 first glimpse of France, there is a tedious and 
 gloomy interval among sterile rocks, and 
 frowning precipices, hills that shut out the 
 sun, and barrenness that forbids verdure. 
 
 Now, this may be offered as a most imper- 
 fect representation of that sad and dark period 
 in the history of some men, when life seems 
 all behind us, with its precious joys and its 
 noble duties, and when the glory, that is com- 
 ing, has not yet burst upon our view. To tell 
 us, at such a moment, that our depression is 
 physical, may explain it, but does not remove 
 it. To share it with those whom we love best 
 in all the world, would be selfishly casting on 
 them a burden they could not carry ; yet, 
 keeping it to ourselves, only throws it further 
 in. In such a condition of mind and body, 
 everything we see, or hear, or do, or read, 
 aggravates the symptoms of the disease. 
 Are the journals full of some great event to 
 
THE SHADO VV OF DEA TH. i 3^^ 
 
 come off presently? The first thought is, " I 
 shall never live to see it." Children playing 
 men going to and fro to their tasks, the chang- 
 ing aspects of nature, the sight of a passing 
 friend at whose side in former days we de- 
 lighted to labor, the stir of the tide of life all 
 round us. the infant on our knee, the wife or 
 husband at our side, the possessions of our 
 home, the companions of our youth : all these 
 are forever in some subtle and keen way stir- 
 ring up the associations of the grave, and tell- 
 ing us with a whisper, which we never fail to 
 catch as from one standing at our shoulder, 
 ** Thou must leave all these, and come away 
 with me." 
 
 No doubt this varies according to individ- 
 ual temperament ; much of it, too, is morbid, 
 irrational, and almost wrong. Yet God has 
 His own purpose to fulfill out of it ; and we 
 may be sure that a discipline so mysterious, 
 and perhaps in some of its features so com- 
 paratively rare, has blessed lessons to teach 
 those who survive it ; lessons, not so much 
 how to die, but how to live, with a more ten- 
 der sympathy, a more living zeal, a more pro- 
 found humility, and a more ardent gratitude 
 
138 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 Such is the valley of the shadow of death 
 Now let us see what death is itself. 
 
 EATH means loss, solitude, 
 
 1 - -1 4-- /^ i. • T What death 
 
 and retribution. Certainly itself is 
 
 it is loss, loss of all we know, and 
 possess, and enjoy, and love. It is loss of the 
 blue sky, and the sweet flowers, and the roll- 
 ing sea, and the purple hills ; it is loss of 
 home with its living treasures, of life with its 
 stirring activities, of science with its secrets 
 and art with its skill ; it is loss of the joy of 
 travel, of the rapture of music, of the society 
 of books ; it is loss of the fireside of winter, 
 of the sweet freshness of the summer morn- 
 ing, of the ripeness of autumn, of the green- 
 ness of spring. And then (unless the hurry- 
 ing away be more premature still) just when 
 the enjoyment of these things is deepening, 
 and our possessions are accumulating, as the 
 dreams of youth become the solid occupa- 
 tions of manhood, as the heat and burden of 
 the day give place in their turn to the repose 
 and memories of age ; when the tide of life is 
 at its full, when the pinnacle is reached, the 
 prize won, the fortune made, the children 
 
THE SHADOW OF DBA TH. 
 
 139 
 
 reared ; when our mistakes are forgotten and 
 our errors condoned, when neighbors esteem 
 us, and strangers respect us ; when we have 
 learned (after innumerable failures) in some 
 slight degree how to conquer self, how to use 
 money, how to do good without doing harm, 
 how to choose the right way without first 
 going the wrong ; then, at the very moment 
 when we are most capable of making others 
 happy by our kindness, and good by our ex- 
 ample, and wise by our experience, the enemy 
 who has been waiting for us ever since we 
 were born, and who was content to wait, 
 knowing that we could not escape him, comes 
 to fetch us away ; and we must go. Behold^ 
 Thou hast made my days as an hand-breadth ; 
 and m,ine age is as 7iothing before Thee : verily 
 every man at his best state is altogether vanity 
 
 [Psalm xxxix. 5]. 
 
 Death is also solitude. *' Je 
 
 , , , " /~\r T 1 Death is soli' 
 
 mourrai seul. ''^ Ui course ail ^^^^^^^ 
 
 sorrow is solitary. For though 
 
 the outward facts and features of our sorrow 
 
 are in some measure identical with those of 
 
 * Pascal. 
 
140 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 other men, and produce effects which are 
 common to the race, one man's moral nature 
 is so different from another man's, and the 
 shafts which pierce us are so variously aimed, 
 so differently weighted, that each of us, be- 
 sides what he endures in common with his 
 fellows, has his own pain, which no one else 
 can suffer quite in the same way. 
 
 But in death there is a solitude, which 
 exists in no other kind of sorrow, for we only 
 die once ; and not one of the friends who 
 stand by watching us, can know from per- 
 sonal experience what dying means. Possi- 
 bly they have been very near it. They may 
 have stood on the edge of the dark river, and 
 its cold waves may have washed over their 
 feet ; they may have taken their last farewells, 
 and set their house in order, and looked right 
 into the eternal world. But they did not die, 
 and to expect death is not the same thing 
 as to endure it. For the first time, perhaps, 
 in all our lives, we are starting on a journey 
 which we must travel alone ; and those who 
 most wish to be with us, and whom we, too, 
 most wish for, must stay behind, while we go 
 on. They can bless us, they can tell us of 
 
THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 
 
 141 
 
 their sweet and passionate and undying love ; 
 they can pray, and the last sound we hear is 
 the name of Him, who is the Resurrection 
 and the Life ; but the end of it is, that we 
 go, and they stay, and never is human love 
 felt to be more utterly impotent than when it 
 watches an ebbing life. 
 
 And death means retribution. 
 
 7- /- 7 r 77 z • r And retribu- 
 
 For God shall bring every work ^y^^_ 
 
 into judgment, whether it be good, 
 or whether it be evil [Eccies. xii. h]. It is quite true 
 that conscience does not always wake up be- 
 fore death, and Lord Bacon has observed that 
 there is not a single quality in our moral 
 nature, which has not at some time or other 
 mastered the fear to die. But it is also true, 
 that in a great multitude of instances con- 
 science at such times does make cowards of 
 us ; and when it is too late to do what we ought 
 to have done, and to repent of what we ought 
 not to have done, prayer is but the spasm of a 
 panic — we fear hell, not God. And yet, not 
 only to the unforgiven and impenitent soul, 
 drifting helplessly on toward its final doom, 
 is the thought of death a thing of sadness ; 
 it is often for a time both a humiliation and a 
 
142 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRn T. 
 
 bitterness to the soul, which long before had 
 cast its sins on Christ, and found rest and peace 
 through His blood. Life come to an end, and 
 so little done in it ! Sin still so strong, the 
 world still so powerful, self still so dominant, 
 prayer still so hard ! We recall past oppor- 
 tunities, and feel how sinfully we have neglect- 
 ed them; this soul and that soul have come in 
 our way, and we did not even try to do them 
 good. How much money we have wasted on 
 selfish vanity ; how little we have denied our- 
 selves for the sake of Christ or His kingdom ! 
 Talking, listening, planning, beginning ! Of 
 that indeed there has been an abundance ; but 
 what will there be to show Christ, when He 
 returns, of actual finished work, that will 
 stand the fire? 
 
 ET even in death this is q-j,^ x^...^^. 
 
 1 he presence 
 
 the victory that overcometh of Christ in 
 the world, even our faith, [Johuv.4]. d^'^th. 
 Thou art with tne, said David, and we have 
 yet the more sure word of the New Testa- 
 ment. Forasmuch then as the children are par^ 
 takers of fl.es Ji and blood, He also Himself like- 
 wise took part of the same ; that through death 
 
THE SHADO W OF DBA TH. 
 
 143 
 
 He might destroy him that had the power of 
 death, that is, the devil ; and deliver them who 
 through fear of death zuere all their lifetime 
 subject to bondage [Heb. ii. 14, 15]. 
 
 For if death is loss, Christ can make up for 
 it ten thousandfold. Is our earthly life end- 
 ed ? He gives us a long life, even for ever 
 and ever. Does death sever us from those 
 we love on earth •* Christ unites us to those 
 we love in heaven. He takes us from sin to 
 sinlessness, from perfect weakness to perfect 
 strength, from restlessness to rest, from faith 
 to sight, from men to angels, from cold prayers 
 to the song that ceases not day or night, 
 from a world lying in wickedness to the just 
 made perfect in sight of the throne. If Christ 
 can not, or will not do all this for us, then He 
 is nothing to us, and why do we believe on 
 Him ? If He can, and will, to die is gain 
 
 [Phil. i. 21]. 
 
 As to solitude, who knows so much of soli- 
 tude in life as the Man of sorrows ? Who has 
 tasted so bitterly of solitude in death as He 
 who said of Himself by the prophet, I have 
 trodden the wine-press alone? cisa. ixui.s]. His life 
 A^as eminently one long solitude in its condi- 
 
1^4 ^^^ PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 tion and nature, in its aims and purposes, in 
 its hopes and fears. Not only by His ene- 
 mies, but by His disciples, not only by His 
 disciples, but by His brethren, was He hin- 
 dered, and disappointed, and misunderstood. 
 Prayer was the only real interruption of His 
 loneliness ; and when He died, there was but 
 one apostle to stand by His cross. 
 
 The solitude of death is filled with Jesus ! 
 He knows it all, for He has tasted it all. He 
 who has died that He might save us, is with 
 us, because He has saved us, to sustain us in 
 the dizziness of our fainting consciousness, 
 and to lull us with a brother's tenderness into 
 our sleep in Him. 
 
 . c- • For once more we are sinners, 
 
 As Saviour, ' 
 
 and to complete the assurance 
 of our faith. He who is our dearest, kindest, 
 strongest friend in the world is also our own 
 Saviour. He has saved us from the guilt of sin, 
 and from the power of sin, and from the pun- 
 ishment of sin. He was wounded for our trans- 
 gressiojis, He was bruised for our iniquities: 
 the chastisement of our peace was upofi Him ; 
 and with His stripes tve are healed [isa. wi. 51. 
 And so if Satan comes (as he often does come) 
 
THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 
 
 H5 
 
 at our last hour to accuse us bitterly in the 
 court of our own conscience, to cast doubts 
 on our pardon, to wound us with bitter recol- 
 lections of past shortcomings, and to lash us 
 into the sin of despair, at such moments let 
 the tempted soul instantly cast itself on Jesus 
 to hide in Him, to cling to Him ; let it bid 
 the tempter go to Him, our surety and repre- 
 sentative, who long ago made Himself re- 
 sponsible for us, when we made our great 
 exchange, of laying on Him our debts, and 
 taking from Him His righteousness. The one 
 name we utter shall be Jesus, the one answer 
 that we make shall be Jesus, the one plea we 
 urge shall be Jesus. We know that we have 
 no suffering of our own to offer as an atone- 
 ment ; but this we also know — that Christ has 
 died. We know only too well that we have 
 no righteousness of our own to prefer, as our 
 claim for heaven ; but if any one asks how we 
 expect to get there, we take the question to 
 Him who has called Himself the Waj/, the 
 Truth, and the Life [John xiv. 6], and the answer 
 comes back. Ye believe in God, believe also in 
 me [John xiv. 1]. Nay, if for a moment we are in 
 darkness, and have no light • if we know not 
 lo 
 
146 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 how to deny the suggestion that our iniquitieg 
 have separated between us and our God ; and 
 that the barrier between us is of our own 
 making — well, we are saved, not through joy, 
 but through faith. If we must perish, we will 
 perish clasping the cross, and clinging to the 
 Saviour, quite sure that He will not suffer the 
 very least of His elect through any pains of 
 death to fall from Him. 
 
 What has been said elsewhere about the 
 passing through the valley of death is appli- 
 cable also here ; for as a matter of experience, 
 there is no rule to measure this fear of death, 
 and no principle to determine it ; often there 
 is none of it, where it might be most looked 
 for, sometimes it is very terrible where we 
 should have thought it could not come. In 
 some cases the cause is entirely physical, 
 either seated in the constitution, or closely 
 connected with disease ; and not unfrequently 
 those who in the distance have most dreaded 
 it, and on the brightness of whose life it has 
 ever projected a cold and dark shadow, when 
 the time has come, much to their own sur- 
 prise, have found it but falling asleep. 
 
 It does, however as we have already hinted, 
 
THE SHADO W OF DEA TH. 
 
 H7 
 
 sometimes happen, that even with tried Chris- 
 tians a thick mist envelopes the soul in its 
 declining hours, and though the setting sun, 
 before it dips under the horizon, bursts out 
 into gold and flame, it has been sore strug- 
 gling in thick darkness, and for long it seemed 
 
 in vain to pray. Now there are „„ . ^ 
 
 Why the fear 
 at least two purposes which we of death is per- 
 
 may reverently suppose God mitted in the 
 , . , 1. 1 t , • 1 case of believers, 
 
 desires to accomplish by a trial 
 
 of this kind. One is the conversion or edifi- 
 cation of those who stand by ; the other is 
 the final perfecting of those who suffer. It is 
 a story often told of an eminent servant of 
 God, who had during his lifetime frequently 
 prayed that his happy death might be blessed 
 to an ungodly son, that when his time came, 
 fear and sadness overwhelmed him ; not so 
 much the thought of Christ's salvation pos- 
 sessed him, as the fact of his own sinfulness ; 
 the joy of heaven faded before his sense of 
 unworthiness of admission there. Yet God, 
 who was wiser than he, answered his prayer 
 in a way that he knew not. Except a corn of 
 wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth 
 ^lone : but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit 
 
148 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 ijohnxii. 24]. The careless son, who might not 
 have been affected by his father's happiness, 
 was deeply moved by his father's fear. " If a 
 man like him, after a useful and religious life, 
 fears to die, what is death likely to be to me ? 
 Surely except I repent I shall perish." 
 
 Now, for such an end, who would not wel- 
 come such a sorrow ? 
 
 There is yet another reason why it may 
 seem good to God in the last hours of our life 
 to hide His face for a little moment. We 
 may have been leaning too much on outward 
 helps, or on past experience, or on systems of 
 doctrine, and we have not come quite close to 
 God himself to cleave with all our strength 
 to Him. Therefore He must teach us, and 
 through us others, that orthodox opinions 
 can not give us peace ; that sermons, and sac- 
 raments, and ordinances can not give us 
 peace ; that pious parents, faithful pastors, 
 exemplary friends, can not give us peace ; that 
 belonging to this sect, or pronouncing this 
 shibboleth, or confessing this creed, or observ- 
 ing this ritual, can not give us peace ; that the 
 esteem and commendation of our neighbors 
 can not give us peace ; in a word, that all 
 
THE SHADO W OF DEA TH. 
 
 149 
 
 covering of our own must be torn into shreds 
 that all unsound hopes must be utterly disap- 
 pointed, that every shelter but the shelter of 
 the Saviour's cross must be swept away before 
 the winds of heaven, that every other name 
 as a way of salvation must be as sounding 
 brass, or tinkling cymbal, save Jesus, Son OF 
 God. Sooner or later, all this must come to 
 us ; it is better if it comes before, but better 
 then than never ; and dark as the declining 
 hour may be, severe as the actual crisis may 
 be, it comes to an end at last. The fight is 
 won, the cross is clasped, the light comes, the 
 joy comes, for the Saviour comes ; and He 
 who waited only to be more gracious, who 
 hid Himself only to shine out more glorious 
 •at last, who denied, that in the end He might 
 be more bountiful, who seemed to frown only 
 because He purposed to smile, comes and 
 whispers, Son^ be of good cheer ; thy sins are 
 forgiven //^^^ [Matt. ix. 2] ; and the rough water is 
 passed, the ship glides into harbor, and the 
 rest, some on boards, and some on broken pieces 
 of the ship. A nd so it came to pass^ that they 
 escaped all safe to land [Acts xxvii. 44]. 
 
[^O ^^^ PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 OES the thought cross any 
 one who reads this paper, r^ut thou die i 
 
 ** How shall I myself die " ? In- 
 deed, it is something worth thinking about. 
 Of course we all wish to die happily. There 
 are many Balaams, if there are few Pauls. 
 Yet it is something worse than folly to forget 
 that death hangs on life ; to make death the 
 crisis and life the trifle ; whereas death merely 
 pronounces the verdict, life settles it : it is 
 solemn to die, only because it is awful to live. 
 First, then, what we all of us need to learn 
 more is how to walk with God hour by hour 
 as a man with his friend ; not so much to be 
 continually going in and out of His presence 
 as to be always living in it, without effort 
 thinking of Him, without insincerity consult- 
 ing Him, without hesitation obeying Him, 
 without embarrassment speaking of Him. In- 
 stead of endeavoring, in the happy simplicity 
 of an almost unconscious religion, to set 
 Christ before us in all we do, to have Him 
 with us wherever we go, to make joy safe by 
 asking Him to share it, to rob care of its 
 carefulness by casting it as it comes all on 
 
THE SHADO W OF DEA TH. j 5 j 
 
 Him, we are too apt to separate prayer from 
 life, heaven from earth, holiness from happi- 
 ness, as if human affections lowered Divine 
 aspirations, as if we could be more like God 
 by being less like men. Thus when we go to 
 meet Him we have formally to prepare our- 
 selves for solemn audience. It is almost as if 
 we had to unclothe ourselves of the earthly 
 and to clothe ourselves with the heavenly. 
 Reverence ! how can we be reverent enough ; 
 but surely He prefers the simple trustfulness 
 of kinsfolk to the distant homage of strangers ; 
 and if we made it more our endeavor to bring 
 every thought, every word, every habit, every 
 employment, every recreation, every common- 
 est act of life into captivity to Christ, and so 
 into harmony and fellowship with Him, it 
 would not violently interrupt us, as it often 
 does, to lay down the task of the moment, to 
 hold intercourse with Him. 
 
 HERE are three chief con- Conditions of 
 ditions of abiding in ChHsfs pres^ 
 Christ's presence — obedience, ^^^'"^'• 
 meditation, and love. We must obey Him. 
 Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall see 
 
152 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 God \>^M.y.%-\. How is it possible, I will not 
 say to desire, but even to endure the thought 
 of Christ's company, if we are willfully wan- 
 dering from Him, or resisting Him, loving 
 what He hates, or doing what He forbids? 
 It is a question how many there are of His 
 own true people, who, if told, as one of old 
 was told, TJie master is come, and callcth for 
 thee [John xi. 28], would rise to go to Him with a 
 glow of happy surprise. 
 
 Then there must be more of secret, and con- 
 tinuous, and real thinking of Him. If prayer 
 is the worship of the heart, meditation is 
 that of the mind. Pascal has said, " Thought 
 makes the greatness of men." Why is there 
 so little meditation among Christians? such a 
 lack of that quietness, and stillness, and 
 thoughtfulness of soul and spirit, in which 
 chiefly the dews of the Holy Spirit fall on us, 
 and the life of Christ grows ? There is much 
 activity of hands and feet, much listening, far 
 too much talking. Yet where the heart is, 
 there the treasure is ; and it is in human nat- 
 ure to think of what we love. 
 
 For once more we shall seek Christ, we shall 
 be with Him, we shall think of Him just in 
 
THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 
 
 153 
 
 proportion as we love Him. We never find 
 it irksome or dull to be with those we love ; 
 we always find something to speak of to them. 
 Oh, to love Christ better! One true throb of 
 love to Him is worth more in His sight than 
 the thrones of a hundred kings. If we really- 
 loved Christ, and trusted Him, we should 
 seek His presence to make life happy as well 
 as death easy ; and then, when the summons 
 does come, when the most unutterable, the 
 most momentous of all convictions seizes us — 
 that at length our own life is over, it will be 
 but like going out of one room into another ; 
 we shall indeed be more than conquerors 
 through Him that loved us, if His love has 
 been the reality of our life. 
 
 // is appointed unto men once to die, and 
 after that the judgment in^^.ix. 21}. Mr. Alex- 
 ander Smith, in one of his essays in " Dream- 
 thorp," has strikingly observed that death 
 gives a kind of dignity to the very meanest 
 and shabbiest of human beings. When we 
 are dead, our enemies cease to envy us, our 
 friends love us better than ever, some admire, 
 all pity. But why will not we go a litte fur- 
 the- and, not content with imagining our 
 
154 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 friends and neighbors in the sublime repose 
 of death, also think of them in the vast spirit- 
 land, and standing under the great White 
 Throne? It is in the power of every one of 
 us to make some one fitter to go before the 
 judgment-seat of Christ. Yet is there any- 
 thing so evident or so inexplicable as the 
 paralysis that affects so great a multitude of 
 professing Christians in their intercourse with 
 those who plainly know not God ? Is it that 
 we do not believe that souls can be lost, or is 
 it that we do not care? Either there is a 
 hell, or there is not. If there is not, then 
 how do we know that there is a heaven ? If 
 there is, and if Jesus died to deliver us from 
 it, and if there is one iiuman oemg on this 
 earth whom we can influence, praying where 
 we can not speak, where we can speak pray- 
 ing too, let us do what we may with all 
 possible kindness, and wisdom, and humility, 
 and earnestness, to bid men flee from the 
 wrath to come, and to win our Saviour souls. 
 So, whether for ourselves, or for those we 
 love, we will fear no evil, if only Christ be 
 ours. Death has yet to come ; and ' we 
 do not know in what shape it will come ; it 
 
THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 
 
 155 
 
 may be quite near, or it may still be fai 
 away. 
 
 " Thou inevitable day, 
 
 When a voice to me shall say 
 Thou must rise and come away; 
 Art thou distant, art thou near, 
 Wilt thou seem more dark or clear, 
 Day with more of hope or fear? " * 
 
 Anyhow, we will not dwell too much on it ; 
 instead of looking down into the open grave 
 we will look up for the glorious appearing, 
 we know of a happy country across the dark 
 river; we have heard of the shining ones 
 who will lead us up the hill. It is no new 
 temptation, but one that is common to man. 
 He who has helped others through it will 
 help us through it. Those gone before us, 
 who have got it over, found Him near them. 
 He who was faithful to them will be faithful 
 to us, and to those whom we leave behind. 
 
 Do we, however, sometimes ask, in the se- 
 cret of our own thoughts, which of us will go 
 first ? Banish them as we will, do not sad 
 fears sometimes force themselves on us, as we 
 
 * Trench. 
 
156 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 think of the whitening hair, or the thinned 
 hands, or the pale cheeks, or the tottering 
 footsteps of those we love ? Well, they may 
 go first, but the interval between them and 
 us in the balance of eternity is but as the 
 single tick of a pendulum. Weeping may en- 
 dure for a night, but joy comet h in the morning 
 [Psalm XXX. 5]. Thc bcd of dcath is the presence- 
 chamber of Jesus. We who stand by can not 
 see with our mortal eyes what is vouchsafed 
 to those who are putting on immortality; but 
 if we can not know, we may at least conject- 
 ure, and the radiant joy that sometimes lights 
 up the wan countenance of a dying Christian 
 tells of an Invisible Presence that is shining 
 there. It is a solemn moment as the soul 
 passes away ; yet for us only is it a time of 
 sadness. They, if they could speak, would 
 say, Weep not for me, but sing with me, O 
 death, where is thy sting? O grave ^ where is 
 thy victory f [i cor. xv. 55]. 
 
 And He who goes with them stays with 
 us. For He is in Paradise with those that 
 sleep in Him. He is on earth with those that 
 wait for Him. He can think of the living as 
 well as of the dying; of those who have still 
 
THE SHADOW OF DBA TH. 
 
 157 
 
 to grapple with the last struggle, as well as of 
 those who sing the conqueror's song. 
 
 So we pass out of the sight of our dead, 
 wondering at our own calmness. Thankful- 
 ness for the glorious change passed on them 
 absorbs all selfish thought of the grief come 
 on us. We too feel, that if we have lost 
 much, we have gained much ; earth is beneath 
 us ; we have stood on the very threshold of 
 heaven, and the love of Christ is more real 
 than ever. On the morrow, when we go out 
 of our chamber to do our work, to meet our 
 friends, to feel our loss ; He who was with us 
 in the quiet night, meets us in the glare of the 
 morning ; we remember the promise, Thy 
 brother shall rise again [John xi. 23]. 
 
V. 
 
 THE TABLE OF GOD 
 
 'thou preparest a table before me in the presence of MIKB 
 
 enemies; thou ANOIKTEST iMY HEAD WITH OIL; MY CUP RUN- 
 NETH OVER." 
 
 '* // n^y a que deux voies pour se rendre heureux 
 et content: Vune de remplir tous nos desirs^ 
 r autre de les borner a ce que nous pouvom 
 posseder. La p^reviihre est impossible en cette 
 vie: ainsi c'esi une folie d'entreprendre de se 
 cont enter en ce inonde par cette voie^ — Pascal. 
 
 HERE are two views of 
 
 i-r J 1 c ^^ Two views of 
 
 life, and each oi them ^-^r^ •' 
 
 is sufficiently consistent 
 
 \vith the statements of Scripture, with human 
 
 experience, and with personal faith in God. 
 
 Nay, we may go even further, and say about 
 
 them, that most of us have, from time to 
 
 time, alternately inclined to each of them, 
 
 and that character as well as circumstances 
 
 may have a great deal to do in forming our 
 
 choice. 
 
 (158) 
 
THE TABLE OF GOD. 
 
 159 
 
 One view is, that life, as it is now, is sad, 
 vain, and burdensome ; at the best but a 
 mitigated misfortune, at the worst a pressing 
 evil, from Vv^hich wice men, if they could, 
 might well take wings to flee away. It is a 
 conflict with sin, in which sin ever has some 
 advantage over us ; it is a struggle with ca- 
 lamity, from which we never escape without 
 lasting scars ; it is a pursuit after duty, a race 
 in which we are never winners ; and make of 
 it what we will, it is an exile from God and 
 from the face of His Christ. No doubt, life 
 is God's ordinance ; therefore, we submit to 
 it. It is His talent, and we must make the 
 best use of it we can. Our Saviour has lived 
 it, and we have His sympathy; it is our 
 training-school for heaven, and we earnestly 
 wish to fit ourselves for the glory that shall 
 be revealed. Yet, what with the sins that 
 corrupt us, and the mistakes that vex us, and 
 the cares that distract us, and the duties that 
 overpower us, and the necessities that engross 
 us, and the infirmities that humble us, and 
 the disappointments that sour us, and the 
 changes that unsettle us, and the afflictions 
 that crush us, and the losses that sadden us, 
 
l6o THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 and the temptations that are the very atmos- 
 phere we breathe, all we can say about it is, the 
 sooner it is over the better ; Lord Jesus, come 
 quickly, and take unto the rest that remaineth 
 for Thy people, the souls that long for Thee. 
 
 But there is also another view, and as I 
 venture to think, far more free, more elevat- 
 ing, more noble, giving God more glory, and 
 man more comfort, tracing through the most 
 checkered life the unfailing thread of an 
 eternal purpose, explaining in the most af- 
 flicted life the meaning of the Providence of 
 God, and of the sorrows of men. This view 
 of it makes life a gift for which to be thank- 
 ful, a blessing in which to rejoice, a trust to 
 be most jealously guarded, a most precious 
 occasion for learning, and serving, and imitat- 
 ing our Lord, not one hour of which may we 
 safely throw away in listlessness and careless- 
 ness ; nay, on the use of which, far more than 
 some of us think of, shall depend the nature 
 of our service, and the measure of our glory 
 in heaven. Of course sin has brought a veil 
 over its brightness, and death through sin has 
 made every blessing insecure, and every pros- 
 pect uncertain : here is not our rest ; to de- 
 
THE TABLE OF GOD. i6l 
 
 part and to be with Christ, when the time 
 comes for it, must be far better ; and if we 
 try to make it our rest, we are soon painfully 
 reminded that we are but strangers and pil- 
 grims. Nevertheless, the really Christian view 
 of life, the view which justifies Creation, and 
 explains Redemption, which at once both 
 magnifies God's goodness and our responsi- 
 bility, is that which discovers in all His deal- 
 ings a most merciful plan for our real welfare, 
 which recognizes in all our troubles the mer- 
 ciful visitation of a Divine pity, which, while 
 it removes from us the blessings that are be- 
 coming snares to us, invariably offers us the 
 joy that it is safe for us to possess. It is also 
 the view that enables us to walk in the spirit 
 of liberty, that not only permits, but encour- 
 ages us to use with moderateness and faith 
 and thankfulness, the blessings which God 
 gives us so richly to enjoy, in cultivating our 
 natural tastes, and enjoying our social relax- 
 ations, and gladly recognizing, whether in 
 art, or science, or books, or music, the ap- 
 propriate cultivation of divinely-given facul- 
 ties, and the kind alleviation of the toils and 
 worries of life. In the spirit of the apostle, 
 II 
 
1 62 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 who assures us, that every creature of God is 
 good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received 
 with thanksgiving [iTim.iv.4]; when God places 
 us in a green pasture, we will not instantly 
 begin to think that there is a snake in the 
 grass. There is no more need to fear joy 
 than sorrow ; nay, joy has a wonderful power 
 for widening, and softening, and elevating 
 the heart. While very watchful over our- 
 selves, we still need not distrust either God or 
 His gifts ; and our language at all times shall 
 be. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not 
 all His benefits ; who r£deerneth thy life from 
 destructio7t ; who crowneth thee with loving- 
 kindness and tender mercies ; who satis fieth 
 thy mouth with good things ; so that thy youth 
 is reviewed like the eagle's [Psaimciii. 1-5]. 
 
 If it were necessary to establish what has 
 already been said by precise statements of 
 Scripture, surely we may find proof of it in 
 the verse given at the head of this chapter. 
 TJiou preparest a table before 7ne in the pres- 
 ence of mine enemies ; thou anointest 7ny head 
 with oil ; my cup runneth over. Here we see 
 the certainty of the Divine supplies, and the 
 abundance and richness of them under what* 
 
THE TABLE OF GGD. 163 
 
 ever circumstances ; md if it be objected that 
 David's was but an individual and an ex- 
 ceptional case, it may fairly be answered — on 
 the contrary, it all tells in our favor. David's 
 history is one of risings and fallings, dangers 
 and deliverances, chastisements and bless- 
 ings, noble acts and terrible inconsistencies, 
 severely and notoriously punished. If, at 
 the close of such a life, David could write in 
 this language of God's dealings with him, it 
 is not too much to say that any one can. 
 The difference of one life from another in 
 outward prosperity is probably much less 
 than is generally supposed. But the differ- 
 ence in the spirit with which God's dealings 
 with us are met and borne is very great in- 
 deed ; and as that is a matter over which we 
 all have control, so is it also the secret which 
 determines for all, whether they work to- 
 gether for good or for evil. 
 
 The immediate allusion in these words is 
 evidently to the touching and bountiful hos- 
 pitality with which the aged Barzillai wel- 
 comed David when an exile from his home 
 and his country [2Sam.xvii.27-23]. But they have 
 their historical illustrations elsewhere also 
 
164 ^^^ PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 In the wilderness, for instance, God furnished a 
 table for His people, and man did eat angels' 
 food, and He sent them meat to the full. 
 Again, when Elijah fled from the face of Jeze- 
 bel, as he slept under a juniper tree, an angel 
 touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. 
 A?id he looked, and, behold, there was a cake 
 taken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his 
 /^^^^ [1 Kin^s XIX. 5, 6]. In the New Testament we 
 have a greater instance still, when He who 
 was both David's son and David's Lord, after 
 His conflict with Satan, was ministered to 
 by angels. And by way of both indicating 
 and expounding the distinct ideas contained 
 severally in the two paragraphs of the verse, 
 first let us meditate on the former one, which 
 declares the abundance of the Divine sup- 
 plies under circumstances of conflict and dan- 
 ger ; and then inquire how the latter one, 
 which is a most significant declaration of the 
 blessedness, in all things, of a tr le believer's 
 life, has its actual verification in the individual 
 experience of sincere Christians, and is at the 
 same time consistent with the occasional and 
 apparent contradictions to it in the provi- 
 dential government of God. 
 
THE TABLE OF GOD. 
 
 i6s 
 
 la.ra! 
 
 HE psalmist speaks here, as so often 
 elsewhere, of his personal enemies. 
 The history of his life is a history of one who, 
 whether in the vindication of private wrongs, 
 or in incessant conflict with his country's 
 enemies, had been, in God's own words, a 
 man of war and had shed blood [i chron. xxviii. 3]. 
 Some of these enemies he had no doubt made 
 for himself; but most of them must have 
 been so through the nature of the task al- 
 lotted to him which was to consolidate into 
 one united and compact kingdom the dismem- 
 bered sovereignty he had inherited from Saul. 
 
 The difficulty practically be- 
 gins, when we apply the words to On personal ert- 
 our own circumstances. Many 
 persons are unconscious of enemies of any 
 kind. If we have such, and it is through 
 our own fault, why do not we hasten to be 
 reconciled, and to turn them into friends ? 
 Or, if the only way in which we can really 
 use the words is to interpret them spiritually, 
 what sense is there in saying that in the pres- 
 ence of spiritual temptations God spreads us 
 a feast ? 
 
1 66 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST, 
 
 To take these points one by 
 
 SLl ''" °"^ ■■ fi^-^t- ^^''h respect to per- 
 sonal enemies — enemies not 
 only in the sense of those who, as in David's 
 case, would, if they could, deliberately do us 
 harm, even perhaps to the extent of killing 
 us ; but also in the sense of those who, either 
 from a supposed slight or injury, or from 
 envy and jealousy of us, or from that utter 
 opposition and contrariety of nature which in 
 some persons creates a kind of repulsion and 
 dislike, almost amounting to enmity, let us 
 try to see clearly what the statement really 
 means, and how we are justified in using it as 
 a promise and consolation. Of course, if we 
 have made any one our enemy by injustice, 
 or neglect, or misconduct of any kind, we 
 have no right to expect our Lord to be on 
 our side in the matter, for that would be ex- 
 pecting Him to be on the side of what is 
 wrong. Such enemies we should hasten to 
 move out of their enmity, by the frank ac- 
 knowledgment of our error (supposing it to 
 be worth speaking about), and by the entire 
 reparation, so far as possible, of the injury 
 done them. When we have been altogether 
 
THE TABLE OF GOD. 167 
 
 wrong, it must be the right course for us hon- 
 estly to say so, and, disagreeable though it 
 may be, to ask to be forgiven. But when, 
 as so often happens, there may be wrong on 
 both sides, in such a case a manly and candid 
 explanation may possibly convince them that 
 our error, if real and painful, has been neither 
 intentional nor malicious. When they hear 
 our side, and see the question from our point 
 of view, they may gladly consent to come 
 half-way to meet us, and to shake cordial 
 hands over a buried quarrel. 
 
 All of us, moreover, in some degree, and 
 for various reasons, know of individuals, whom 
 we much prefer not to meet, to whom, when 
 we meet them, we never know what to say, 
 they so twist or dispute our words ; about 
 whom, quite consistently with a sincere re- 
 spect for their many excellent qualities, we on 
 the whole feel that the less w^e see of them the 
 better, till we are safe in the home where it will 
 be impossible either to be misunderstood or 
 misrepresented, and where perfect love will cast 
 out fear. Such a state of feeling need not in- 
 volve a sinful uncharitableness ; nay, it is al- 
 most inevitable for any one who is in the habit 
 
1 68 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. ' 
 
 of Speaking the plain truth, without pausing 
 to ask if it is Hkely to be palatable ; who 
 goes straight on in what conscience tells him 
 to be the path of duty, never flattering, never 
 bribing ; rebuking sin when he sees it, check- 
 ing misrepresentation when he hears it, con- 
 founding slander wherever and whenever he 
 comes across it, and just doing and saying the 
 thing that is right, as God shows it him, 
 without respect of persons, and indifferent 
 to the opinion of the world. And let me 
 add, the enemies we make in this way (I am 
 supposing the entire absence of bitterness 
 and acrimony) we need not too much trouble 
 ourselves about, nor need we be always 
 thinking how we can be reconciled to them. 
 The enmity is theirs, not ours ; the injury is 
 ours, not theirs. If they pass us in the street 
 without speaking, let them pass. If they do 
 not want us, perhaps others do ; and the 
 world is large enough for us both. A manly 
 nature ought to have dignity enough of its 
 own to blunt the sharpness of pins and 
 needles. Still, if sometimes we are v.exed by 
 it (and some natures are far more sensitive, 
 much less robust than others), let us remem- 
 
THE TABLE OF GOD. 169 
 
 ber for our comfort, that if conscience is orr^ 
 our side, /Christ is alao..; ii©^, the friend that 
 sticketh closer than a brother, never despises 
 the least sorrow of the very least of His 
 people ; He wishes us to cast our burdens 
 upon Him, and to come to Him when we are 
 weary and heavy-laden ; no man ever suf 
 fered as He has suffered from the strife of 
 tongues. I 
 
 UT let us also consider 
 
 ,1 • r • Spiritual ene' 
 
 these enemies from a spir- ^^^^^^ 
 
 itual point of view, and see 
 under the figure of a table spread in the wil- 
 derness, that plentiful provision of grace and 
 power which Christ supplies to His tempted 
 people in their hour of need. The more we 
 look out into the world, and the more that 
 we ponder our own inward history, the more 
 convinced we must be of a personal spiritual 
 foe ever striving to make us deny the Lord 
 that bought ics [2 Pcter ii. i], the more fully must 
 we appreciate, from an increasing experience 
 about them, the terrible force of St. Paul's 
 words, that we wrestle not against flesh and 
 blood, but against principalities and powers, 
 
170 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 agamst the rulers of darkness in this world,^ 
 against spiritual wickedness in high places 
 
 [Eph. vi. 12]. 
 
 Temptation is the condition of human life, 
 and to try to flee from it in one shape, is 
 often only to provoke it in another. Every 
 period of life, every class in society, every 
 occupation and calling, duties as well as pleas- 
 ures, work as well as rest, contain within 
 them the elements of an incessant temptation, 
 which it is at once our folly to ignore, our dis- 
 cipline to encounter, and our glory to over- 
 come. It is no sin to be tempted, for Jesus, 
 the sinless one, was tempted in all things like 
 as we are, yet without sin. It is no weakness 
 to feel the temptation grievous, for Jesus 
 again suffered being tempted [Heb.ii. isj The mis- 
 take is to run into temptation of our own ac- 
 cord. The sin is in listening to the voice of 
 the charmer until our hearts go out after the 
 forbidden sweetness, and it is all up with us. 
 The weakness is, in our great terror at the 
 noise of the waves and the blackness of the 
 sky, to gaze upon the danger till we are 
 rapidly sinking into it, and till it is almost too 
 late to call out to Him who rides upon the 
 
THE TABLE OF GOD. 
 
 171 
 
 storm, Lord, save US : ■ze/^/^r/^//[Matt.viii sjj. Yet 
 if our enemies are here, our Saviour is here 
 as well. The name of the Lord is a strong 
 tower : the righteous runneth into it, a^id is safe 
 [Prov.xviii 101. If the assaults of the enemy all but 
 exhaust us, and, like Christian with Apollyon, 
 our sword flies out of our hand when we want 
 it most, and the battle is all but decided 
 against us ; at the last moment the way to 
 escape shall appear, that we may be able to 
 bear it : for when the enemy shall come in like 
 a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a 
 standard against him [isu. lix. 19]. The table in 
 the wilderness is spread by the Lord's own 
 hand. He who provided a morning meal by 
 the lake of Galilee for His seven disciples, 
 wearied by their night's toil ; He who fed the 
 five thousand on their way to the Passover, be- 
 cause He pitied them as sheep having no shep- 
 herd, will be to His own tempted and wearied 
 servants what the good Samaritan was to the 
 wounded traveler, healing their wounds, sup- 
 plying their needs, and comforting their hearts 
 
 And perhaps there is one of 
 XT T\- • ^• 1-1- "Lhe Lord i 
 
 His Divme ordmances which is SiMer, 
 
 not quite so much looked at as it 
 
1/2 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 ought to be in the light of food and strength 
 for harassed and wounded souls. I mean the 
 Lord's Supper. That solemn rite which Christ 
 himself instituted on the eve of His passion, 
 in anticipation of His own agony and death, 
 and in which He surely conveys to all who 
 faithfully approach Him the spiritual food of 
 His own body and blood, may most reason- 
 ably be regarded as a Divine provision for the 
 refreshment of regenerate souls, torn and de- 
 pressed by spiritual conflict. To all Christians 
 in turn, come now and then sudden tornado- 
 gusts of temptation, when Satan, hoping to 
 find them off their guard, brings to bear upon 
 them all in a moment the terrible artillery of 
 his malice, and when nothing but a very agony 
 of prayer will bring down from heaven the 
 power and the faith to make him flee away. 
 After such conflicts the Lord's Supper is a 
 most timely and blessed channel of healing, 
 and consolation, and joy. It reminds us of 
 the blood of Christ to purge the conscience, 
 sore with those touches of the spirit of evil 
 which seem ever to leave some pollution be- 
 hind. It tells us of the death of Christ, as 
 that which has expiated sin, and been made 
 
THE TABLE OF GOD. 
 
 173 
 
 the chastisement of our peace [isa.iiii.5]. It points 
 us to the resurrection of Christ, whereby we, 
 being dead unto sin, live unto righteousness, 
 through our sharing the risen life of our risen 
 Lord. It brings before us the very person 
 and presence of the ascended and glorified 
 Christ to be our meat and drink, our joy and 
 gladness, our peace and repose, our present 
 possession and our hope of glory, wherein He 
 on His side says to us, I am the living bread 
 which came down from Jieavcn : if any man eat 
 of this bread, he shall live forever uo\m vi. 51] ; 
 wherein we on our side say to Him, Set me as 
 a seal upon Thine heart, as a seal upon Thi^ie 
 arm [Cum. viii. ej. 
 
 UT the sufficiency of God's supply is not 
 so hard to believe as the abundance or 
 the richness of it. Most can admit that they 
 have enough. It is a different thing, however, 
 and much harder, to acknowledge God's boun- 
 tifulness as the rule and not the exception of 
 His providential government, and to say, with 
 the psalmist, in the full meaning of the words, 
 Thou anointest my head with oil ; my cup run- 
 neth over. For in Scripture phraseology, 
 
174 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRtST. 
 
 anointing with oil means honor, or at least 
 respect, and the cup filled till it runs ovei 
 means a plentiful abundance; yet, so far as 
 we can see, hundreds and thousands of good 
 Christians live and die in a happy obscurity 
 and, in a hard life of scrambling poverty, are 
 only too thankful if each day, according to 
 their Master's promise, brings with it its daily 
 bread. Let us, then, proceed to consider why 
 these words are true, and how, and when, and 
 for whom. 
 
 They are true, then, because 
 God to be re- Qod is Love, and one revelation 
 Giver, ^^ \-\i-dX love is in His character as 
 
 a Giver. God is a free, and a full, 
 and a cheerful Giver. In temporal things and 
 in spiritual, out of full hands and an inex- 
 haustible heart. He pours out on the Church 
 of His Son showers of blessing. The earth is 
 the Lord '.?, and the fullness thereof [Fsaim xxiv. i]. 
 And if evidence of this bountifulness is asked 
 for, evidence patent to the senses, and suffi- 
 cient to compel consent from the most grudg- 
 ing and skeptical hearts, ought we not to see, 
 even in the glories of the inanimate creation, 
 as well as in the prodigality of kindness where- 
 
 \ 
 
THE TABLE OF GOD. 
 
 175 
 
 with the Maker of all things has bestowed on 
 mere animal life provision, not only for exist- 
 ence, but even for enjoyment ; that God, in 
 making this fair world, made it for brightness 
 and joy; and that the whole creation groaneth 
 and travaileth in pain [Rom. vm. 22] through the in- 
 terruption of the Divine purpose by man's sin ? 
 Let us never suppose that God cares only for 
 the soul, and not also for the body ; that the 
 temporal needs of His redeemed people are a 
 matter of indifference to Him ; that the main- 
 tenance of a laboring man can be beneath His 
 notice who sent His own Son to work as a 
 carpenter, or that a little child's happiness is 
 uncared for by that eternal Father who has 
 looked on His Christ as a helpless infant slum- 
 bering in a human mother's arms. God cares 
 for everything that can affect His people ; and 
 if not a sparrow falls to the ground without 
 Him, then not the meanest slave that cries 
 up to Him from the ends of the earth, not 
 the most ragged child that honors His name, 
 in the lowest London alley, is unseen by Him 
 who redeemed all the world, because He 
 loved it all, and who has His own hidden 
 ^vays of blessedly compensating the sorrows 
 
ly^ THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 which He does not interpose to prevent, but 
 which He is ever wilHng to sanctify and to 
 heal. 
 
 But if God's character as a Giver is mani- 
 fested continually in matters of the body, 
 equally so is it in things of the soul. When 
 He gave His Son He gave all He had to give, 
 for He gave Himself. Jesus on the manger, 
 on the cross, in the grave, is the sufficient 
 proof of the infinite love of God. There is 
 grace enough, and to spare, for all who need 
 it, since the intercession of Christ means the 
 gift of the Spirit ; and He who spared Christ 
 not only to be our victim, but our example, 
 not only to be a righteousness for us, but a 
 life within us, He, let us be sure, desires, far 
 more than we do, to conform us to the image 
 of His Son, and will with Him also freely give 
 us all tilings [Roni. viii. 32]. 
 
 F we ask how all this is true, 
 
 ,1 • i.1 X. r-u • i.' How this ii 
 
 the answer is, that Christ s ^^^^^ 
 
 fullness is for His people, and that 
 through and according to the life and meas- 
 ure of their union and fellowship with Him, 
 do they receive of that fullness, and grace for 
 
THE TABLE OF GOD. 
 
 177 
 
 ^r^^^ [John i. 16]. All tilings are yours j whether 
 
 Paul, or Apcllos, or life, or deaths or things 
 
 present, or things to come ; all are yours ; and 
 
 ye are Christ's ; and Christ is God's [i cor. lii. 21-23]. 
 
 Life is the Christian's in a far higher and fuller 
 
 sense than it is the worldly man's, since he 
 
 enjoys it on a far higher level of blessedness, 
 
 and uses it in a much nobler cause. Even 
 
 death is his, since, though for a moment it 
 
 triumphs over him, in the end he triumphs 
 
 over it, and, while he seems to yield to it, he 
 
 treads it under his feet. For it is the portal 
 
 to life ; and while our friends are weeping at 
 
 our bedside, a chorus of angels welcomes us 
 
 into Paradise. What the world dreads, the 
 
 believer at last welcomes, for it severs us from 
 
 sin, and takes us to the vision of God. 
 
 If (to proceed to the fuller exposition of 
 
 this somewhat startling paradox) we ask when 
 
 it is true — only in the life to ^ , , 
 
 . And when. 
 
 come, or also m the present life, 
 
 we answer. Now, to-day, down here on earth 
 and if the answer a little staggers us, and we 
 inquire how it is possible to reconcile such a 
 statement with the histories in Holy Script- 
 are, with the personal experience of sincere 
 
 12 
 
1^8 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 Christians, with the needful chastisement that 
 comes to all in turn, the answer is, It may not, 
 it can not always be felt to be true, but that 
 does not therefore make it cease to be true ; 
 in moments of exhaustion and depression, the 
 strongest faith may doubt, the stoutest cour- 
 age murmur. When the thorn in the flesh 
 grieved him, even a St. Paul besought the 
 Lord thrice that it might be taken away ; and 
 the psalmist, whose very words we are this 
 moment considering, has left on record how, 
 in his ^' distress," he cried unto the Lord, and 
 He heard him. Yet at the end of life, the 
 review of it ever calls up from a Christian's 
 lips, poor and afflicted though he may have 
 been, a living and loud expression of wonder- 
 ing thankfulness. The same St. Paul could 
 afterward write from his prison cell at Rome: 
 / have all, and abound [Piin. iv. is]. Humility and 
 faith are twin sisters. Even in life itself, 
 amidst its labors and trials, and losses and 
 sorrows, the believing soul continually rejoices 
 to rest in the Lord's goodness, takes what is 
 given it, and is still. 
 
 Actual facts may indeed prevent our saying 
 we have always everything we wish for at the 
 
THE TABLE OF GOD. 
 
 179 
 
 moment we ask for it. Our nature has many 
 needs and desires ; and so long as some of 
 them are unsatisfied, as some of them in the 
 nature of things always must be, there will so- 
 far be a tendency in us to dissatisfaction and 
 unrest. When, for instance, God deprives us 
 of some valued friend, or some precious gift, 
 He means us to feel the loss ; and maybe all 
 through life we shall continue to feel it, just 
 as an old wound, long after it has healed over, 
 is wont to remind us that it is there. There- 
 fore when we speak of Christ being all-suffi- 
 cient, and indeed in any use of the words we 
 point to an ideal standard very high above us, 
 we do not mean that He will be or can be to 
 us in all respects precisely what the friend 
 was whose loss we mourn. What we do 
 mean is partly that He will strengthen us to 
 endure our loss bravely: partly that He will 
 fill more completely with His own presence 
 that part of us which He claims as His 
 own. 
 
 Once more, while it is true for , , ^ 
 
 ... - . . . , And for whom» 
 
 all, whether they know it and 
 
 care for it or not, yet the truth of it comes 
 
 home as an actual and blessed fact only to 
 
l8o THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 true believers ; and to them, just according 
 to the simplicity of their faith, and the 
 amount of their capacity, and the measure 
 of their obedience, and the devoutness of 
 their love. We are none of us quite always 
 the same, and then there are all possible 
 varieties of faith and patience among the real 
 children of God ; and it is not every one who 
 can sincerely say, just at the moment of his 
 loss, The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken 
 away ; blessed be the name of the Lord [Job i. 21]. 
 Yet as the opened eyes of Elisha's servant 
 saw the mountain round about Dothan full 
 of horses and chariots of fire round about 
 Elisha, so the eye of a mighty faith can dis- 
 cern the Divine Presence and rest in it, while 
 others are conscious only of a thick darkness, 
 and God seems lost out of His world. For it 
 is faith, and nothing else, that can give the 
 victory over the sharpness of pain, and the 
 desolateness of bereavement, and the humili- 
 ation of sickness, and the necessities of pov- 
 erty; and while one man cries out, All these 
 things are against me [Gen. xiii. 36], another is able 
 even to take pleasure in infirmities, i7i re^ 
 proaclies, in necessities, in persecutions, in dis' 
 
THE TABLE OF GOD. igl 
 
 tresses for Christ's sake : for when I am weak 
 then am I strong:; [2 cor. xii. loj. 
 
 OME Christians, again, According to the 
 have far more power of capacity of receive 
 receiving than others ; and, ^^^^* 
 while into some hearts the Divine grace can 
 only distill itself slowly, and drop by drop, 
 others so thirst for the living water, that God 
 can rain it down on them in abundant 
 showers. Open thy mouth zvide, and I zvill 
 fill it [Psalm ixxxi. 10], is an inspired sentence, 
 which not only indicates the bountifulness of 
 God, but also the responsibility of man. If 
 through our earthliness, or our indevoutness, 
 or our indulgence of sin, or our littleness and 
 shallowness of soul, we can not hold much of 
 the Divine fullness, and so, in times of long 
 watching and severe trial, our lamps seem go- 
 ing out, let us not find fault with the apparent 
 niggardliness of the Divine giver ; rather let 
 us ask to be taught how to offer the prayer, 
 Deal bountifully with Thy servant, O Lord, 
 that I may live, and keep Thy word [p^am cxix. itj. 
 
 A habit of ready, exact, and Safeguard 
 conscientious obedience is an agahist mur' 
 excellent preservative against a ^^^^^^^S' 
 
1 82 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 spirit of murmuring. An obedient soul can 
 be trusted with much more prosperity than a 
 disobedient or self-indulgent one ; and though 
 this remark must Instantly be qualified by 
 the warning not to presume to interpret our 
 neighbor's outward circumstances by his in- 
 ner life before God ; though, in some cases, 
 as has been elsewhere noticed,"^ the very 
 highest honor that a Holy God can put upon 
 us is to choose us out from the crowd to learn 
 the fellowship of Christ's sufferings [Phu. in. lo] ; 
 it is also true to say, that few of us are aware 
 how we mar our own happiness, and, so to 
 speak, put it out of God's power to prosper 
 us, as otherwise He might be willing to do, 
 through our abusing this world instead of 
 using it, through our turning the gifts of His 
 kindness into mere occasions of falling. God 
 loves us far too well and too wisely to give us 
 what we should only turn to our hurt. When 
 we have eaten and are full, our heart is too 
 often lifted up, and we forget the Lord our 
 God, who led us in the wilderness ; and we 
 say in our heart. My power, and the might of 
 my hand hath gotten me this wealth [oeut. viii. iri 
 
 * See p. 55. 
 
THE TABLE OF GOD. 183 
 
 Once more, it is according to our love that 
 we turn God's dealings with us into health 
 and blessing ; for all things work together for 
 good to them that love Him [Rom. viii. 28]. God's 
 gifts are good, but He Himself is better. A 
 man's life consisteth riot in the abundance of the 
 things which he posse ssetJi [Luke xii. 15]. It is not 
 so much in the enjoyment of outward pros- 
 perity, nor in the possession of earthly bless- 
 ings, nor in the praise of men, whether of the 
 Church or the world, that our true wealth, or 
 strength, or honor can chiefly lie. Rather 
 these are in a heart purified from sin, lifted 
 above the world, calm and humble in fellow- 
 ship with God in Christ, recognizing love in 
 all the Divine dealings, and welcoming His 
 will as ever wise, kind, and true. 
 
 Professor Caird, in one of his Distinction be- 
 most suggestive theological frag- tween peace mid 
 ments, has pointed out the im- ^^'^PP"^^^^- 
 portant distinction between peace and happi- 
 ness ; and has explained how the worldly 
 man may have happiness without peace, and 
 the Christian man peace without happiness. 
 Now, this is a truth which has a very close 
 bearing on the subject before us. Happiness 
 
1 84 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 is often the result of mere characteristic buoy« 
 ancy, of vigorous bodily health, of material 
 prosperity, in company either with the enthu- 
 siasm of youth or the ardent activities of man- 
 hood ; and, while the utter absence of any 
 deeper and more elevated feelings tends to 
 make this happiness brighter and heartier, it 
 is, nevertheless, the happiness of only the sur- 
 face of our nature, perfectly compatible with 
 irreligion, or viciousness, or selfishness, or 
 vanity — subject at any moment to be ter- 
 ribly and hopelessly interrupted, and with 
 nothing to fall back upon but the misery of 
 its recollections. 
 
 Whereas peace is independent of the changes 
 and chances of life, and can no more be dis- 
 turbed, by what men call misfortune, in its 
 lofty dominion over the inmost spirit, than 
 the depths of the ocean can be stirred by the 
 winter gales that beat its surface into foam. 
 Not only is it the gift of God, but it is His 
 very presence. Sickness can not destroy it ; 
 poverty can not rob it of its incorruptible 
 riches ; bereavement only makes it more real. 
 and the approach of death more deep. The 
 world, which can not give it, can not take it 
 
THE TABLE OF GOD, jg^ 
 
 a-way ; its root is in the immovable assurance 
 of the Divine acceptance and favor through 
 the blood and righteousness of the Saviour. 
 It gradually spreads its roots over the entire 
 spiritual being, through the sanctifying power 
 of the eternal Spirit ; and while the only thing 
 that can ruffle it is the silent reproach of a 
 wounded conscience, the only thing in all the 
 world to destroy it is sin. 
 
 Thus, though we may not always be able 
 to say we are happy — there are times when 
 it would not only be unnatural, but even 
 wrong to be happy, such as when a child is 
 dying, or when God has taken from us our 
 work, and made us sit still with folded hands 
 and closed lips — we may still have peace. 
 The Lord hath overcome death ; and if we 
 may not serve Him now, His purpose for us 
 is that we may serve Him better presently. 
 Christ still leaves His peace with us ; still 
 says to us, as to His disciples of old, Let not 
 your heart be troubled ; neither let it be afraid 
 
 CJnbn XIT. 87]. 
 
1 86 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 |ND this brings us to con- 
 
 . 1 . ,1 1^1 On disa'b'boinU 
 
 sider, in the last place, jj^^j^ts. 
 
 the subject of disappointments 
 — an experience of life with which all are 
 familiar, and which at first sight it is not quite 
 so easy to explain, either as a merciful feature 
 in the Divine government, or as consistent 
 with the truth of the Divine sufficiency. 
 
 What varieties of disappoint- 
 ments meet us all in turn as we f/^^j^^^ 
 pass on through life ! To be- 
 gin with temporal things, the deepest, the 
 saddest, the most abiding and inconsolable of 
 all is disappointment in the affections, where 
 the heart, surprised, it may be, into the dis 
 covery of its own aspirations, is, through the 
 force of events, foiled, and thrown back upon 
 itself, with, for years afterward, the painful 
 feeling of the plan of its life crossed, and its 
 bright opportunity gone, may be, forever. 
 Roughly to scoff at this as mere sentimen- 
 talism is to ignore some of the most pro- 
 found feelings of human nature under the 
 cover of a sarcasm. Where men as well as 
 women are equally liable to, and are equally 
 
THE TABLE OF GOD. 187 
 
 wounded by, the same disappointment, if it 
 is an infirmity at all, it is at least one that 
 human beings are born to. And to suppose 
 that the Christian religion, the great glory 
 and blessedness of which is, that it meets, 
 and recognizes, and covers every part of our 
 nature only to educate, and elevate, and 
 sanctify it, has no cure to offer for troubles 
 of this kind ; or that this one sorrow, which 
 is capable of taking a far more complete 
 hold of us than almost any other, is beneath 
 the notice of Him who is the head of human- 
 ity, and the brother born for adversity — is to 
 bring a heavier charge against the complete- 
 ness of our divine faith, than even its worst 
 enemies could bring — is to suppose that when 
 Christ invited the weary and heavy-laden to 
 come to Him for rest. He all along meant to 
 refuse to heal the broken in heart, and to bind 
 up all their wounds. 
 
 Think again of a professional man who has 
 diligently prepared himself for the exercise 
 of his calling, and who is conscious (it need 
 not be unduly) of powers and gifts which, 
 in obedience to a principle within him, he 
 reasonably wishes to put out to use. But 
 
1 88 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 the opening does not come, the advancement 
 is not offered, the place he feels to have 
 earned does not turn up, and he lingers on in 
 obscurity and poverty, with a keen sense of 
 disappointment gnawing at his heart, and all 
 spirit and energy dying out within him. 
 
 Or a child is anxiously longed for, under 
 circumstances, it may be, that would make it 
 a great joy and blessing : as when an heir is 
 needed to carry on a name, and inherit a prop- 
 erty ; or where the father is dead, and the 
 widowed survivor looks for the promised 
 treasure as the one thing life will be worth liv- 
 ing for, a holy trust to be cherished and ful- 
 filled for God. It comes, and oh how the 
 grateful heart blesses a kind God for His 
 goodness ! But after staying just long enough 
 to let its mother discover its exceeding pre- 
 ciousness, or make its father's heart proud 
 with joy, it returns to the God who gave it, 
 and the solitude that was filled for a mo- 
 ment is more solitary, more desolate than be- 
 fore. 
 
 So too in spiritual things, how often we 
 seem to pray for some grace or disposition, 
 of which, to our shame and sorrow, we 
 
THE TABLE OF GOD. 
 
 189 
 
 deeply feel to be in need ; yet the prayer 
 does not seem answered, while still the grace 
 is denied. 
 
 Or our labors for the spiritual welfare of 
 others meet with but poor success. We 
 preach, and no man regards us. We invite, 
 but no man follows us. We rebuke, but no 
 man heeds us. We teach and warn, and 
 plead, but the seed seems always to fall on 
 stony ground. The language of our heart is 
 with the prophet of old, / have labored in 
 vain [Isaiah xiix. 4]. The experience of our failure 
 is precisely that of the apostles on the sea of 
 Galilee, We have toiled all the night, and taken 
 nothing w.\\\^s.s\. Nay, perhaps, the one soul 
 that we have specially cared for, watched 
 over, and prayed about, is more resolute than 
 any other in resisting the offers of salvation, 
 is more indifferent than any other to the love 
 which passe th hiowledge [Eph. in. 19]. 
 
 Now the first thing I would observe about 
 these various disappointments is, Disa-b-boint- 
 that they occur to us all in turn ; me7its occur to 
 no temptation, in this respect, ^^^ ^^ ^^^^^ 
 can take us but such as is familiar to every 
 one. This human life brings equal risks, in 
 
igO THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 flicts equal cares. The Bible is full of disap- 
 pointments both in matters of this life and 
 of the life to come. 
 
 How hard it must have seemed to Jacob, 
 not only to be disappointed of Rachel, 
 but also to be defrauded of his fair wages 
 and advancement, is evident from his own 
 words : In the day the drought consumed nie^ 
 and the f?'ost by night; and my sleep de- 
 parted from mine eyes. Thus have I been 
 twenty years in thy house : I have served thee 
 fourteen years for thy tzvo daughters, and six 
 years for thy cattle, and thou hast changed my 
 zvages ten times. Except the God of my fathers, 
 the God of AbraJiam, and the fear of Isaac, 
 had been with me, surely thou hadst sent me 
 azvay now empty [Gen. xxxi. 40-42]. 
 
 Then it must have been severely mortify- 
 ing for David not to build the temple ; yet 
 he was only permitted to collect the mate- 
 rials. It really seems to be God's law never 
 to suffer any one man to do all a work. One 
 sowcth, and another reapeth [joimiv. 37]. This 
 man finishes what that man began. 
 
 Again, how in the first months of his im- 
 prisonment the eager spirit of St. Paul mu.st 
 
THE TABLE OF GOD. IqI 
 
 have been tempted to chafe and fret, inter- 
 rupted in his journey to Rome, baffled at the 
 very moment when the whole world seemed 
 opening for the Gospel, his enemies free to do 
 all the harm they could, and he, in the prime 
 of his life, and at the pinnacle of his success, 
 a ppsoner in bonds. 
 
 Nay, we may go even further, and not 
 shrinking from recognizing in the perfection 
 of our blessed Lord's human nature all our 
 own liabilities to sorrow, we may, without the 
 least irreverence, discover from more than 
 one incident in the Gospels, how the Saviour 
 was disappointed Himself. 
 
 When the rich ruler came to Him, full of 
 sincerity and zealousness, Jesus, beholding 
 him, loved him, and enjoined on him the 
 carrying of the daily cross as the one condi- 
 tion of discipleship ! As the young man 
 went away sorrowful [Luke xviii. 24], do not the 
 words of the Lord indicate a deep mournful- 
 ness over the soul that would not be saved ? 
 When, after the transfiguration. He was met by 
 the mortifying failure of the disciples to cast 
 out the evil spirit. His words of pained sur- 
 prise testify to the disappointment : O faith- 
 
192 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 less and perverse generation, how long shall 1 
 be with you, and suffer you? [Lukeix.4i]. Once 
 more, when, in His agony, His human soul 
 needed human sympathy, and He came to 
 the apostle, who but an hour before had 
 promised to die for Him, only to find him 
 sleeping, His troubled soul relieved itself in 
 the sad exclamation, Simon, sleepest thou ? 
 couldest not thou watch one hour ? [Mark xiv. 371. 
 
 ^S to the -lessons that our dis- 
 
 k^ . ^ , , The lessons they 
 
 HI appomtments are meant are to teach us. 
 
 to teach us, and the temper and 
 spirit in which we should endeavor to meet 
 them, it may be useful to offer a few grave 
 words. First, our disappointments ,^ 
 
 HtllHllltV , 
 
 are to teach us humility. There 
 are a great many persons in the world more 
 able, more skillful, more educated, more ex- 
 perienced than we are ; and if these men are 
 served first, and promoted first, so much 
 the better for society, if so much the worse 
 for us. It is but common sense in those who 
 have places to give away to find the best pos- 
 sible instruments for filling them. It is but 
 common fairness in us to acknowledge the 
 
THE TABLE OF GOD. 
 
 193 
 
 merit that is superior to our own. Many of 
 us, especially if we go by what our wives, and 
 sisters, and mothers say of us, are apt to 
 think far too well of ourselves, and the most 
 wholesome, because the most effectual, cure 
 to this self-conceit, is when we discover by 
 painful experience that we are not so much 
 wanted, nor so highly thought of as we 
 fancied we were ; and that if we are superior 
 to a few, we are inferior to many. The world 
 soon forgets those whom it ceases to use, and 
 the man who is laid on a shelf, and finds no 
 one coming to hurry him to get down from it, 
 or who is not promoted quite so rapidly as 
 he wishes to be, will do well to mingle with 
 his too hasty reproaches of the forgetfulness 
 of his friends a little wholesome self-examina- 
 tion on his own shortcomings. 
 
 Then our disappointments should 
 teach us patience. We are all of 
 us in far too great a hurry to snatch at what 
 we wish for, instead of waiting quietly, till it 
 comes to us in God's good time. Let the 
 fruit ripen before we gather it. Let us cheer- 
 fully leave our affairs in the Lord's hands. 
 In our ignorance of the future, let us beware 
 13 
 
194 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 of acting as if we could look right into it. 
 Let us remember the old proverb, that the 
 man who can wait, lives to win the world. 
 Tarry thou the Lord's leisure. Be strongs and 
 He shall comfort thine hearty and put thou thy 
 
 trust in the Lord [Psalm xxviil. le (Prayer-book version)]. 
 
 Disappointment, again, should 
 
 ment ^^^^ ^^ ^P ^^ selt-improvement, 
 
 should make us ask ourselves, 
 with the unsparing candor that it is so natural 
 to apply to our neighbor's qualifications, how 
 far we are actually fitted for the place or call- 
 ing to which we aspire. Every sensible man 
 will acknowledge that to be filling a post for 
 which he is incompetent, is a pain and a dis- 
 grace. Every conscientious man, simply de- 
 siring to serve God where and how he can 
 best serve Him, will pause before he snatches 
 from another man, well qualified to fill it, the 
 place in which he himself could display noth- 
 ing but his own inferiority. And every hum- 
 ble man, knowing what he can not do, as well 
 as what he can, will hasten to qualify himself 
 both to discharge efficiently the duties that 
 are likely to be offered him, and to earn fairly 
 the reward that he may expect to receive. 
 
THE TABLE' OF GOD. 
 
 195 
 
 There is yet one other lesson 
 to learn from our disappointments -^' -^^ ^' 
 — a lesson in which the young and the 
 prosperous are commonly so deficient — that 
 of kindly sympathy with others under a like 
 trial. The world is full of disappointed men 
 and women, whom a little kindness has a 
 wonderful power to soothe and rouse ; and it 
 is no slight compensation for our own morti- 
 fications if they have in some degree enabled 
 us to calm a vexed temper, to quiet a ruffled 
 heart, to rouse from a sullen, perhaps a grow- 
 ing, apathy the crushed energies that have no 
 more courage to work, and with cheerful 
 words of manly sense and Christian exhorta- 
 tion to stir and animate the depressed heart 
 that, seeing every one prospered in turn, ex- 
 cept itself, interprets the neglect of man as 
 the injustice of God. 
 
 ASTLY, let me add some- ^, . ,, 
 . thing on the spirit in spirit in which 
 
 which we should face our dis- ^^ ^'^^^ disap- 
 
 . , . pointments, 
 
 appomtments, and turn their 
 
 apparent evil into positive and lasting good. 
 
 And there are two kinds of helps : those which 
 
 
196 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 belong chiefly to our moral nature, and which 
 we are to recognize and improve to the ut- 
 most of our power as planted in us by the 
 wisdom of God ; those again, which belong 
 rather to our new and spiritual nature, the 
 aids and graces of the Divine Comforter, by 
 which we are conformed to Christ, and recon- 
 ciled to the Father's will. 
 
 First, then, let me say, that 
 
 Self-respect. , 1 j- -^ j 
 
 •^ ^ a. man s personal dignity and sense 
 
 of self-respect should be sufficient to pre- 
 vent him from running about the world to 
 proclaim his slights and injuries ; should in- 
 duce him to maintain a calm and prudent 
 reserve about the supposed neglect and in- 
 justice, which, if too much trumpeted about 
 and dwelt upon, will soon make shrewd 
 people suspect, that the merits, which have 
 been so universally ignored, may have had no 
 real existence at all. A certain amount of 
 self-consciousness, whether of ability, or ex- 
 perience, or usefulness, or general desert, is 
 neither inconsistent with proper modesty, nor 
 probably with the discriminating judgment 
 of the world at large. Any man who has 
 conducted himself in life with respectability 
 
THE TABLE OF GOD. 
 
 197 
 
 of character, and a fair amount of professional 
 success, is quite justified in the feeling, ':hat 
 if he wishes society to help him, he too can 
 help society. The world is just as much in 
 need of fit men to fill its posts, as fit men can 
 be of posts to fill. There is not so much 
 merit at large, that it need long go a begging 
 for an opportunity to employ itself. Wait a 
 little, and the world, at whose door you have 
 refused to knock, from a feeling of self-respect, 
 will presently come to knock at your door to 
 offer you the post it thinks you qualified for. 
 " The stone that is fit for the wall is never 
 left in the road." 
 
 Another feature of mind in which 
 we should encounter disappointment ^^^^^^^ 
 is an impartial justice toward the 
 claims or merits of those who have been 
 appointed to the posts we also wished 
 for, but which only one of us could obtain. 
 No fair or good man will feel more than a 
 momentary sense of dissppointment at be- 
 ing beaten by his superior. It is injustice 
 that stings ; and if our sense of equity is 
 satisfied, the vexation itself is soon forgotten. 
 Now life is so vast, and the claims of business 
 
Iq8 ^^^ PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 SO incessant, and the world so large, and com- 
 petition so enormous, that every appointment 
 at all worth having instantly brings up to the 
 surface a considerable number of sufficiently 
 qualified candidates : and while each knows 
 most about his own merits, He who rules the 
 world knows everything about them all. 
 When we succeed, we think it a mean feeling 
 in our neighbor to grudge us our success; 
 when we fail, let us say '' God speed " to him, 
 and mean it. If mere favoritism has balked 
 us, there is nothing to be done but to bear it 
 manfully ; if all is fair and right, it is a conso- 
 lation to be beaten in the race by the man 
 who has run best in it, or, at least, equally 
 well with ourselves. 
 
 Again, in all these things let 
 Sins'le-mmded- , ,i , ^ii^i c 
 
 ^^j* us try to be actuated by the far 
 
 too rare feeling of single-mind- 
 edness for the general welfare ; in St. Paul's 
 language, let us look not every man on his own 
 things^ hut every man also on the tJmigs of 
 others i^\^\\.n.^-\. Circumstances are, no doubt, 
 much complicated by the imperious consider- 
 ations of health, means, family, and personal 
 qualifications. Of course, all these things 
 
THE TABLE OF GOD. 
 
 199 
 
 must be duly weighed, and allowed their fair 
 share in any decision that is come to ; only 
 they must not be allowed to have moj'e than 
 their fair share, as they too often have. Surely 
 the first thing a conscientious man ought to 
 try to satisfy himself about in deciding on a 
 place to live in, or a post to fulfill, is not, Is 
 this the place where I can be most comforta- 
 ble, or where my services will be best remu- 
 nerated, or where there will be more ease and 
 less work? but, Is this the place where I can 
 best glorify my Master, and use the gifts that 
 He has intrusted to my keeping, and where, 
 in the day that He comes to take account of 
 His servants, I shall feel thankful to have 
 been willing to be ? Seeking first His king- 
 dom and righteousness, I shall have all other 
 things added to me ; but if I put myself first 
 and His kingdom second, if I postpone His 
 glory and His work to my own personal and 
 temporal interests, I may find to my sorrow 
 ten years hence, that I have been succumbing 
 to temptation instead of walking in the path 
 divinely offered to me, and that instead of 
 obeying my Master, I have been gratifying 
 myself. 
 
200 ^^^^ PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 But there are also spiritual 
 pzri ua eps. j^^jp^ ^^^ ^j^jg great conflict with 
 
 self and pride — the joy of faith, the patience 
 of hope, and the comfort of love. 
 
 First, the joy of faith, that most 
 Faith. elevating and ennobhng of all hu- 
 man virtues and Divine graces, whereby 
 Job was enabled to say at the crisis of his 
 overwhelming troubles. Though He slay me, 
 yet will I trust in Him [Job xiii. 15] ; whereby 
 Habakkuk could say. Although the fig-tree 
 shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the 
 vines ; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the 
 fields shall yield no meat ; the flock shall be cut 
 off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in 
 the stalls ; yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will 
 joy in the God of my salvation [Hab. iii. 17, is]. Faith 
 strengthens us, because it lays hold of the 
 power of God, and makes it our very own. 
 Faith ennobles us, for it brings Christ to dwell 
 in our hearts, thereby making us to entertain 
 Him and Him to entertain us. One glimpse 
 of His glory in an instant puts the world 
 under our feet. One throb of the love that 
 passeth knowledge makes us hot with shame, 
 that we could ever doubt Him for a moment. 
 
THE TABLE OF GOD. 20 1 
 
 Faith gladdens us, for it lifts us up above the 
 clouds into the sunshine, it transports us from 
 a world of shadows into the world of realities. 
 From men, who think they rule the world, it 
 takes us to God, who really rules it. We 
 doubt no longer, we murmur no longer, when 
 we see the Lord in His Holy Place sitting 
 above the water-floods, the Head of His 
 Church, the Shepherd of His Flock, the King 
 forever. 
 
 But because we believe, we hope ; 
 because we trust, we wait ; and the ^ ' 
 joy of faith enables us for the patience of hope, 
 Monod has said, that man is a creature with a 
 heart to give away. An equally just defini- 
 tion might describe him as a creature who is 
 always wishing for something, and hoping to 
 attain it. We are saved by hope [R0m.viii.2i]; and 
 if faith makes us glad, hope makes us patient. 
 As the husbandman waiteth for the latter rain, 
 and the hireling for the shadows, and he that 
 is in misery for death, and all creation for the 
 manifestation of the sons of God, so the Chris- 
 tian, not less man because Christian, waits 
 quietly, hopes cheerfully for the goodness of 
 God. He trusts God's wisdom, that He will 
 
202 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIS T. 
 
 choose wisely; and His love, that He will 
 bestow bountifully ; and His righteousness, 
 that He will distribute justly. If it is youi 
 turn to-day, it will be mine to-morrow. The 
 earth is the Lord's; and the exact spot on it 
 that He has chosen for each of His people, 
 He will surely give in His own good time. 
 For there is something in store for all of us, 
 much better, and fitter, and richer than we 
 could ever have chosen for ourselves ; and He, 
 who looks down on us from a far higher eleva- 
 tion than we can, who knows what each can 
 do, and what each would be happy with, far 
 more exactly than any one else, weighs in 
 most accurate balances, the merits and capa- 
 bilities of all His servants, and in the fullness 
 of time sends us where He means us to be. 
 
 " Thou cam'st not to thy place by accident, 
 It is the very place God meant for thee ; 
 And shouldst thou there small scope for action see, 
 Do not for this give room to discontent."* 
 
 And there is the comfort of love. 
 All of us now and then are apt to be 
 
 * Trench. 
 
THE TABLE OF GOD. 
 
 203 
 
 discontented, and morbid, and fretful ; and 
 because we do not get what we want the mo- 
 ment we want it, we murmur at man, and so 
 complain of God. Possibly, however, there 
 may be a purpose of mercy deep in God's 
 heart toward us, in thus teaching us not to 
 look for our help and consolation from any 
 earthly instrument, however true in friend- 
 ship, wise in counsel, strong in influence, or 
 loving in nature. The Lord is my Shepherd, 
 therefore can I lack nothing. Really to feel 
 God's love to us, and our love to Him, is the 
 very highest blessedness of which the human 
 soul is capable. There is a lavishness in all 
 true love, which only those who truly love can 
 understand. And when God loves us. His 
 heart goes out toward us, and with His heart 
 all that He can bestow. All the resources of 
 His power, all the counsels of His wisdom, all 
 the preciousness of His promises, all the gifts 
 of His Spirit, are at our disposal, if only our 
 hearts are open to receive them in the day of 
 His power. To know and believe the love 
 God hath to us — here, in a single sentence, is 
 the beginning of Christian life, the history of 
 Christian experience, the fullness of Christian 
 
204 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 joy. That God should love me, and yet re- 
 fuse me anything for my good, is as utterly 
 impossible as that He should cease to be 
 God. To suppose that Christ can have suf- 
 fered for me, and yet while laying on me His 
 cross deny me the needful grace to carry it 
 after Him ; sooner than think this, let us 
 boldly say at once, that He has died in vain ! 
 
VL 
 
 ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 'SURELY GOODNESS AND MERCY SHALL FOLLOW ME ALL THE DAYS Of 
 MY LIFE : AND I WILL DWELL IN THE HOUSE OF THE LORD FOR- 
 EVER." 
 
 "Z.^ Chrdtien dclaire sur la resurrection de noire 
 Sauveur jouit de r assurance de son salut : il 
 en est aussi sHr^ qu'il est sHr que ydsus Christ est 
 ressuscite : et pour le /aire douter de son espd- 
 rance diernelle^ il faudrait contntencer par le 
 /aire douter que Jdsus Christ est ressuscitd d£S 
 morts.''* — Adolphe Monod. 
 
 HANKFULNESSisone ^, ,, , 
 _ , . 1 hankf Illness, 
 
 of the most attractive 
 
 qualities of the Christian character. 
 While it invigorates and animates ourselves, 
 it glorifies God, and it edifies our neighbor. 
 No doubt it has much to do with natural 
 temperament, sound health, sufficient means, 
 and congenial employment. Nevertheless, it 
 is sometimes perfectly independent of these 
 
 (205) 
 
2o6 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 accidental causes; and he who in poverty, 
 or sickness, or soHtude, can preserve a 
 merry heart and a cheerful countenance is 
 a benefactor to society, a testimony to his 
 God, and the best of all possible friends to 
 himself. 
 
 But if thankfulness is an attractive quality 
 of the Christian character, it ought also, 
 within certain limits and with certain excep- 
 tions, to be a universal one. Clouds will 
 sometimes prevent our seeing the sunshine ; 
 and every one now and then is tempted to 
 exclaim, out of a depressed heart, O my God, 
 my soul is cast down within me [ps xiu.ej. Still 
 it may be safely asserted that the prevailing 
 temper of a truly Christian mind is a lively 
 sense of the Divine goodness ; and at the 
 end of life, as the departing pilgrim looks 
 back on the way by which the Lord his God 
 has led him through the wilderness, the one 
 exclamation of wondering gladness is, " How 
 good God has been to me!" the one convic- 
 tion of assured faith is, " He will never change. 
 He will continue to love me to the end." 
 
 But why is this so ? What is it that throws 
 this steady and sunny light both on past and 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 207 
 
 on future — that eases burdens heavy enough 
 to crush other men — that interprets all God's 
 dealings, even the hardest and the darkest, 
 under the unfailing purpose of eternal love? 
 It is the blessed knowledge of what God 
 has been, is, and will be, to us ; it is the know- 
 ing in whom we have believed, and that He 
 is able to keep that which we have committed 
 unto Him against that day ; it is the sanctify- 
 ing presence of the Indwelling Comforter ; in 
 a word, it is the consciousness of possessing 
 eternal life, through abiding in the Father and 
 the Son. 
 
 That we have eternal life now 
 
 ,1 1 r 1 • -^ Eternal life to 
 
 m a true, though of course limit- be enjoyed now. 
 
 ed, degree, can be proved from 
 many passages of Scripture. There are our 
 Lord's words, when, about the death of Laza- 
 rus, He said to Mary, He that liveth and believ- 
 eth m me shall never die [John xi. 26]; and again,, 
 on the eve of His own passion, when, in 
 prayer to His Father, He said. This is life 
 eternal^ that they inight know Thee the only true 
 God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent 
 [John xvii. 3]. There are St. Paul's words. Set your 
 affections on things above, not on things on the 
 
2o8 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST, 
 
 earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid 
 with Christ in God \co\.m.\,2-\. There are St. 
 John's words, He that hath the Son hath life ; 
 and he that hath 7iot the Son of God hath not 
 /?/> [ijohn V. 12]. The believing soul, in the lan- 
 guage of the same apostle, has already- 
 passed from death unto life through the 
 power of the regenerating Spirit, though that 
 life can not be completed or enjoyed in the 
 full fruition of its blessedness until, in the res- 
 urrection of the body, we enter on the entire 
 and incorruptible immortality of our whole 
 being. 
 
 No great ingenuity is required to trace, all 
 through the Twenty-third Psalm (nay, it might 
 almost be said, through each separate verse 
 of it) some distinct truth about this eternal 
 life. There is the substance of it in our per- 
 sonal spiritual union with the Lord Jesus. 
 The Lord is my Shepherd, belonging to me, 
 and I to Him ; He dwelling in me, and I in 
 Him. The manifestation of this life is in the 
 personal holiness of the believer, whom the 
 Good Shepherd ever strives to lead on into 
 the green pastures and still waters of an ever 
 riper knowledge and fuller image of Himself. 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 209 
 
 Would we know how to ascertain if this 
 eternal life is ours or not, the answer will not 
 be found in sudden emotions of feeling, 
 however animating they may be ; nor in a 
 clear and consistent theological system, blessed 
 as it is for those who have attained it ; nor in 
 aptness of controversy, useful as it sometimes 
 is in contending for the truth ; nor in an un- 
 healthy eagerness about means of grace, which, 
 though they are channels of Christ's presence, 
 are not Christ Himself; — but in a life hidden 
 with Christ in God, yet manifesting itself 
 daily by a continual bringing forth of the fruits 
 of the Spirit. The discipline of it is in the 
 wisely alternating visitations of joy and sor- 
 row according to the needs and circumstances 
 of each individual soul. 
 
 For this eternal life extends its purifying 
 and exalting influence over the entire being 
 of man. It lays hold of his understanding, 
 enabling it rightly to appreciate and humbly 
 receive the great mysteries of the Gospel, in 
 the Father's eternal purpose, and in the aton- 
 ing blood of the incarnate Son, and the re- 
 generating grace of the Spirit. It seizes the 
 heart, and strikes its roots all down it and 
 14 
 
210 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 through it, engaging and occupying the affec- 
 tions for God himself, whose is the first and 
 rightful claim. The conscience it purges/rc?;?/ 
 dead works to serve tJie living God [Hob. ix. h], 
 giving it rest and peace through the precious 
 blood that can alone wash out sin. The will it 
 subdues into captivity to God's will, not by 
 taking it away, nor by iinmersing it in God's, 
 as some mystics have delighted to say, but by 
 training and educating it into a free and com- 
 plete and cheerful and intelligent obedience. 
 And while over the entire moral and spiritual 
 being of man it sheds its blessed and increas- 
 ing influence, it makes our very mortal bodies, 
 through the operations of our wills and affec- 
 tions, servants and instruments of righteous- 
 ness unto God. 
 
 But what is the method of this ? The 
 shedding forth of the love of God into our 
 hearts by the Holy Ghost. For observe the 
 result in David's mind of this spirit of thank- 
 fulness, and the unfailing evidence of eternal 
 
 ^ life in the soul. It is devout- 
 
 Devoutness. t -n i u - i , /• 
 
 ness. / will dwell in the house of 
 
 the Lord forever. God's goodness did not 
 
 harden him into indifference, nor produce in 
 
E TERNAL LIFE. 2 1 1 
 
 him a sense of independence of God or of 
 confidence in his own prosperity. Rather it 
 made him feel more than ever his need of 
 God, and that God was his only sufficient 
 and abiding portion ; that the nearer he could 
 live to Him, the more often he could worship 
 Him ; the more he could hear of His truth 
 and receive of His grace, the better it must 
 be for him, both here and hereafter. Nor is 
 this the solitary expression of his feeling, 
 since again and again in his psalms — such as 
 the 27th, the 42d, and the 84th — do we find 
 the same. 
 
 Now, it is deeply important for us to in- 
 quire very seriously what are the chief aids to 
 devoutness among Christian people, and how 
 we may best remove the obstacles and hin- 
 drances to it wherever such are found to exist. 
 
 HE meaning of devoutness is 
 personal adoring filial love f^Ztn^f 
 to God the Father, as revealed in 
 His Son Jesus Christ. It is not, in the usual 
 acceptation of the word, the invariable accom- 
 paniment of living faith in the soul ; for there 
 are many sincere and excellent persons, walk 
 
212 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 ing in the fear of God and in the light of con- 
 science, of whom to speak as devout would 
 be to describe them inaccurately, if not alto- 
 gether untruly. It is by no means always 
 found in company with a great amount of 
 accurate doctrinal knowledge ; for it was 
 when Mary Magdalene was weeping over her 
 lost Lord, whom she thought to be stolen and 
 could not believe to be risen, that her Saviour, 
 recognizing her devoutness, rewarded it by 
 the revelation of Himself. It may be called 
 the enthusiasm of personal religion, springing 
 from a fervent and affectionate nature, going 
 out after God, and cleaving to Him and de- 
 lighting in Him, not so much for what He 
 gives as for what He is ; prizing above all His 
 gifts the constant sense of His sanctifying 
 presence, desiring above all His graces the 
 power of loving Him more as He deserves. 
 In David's own words, it is thirst for God, for 
 the living God, the longing to go and appear 
 before God ; it is also the deep unutterable 
 adoration of a soul that throbs and burns 
 with the very fire of heaven, the emotion of a 
 heart that would multiply itself a hundred 
 fold only to give all to Him. 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 213 
 
 ** Jesus, the very thought of Thee 
 With sweetness fills the breast ; 
 But sweeter far Thy face to see, 
 And in Thy presence rest. 
 
 " Tongue never spake, ear never heard, 
 Never from heart o'erflow'd 
 A dearer name, a sweeter word, 
 Than Jesus, Son of God." 
 
 If devoutness is rare, so much 
 
 rarer than it ought to be, the ^^y.^'^out- 
 ^ ' ness zs so rare^ 
 
 reason is not hard to find. For we 
 
 love our God with such a thin, feeble, meagre, 
 circumspect love, not in the least because He 
 denies us the power of loving Him, or refuses 
 to pour into our heart His love to us ; but 
 partly because we do not sufficiently appre- 
 ciate the duty and the blessedness of loving 
 Him ; partly because we hinder the outcom- 
 ing of His love to us, and the upgoing of our 
 love to Him, by sloth or sin ; partly, also, be- 
 cause we do not fulfill the conditions, and use 
 with such languor and indifference the aids and 
 helps by which alone love to God can burn in 
 the soul with a steady and bright flame. 
 If that considerable number of professing 
 
214 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 Christians who are continually lamenting 
 their want of love to Christ and God, would 
 really and thoroughly search their hearts 
 about it, some of them might discover that 
 they have already as much of God's love as 
 they have any right to expect ; and that the 
 amount which they feel to possess, whether 
 of a sense of His love to them, or theirs to 
 Him, is, as a matter of fact, in exact propor- 
 tion to their real efforts after it. To be safe^ 
 is practically the end and aim with which tens 
 of thousands of professing Christians sit down 
 in an ignoble contentedness. Not to be pun- 
 ished for sin, not to be shut out of heaven, 
 not to be refused the comfortable persuasion 
 of peace with God, not to be left knocking at 
 the door of God's mercy uncertain if we shall 
 ever be let in : — this is what too many people 
 look upon as the goal of the Christian's race, 
 and the substance of his assurance, and the 
 reward of his faith, and the pledge of his vic- 
 tory. Whereas it is but the starting-point, 
 and not the conclusion ; the earnest, but not 
 the fulfillment, of his salvation. To be de- 
 livered from sin, in the love and power of it; 
 is really of far more importance, both for God 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 21C 
 
 and us, than that we should be set free from 
 the fear of hell, essential as that is to the lib- 
 erty and cheerfulness of our service ; and to 
 be made fit for heaven, is the only possible 
 condition on which we could enjoy its blessed- 
 ness, or mix in its society, or do its works, or 
 adore its Lord. It is no doubt a most blessed 
 thing to feel safe ; yet certainly it is neither 
 the loftiest nor the most elevating sentiment 
 even of human nature : and to rest content 
 with our sense of safety, comparatively indif- 
 ferent to the glory or the kingdom of Him 
 who has saved us, is to fall very short indeed 
 of our Redeemer's purpose for us, is to know 
 nothing of the spirit of the apostle, whose one 
 constraining motive, both of gratitude and 
 obedience, was love to Him who died and 
 rose again. 
 
 So many of us have such a 
 
 miserably low standard ! We Th^ ^t^ndard of 
 
 ^ Lhrishajis too mu. 
 
 hardly care for God's love, 
 
 except for the mental excitement of feeling 
 it. We hardly care for His glory, except just 
 so far as our personal instrumentality is con- 
 cerned in advancing it. We hardly care for 
 His presence, save when no other consolations 
 
2i6 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 are forthcoming. Nine out of every ten hu- 
 man beings are naturally disposed to be in- 
 tensely idle ; and this idleness creeps over 
 the renewed nature, and lulls it into drowsi 
 ness and sloth. We are often too idle for the 
 effort of sustained prayer. We are often too 
 idle, steadily and thoughtfully, to study our 
 Bibles. We are often too idle to interest our- 
 selves in bearing the burdens or healing the 
 sorrows of those around us. We are often 
 too idle for anything much more than listen- 
 ing to rousing sermons, and occasionally at- 
 tending a meeting for missions, and — being 
 ** scarcely saved." Unbelief is at the root of 
 it. If we really believed that God, of, and by, 
 and in Himself, could make us happy ; if we 
 could learn to trust Him, and be content with 
 Him, apart from his gifts, in the deep convic- 
 tion that He is more and better than them 
 all ; if, in our jealousy for His honor, and in 
 our appreciation of His character, and in our 
 sympathy with His purposes, and in our grat- 
 itude for His cross, we could come to have 
 more of His mind about sin, more to under- 
 stand His intense hatred and horror of it, 
 more, with 'lim, to pity and yearn over the 
 
E TERNAL LIFE. 
 
 217 
 
 lost, more to perceive and know that the very 
 greatest loss a human being can suffer is the 
 loss of His image and presence, I do think we 
 should more cheerfully and readily cast our- 
 selves into His arms, and yield ourselves to 
 His purposes ; we should say more continu- 
 ally, more fervently, more honestly, than 
 most of us can say now, " Do what Thou 
 wilt with me, only love me : and give me the 
 power of loving Thee in return ! " 
 
 ^.^ 
 
 HE conditions of devout- 
 
 r 1 • 1 Conditio7ts of de- 
 
 ness are few, obvious, and ^outness. 
 
 simple. First, if God is to come 
 
 to fill the heart with His sweetness and His 
 
 glory, He must have it all to ^ 
 
 °-. . 1 - 1 T T -r. Entire self-snr- 
 
 Himself when He comes. JBy render. 
 
 which I do not mean that He 
 
 is jealous of the rightful and natural love, 
 
 which we give to, and claim from, each other. 
 
 He that loveth 7tot his brother zvhom he hath 
 
 ''een^ how can he love God zvhom he hath not 
 
 seen ? [I J'^hn iv. 20J. Love to man is often the 
 
 shortest road to the love of God. Nor again, 
 
 that He expects or demands perfection while 
 
 we are here. But Pie does expect, and wc 
 
2i8 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 must give Him, sincerity of purpose in seek- 
 ing Him, resoluteness of will in following 
 Him, perseverance of effort in surrendering 
 to Him all we have, and all we are. Half- 
 heartedness in religion is the true secret of 
 the want of zeal and power in the Church of 
 Christ ; and the famous French sarcasm is 
 sometimes almost as true of sincere, as of 
 merely nominal, Christians, " that they have 
 just religion enough to make them miserable, 
 but not enough to make them happy." 
 
 Another absolutely essential condition of 
 devoutness is the entire, and unsparing, and 
 
 incessant conflict with indwell- 
 Mortification of . . , . , , 
 
 ^^y^ -^ •' mg sm, however mveterate, or 
 
 pleasant, or secret from men, or 
 indulgently treated by the world. So long as 
 we make a truce with any sin whatever, and 
 choose to think about it, either that it is so 
 small it does not signify, or so hidden that no 
 one knows of it, or so powerful that v/e can 
 not overcome it, just so long are we with one 
 side of our voice inviting God to come to us, 
 and with the other side bidding Him keep 
 away. God is a holy God ; and if His serv- 
 ants can consent, knowingly and persevering- 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 2IQ 
 
 y, to nurse in their hearts such sins as covet- 
 ousness or pride, or vanity, or envy, or evil 
 and censorious speaking, they must take tlie 
 consequences. Divine grace has a marvelous 
 vitality, and it takes a great deal of pains 
 quite to extinguish it. Still it is easy enough 
 to stunt its growth ; and if we are not watch- 
 ful over ourselves, instead of being epistles, 
 to the Church and the world, of God's Divine 
 power, in using us as instruments of right- 
 eousness, we shall be epistles, equally well 
 known and well read, of the power of sin to 
 quench and smother the Divine Spirit, and of 
 the fatal certainty with which self-indulgence 
 of any kind will, sooner or later, take its re- 
 venge on us. 
 
 Another condition of devout- 
 ness is active and continual oc- Q^^f" •' 
 
 cupation in the Lord's service. 
 What exercise does for the body, usefulness 
 does for the soul, in quickening the circula- 
 tion through the entire system, and in giving 
 a healthy play to the organs and faculties of 
 our being. Such occupation may be confined 
 to the four walls of a house. It is not essen- 
 tial to it that it should be prominent, or va- 
 
Z20 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 ried, or arduous, or, indeed, of any special 
 sort or kind whatever. All that is necessary 
 is, that each Christian person should feel him- 
 self a laborer in the Lord's vineyard, and 
 should be doing with humility and cheerful- 
 ness the task the Lord gives him to do, what- 
 ever and wherever it may be. This alone 
 (unless sickness or other cause of inability 
 prevent it) can keep the heart awake, the will 
 obedient, the mind ready, the conscience pure. 
 If it involve self-denial, so much the better. 
 Nay, the chances are, that if there is no self- 
 denial about it, we are pleasing ourselves, in- 
 stead of pleasing Christ. Some people are so 
 constituted, that they would find it harder to 
 overcome natural diffidence in visiting the 
 sick, or even in teaching a class of children, 
 than to eat dry bread for a year. But to 
 master self is the meaning of sanctification ; 
 and the sure and certain reward of following 
 our Saviour wherever He leads us, is that we 
 are thereby strengthened for the daily con- 
 flict with sloth and selfishness in our own 
 hearts; and thus in ministering to others we 
 are unconsciously benefiting ourselves. 
 
 Once more : it is absolutely impossible to 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 221 
 
 maintain the heart in a condition of real de- 
 
 voutness without a steady and 
 
 frequent use of those means of ^^^ ^f ^^[^ 
 ^ . means of grace. 
 
 grace ordained and provided for 
 
 us by a higher wisdom than our own, and to 
 
 neglect which is both presumption and folly. 
 
 [RST and foremost of these is 
 prayer — secret, frequent, sus- ^^y^^- 
 tained, and fervent prayer — prayer not only 
 for the supply of needs, or for the sense of 
 pardon, but for close spiritual communion 
 with the Lord of our spirit, in at least an 
 effort after that adoring and holy praise which 
 is the substance of the worship in heaven. I 
 know how hard prayer is almost at all times ; 
 how glad we sometimes feel to be able to say 
 anything ; that our best prayers ever fall 
 short of our true aspirations ; that our worst 
 prayers are often so cold, so feeble, so poor, 
 so wandering, they hardly deserve to be called 
 prayers at all. And it is the humbling per- 
 sonal knowledge of the inadequacy and short- 
 comings of his own prayers, that may well 
 make a Christian writer pause, before he raises 
 a standard that he himself so very inade- 
 
222 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 quately reaches unto, as well as shrink froiTi 
 making a heart sad, which God would not 
 make sad, by inviting prayer, which to many '' 
 would seem so distant and so impracticable, 
 as only to reduce them to despair. Yet prayer 
 is a habit ; and the more we pray, the better 
 we shall pray; and the highest mountain can 
 be climbed by steady, patient walking ; and 
 if we never set a mark before us, to aim at 
 and try for, we may soon discover that noth- 
 ing is so perilous to the soul's life as content 
 edly sitting still. Sometimes, to go to be 
 alone with God and Christ in the fellowship 
 of the Spirit, just for the joy and blessedness 
 of it ; to open, with reverent yet eager hands, 
 the door into the presence-chamber of the 
 great King, and then to fall down before Him, 
 it may be, in silent adoration ; our very atti- 
 tude an act of homage, our merely being 
 there, through the motive that prompts it, 
 being the testimony of our souTs love ; to 
 have our set day-hours of close communion, 
 with which no other friends shall interfere, 
 and which no other occupations may inter- 
 rupt ; to which we learn to look forward with 
 a living gladness ; on which we look back with 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 223 
 
 satisfaction and peace ; this indeed is prayer, 
 for its own sake, for God's sake, for our friends' 
 sake, for tL« Church's sake, for our work's 
 sake ; prayer which we do not hurry through, 
 to still the conscience, but which (other things 
 permitting) we can even linger over to satisfy 
 the heart. Oh, if we Christians, who talk so 
 much about the privilege and blessedness of 
 prayer, would try to avail ourselves of it more 
 than we do, how we should reflect on the 
 world all around us the glory, as it streams 
 on us from the face of the incarnate Mediator ! 
 What a power we should become to rebuke 
 sin, and proclaim pardon, and promise liberty, 
 and offer peace, through our continually lay- 
 ing hold on the hem of the garment of our 
 glorified Lord ! 
 
 There must also be a full and 
 frequent study of God's holy Word. ^/^/^ 
 In Holy Scripture, as Christ Him- 
 self has said, we have eternal life. He is the 
 Living Word of God : the Bible is the written 
 word. There are some persons who, without 
 the special excuse of but little leisure, go so 
 far as to say that the Bible is the only book 
 that Christians ought to study, other books 
 
224 ^^^ PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 involving but a waste of time. It ma}^ be 
 sufficient to reply, that to impose this as a 
 duty on all men alike is certainly to go be- 
 yond the letter of Scripture itself; that it is 
 hardly consistent with the reasonable and 
 justifiable cultivation of the various mental 
 gifts and faculties with which God has en- 
 dowed us, meaning us to use them, and that 
 we are not particularly encouraged to it by 
 any special largeness of mental vision or 
 Christian charity in the few individuals who 
 observe this rule themselves. It does not, 
 however, follow that because the Bible is not 
 the only book for Christians to study, that 
 they might not study it much more than they 
 do, and with much more pains, and diligence, 
 and prayer. When we open our Bibles, quite 
 as much as when we fall on our knees, we 
 place ourselves in God's immediate presence ; 
 and we should read His Word both in the 
 sense of listening to His voice, and with the 
 object of discovering His will. It is quite 
 impossible for any Christian whatever to grow 
 in the love of God without growing in the 
 knowledge of Him. Let any one who is 
 doubtful about it read the Epistles of St 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 225 
 
 Paul's first imprisonment, and his doubts will 
 soon disappear. But how can we grow in the 
 knowledge of God without being much in the 
 study of the Bible ? For, first, it is the one 
 object of the Bible to teach us the original 
 and authoritative truth of God ; and then we 
 never appreciate truth so vividly, or receive 
 it so gladly, or detain it so tenaciously, or 
 impart it so intelligently, as when we have 
 discovered it for ourselves by our own thought 
 and effort. One hour's devotional study of 
 Scripture will often do more than a dozen 
 sermons to stir up in our hearts the love of 
 God. There are many external proofs of the 
 inspiration of the Bible. Christ's own teach- 
 ing, the doctrine of His apostles, the tradi- 
 tion of the Jews, the universal consent of 
 the Christian Church of all times, place the 
 Divine authority of both Old and New Testa- 
 ments on a foundation which can not be 
 moved. To let go the blessed truth of the 
 plenary inspiration of Holy Scripture, is to 
 lose the sheet anchor of Revelation, and to 
 drift away toward the dark and restless sea 
 of human speculation, and science, falsely so 
 c^//?^ [1 Tim. VI. 20]. But there is internal as well 
 IS 
 
226 THE PRESENCE OE CHRIST. 
 
 as external evidence of this inspiration : hun* 
 dreds and thousands of simple Christians, who 
 know nothing of argument or controversy, 
 have discovered, through the witness of God's 
 Spirit in their own hearts, that the Bible is 
 the very voice of God ; and there is no argu- 
 ment half so efficacious with the great major- 
 ity of readers, for proving the Divine author- 
 ship of Scripture, as the spiritual hallowing 
 influence that the Bible itself seems to breathe 
 over us when we bring ourselves into real 
 contact with its contents. 
 
 Again, a great help to devout- 
 i^^ ^ ^' ^^^^ ^"^ ^^^^ restless and distracting 
 age is contemplation. It may be 
 distinguished from meditation (on which a 
 few words have already been written,"^) as be- 
 ing the attention of the mind and heart to a 
 person rather than to a truth ; and while medi- 
 tation may be defined as the pondering of the 
 spirit on some Divine doctrine, with (so to 
 speak) closed eyes and abstracted senses, con* 
 templation is the adoring gaze of the believ- 
 ing and worshiping heart on the glory of its 
 
 ♦See p. 152. 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 227 
 
 Lord and King. '' Out of sight, out of mind," 
 is a truth true in many ways. If we never set 
 Christ himself preaching on the mountains 
 of GaHlee, dying on the cross, glorified at His 
 Father's right hand, before our heart and 
 imagination, we must expect only faintly to 
 realize all that He has suffered, all that He is 
 now doing for us ; and the result will be our 
 spiritual loss. To look on Jesus with the 
 purified eye of faith and love, though it may 
 be a rare, is, however, a truly blessed means 
 of grace. There is a sense in which even 
 now we may see, if we will, our King in His 
 beauty ; and if in the day of His return we 
 are to be made like Him in body as well as in 
 soul through seeing Him as He is, we may 
 become spiritually like Him now through 
 contemplating His person, and meditating 01? 
 His work, and pondering His character, and 
 feeding on His words. For, even now, we all, 
 with open face beholding as in a glass the glory 
 of the Lord, are changed into the same image, 
 from glory to glory ^ even as by the Spirit of the 
 
 Lord [2 Cor. iii. 18]. 
 
 There is yet one other aid toward the stir- 
 ring up within us of a living devoutness to 
 
228 '^^^ PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 Christ, on which a few words have elsewhere 
 been said * from a different point of view, 
 and that is, a frequent receiving Frequent 
 of the Lord's Supper. Even in receiving of the 
 the lowest and poorest inter- ^^^^'"^ ^''^^'''^ 
 pretation of this sacrament, as nothing more 
 than an act of commemoration of the Lord's 
 sacrifice, one would think that nothing would 
 be so likely to stir our gratitude, and dispose 
 our hearts to receive His mercy, as often to 
 partake of the memorial of His passion ; and 
 that none of the Saviour's words would be 
 more tenderly cherished, or more studiously 
 obeyed, than His dying injunction, TJiis do in 
 remembrance of me [Lukexxn. i9]. But the teach- 
 ing of Zwinglius falls miserably short of the 
 authorized doctrine, whether of the Church 
 of England or the Church of Scotland. The 
 English Church teaches her members that 
 " if, with a true penitent heart and lively 
 faith, we receive that holy sacrament, then 
 we spiritually eat the flesh of Christ, and 
 drink His blood, then we dwell in Christ, and 
 Christ in us — we are one with Christ, and 
 
 ♦See p. i6i. 
 
ETERXAL LIFE. 220 
 
 Christ with us." The Church of Scotland, 
 in the Shorter Catechism, declares that ^he 
 *' worthy receivers " in this sacrament are 
 " made partakers of Christ's body and blood, 
 with all His benefits ; " and in answer to the 
 question, " Is not Christ really present in the 
 Sacrament of the Supper?" does not hesitate 
 distinctly to reply that, '^ He is as really, but 
 spiritually present to the faith of believers in 
 that ordinance, as the elements themselves 
 are to their outward senses." 
 
 Now if this indeed be so — if, whenever we 
 partake of the Lord's table in a right spirit — • 
 we feed on the very Christ himself, given to 
 us there by the operation of His Spirit, to 
 be our meat and drink, our strength and joy, 
 must not that blessed means of grace be espe- 
 cially calculated to fill us with thankfulness 
 and self-abasement, to stir up renewed self- 
 surrender, and more habitual self-denial ? 
 And as to the objection, so frequently, and 
 not at all unreasonably, made to a frequent 
 reception of it, on the ground of our losing 
 blessing through a greater familiarity with it, 
 may we not thereby be doubting, though 
 quite unconsciously, God's wisdom in ordain- 
 
:j30 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 ii\<g this privilege, and mistrusting His power 
 io prevent His ordinance falling short of His 
 ourpose to bless ? Of course, it must always 
 be a matter for individual discretion how 
 aften it may be expedient to partake of this 
 ordinance ; and while we are careful to re- 
 bcrve to ourselvt5 the free exercise of our 
 own judgment, the same liberty must be 
 granted to our brethren. Still, it is certain 
 that from not fully appreciating the blessed- 
 ness, and apprehending the meaning, and 
 using the opportunities, and welcoming the 
 grace of this sacrament, some of us fall short 
 of God's offers of blessing ; for, while it 
 strengthens faith, and quickens love, it also 
 animates hope. The memorial of the Cross 
 is also the promise of the glory ; and they 
 who at the Lord's table on earth love to show 
 forth their Lord's death till He come [icor. xi. sej, 
 are surely more likely than others to be look- 
 ing forward to the glorious moment when they 
 will be called to sit down to the marriage 
 Supper of the Lamb. 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 231 
 
 OW, all this throws light 
 
 ,1 . 1 1-r • Eterital life in 
 
 on the eternal life in heaven. 
 
 heaven, which we come to con- 
 sider in the latter part of the verse, 1 
 zvilL dwell in the house of the Lord forever 
 [Psnimxxiii.6]. Whether David himself actually 
 meant to refer to it, is open to reasonable 
 doubt. Certain, however, it is that he had 
 been divinely instructed about it, and some 
 of the most beautiful of his psalms anticipate 
 its blessedness in language which Christians, 
 looking back at their Lord's resurrection, can 
 gladly and consistently use. But it is one of 
 the features of the inspired Word, that it con- 
 tains depth within depth of the Divine doc- 
 trine, well beneath well of the living water ; 
 and it is hardly possible for a Christian to 
 utter these words without declaring the blessed 
 hope of tJie glorious appearing [TUusii. 13] to be 
 his own. ^ 
 
 Heaven is spoken of here under three points 
 of view — as a home, as a permanent home, as 
 a home in the presence of God. It is to be a 
 house, not a tent ; a home, not a lodging ; 
 the no longer seeing through a glass darkly 
 
232 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 but the beholding as with open face the vision 
 
 of God. 
 
 Now, eternal life in heaven is 
 
 // is a continu' plainly but a continuation and a 
 atzo7i of eternal , , , r > i i • r 
 
 life on earth, development of eternal life on 
 
 earth. It will be the same in 
 fhe essence of its character, in the motive of 
 its service, in the substance of its joys, in the 
 nature of its glory. It will be different, for 
 there will be no mortal body to hamper its 
 action, no sinful nature to interrupt its prog- 
 ress ; in perfect liberty, and in entire secu- 
 rity, with energies that will never be exhaust- 
 ed, with opportunities that will never be 
 thrown away, it will expand in the glorified 
 soul through the eternal ages, to the praise of 
 God and the joy of men. 
 
 The character of heaven will 
 Love will be its r .v r i. n j i 
 
 character, ^e the perfect unalloyed love 
 
 of sinless and glorified beings. 
 
 Dwelling in love, we shall, in the full sense of 
 
 the word, dwell in God, and God in us. The 
 
 noblest aspirations of the regenerate man will 
 
 then have their full satisfaction ; and if there 
 
 will still be something left to wish for, if in 
 
 the fullness of joy at God's right hand, faith 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 233 
 
 and hope shall still hold their place, and ful- 
 fill their functions in the human soul, faith 
 will be the joyful and humble sense of depend- 
 ence on God and Christ, who there as here 
 will be the spiritual food, the source of life 
 and power to His glorified creatures, hope will 
 vividly anticipate an ever-increasing capacity 
 to love God as He deserves, ever-growing 
 powers to prove and use that love in obedi- 
 ence to the Divine will. At present it is al- 
 most impossible to conceive ourselves loving 
 God and each other perfectly ; to have every 
 motive of service, every spring of feeling, 
 every throb of zeal rooted and grounded in 
 love, which self shall not spoil, and pride shall 
 not tarnish. In heaven, dwelling in an atmos- 
 phere of love, to which each contributes, and 
 of which each receives, we shall behold Him, 
 who is the sun from whom our light comes, 
 the King from whom our royalty comes, the 
 Priest who gives us our priesthood, the Lamb 
 who has bought us our salvation ; and the 
 more we gaze, the more we shall love ; and 
 our growth in love will be as infinite as God. 
 
 For we can not do more than love God ; 
 there is no higher duty, and there is no 
 
234 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 greater bliss. The true idea of the character 
 of heaven must be that of love ; the only 
 question about it is the question of degree. 
 God is love Himself: and so far as we resem- 
 ble Him, we shall be love likewise : and as if 
 to show that love is worship and worship is 
 love, the inspired account of heaven is, that 
 there shall be no temple there. Perfect love 
 can adore and worship without signs and 
 symbols ; tJic Lord God Almighty and the 
 Lamb ai'e the temple of it [Rw. xxi. 22]. 
 
 OVE being the character, 
 
 .1 , c The service in 
 
 nay, the very nature of Heave?i, 
 
 heaven, it is clear that the service 
 and occupation of heaven will be the simple 
 outgoing and satisfying of that love, in what- 
 ever can serve, and please, and glorify Him on 
 whom it is bestowed. To know God's will 
 must then be instantly and joyfully to fulfill 
 it ; and independently of the new means, that 
 may then be vouchsafed, of spiritual fellow- 
 ship, and. of Divine communications (about 
 which none of us can do more than guess and 
 speculate), we are quite sure that there will be 
 no moral hindrance, as there too often is now. 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 235 
 
 fco ascertaining it, through our own unwilling 
 ness to perform it when known ; by intuition 
 we shall discover His good pleasure ; and by 
 the unerring instinct of our nature we shall 
 hasten to fulfill it. For there will be no law in 
 heaven. Law, as St. Paul tells us, is only for 
 the lawless and disobedient in:im.\.&i. When it 
 is our meat and drink to do God's will, we 
 shall stand in no more need of a code from 
 Sinai. Walking in the spirit, we shall be deliv- 
 ered from the letter. When the blessed will 
 of God is written in our hearts, and absorbed 
 into our wills, and apparent to our minds, and 
 supreme in our consciences, we shall not want 
 teachers to teach us, for all shall knoiu me, 
 from the least to the greatest [Heb. viii. m ; and 
 pains and penalties will be needed no longer, 
 when perfect love has cast out fear. 
 
 What that service will be, we can only con- 
 jecture, we may not presume to declare. But 
 death, so far as we know, can not interrupt 
 our spiritual existence, and will certainly be 
 unable to affect either our mental powers or 
 our constitutional gifts, or our moral character. 
 Nay, it is not even conceivable, that the 
 capacities we possess here, with so much to 
 
236 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 hamper their exercise, and mar their improve- 
 ment, and check their progress, and disap- 
 point their efforts, should be either suspended 
 or diminished merely through our entrance 
 into another state of being, which may be 
 reasonably likened to a man's entering on 
 mature life after the discipline and pupilage 
 of school. We are justified, therefore, in 
 thinking it at least probable that our service 
 in heaven may not be altogether unconnected 
 with our employments on earth ; and that 
 the powers and qualities, and gifts and talents 
 intrusted to us here, will, according to the use 
 and improvement we have made of them, de- 
 cide our work and position for us in the king- 
 dom of the Father. 
 
 For it is by no means of so much conse- 
 quence what a man does as how he does it. 
 His calling does not so much ennoble him, 
 as he his calling. Accuracy, perseverance, con- 
 scientiousness, patience, industry, are all im- 
 mortal and invaluable properties of human 
 character ; and when the King comes to take 
 account of His servants, each' faithful servant's 
 character and powers will at the end of his 
 earthly career come up to judgment, not for 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 237 
 
 condemnation, but for scrutiny; not only in 
 reference to the past, but also to the future. 
 Surely it is a noble and elevating reflection ; 
 one, moreover, to give much consolation 
 and light about many otherwise unintelligible 
 circumstances in the providential government 
 of God, that nothing we do or suffer now that 
 pleases God can be lost, or go unrewarded and 
 forgotten. Every man shall receive his own re- 
 ward, according to his own labor [i cor. iii. s]. H um-^ 
 ble diligence, uncomplaining patience, cheer- 
 ful self-denial, unworldly simplicity, are seen 
 of God, if neglected by men ; and though 
 in this world the man who takes most care 
 of himself generally gets the best of it ; in 
 the next world, he who has thought most 
 of God and his brother will then be found : 
 the truly wise man ; and in the day when 
 God makes up His jewels to set in His Son's 
 diadem, not necessarily those who have filled 
 the highest places, or won the most applause, 
 shall shine forth then with the most resplen- 
 dent brightness, but those also shall be very 
 near the throne who have postponed the 
 praise of men to the praise of God, who have . 
 been contented to do modest duties well, 
 
238 ^^^ PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 rather than important duties badly ; whose 
 courage has kept them poor, and whom plain- 
 spoken honesty has deprived of advancement ; 
 who have never suffered any earthly motive to 
 blind their eyes to the seeking of God's glory, 
 or to blunt their hearts to the sense of His 
 love. There will be many widows with their 
 two mites set high up in the heavenly places ; 
 and many Demases only just let in. It w^ill 
 be seen then to have been better to have had 
 only one pound to use, and to have made two 
 of it, than to have had five, and thrown them 
 away. 
 
 " Be sure — no earnest work, 
 Of any honest creature, howbeit weak, 
 Imperfect, ill-adapted, fails so much, 
 It is not gather'd as a grain of sand, 
 To enlarge the sum of human action used, 
 For carrying out God's end. No creature works 
 So ill, observe, that therefore he's cashiered. 
 The honest earnest man must stand and work ; 
 The woman also ; otherwise she drops 
 At once below the dignity of man, 
 Accepting serfdom. Free men freely work. 
 Whoever fears God, fears to sit at ease." * 
 
 * Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 239 
 
 That heaven is love, is a true 
 , , , . r -. Heaven ever' 
 
 key to the everlastingness ot its lasting. 
 
 duration. How, when once there, 
 we can cease to love, cease, as has been ob- 
 served already, to increase in loving, it is 
 quite impossible to conceive. For as there 
 will be nothing to disappoint us in God, so 
 there will be nothing to tempt us in our- 
 selves. The more we see of God, and learn 
 of Him, and dwell with Him, the more we 
 must love Him. His character will be in- 
 creasingly revealed in all its perfection. His 
 will in all its righteousness, His creation in all 
 its wisdom. His redemption in all its fullness. 
 And if there is nothing in Him to make our 
 song flag, or our loyalty waver, or our love 
 decay, or our service diminish, neither, through 
 His sustaining grace, shall there be anything 
 in us. In our glorified bodies, and in our sin- 
 less nature, we shall be more than ever the 
 very dwelling-place of God. For the elect in 
 glory, sin will be even impossible. Faith shall 
 never fail, hope shall never be disappointed, 
 and though our love will never burn with an 
 ardor to satisfy us, for he who thinks he loves 
 God as much as He deserves, can hardly be 
 
240 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST, 
 
 said to love Him at all ; it shall no longer 
 doubt itself for its insincerity, or accuse itself 
 for its lukewarmness. That will be a glorious 
 and an unselfish security, in which the chil- 
 dren of the resurrection shall rest themselves 
 forever in the everlasting arms, safe in the 
 eternal purpose of Christ's redeeming love 
 made perfect, and fulfilling its own nature in 
 teaching, and glorifying, and elevating, and 
 beatifying all through eternity those whom 
 the Father has given Him out of the world. 
 
 The question of degrees in glory, 
 g-lQjry incontestably established as it is 
 
 by many passages of Scripture, is 
 sometimes perplexing to those who are jeal- 
 ous of the doctrine of salvation by grace, may 
 be more clearly seen in the light of the un- 
 deniable fact, that with all imaginable varie- 
 ties of depth and power regenerate souls adore 
 God. 
 
 As a moral question, it is simply one ot 
 justice ; that justice being a revelation of 
 God's unerring righteousness in recognizing 
 and rewarding the use of the grace He has 
 Himself bestowed. St. Paul and the peni- 
 tent thief are equally sinners saved by grace, 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 24 1 
 
 and enter heaven on the identical terms of 
 God's redeeming mercy ; yet they shall have 
 each their place, and their crown, and their 
 work, and their glory, according to the fight 
 they have fought, the course they have fin- 
 ished, and the faith they have maintained. 
 
 Let us look at it, however, a moment 
 longer in connection with the idea already 
 maintained, that the evidence of eternal life 
 in the soul is faith working by love. Only a 
 regenerate soul — a soul, that is, with the Di- 
 vine life implanted in it — can, in any real and 
 sufficient sense, love God. As we love, we 
 obey. And if faith receives salvation, obedi- 
 ence earns glory. 
 
 mm 
 
 HERE are two accounts of the love of 
 the regenerate soul ; one finding it in 
 God, the other rewarding it with God ; the 
 one proclaiming our dependence, the other 
 vindicating our responsibility. We love Him^ 
 because He first loved us [Uoimiv. 19] ; here is the 
 first cause of man's love to God, in God's love 
 to man. If any man love me^ he will keep my 
 words ; and my Father will love him [i'*n xiv. 23]. / 
 love them that love me ; and those that seek me 
 16 
 
242 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 early s J mil find me [Prov. vii. i?], — here is the growth 
 and increase of God's love to man, made de- 
 pendent on man's love to God ; God recog- 
 nizing and rewarding the use of His own 
 mercy by multiplying it on the faithful soul. 
 
 Now, what is glory? In the 
 The meam'nor r .-i j -^ • 
 
 of glory. deepest sense of the word, it is 
 
 the manifestation of God's image 
 and character, shed abroad in our hearts now, 
 as we are changed by His Spirit, " from glory 
 to glory ; " to be displayed at the Resurrec- 
 tion presently, when we shine forth as the 
 sun, and death is swallowed up in victory. 
 But the more we love now, the more v/e shall 
 love then ; the nearer we live to God now, the 
 nearer we shall be to God then ; the more we 
 deny ourselves for His sake now, the more 
 He will recompense us then ; the more we 
 open our hearts to Him, and surrender our 
 wills to Him now, the more He will glorify 
 us hereafter. And the cause of this is also the 
 chosen instrument of fulfilling it. For nothing 
 so expands and deepens our nature as true 
 love, of any kind. But love to God has a 
 special power of its own for making the heart 
 bigger ard deeper for Him to come in, and 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 2^ 
 
 inhabit it, and fill it out of His fullness. The 
 eye of the mind being enlarged to take in His 
 truth, more and more light shines in ; the 
 door of the heart being widened to receive 
 His grace, God rains on it showers of blessing. 
 The entire moral being is ever growing larger 
 through the sanctifying influence of Divine 
 love ; and thus, through the unconscious 
 agency of his own devoutness, the Christian 
 has " grace for grace," and yet it is according to 
 the measure of the gift of Christ [Eph. iv. ?]. For 
 even God can give us only according to our 
 capacity of receiving. No vessel can be more 
 than brimful ; and though, when once in 
 heaven, we may all be growing alike in our 
 power of receiving more grace, and learning 
 more truth, and rendering more service, and 
 drinking more joy, entering heaven, we start, 
 so to speak, with all possible varieties of 
 moral stature and spiritual attainment — the 
 stature and the attainments being fashioned 
 when on earth. _ 
 
 Howe, in his " Blessedness of jjowe's^Blcss-^ 
 the Righteous," has a noble pas- edness of the \ 
 
 1.11 I. 1 i. Righteous." 
 
 sage, m which he contemplates ^ 
 
 innumerable multitudes of pure and happy 
 
>44 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 creatures inhabiting and replenishing ample 
 and spacious regions above, ignorant of noth- 
 ing lawful, and pleasant to be known, curious 
 to know nothing useless, endowed with a self- 
 governing wisdom, yet with a noble freedom, 
 all everywhere full of God, full of reverence 
 and dutiful love, every one in his own eyes as 
 nothing, self-consistent, ever free of all self- 
 displeasure, all assured of their acceptance 
 with God, all counting each other's felicity 
 their own, and every one's enjoyment multi- 
 plied so many thousandfold as he apprehends 
 every one as perfectly pleased and happy as 
 himself. 
 
 Well may the Christian say, as he ponders 
 these noble thoughts, " Oh, what will it be to 
 be there ! " And if the joy is so rapturous, 
 the rest so blessed, the company so edifying 
 the place so glorious, Christ visible, God near, 
 death behind, judgment over, what is our 
 hope of this glory, and what result does it 
 produce in us ; does it strengthen us for the 
 duties of life, and console us under its sor> 
 rows, making its losses light, and its gains 
 trifling? Surely we Christians are but half 
 awake ; and the children of this world are 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 245 
 
 still in their generation wiser than the children 
 of light. There are treasures for us that we 
 will hardly think of, a home that it is barely 
 worth our while to prepare for, joys which 
 we languidly taste, gifts which we slothfuUy 
 use. 
 
 Yet the night is far spent, the day is at hand 
 iRom. xiii. 12]. We have slumbered and slept till 
 our lamps are all but gone out ; let us hasten 
 to trim them, for the Bridegroom is coming. 
 Surely, if we quite believed about heaven all 1 
 that the Bible tells us of it, how humihty , 
 would clothe us, and zeal inflame us, and the | 
 thought of our inheritance ennoble us, mak- 
 ing us calm and brave as the sons of God ! 
 We should live with men now, heirs with us of, 
 a common salvation, as those who hope pres- 
 ently to pass eternity together. Wherever we \ 
 found souls without the Divine knowledge, 
 we should endeavor to say to them with zeal, 
 and yet with wisdom. Come thou with us, and 
 we will do thee good [Num. x oj. We should pray, 
 believing in prayer : we should work, for tJie 
 time is short [i cor. vii. 29] ; we should hate arid 
 resist sin, in, at least, something of the spirit 
 in which we shall look back at it out of Para- 
 
246 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 dise : sloth, and self-indulgence, and covetous- 
 ness, and injustice to each other, would seem 
 even a treason against the Lord that bought 
 us with His blood. 
 
 Oh, then, let us live for this glory, and wait 
 for it, and do all we can to earn it, for our 
 glory is our Master's, and He is coming to be 
 glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all 
 them that believe [2Thess. i. is]. The more souls 
 we can win for Him, the more He will see of 
 the travail of His soul and be satisfied [isa. iiii. ii]. 
 The greater the faith and patience that His 
 servants manifest, the more evident the work 
 of His Spirit before angels and men. It is 
 but a very little while we have, at the longest, 
 in which to pray, to trust, to suffer, to labor ; 
 and much of it is gone already. Let us make 
 the most of what is left ; redeeming the time, 
 because the days are ^z/Z/cEph.v. 16]. And when 
 the Good Shepherd leads His ransomed flock 
 to pastures ever green, and waters ever still, 
 on the delectable mountains of the true land 
 of promise, then we shall say from our hearts, 
 as none can quite say on this side of the river. 
 In Thy presence is fullness of joy : at TJiy right 
 hand are pleasures for evermore [ps. xvi. ii]. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 m.B.—Noi having my books at hand, I have been unable to verify all 
 the quotations : but the reader may rely on them as substantially 
 accurate. 
 
 Alford, Dean, quoted, 60. 
 
 Assurance, Christian, meaning of, 
 ig ; objections to, 19 ; reason- 
 ableness of, 22 ; varieties of, 24 ; 
 external aids of, 37. 
 
 Bacon, Lord, quoted, 83, 141. 
 Barrow, Dr. Isaac, quoted, 63. 
 Barry, Rev. Dr., quoted, 72. 
 Baptism, its relation to circumcis- 
 ion, 39 ; to be pleaded in prayer, 
 
 40- ... 
 
 Bible, study of, 223 ; inspiration 
 
 of, 225. 
 Browning, E. B., quoted, 238. 
 Browning. R., quoted, 108. 
 Butler, Bp., quoted, 70. 
 
 Caird, Professor, quoted, 183. 
 
 Church of God, a testimony to the 
 existence of Christ, 37 ; an evi- 
 dence of the merciful purpose of 
 God, 38. 
 
 Chastisement, the meaning of, 84; 
 the twofold purpose of, 86 ; in- 
 stances of, go ; a preparation for 
 life, 103 ; a discovery of sin, 100 ; 
 edification to the Church at 
 large, 55 ; education for heaven, 
 105 ; meaning of long periods of, 
 118 ; an individual discipline, 
 117; mercifulness and gentleness 
 of, T16 ; how to retain the bless- 
 ing of, iig; need not be a time 
 of uselcssness, 120. 
 
 Contemplation of Christ a meanit 
 of grace, 226. 
 
 David, 190. 
 
 Death, meaning of, 138 ; solitude 
 of, 139 ; Christ the conqueror of, 
 138 ; fear of, reasonable, 134 ; no 
 rule to measure or determine 
 this fear, 146 ; object of this fear, 
 147 ; how to overcome it, 144 ; 
 not to be dwelt on beforehand, 
 
 155- 
 Devoutness, meaning of, 211 ; why 
 
 so rare, 214 ; conditions of, 217 • 
 
 helps to, 221. 
 Dictionary of Bible quoted, 70. 
 Diligence for God, 219. 
 Disappointments, varieties of, 186 , 
 
 occurring to all in turn, 189; 
 
 what they are to teach us, 192 ; 
 
 how we are to bear them, 195. 
 '* Dreamthorp " quoted, 153. 
 
 Elijah, 93. 
 
 Enemies, personal, 165. 
 
 Faith the first duty of man, 31: 
 to be exercised on a " born ' 
 Saviour, 37; to be intelligent 
 and well-instructed, 25 ; about 
 others, 35 ; in chastisement, 115 ; 
 the victory over death, 144 ; th« 
 joy of, 200. 
 
 (247) 
 
248 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 God reconciled in Christ, 17 ; His 
 character the ground of assur- 
 ance, 23 ; His name revealing 
 Him, 24 ; a sovereign, 46 ; guid- 
 ing us as we are willing to I e 
 guided, 5S ; chastening.' Uf fc r 
 His name's sake, loy ; bevter 
 than His gifts, 105, 183 ; giving 
 as we are alDle to receive, 181. 
 
 Gospel, definition of, 17 ; difficul- 
 ties of receiving it, 18. 
 
 Glory, meaning of, 242 ; degrees 
 of, 240. 
 
 Heaven, service in, 234 ; everlast- 
 ing, 239. 
 
 Heavenly-mindedness, real mean- 
 ing of, 108. 
 
 Hezekiah, 134. 
 
 Hope, patience of, 201. 
 
 Howe, quoted, 243, 
 
 Jacob, 25, 27, 190. 
 
 Joseph, 104. 
 
 Josiah, 92. 
 
 Justice to the claims of others, 197. 
 
 Keble, Rev. John, quoted, 134. 
 Kempis, Thomas a, quoted, 99. 
 
 Life, Eternal, to be possessed 
 now, 207 ; in heaven, 231 ; char- 
 acter of it. 232. 
 
 Life, Two Views of, 158. 
 
 Love to Christ, exhortation to, 153. 
 
 McCosH, Professor, quoted, 71. 
 Meditation, more needed, 152. 
 Monod, Adolphe, quoted, 12, 201, 
 
 205. 
 Moorhouse, Rev. J., quoted, no. 
 Mos^s, 92, 113. 
 
 Obedience a preservative against 
 murmuring, 181. 
 
 Pascal, quoted, 139, 152, 158. 
 Paul, St., qnoted, 190. 
 
 32. 
 
 Perowne, Professor, 49. 
 ■' Pilgrim's Progress,"^ quoted, i^^ 
 Prayer, on what conditions an- 
 swered, 7-1 ; the example of Christ 
 in, 73 ; a habit, 222. 
 
 Presence of Christ traced in the 
 anticipations of it in Holy Script- 
 ure, 12 ; not a physical nearness, 
 124 ; communicated through the 
 Spirit, 128 ; when specially need- 
 ed and given, 130 ; conditions of 
 maintaining, 151 ; in death, 144, 
 
 Providence, Divine, the meaning 
 of, 43 ; the purpose and tendency 
 of, 51 : the result of, 49 ; viewed 
 in connection vv'ith praj'er, 69; 
 and with human responsibility, 
 58 ; how far to be ascertained, 74 ; 
 for whom, and for what, 78 ; in 
 what sense special and generaJ^ 
 62. 
 
 Psalm, Twenty-third, contains Old 
 Testament doctrine of assur- 
 ance, 23. 
 
 Rebekah, 90. 
 
 Sanctifi CATION, real meaning and 
 
 method of, 98. 
 Sardis, Church of, 88. 
 Saurin quoted, 124. 
 Scotland, Shorter Catechism of, 
 
 quoted, 229. 
 Self-respect under disappointment, 
 
 195. 
 Shepherd, Christ the Good, 28 ; 
 
 office of, 27. 
 Single-mindedness, meaning of, 
 
 198. 
 Standard of Christians too low, 215. 
 Supper, Lord's, doctrine of, 228 ; 
 
 a comfort after temptation, 161 ; 
 
 on frequent receiving of, 229. 
 Sympathy, meaning of, 125, 195. 
 
 Temptation, 170. 
 
 Thankfulness, 205. 
 
 Thomson, Archbishop, quoted, 43, 
 
 70. 
 Trench, Archbishop, quoted, 78, 
 
 80, 161, 202. 
 
 Valley of Shadow of Death, what 
 meant by, 134 ; a distinct thing 
 I from dying, 134 ; illustration of, 
 135 ; peculiar sadness of, 136 
 why ordained, 137. 
 Vinet quoted, 11. 
 
 Zeal for the souls of others, 154, 
 
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