Three Thousand Selected Quotations from Brilliant Writers/R
REASON.
The light of reason ever gleams on the margin of an unmeasured and unmeasurable ocean of mystery; and however far we push our discoveries, the line of light only moves on, and has infinite and unfathomable darkness beyond it.
Polished steel will not shine in the dark. No more can reason, however refined or cultivated, shine efficaciously but as it reflects the light of Divine truth shed from heaven.
What a return do we make for those blessings we have received! How disrespectfully do we treat the gospel of Christ to which we owe that clear light both of reason and of nature, which we now enjoy, when we endeavor to set up reason and nature in opposition to it! Ought the withered hand which Christ has restored and made whole to be lifted up against Him?
Water cannot rise higher than its source, neither can human reason.
Religion passes out of the ken of reason only where the eye of reason has reached its own horizon; faith is then but its continuation, even as the day softens away into the sweet twilight; and twilight, hushed and breathless, steals into the darkness.
It cannot discover any independent truth; it has absolutely no function until truth, derived from some other source, is given for it to work upon. You can never get out of it what you did not first put into it. If man is to know any thing at all, that knowledge must come from some other source than reason.
Let reason count the stars, weigh the mountains, fathom the depths—the employment becomes her, and the success is glorious. But when the question is, "How shall man be just with God?" reason must be silent, revelation must speak; and he who will not hear it assimilates himself to the first deist, Cain; he may not kill a brother, he certainly destroys himself.
Here is the manliness of manhood, that a man has a reason for what he does, and has a will in doing it.
REDEMPTION.
O, if there be any kind of life most sad, and deepest in the scale of pity, it is the dry, cold impotence of one, who has honestly set to the work of his own self-redemption.
The contrivance of our redemption is the most glorious display of Divine love that ever was made, or ever can be made to the children of men.
Underneath all the arches of Scripture history, throughout the whole grand temple of the Scriptures, these two voices ever echo, man is ruined, man is redeemed.
Christ is redemption only as He actually redeems and delivers our nature from sin. If He is not the law and spring of a new spirit of life, He is nothing. "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God,"—as many, no more.
By Christ's purchasing redemption, two things are intended, His satisfaction, and His merit. All is done by the price that Christ lays down, which does two things: it pays our debt, and so it satisfies; by its intrinsic value, and by the agreement between the Father and the Son it procures our title, and so it merits. The satisfaction of Christ is to free us from misery, and the merit of Christ is to purchase happiness for us.
Whatever in Christ had the nature of satisfaction, was by virtue of His suffering or humiliation; whatever had the nature of merit, was by virtue of His obedience or righteousness.
As God carries on the work of converting the souls of fallen men through all ages, so He goes on to justify them, to blot out all their sins, and to accept them as righteous in His sight through the righteousness of Christ. He goes on to adopt and receive them from being the children of Satan to be His own children, to carry on the work of His grace which He has begun in them, to comfort them with the consolations of His Spirit, and to bestow upon them, when their bodies die, that eternal glory which is the fruit of Christ's purchase.
We are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ, by the effectual application of it to us by His Holy Spirit.
Look, therefore, which way we will, whether at the direct Scriptural statements of death as the penalty of sin, or at the agony of the cross as a means of rescue, or at the joy of the angels of God over a rescue; we see from either that it must be a work of infinite and eternal consequence—the work of redemption.
What a memorable epoch that will be when Jesus Christ shall have vacated the throne of mercy! What an awful event in the history of our universe will that be when the dispensation that cost so much, that lasted so long, when that shall cease, when that shall disappear and be no more at all in the universe of God Almighty! It seems to me the very thought ought to start every sinner to his feet in a moment! Lord Jesus, help! that we may embrace the offered mercy!
REGENERATION.
Regeneration is God's disposing the heart to Himself; conversion is the actual turning of the heart to God.
I never wish to be more charitable than Christ. I find it written: "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
You are sons because born again, or slaves and enemies because of wicked works.
Creed, or the belief in a certain amount of doctrine, has made Christendom, but never made a Christian. "Ye must be born again."
Embrace in one act the two truths—thine own sin, and God's infinite mercy in Jesus Christ.
While the agent of renovation is the Divine Spirit, and the condition of renovation is our cleaving to Christ, the medium of renovation and the weapon which the transforming grace employs is "the word of the truth of the gospel," whereby we are sanctified.
The regeneration of a sinner is an evidence of power in the highest sphere—moral nature; with the highest prerogative—to change nature; and operating to the highest result—not to create originally, which is great; but to create anew, which is greater.
Regeneration is the beginning of holiness in the soul, and admits of no progression; sanctification is carried on progressively in the heart of the renewed, and will be continued until it is completed in the concluding moment of life.
One has said that Christ excelled all other moralists in this, that He puts the padlock not upon the hand, but upon the heart. But He does not use the padlock at all, He renders such a thing unnecessary. He takes the tiger from the heart, and replaces it with the lamb.
Regeneration is we know, instantaneous; but the steps that lead to it are often very gradual; and none of them, so far as we can see, can be spared.
Do you think that a man is renewed by God's Spirit, when except for a few religious phrases, and a little more outside respectability, he is just the old man, the same character at heart he ever was?
A man may beat down the bitter fruit from an evil tree until he is weary; whilst the root abides in strength and vigor, the beating down the present fruit will not hinder it from bringing forth more.
REJECTION OF CHRIST.
How great is your sin in rejecting Jesus Christ! You slight the glorious Person for whose coming God made such great preparation in such a series of wonderful providences from the beginning of the world, bringing to pass a thing before unknown, the union of the Divine nature with the human in one person. You have been guilty of slighting that great Saviour, who, after such preparation, actually accomplished the purchase of redemption, and who, after He had spent three or four and thirty years in poverty, labor, and contempt, in purchasing redemption, at last finished the purchase by closing His life under such extreme sufferings; and so by His death, and continuing for a time under the power of death, completed the whole. This is the Saviour you reject and despise. You make light of all the glory of His person, and of all the love of God the Father in sending Him into the world, and all His wonderful love appearing in the whole of His work.
The message of love can never come into a human soul, and pass away from it unreceived, without leaving that spirit worse, with all its lowest characteristics strengthened, and all its best ones depressed, by the fact of rejection.
RELIGION.
The ground of all religion, that which makes it possible, is the relation in which the human soul stands to God.
Religion is the tie that connects man with his Creator, and holds him to His throne.
Religion is faith in an infinite Creator, who delights in and enjoins that rectitude which conscience commands us to seek. This conviction gives a Divine sanction to duty.
In whatever light we view religion it appears solemn and venerable. It is a temple full of majesty, to which the worshiper may approach with comfort, in the hope of obtaining grace and finding mercy; but where they cannot enter without being inspired with awe. If we may be permitted to compare spiritual with natural things, religion resembles not those scenes of natural beauty where every object smiles. It cannot be likened to the gay landscape or the flowery field. It resembles more the august and sublime appearances of Nature—the lofty mountain, the expanded ocean, and the starry firmament; at the sight of which the mind is at once overawed and delighted; and, from the union of grandeur with beauty, derives a pleasing but a serious devotion.
Religion is the answer to that cry of Reason which nothing can silence, that aspiration of the soul which no created thing can meet, that want of the heart which all creation cannot supply.
Religion to be permanently influential must be intelligent.
Religion, in its purity, is not so much a pursuit as a temper; or rather it is a temper, leading to the pursuit of all that is high and holy. Its foundation is faith; its action, works; its temper, holiness; its aim, obedience to God in improvement of self, and benevolence to men.
Religion is such a belief of the Bible as maintains a living influence on the heart.
Too soon did the doctors of the church forget that the heart—the moral nature—was the beginning and the end, and that truth, knowledge, and insight were comprehended in its expansion.
By religion I mean perfected manhood,—the quickening of the soul by the influence of the Divine Spirit.
Our religious needs are our deepest needs. There is no peace till they are satisfied and contented. The attempt to stifle them is in vain. If their cry be drowned by the noise of the world, they do not cease to exist. They must be answered.
The true office of religion is to bring out the whole nature of man in harmonious activity.
The true religion of Jesus Christ our Saviour is that which penetrates, and which receives all the warmth of the heart, and all the elevation of the soul, and all the energies of the understanding, and all the strength of the will.
Religion is not mere truth, gained by study, and retained by watchfulness in the soul. It is truth translated into actions, embodied in life.
A religion that never suffices to govern a man, will never suffice to save him. That which does not distinguish him from a sinful world, will never distinguish him from a perishing world.
No man's religion ever survives his morals.
Religion is the best armor in the world, but the worst cloak.
Religion is not a perpetual moping over good books. Religion is not even prayer, praise, holy ordinances,—these are necessary to religion—no man can be religious without them. But religion is mainly and chiefly the glorifying God amid the duties and trials of the world; the guiding of our course amid adverse winds and currents of temptation by the sunlight of duty and the compass of Divine truth, the bearing up manfully, wisely, courageously, for the honor of Christ, our great Leader, in the conflict of life.
Religion is no dry morality; no slavish, punctilious conforming of actions to a hard law. Religion is not right thinking alone, nor right emotion alone, nor right action alone. Religion is still less the semblance of these in formal profession, or simulated feeling, or apparent rectitude. Religion is not nominal connection with the Christian community, nor participation in its ordinances and its worship. But to be godly is to be godlike.
Human things must be known to be loved; but Divine things must be loved to be known.
True religion is not what men see and admire; it is what God sees and loves; the faith which clings to Jesus in the darkest hour; the sanctity which shrinks from the approach of evil; the humility which lies low at the feet of the Redeemer, and washes them with tears; the love which welcomes every sacrifice; the cheerful consecration of all the powers of the soul; the worship which, rising above all outward forms, ascends to God in the sweetest, dearest communion—a worship often too deep for utterance, and than which the highest heaven knows nothing more sublime.
I have now disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian religion. If they had that, and I had not given them one shilling, they would have been rich; and if they had not that, and I had given them all the world, they would be poor.
The call to religion is not to be better than your fellows, but to be better than yourself.
O Heavenly Father, convert my religion from a name to a principle! Bring all my thoughts and movements into an habitual reference to Thee!
When we take our last remove, I fear that we shall find that a great deal which we call religion, and which we were at the trouble of lugging about with us through our whole pilgrimage, is perfectly worthless, fit only to be burned.
Is religion one of the fine arts, that it should consist simply in going to meeting in good clothes every Sunday, saying grace at table, and praying night and morning? Are we so literally a flock that we have nothing to do but to be fed all the year, yielding only the annual fleece which forms our pastor's salary?
The body of all true religion consists, to be sure, in obedience to the will of the Sovereign of the world, in a confidence in His declarations, and an imitation of His perfections.
The sum and substance of the preparation needed for a coming eternity is that you believe what the Bible tells you, and do what the Bible bids you.
Carry religious principles into common life, and common life will lose its transitoriness. The world passes away. The things seen are temporal. Soon business, with all its cares and anxieties, the whole "unprofitable stir and fever of the world" will be to us a thing of the past. But religion does something better than sigh and moan over the perishableness of earthly things. It finds in them the seeds of immortality.
How admirable is that religion which, while it seems to have in view only the felicity of another world, is at the same time the highest happiness of this.
Religious faith and purpose are the only certain safeguards against the growing perils of life. So far as there has been among educated men a decline of loyalty to Christ and His gospel, there has been a decline in those qualities which claim confidence and honor, which insure unblemished reputation, which minister to social well-being, and to the integrity and purity of public life.
It is only religion, the great bond of love and duty to God, that makes any existence valuable or even tolerable. Without this, to live were only to graze. Without this, the beauties of the world are but splendid gewgaws, the stars of heaven glittering orbs of ice, and, what is yet far worse and colder, the trials of existence profitless and unadulterated miseries.
Remove from the history of the past all those actions which have either sprung directly from the religious nature of man, or been modified by it, and you have the history of another world and of another race.
It was religion, which, by teaching men their near relation to God, awakened in them the consciousness of their importance as individuals. It was the struggle for religious rights, which opened their eyes to all their rights. It was resistance to religious usurpation, which led men to withstand political oppression. It was religious discussion, which roused the minds of all classes to free and vigorous thought.
The men that history enshrines in her pages, the men whose memories are embalmed in the hearts of their fellows for all ages, were men who placed unfaltering trust in the loftiest convictions of the soul, and consecrated life and death to their realization.
It is the very nature and essence of religion to raise men, peoples, and nations above the common level of life, to break through its ordinary bounds, and express itself in a thousand ways, in poetry, painting, music, sculpture, and in every other form of ideal expression. The splendid monuments of the genius and greatness of by-gone ages are the monuments inspired by their religion.
One must build to the praise of a Being above, to build the noblest memorial of himself. Then, Angelo may verily "hang the Pantheon in the air." Then the unknown builder, whose personality disappears in his work, may stand an almost inspired mediator between the upward-looking thought and the spheres overhead. Each line then leaps with a swift aspiration, as the vast structure rises, in nave and transept into pointed arch and vanishing spire. The groined roof grows dusky with majestic glooms; while, beneath, the windows flame, as with apocalyptic light of jewels. Angelic presences, sculptured upon the portal, invite the wayfarer, and wave before him their wings of promise. Within is a worship which incense only clouds, which spoken sermons only mar. The building itself becomes a worship, a Gloria in Excelsis, articulate in stone; the noblest tribute offered on earth, by any art, to Him from whom its impulse came, and with the ineffable majesty of whose spirit all skies are filled.
Religion, converts despair, which destroys, into resignation, which submits.
What but the mighty mastership of religion has ever led a people up through civil wars and revolutions into a regenerated order and liberty? What has planted colonies for a great history but religion? The most august and beautiful structures of the world have been temples of religion, crystallizations, we may say, of worship. The noblest charities, the best fruits of learning, the richest discoveries, the best institutions of law and justice, every greatest thing the world has seen, represents more or less directly the fruitfulness and creativeness of religion.
All noblest things are religious,—not temples and martyrdoms only, but the best books, pictures, poetry, statues, and music.
Other religions have risen and decayed; Christ's comes down the ages in the strength of youth, through the seas of popular commotion, like the Spirit of God on the face of the waters, through the storms of philosophy, like an apocalyptic angel, and through all the wilderness of human thought and action, like the pillar of fire before the camp of the Israelites.
The heathen mythology not only was not true, but was not even supported as true; it not only deserved no faith, but it demanded none. The very pretension to truth, the very demand of faith, were characteristic distinctions of Christianity.
Beware of a religion of mere sentiment which gazes and sighs and wishes, but makes no sacrifice, which hides the cross with flowers, and wears it over, but not within the heart. Beware of a religion which costs you nothing, never rises an hour earlier, never denies itself a pleasure, never gives that which it will miss, for the sake of Christ and the soul.
If you are seeking the comforts of religion rather than the glory of our Lord, you are on the wrong track. The Comforter meets us unsought in the path of duty.
There is something in religion, when rightly comprehended, that is masculine and grand. It removes those little desires which are the constant hectic of a fool.
Let a man be firmly principled in his religion, he may travel from the tropics to the poles, it will never catch cold on the journey.
The way to judge of religion is by doing our duty. Religion is rather a Divine life than a Divine knowledge. In heaven, indeed, we must first see, and then love; but here, on earth, we must first love, and love will open our eyes as well as our hearts, and we shall then see and perceive and understand.
To judge religion we must have it—not stare at it from the bottom of a seemingly interminable ladder.
The spirit of true religion breathes gentleness and affability; it gives a native, unaffected ease to the behavior; it is social, kind, cheerful; far removed from the cloudy and illiberal disposition which clouds the brow, sharpens the temper, and dejects the spirit.
It is the half-way religion that undoes the professing world. The heart can never be at unity with itself till it is wholly centered in God.
Religion gives to virtue the sweetest hopes, to unrepenting vice just alarms, to true repentance the most powerful consolations; but she endeavors above all things to inspire in men love, meekness, and piety.
Nothing exposes religion more to the reproach of its enemies than the worldliness and half-heartedness of the professors of it.
Men use religion just as they use buoys and life-preservers; they do not intend to navigate the vessel with them, but they keep just enough of them on hand to float into a safe harbor when a storm comes up and the vessel is shipwrecked; and it is only then that they intend to use them. I tell you, you will find air-holes in all such life-preservers as that.
There is a great deal too much in the world, of the "heavenly-mindedness" which expends itself in the contemplation of the joys of paradise, which performs no duty which it can shirk, and whose constant prayer is to be lifted in some overwhelming flood of Divine grace, and be carried, amidst the admiration of men and the jubilance of angels, to the very throne of God.
The religion of some people is constrained; like the cold bath when it is used, not for pleasure, but from necessity, for health, into which one goes with reluctance, and is glad when able to get out. But religion to the true believer is like water to a fish. It is his element. He lives in it, and could not live out of it.
With many people, religion is merely a matter of words. So far as words go we do what we think right. But the words rarely lead to action, thought, and conduct, or to purity, goodness, and honesty. There is too much playing at religion, and too little of enthusiastic, hard work.
You have no security for a man who has no religious principle.
There are men who stalk about the world gloomy and stiff and severe—self-righteous embodiments of the mischievous heresy that the religion of peace and good-will to all mankind—the religion of love and hope and joy, the religion that bathes the universal human soul in the light of paternal love, and opens to mankind the gates of immortality—is a religion of terror—men guilty of misrepresenting Christ to the world, and doing incalculable damage to His cause.
Men will wrangle for religion; write for it; fight for it; die for it; any thing but—live for it.
Too much is said in these days about the æsthetics of religion and its sensibilities. Religion's home is in the conscience. Its watchword is the word "ought." Its highest joy is in doing God's will.
They who seek religion for culture's sake are æsthetic, not religious, and will never gain that grace which religion adds to culture, because they never can have the religion.
The belief in a Divine education, open to each man and to all men, takes up into itself all that is true in the end proposed by culture, supplements, and perfects it.
To rely on intellectual methods for the direct advance of devout thoughts is to mistake philosophy for religion.
Religion is the only metaphysics that the multitude can understand and adopt.
Man without religion is the creature of circumstances. Religion is above all circumstances, and will lift him up above them.
Educate men without religion, and you make them but clever devils.
It seems to me a great truth, that human things cannot stand on selfishness, mechanical utilities, economies, and law courts; that if there be not a religious element in the relations of men, such relations are miserable, and doomed to ruin.
Who ever heard of a devout deist? Who ever heard of one who was willing to spend his life in missionary labor for the good of others? It is not according to the constitution of the mind that such a system should awaken the affections. And what is true of this system is true of every false system. All such systems leave the heart cold, and, accordingly, exert very little genuine, transforming power over the life.
Religion may enter a pothouse as a minister of good, but it may not lay aside its dignity to argue its rights and claims there. The moment that it does this it is shorn of its power.
Who does not know out of his own heart, that he never was reasoned into holy wonder, love, or reverence? and who can fail to observe that there is no fixed proportion between force of understanding and clearness or depth of religion?
You have respect for religion! How vastly condescending! How deeply humble! The creature has a respect for the service of the Creator! A grasshopper deigns to acknowledge that it has a respect for the King of kings and Lord of lords! Verily a subject of congratulation for the universe! A worm crawling in the dust confesses to its fellow worm that it has some respect for the government of the high and mighty One that inhabiteth eternity.
REPENTANCE.
True repentance consists in the heart being broken for sin and broken from sin.
Of all acts is not, for a man, repentance the most divine? The greatest of faults is to be conscious of none.
While repentance is indispensable to eternal life, we are not to regard it in the light of a price paid for its possession. It is not an expiatory grace, or a compensation for moral indebtedness.
The Scriptural doctrine in regard to repentance is not, that a man must repent in order to his being qualified to go to Christ; it is rather, that he must go to Christ in order to his being able to repent. From Him comes the grace of contrition as well as the cleansing of expiation.
True repentance has as its constituent elements not only grief and hatred of sin, but also an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ. It hates the sin, and not simply the penalty; and it hates the sin most of all because it has discovered God's love.
Not all the drops the human eye can shed will ever quench the fires or blot out the guilt of sin. Do not, I pray you, be deceived on this point; do not permit yourselves to harbor the delusion that the rain-showers from your beclouded eyes can ever fertilize the barren soul, and cause it to blossom as the rose.
To grieve over sin is one thing, to repent is another.
The law stops every man's mouth. God will have a man humble himself down on his face before Him, with not a word to say for himself. Then God will speak to him, when he owns that he is a sinner, and gets rid of all his own righteousness.
It is one thing to mourn for sin because it exposes us to hell, and another to mourn for it because it is an infinite evil. It is one thing to mourn for it because it is injurious to ourselves; another, to mourn for it because it is offensive to God. It is one thing to be terrified; another, to be humbled.
No man ever truly repented, and turned away from all his sins, until by faith he accepted the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon the cross.
Repentance is getting out of one train and getting into the other. You are in the wrong train; you are in the broad path that takes you down to the pit of hell. Get out of it to-day. Right-about-face.
Repentance can never become a substitute for obedience, neither can it, of itself alone, constitute a just ground for pardon.
Repentance does not consist in one single act of sorrow, though that, being the first and leading act, gives denomination to the whole; but in doing works meet for repentance, in a sincere obedience to the law of Christ for the remainder of our lives.
It will require more than a few hours of fasting and prayer to cast out such demons as selfishness, worldliness; and unbelief. Repentance, to be of any avail, must work a change of heart and of conduct.
The true penitent sees that he has broken God's holy law, and resisted the claims of his rightful Sovereign. The thought that most deeply affects him is, that he has sinned against God. In comparison with this, his other crimes vanish to nothing. The language of his heart is, "Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned."
A heart renewed—a loving heart—a penitent and humble heart—a heart broken and contrite, purified by love—that and only that is the rest of men. Spotlessness may do for angels, repentance unto life is the highest that belongs to man.
My Saviour, mid life's varying scene
Be Thou my stay;
Guide me, through each perplexing path,
To perfect day.
In weakness and in sin I stand;
Still faith can clasp Thy mighty hand,
And follow at Thy dear command.
My Saviour, I have nought to bring
Worthy of Thee;
A broken heart Thou wilt not spurn;
Accept of me.
I need Thy righteousness Divine,
I plead Thy promises as mine,
I perish if I am not Thine.
Repentance is true and genuine, if we are grieved for sin as it is offensive to God, if we are forsaking and turning from it both in heart and life, and, particularly, if we are deeply affected with the sin of unbelief.
Place not thy amendment only in increasing thy devotion, but in bettering thy life. This is the damning hypocrisy of this age; that it slights all good morality, and spends its zeal in matters of ceremony, and a form of godliness, without the power of it.
Holy practice is the most decisive evidence of the reality of our repentance, "Bring forth fruits meet for repentance."
True repentance is to cease from sin.
'Tis to bewail the sins thou didst commit;
And not commit those sins thou hast bewailed.
He that bewails, and not forsakes them too,
Confesses rather what he means to do.
Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavor after, new obedience.
We believe that repentance and faith are sacred duties, and also inseparable graces, wrought in our souls by the regenerating Spirit of God, whereby being deeply convinced of our guilt, danger, and helplessness, and of the way of salvation by Christ, we turn to God with unfeigned contrition, confession, and supplication for mercy; at the same time heartily receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as our Prophet, Priest, and King, and relying on Him alone as the only and all-sufficient Saviour.
God has promised to forgive the penitent. He has pledged His word that the act of forgiveness on His part shall follow the exercise of repentance on yours. Returning prodigal, pardoning mercy is thine. It is as sure as the sincerity of thy repentance.
Come back then, O, thou prodigal, to thy Father. Quit thy sad folly and emptiness, thy reproaches of soul, thy diseased longings, and thy restless sighs. Return again to thy God, and give thyself to Him in a final and last sacrifice. Conquer again, as Christ will help you, the original love, in that to abide and rest.
Perhaps yours is a very remorseful past—a foolish, frivolous, disgraceful, frittered past. Well, Christ says, "My servant, be sad," but no languor; there is work to be done for me yet—rise up, be going! Oh, my brethren, Christ takes your wretched remnants of life—the feeble pulses of a heart which has spent its best hours not for Him, but for self and for enjoyment, and in His strange love He condescends to accept them.
With the blood of Christ to wash away the darkest guilt, and the Spirit of God to sanctify the vilest, and strengthen the weakest nature, I despair of none. Too late! It is never too late. Even old age, tottering to the grave beneath the weight of seventy years and a great load of guilt, may retrace its steps and begin life anew. Hope falls like a sunbeam on the hoary head. I have seen the morning rise cold and gloomy, and the sky grow thicker, and the rain fall faster as the hours wore on; yet, ere he set in night, the sun, bursting through heavy clouds, has broken out to illumine the landscape and shed a flood of glory on the dying day.
Nor alms, nor deeds, that I have done,
Can for a single sin atone;
To Calvary alone I flee;
O God! be merciful to me.
There is one case of death-bed repentance recorded—the penitent thief—that no one should despair; and only one, that no one should presume.
REPUTATION.
The two most precious things this side the grave are our reputation and our life.
It is a maxim with me that no man was ever written out of reputation but by himself!
"Thou shalt not get found out" is not one of God's commandments, and no man can be saved by trying to keep it.
RESIGNATION.
Thy way, not mine, O Lord,
However dark it be!
Lead me by Thine own hand;
Choose out the path for me.
What is resignation? It is putting God between one's self and one's grief.
Depend upon it, in the midst of all the science about the world and its way and all the ignorance of God and His greatness, the man or woman who can say, "Thy will be done," with the true heart of giving up, is nearer the secret of things than the geologist and theologian.
Teach us to submit ourselves to Thy chastenings, believing Thy love in them all. Thou hast given us Christ, and in Him eternal life. Oh, how can we think Thou wouldst withhold from us any thing else if it were good for us! Lord, let us not choose for ourselves. Choose Thou for us in Thy wisdom and love, and let our hearts approve Thy choice. Be Thou our portion, our light, and our joy in Christ Jesus. Help us ever watchfully to cherish a meek and quiet spirit, ever looking unto Him who was meek and lowly of heart, that we may find rest unto our souls.
Lord, my God, do Thou Thy holy will,
I will lie still.
I will not stir, lest I forsake Thine arm,
And break the charm
Which lulls me, clinging to my Father's breast,
To perfect rest.
Give, O Lord, what Thou commandest, and then command what Thou wilt.
We are content to take what Thou shalt give,
To work or suffer as Thy choice shall be;
Forsaking what Thy wisdom bids us leave,
Glad in the thought that we are pleasing Thee.
Resignation,—not to a whirlwind of inexorable forces, not to powers that cannot see or hear or feel, but to One who lives forever, and who loves us well, and who has given us all that we have, ay, life itself, that we may at His bidding freely give it back to Him.
I pray God that I may never find my will again. Oh, that Christ would subject my will to His, and trample it under His feet.
"A little way!"—this sentence I repeat,
Hoping and longing to extract some sweet
To mingle with the bitter; from Thy hand
I take the cup I cannot understand,
And in my weakness give myself to Thee.
Strike! Thou the Master, we Thy keys,
The anthem of the destinies!
The minor of Thy loftier strain,
Our hearts shall breathe the old refrain—
"Thy will be done!"
Jesus knows that we had rather labor than suffer; and that we would rather labor and suffer, too, than be laid aside. No man is fit to rise up and labor, until he is made willing to lie still and suffer as long as his Master pleases.
I take this pain, Lord Jesus,
From Thine own hand;
The strength to bear it bravely
Thou wilt command.
I am too weak for effort,
So let me rest,
In hush of sweet submission
On Thine own breast.
It is resignation and contentment that are best calculated to lead us safely through life.
And I said in underbreath—
All our life is mixed with death,—
And who knoweth which is best?
And I smiled to think God's greatness
Flowed around our incompleteness,—
Round our restlessness, His rest.
I cannot speak
In happy tones; the tear drops on my cheek
Show I am sad;
But I can speak
Of grace to suffer with submission meek,
Until made glad.
I cannot feel
That all is well, when dark'ning clouds conceal
The shining sun;
But then I know
God lives and loves; and say, since it is so,
"Thy will be done."
Wait, then, my soul! submissive wait,
Prostrate before His awful seat;
And 'mid the terrors of His rod,
Trust in a wise and gracious God!
REST.
When shall I be at rest? My eyes grow dim
With straining through the gloom; I scarce can see
The way-marks that my Saviour left for me.
Would it were morning and the night were gone.
If thou seek rest in this life, how wilt thou then attain to the everlasting rest? Dispose not thyself for much rest, but for great patience. Seek true peace—not in earth, but in heaven; not in men, nor in any other creature, but in God alone.
Rest is not quitting
This busy career;
Rest is the fitting
Of self to its sphere.
It is not the placidity of stupid ease that we should covet, but the repose that is requisite for the renewal of exhausted strength, the serenity that succeeds the storm, and the salubrity that repays its ravages.
Thou hast made us for Thyself, and the heart never resteth till it findeth rest in Thee.
Oh, give Thine own sweet rest to me,
That I may speak with soothing power
A word in season, as from Thee,
To weary ones in needful hour.
Rest in the Lord. Let your intellect, your judgment, your reason, rest in God; in God personal, and possessed of every perfection—almighty and all-knowing, kind, righteous, and holy; that is, on a God truly Divine. Rest in the Lord as He reveals Himself in the gospel, merciful and gracious. Faith in God is good, but faith in Him as our own God is better.
It is not in understanding a set of doctrines; not in outward comprehension of the "scheme of salvation," that rest and peace are to be found, but in taking up, in all lowliness and meekness, the yoke of the Lord Jesus Christ.
You are made to find your rest only in God. As the eye craves light, and the ear sound, your higher nature sighs for God. Your desires, vainly seeking rest apart from Him, are trailing flowers climbing up the reeds and stalks only to bend them down to the earth, instead of grasping a high and strong support that would lift them up and let them hang out their bells in the sun. God alone can satisfy the soul. It needs His infinite love and unclouded light to meet its longing.
The Princess Elizabeth, of England, was found dead with her head resting on her Bible, open at these words, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." So may we all fall asleep at last when the day's work for Jesus is over, and wake up in heaven to find ourselves in the delicious rest that remaineth for the people of God.
For me, my heart, that erst did go
Most like a tired child at a show,
That sees through tears the mummers leap,
Would now its wearied vision close,
Would childlike on His love repose,
Who giveth His Beloved, sleep.
Go where ye will, your soul shall not sleep sound but in Christ's bosom.
There is rest in this world nowhere except in Christ, the manifested love of God. Trust in excellence, and the better you become, the keener is the feeling of deficiency. Wrap up all in doubt, and there is a stern voice that will thunder at last out of the wilderness upon your dream.
How quiet such a life is! how fruitful! fruitful because it is so quiet; it works not, but lives and grows. The uneasy effort has passed out of it; unresting because it rests always, it has done with task-work and anxiety; it serves, yet is not cumbered with much serving; it has ceased from that sad complaint—"Thou hast left me to serve alone."
Sit thou at the feet of Christ, and within the influence of His all-composing calmness thine all-disturbing activity shall be gently soothed into quietness and peace; there thy weary soul shall find rest and bliss.
After the burden and heat of the day,
The starry calm of night;
After the rough and toilsome way,
A sleep in the robe of white.
Oh, sweet is the slumber wherewith the King
Hath caused the weary to rest!
For, sleeping, they hear the angels sing,
They lean on the Master's breast.
Tarry with me, O my Saviour;
Lay my head upon Thy breast
Till the morning; then awake me—
Morning of eternal rest.
Lord Jesus, I am weary in Thy work, but not of it. If I have not yet finished my course, let me go and speak for Thee once more in the field, seal Thy truth, and come home to die.
Rest, weary heart,
From all Thy silent griefs and secret pain,
Thy profitless regrets, and longings vain;
Wisdom and love have ordered all the past,
All shall be blessedness and joy at last;
Cast off the cares that have so long oppressed;
Rest, sweetly rest!
And He, at last.
After the weary strife—
After the restless fever we call life—
After the dreariness, the aching pain,
The wayward struggles which have proved in vain,
After our toils are past
Will give us rest at last.
RESURRECTION.
Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in spring-time.
As from the short and dreamless slumber you open your eyes on the great sight—as with mingled joy and awe you find yourself caught up to meet Him in the air, your whole nature springing up into sudden grandeur and a strange unearthliness, I cannot tell what like He then shall be, nor can I tell what like you then shall be, for, seeing Him as He is, you shall not be so like your present self as you shall be like Him.
The resurrection state is the culmination of glorified humanity; is the change of the earthly for the heavenly; is the putting off of flesh and blood, and the putting on of the spiritual body. The body of the resurrection is the body with which the spirit is clothed for its celestial life.
I shall see Him with these eyes,
Him whom I shall surely know;
Not another shall I rise,
With His love this heart shall glow;
Only there shall disappear
Weakness in and round me here.
And shall they rise, all these? Will there be a trumpet blast so shrill that none of them may refuse to hear it, and the soul, re-entering its shrine of eminent or common clay, pass upward to the judgment? "Many and mighty, but all hushed," shall they submit with us to the judgment of the last assize? And in that world is it true that gold is not the currency, and that rank is not hereditary, and that there is only one name that is honored? Then, if this is the end of all men, let the living lay it to heart. Solemn and thoughtful, let us search for an assured refuge; childlike and earnest, let us confide in the one accepted Name; let us realize the tender and infinite nearness of God our Father, through Jesus our Surety and our Friend.
The resurrection morning is a true sun-rising, the inbursting of a cloudless sky on all the righteous dead. They wake transfigured, at their Maker's call, with the fashion of their countenance altered and shining like His own.
O, on that glorious day, when all the hosts of God shall have been gathered from Europe and Asia, from Africa and America—when the long-buried armies of the dead shall come forth, spiritual, incorruptible, glorious, immortal—when the sons of God who have kept their first estate, shall sing "unto Him that loved us," and the redeemed from all parts of the earth, and from all the generations, shall respond in a song sweeter than the songs of the morning-stars when all the sons of God shouted for joy,—may you and I be there to join that everlasting song, and realize that bliss unspeakable which is the enduring portion of the Lord's redeemed.
How divinely full of glory and pleasure shall that hour be when all the millions of mankind that have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb of God shall meet together and stand around Him, with every tongue and every heart full of joy and praise! How astonishing will be the glory and the joy of that day when all the saints shall join together in one common song of gratitude and love, and of everlasting thankfulness to this Redeemer! With what unknown delight, and inexpressible satisfaction, shall all that are saved from the ruins of sin and hell address the Lamb that was slain, and rejoice in His presence!
REVENGE.
Do you who are a Christian desire to be revenged and vindicated, and the death of Jesus Christ has not yet been revenged, nor His innocence vindicated?
Cheerful looks, kind words, and a speedy pardon are the best revenge we can inflict on the ungenerous and unjust.
REVIVAL.
A genuine revival means a trimming of personal lamps.
The whole of the Saviour's ministerial life, at least the part of it that stands on record, was passed in what we may call substantially a revival work.
RICHES.
Seek not proud riches, but such as thou mayest get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly.
There is a burden of care in getting riches, fear in keeping them, temptation in using them, sorrow in losing them, and a burden of account at last to be given up concerning them.
Get rich, if you will—you take great risks. But Christianity does not say to any man, "You must be worth only so much, extend your business only so far." It says, "Use your riches for the glory of God." If they once usurp His place, woe to you!
If by the consecration of my earthly possessions to some extent, I can make the Christian- character practically more lovely, and illustrate, in my own case, that the highest enjoyments here are promoted by the free use of the good things intrusted to us, what so good use can I make of them?
Nature does not conquer the world to God. It never has. It never will. In America, with its vast abounding wealth, its grand expanse of prairie, its reach of river, and its exuberant productiveness, there is danger that our riches will draw us away from God, and fasten us to earth; that they will make us not only rich, but mean; not only wealthy, but wicked. The grand corrective is the cross of Christ, seen in the sanctuary where the life and light of God are exhibited, and where the reverberation of the echoes from the great white throne are heard.
If you will be rich, you must be content to pay the price of falling into temptation and a snare and many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in perdition; and if that price be too high to pay, then you must be content with the quiet valleys of existence, where alone it is well with us; kept out of the inheritance, but having instead God for your portion—your all-sufficient and everlasting portion—peace and quietness and rest in Christ.
But Christian faith knows that wealth means responsibility, and that responsibility may come to mean only heavy arrears of sin.
Worldly wealth is the devil's bait; and those whose minds feed upon riches recede, in general, from real happiness, in proportion as their stores increase.
O, my God! withhold from me the wealth to which tears and sighs and curses cleave. Better none at all than wealth like that.
Riches got by deceit, cheat no man so much as the getter. Riches bought with guile, God will pay for with vengeance. Riches got by fraud, are dug out of one's own heart, and destroy the mine. Unjust riches curse the owner in getting, in keeping, in transmitting.
How many threadbare souls are to be found under silken cloaks and gowns!
Riches are the pettiest and least worthy gifts which God can give a man. What are they to God's word? Yea, to bodily gifts, such as beauty and health, or to the gifts of the mind, such as understanding, skill, wisdom? Yet men toil for them day and night, and take no rest. Therefore our Lord God commonly gives riches to foolish people to whom He gives nothing else.
The rich are like beasts of burden, carrying treasure all day, and at the night of death unladen; they carry to their grave only the bruises and marks of their toil.
It is not the fact that a man has riches which keeps him from the kingdom of heaven, but the fact that riches have him.
RIGHTS.
Almost two thousand years ago there was One here on this earth who lived the grandest life that ever has been lived yet, a life that every thinking man, with deeper or shallower meaning has agreed to call Divine. I read little respecting His rights or of His claims of rights; but I have read a great deal respecting His duties. Every act He did He called a duty.
Rights are grand things, divine things, in this world of God; but the way in which we expound those rights, alas! seems to me to be the very incarnation of selfishness. I see nothing very noble in a man who is forever going about calling for his own rights. Alas! alas! for the man who feels nothing more grand in this wondrous, divine world than his own rights!
Away with private wrongs! We'll not go forth
To fight for these—but for the rights of men.
One of the grandest things in having rights is that, being your rights, you may give them up.