106 man. THE PATIENCE OF JOB. APRIL 8. Ye have heard of the patience of Job. I SHALL limit my remarks to the patience ascribed to Job. His history inculcates a full trust in God, a submission under the severest trials, and a high example of consummate and rewarded patience. Our strength of mind is most tried by great and sudden reverses. In wealth, power and influence, Job was pre-eminent. 'He also feared God, and eschewed evil.' He was philanthropic. "The blessing of him that was ready to perish, came upon me; and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy." He seemed revered by the good, and dreaded by the wicked. "Unto me men gave ear, and waited, and kept silence at my counsel. After my words they spake not again; and my speech dropped upon them. They waited for me as for the rain." Yet reverses befel this good "The thing which I greatly feared, is come upon me." As he had received divine bounties with thankfulness and used them with temperance, his overwhelming misery constrained him to pray; "Shew me wherefore thou contendest with me." His losses consisted of his goods, cattle and servants, and lastly of all his children. With the sensibilities of human nature, he expressed his grief in the manner of that age. "He rent his mantle, shaved his head and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, saying-The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away-blessed be the name of the Lord." The history adds, "In all Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly." This was genuine resignation; this was true patience. But his piety and self possession were to have further trials. His body was covered with most loathsome and excruciating sores; and he is asked in the midst of his agonies-"Dost thou still retain thine integrity?" He answers, "shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil ?" This was far from murmuring and impatience. "He sinned not with his lips." His steadiness and composure of soul was to be more tried by the false constructions put on his extraordinary sufferings. As they were then deemed divine inflictions on hypocrisy, he became the sport of fiendlike insults. "All my inward friends abhorred me, and they whom I loved are turned against me. I am their byword." When the alleviations of friendship failed, Job was miserable indeed. Against charges of sin, he resolutely maintained his integrity, and silenced rather than convinced his accusers.Finally God is represented as answering him out of the whirlwind; at which Job is immediately prostrated in humiliation and reverence, exclaiming, "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.' God in his disciplinary wisdom having proved the piety and patience of Job, is described as restoring his health and prosperity. In his afflictions Job has exhibited to all succeeding generations, a noble example of suffering virtue. He is called a "perfect and upright man," that is, a man of sincere and eminent goodness. He had shades which are remembered even in his heroic pattern of patience. We can hardly expect one in that age to bear patiently the harshest censures and the most torturing suspicions.-May Job's final compensation teach us, that God will regard in mercy our slighter failings, where there is a fixed principle of piety, and a heart steadily bent on the practice of virtue, amidst all trials and vicissitudes. SALVATION THE GREAT OBJECT. APRIL 9. The end of our faith, the salvation of our soul. 107 LET men, who resolve now to enjoy "the pleasures of sin for a season," and hope hereafter by a late repentance to get a share also in the eternal rewards of virtue, consider that they may be cut off in the midst of their hopes; or that they may be as unwilling to repent hereafter, as they are at present. But above all, let them consider, that though they should live to that time, when they shall be willing to leave their sins, because the strength of their temptations will cease, yet they cannot be sure, that God will then accept them. The express condition of the gospel is, that we seek first the kingdom of God; that "we deny" ourselves, and that we "overcome" the world. How slender, therefore, must be the hopes of those who spend their life and strength in the enjoyments of this world, and make religion not their first but last refuge? Are the glories of heaven so inconsiderable? Or is the duty we owe to God so small, that he should accept our coldest and most unwilling service? Offer the blind for sacrifice; offer the lame and sick; offer it now unto thy governour-will he be pleased with thee? How much less will God accept us, when we are least fit to serve him, and in those days wherein we ourselves "have no pleasure." When the interests of immortal souls are concerned, language fails in expressing the importance of the subject! All that men call great and valuable is comparatively dross and vanity. Rank, and wealth, and applause, and magnificence, these will soon be engulphed in the grave. The soul lives forever-the salvation of that soul is, then, every thing to man! For this the Son of God dwelt on earth, and laboured and died,-for this the word of God was penned by prophets and apostles,-for this angels have become ministering spirits-and for this the influences of the Holy Spirit descend. Oh, "awake," then, thou that sleepest in thy sins, and "arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light!" Oh, hasten to save thine own soul! and if through boundless grace thou hast received mercy, then go and compassionate, and toil, and pray for the souls of thy fellow creatures. What, if it be lawful to indulge such a thought, what would be the funeral obsequies of a lost soul? Where shall we find the tears fit to be wept at such a spectacle; or could we realize the calamity in all its extent, what tokens of commiseration and concern would be deemed equal to the occasion? Would it suffice for the sun to veil his light, and the moon her brightness; to cover the ocean with mourning, and the heavens with sackcloth; or were the whole fabric of nature to become animated and vocal, would it be possible for her to utter a groan too deep, or a cry too piercing, to express the magnitude and extent of such a catastrophe ? Let us cling to Jesus Christ-let us build on that foundation, which the storms cannot shatter nor the floods overwhelm. Grateful the joyous news proclaim, Salvation is in Jesus' name; Proclaim it to the world around. 108 CHRISTIANITY. APRIL 10. In him was life and the life was the light of men. THE christianity of the New Testament is impregnable and imperishable. It is indeed a pyramid, whose base covers the earthwhose summit penetrates the skies-and upon whose sides stand enrolled, in illuminated characters, legible to all the inhabitants of the globe, "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ." Christianity founds her claim to general reception upon doctrines most abasing to human pride, and facts calculated rather to repel than to invite human credulity. Her cardinal doctrine, which all the rest subserve, is the justification of a sinner, his deliverance from the bondage of sin, and perfect happiness in heaven, through faith in a Saviour who himself fell a victim to his enemies; and expired as a malefactor, under the infamy of the cross. Nothing more repugnant to their preconceived notions was ever proclaimed in the ears of men. It is the object of their dislike, their derision, and their scorn. "We preach," says the apostle, "we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness." So it was at the beginning; so it is at the present hour; and so it will remain to the end. The cardinal fact of christianity, without which all its other facts lose their importance, is the resurrection from the dead of this same crucified Saviour, as the prelude, the pattern, and the pledge of the resurrection of his followers to eternal life. Against this great fact the "children of disobedience," from the Pharisees of the primitive age down to the scoffers of modern times, have levelled their batteries. One assails its proof, another its reasonableness; all, its truth. When Paul asserted it before an audience of Athenian philosophers, "some mocked,"-a short method of refuting the gospel, and likely, from its convenience, to continue in favour and in fashion. Yet with such doctrines and facts did the religion of Jesus make its way through the world. Against the superstition of the multitude-against the interest, influence, and craft of their priesthoodagainst the ridicule of wits, the reasoning of sages, the policy of cabinets, and the prowess of armies-against the axe, the cross, and the stake, she extended her conquest from Jordan to the Atlantic shores. She gathered her laurels alike upon the snows of Scythia, the green fields of Europe, and the sands of Africa. The altars of impiety crumbled before her march-the glimmer of the schools disappeared in her light. Power felt his arm wither at her glance; and, in a short time, she who went, forlorn and insulted, from the hill of Calvary to the tomb of Joseph, ascended the imperial throne, and waved her banner over the palace of the Cæsars. Her victories were not less benign than decisive. They were victories over all that pollutes, degrades, and ruins man; in behalf of all that purifies, exalts, and saves him. They subdued his understanding to truth, his habits to rectitude, and his heart to happiness. Nor shall his spreading gospel rest, Till through the world thy truth has run ; That see the light, or feel the sun. IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. APRIL 11. I am the Lord, I change not. 109 EVERY change in the substance of things, is either perfective or corruptive; both which are equally impossible in God. Every argument proving God's existence, helps prove his eternity, his oneness and his immutability. God's unchangeableness should lead us to admiring and adoring apprehensions of his character and purposes. He exists through all the measures and divisions of time, without any addition to his years or any accession to his knowledge.-His power is the same; equally incapable of receiving any increase or suffering the least diminution. To create, preserve and govern millions of worlds can be no fatigue or weariness to him. With him is everlasting strength; and all things are equally easy and possible to him. His goodness and mercy are also the same, and endure forever. His other perfections are equally unalterable. When he creates he is not more powerful, when he governs he is not more wise, when he punishes he is not more just, and when he blesses he is not more kind than he has been from everlasting. These displays of his perfections, these emanations from the Father of lights, argue no variableness or shadow of turning. His immutability adds a lustre to all his other attributes. How great the changes in all created things! Empires rise and fall, kings and potentates flourish and fade, riches make to themselves wings, pleasures are vanishing, and man though in honour abides not. Our dearest friends, the objects of our cherished affection, leave us, and the supporters of our infant steps, the guides of our advancing years, are cut down at our side. Rank after rank they follow on that mysterious flight of stairs which leads down into the bosom of eternity. With what propriety then are we cautioned against reposing our trust in what is mutable. How important to secure the love of the unchangeable Jehovah. God's immutability suggests most powerful motives to repentance. His denunciations against sin are as fixed as his nature. His ahborrence of it is eternal; and wheresoever it exists, he will continue the same mind towards it. What terrors does this fact hang over the ungodly! To be happy, they, and not God, must change. Consider this, ye that forget God, and turn to the path of life. The immutability which punishes sin, rewards holiness. God's unchangeableness affords durable comfort to the righteous. In every painful vicissitude, lingering distress and unexplained bereavement, the sincere christian consoles himself with the belief that his heavenly Father is still the same. On every occasion he can with unabated confidence, repair for succour and consolation to that fountain of love which is still open and still flowing. Let us make choice of this unchangeable Being, as our guide, comforter and reward. In him alone we shall find durable felicity. When we lay hold of earthly objects, they turn to ashes in our hands. All below is death-struck. The present actors on the stage of life must soon make their exit, leaving room for others to act and suffer To him the allotments of humanity. But God remains the same. let us go, for to him we must look for life in this world, and for its happy continuance in the next. 110 COMPARATIVE HAPPINESS AND PAIN IN LIFE. APRIL 12. Doth a fountain send forth at the same place, both sweet water and bitter ? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh. Is there an herb to be found, which is, at once, healing and poisonous? Is there an animal, which is, at the same time, innocent and noxious?-If we survey the checkered face of human life at large, we shall find its bright spaces more numerous than its shadows. Congratulation is more exercised than pity. The countenances that have sorrow upon them, are fewer than the faces which do not want to be wiped. And if the whole histories of individuals whom we see in circumstances of distress were to be laid before us, perhaps, we should find few of them, in which there was not a greater number of pleasant than painful passages in which there was not, upon the whole, more cheerfulness than depression; more tranquillity than trouble; more corporal ease than sufferance. Whatever pain, whatever care may lie in wait for the man,-childhood is careless and sportive; "a stranger yet to pain." Whatever clouds remain for the brow of manhood, the forehead of youth is clear and smooth. The first years of almost every life, however dark and stormy it afterward becomes, are all sunshine and serenity. Then, at least, how many soever the sicknesses, the sorrows, and the solicitudes, the "months of vanity," and the "wearisome nights," that await maturer years, then, at least, every pulse is health; every pillow, peace; every feeling, rapture; every object, novelty; every prospect, hope! Now, although my present business is not to vindicate the goodness of Providence, but merely to prevent from looking to our eye larger and darker than it really is, to reduce to its true size, and dilute to its true shade, that apparent blot upon it, which may be proved to be no more than the appearance of a stain; yet, thus much I will say that the happiness, which manifestly prevails in the present system, is such an indication of the author of it, as will not allow us to ascribe the mixture of misery, we observe in it, to any mixture of malevolence in him. He, who so often blesses, cannot once "willingly afflict." For his severity, whose tender mercies are so numerous as we see them to be, there must be some satisfactory reason, whether we see it or not. A character composed of striking kindness and wanton cruelty, is too inconsistent to be credible. If we only adopt the same mode of reasoning, in judging of the divine character, which we are all of us accustomed to make use of, in deciding upon those of men, it will be impossible for us to suspect him of any malice, who has discovered so much mercy. When we hear a fellow creature accused of having committed an action, of a complexion directly opposite to the strongest colours of his character-we say, "it is not like the man; let him tell his own story; judge no man before he be heard." Now, let the same rule of judging be applied to the conduct of Providence; let the same prevalence of good obtain the same credit and trust, under appearances of evil, which we are in habits of granting to human characters; and we shall be in little danger of suspecting the supreme benignity of any deviations from the path of goodness. |