Sivut kuvina
PDF
ePub

the Psalmist, "is upon the waters; the voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire" and well therefore may this voice correct the disorders of states,

and fan the sparks of genius, as well as summon from the perishable, and guide to the immortal.

SERMON

IV.

NEGLECT OF THE GOSPEL FOLLOWED BY ITS REMOVAL.

"Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent."-Revelation, 2 : 5.

In our last discourse we endeavored to set before you the advantages resulting from the possession of God's oracles: the words which we have just read will lead us to speak of dangers produced by their neglect. The text contains an exhortation, and a threatening, with which we have evidently as great concern, as had the church of Ephesus to which they were originally addressed. The exhortation-an exhortation to repentance-is one which we shall do well to apply to ourselves; the threatening-a threatening that the candlestick shall be removed-may take effect in our own days as well as in earlier.

Now there are few duties to which men are more frequently urged, and in regard to which, nevertheless, they are more likely to be deceived, than the great duty of repentance. It is of the first importance, that the exact place and nature of this duty should be accurately defined; for so long as there is any thing of misapprehension, or mistake, in regard to repentance, there can be no full appreciation of the prof fered mercies of the Gospel. It seems to be too common an opinion, that repentance is a kind of preparation, or preliminary, which men are in a great degree to effect for themselves before

they can go to Christ as a mediator and propitiation. Repentance is regarded as a something which they have to do, a condition they have to perform, in order that they may be fitted to ap ply to the Redeemer, and ask a share in the blessings which he purchased for mankind. We do not, of course, deny that there must be repentance before there can be forgiveness; and that it is only to the broken and contrite heart that Christ extends the fruits of his passion. We say to every man who may be inquiring as to the pardon of sin, except you repent you cannot be forgiven. But the question is, whether a man must wait till he has repented before he applies to Christ; whether repentance is a preliminary which he has to effect, ere he may venture to seek to a mediator. And it is here, as we think, that the mistake lies, a mistake which turns repentance into a kind of obstacle between the sinner and Christ.

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 enabled to repent. And the difference between these propositions is manifest and fundamental. There would be no

virtue in our repentance, even if we could repent of ourselves, to recommend us to the favor of the Redeemer; but there goes forth virtue from the Redeemer himself, strengthening us for that repentance which is alone genuine and acceptable. St. Peter sufficiently laid down this doctrine, when he said of Christ to the high priest and Sadducees, "him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins." Here repentance is stated to be as much the gift of the glorified Christ as forgiveness a statement inconsistent with the notion, that repentance is something which must be effected without Christ, as a ground on which to rest our application to him for pardon. We rather gather from these words of the apostle, that we can no more repent without Christ than be pardoned without Christ: from him comes the grace of contrition as well as the cleansing of expiation.

There may indeed be the abandonment of certain vicious practices, and a breaking loose from habits which have held the soul in bondage. Long ere the man thinks of applying to Christ, and whilst almost a stranger to his name, he may make a great advance in reformation of conduct, renouncing much which his conscience has declared wrong, and entering upon duties of which he has been neglectful. But this comes far short of that thorough moral change which is intended by the inspired writers, when they speak of repentance. The outward conduct may be amended, whilst no attack is made on the love of sin as seated in the heart; so that the change may be altogether on the surface, and extend not to the affections of the inner man. But the repentance, required of those who are forgiven through Christ, is a radical change of mind and of spirit; a change which will be made apparent by a corresponding in the outward deportment, but whose great scene is within, and which there affects every power and propensity of our nature. And a repentance such as this, seeing it manifestly lies beyond the reach of our own strivings, is only to be obtained from Christ, who ascended up on high, and "received gifts for the rebellious," be

coming, in his exaltation, the source and dispenser of those various assistances which fallen beings need as probationers for eternity.

What then is it which a man has to do who is desirous of becoming truly repentant? We reply that his great business is earnest prayer to Christ, that he would give him the Holy Spirit, to enable him to repent. Of course we do not mean that he is to confine himself to prayer, and make no effort at correcting what may be wrong in his conduct. The sincerity of his prayer can only be proved by the vigor of his endeavor to obey God's commands. But we mean, that, along with his strenuousness in renouncing evil habits and associations, there must be an abiding persuasion that repentance, as well as forgiveness, is to be procured through nothing but the atoning sacrifice of Christ; and this persuasion must make him unwearied in entreaty, that Christ would send into his soul the renovating power. It may be urged that Christ pardons none but the penitent; but our statement rather is, that those whom he pardons he first makes penitent.

And shall we be told that we thus reduce man below the level of an intelligent, accountable being; making him altogether passive, and allotting him no task in the struggle for immortality? We throw back the accusation as altogether unfounded. We call upon man for the stretch of every muscle, and the strain of every power. As to his being saved in indolence, saved in inactivity, he may as well look for harvest where he has never sown, and for knowledge where he has never studied. Is it to be an idler, is it to be a sluggard, to have to keep down that pride which would keep him from Christ; to be wrestling with those passions which the light that is in him shows must be mortified; to be unwearied in petition for the assistances of the Spirit, and in using such helps as have been already vouchsafed? If this be idleness, that man is an idler who is actuated by the consciousness, that he can no more repent than be pardoned without Christ. But if it be to task a man to the utmost of his energy, to prescribe that he go straightway for every thing which he needs to an invisible Mediator; go, in spite of the opposition of the flesh; go,

though the path lies through resisting inclinations; go, though in going he must abase himself in the dust, and proclaim his own nothingness; then we are exhorting the impenitent to the mightiest of labors, when we exhort them to seek repentance as Christ's gift. The assigning its true place to repentance; the destroying the notion that repentance is to be effected for ourselves, and then to recommend us to the Savior; this, in place of telling men that they have little or nothing to do, is the urging them to diligence by showing how it may be successful; and to effort, by pointing out the alone channel through which it can prevail. And if there be given to the angel of a church the same commission as was given to the angel of the church at Ephesus, so that he must come down upon a careless or backsliding congregation with a stern and startling summons; never let it be thought that he either keeps out of sight the moral inabilities of man, or urges to an inert and idle dependance, when he expatiates on the necessity, and exhorts to the duty, of repentance-he is preaching that Christ is all in all, and nevertheless he is animating his hearers to strive for the mastery, and struggle for deliverance, when he entreats them in the words of our text, to remember from whence they are fallen, and repent, and do the first works."

them in exultation at his repentance.

And it is urging you to this consideration, to urge you to the remembering from whence you are fallen. We all know what a power there is in memory, when made to array before the guilty days and scenes of comparative innocence. It is with an absolutely crushing might that the remembrance of the years and home of his boyhood will come upon the criminal, when brought to a pause in his career of misdoing, and perhaps about to suffer its penalties. If we knew his early history, and it would bear us out in the attempt, we should make it our business to set before him the scenery of his native village, the cottage where he was born, the school to which he was sent, the church where he first heard the preached Gospel; and we should call to his recollection the father and the mother, long since gathered to their rest, who made him kneel down night and morning, and who instructed him out of the Bible, and who warned him, even with tears, against evil ways and evil companions. We should remind him how peacefully his days then glided away; with how much of happiness he was blessed in possession, how much of hope in prospect. And he may be now a hardened and desperate man: but we will never believe, that, as his young days were thus passing before him, and the reverend forms of his parents came back from the grave, and the trees that grew round his birthplace waved over him their foliage, and he saw himself once more as he was in early life, when he knew crime but by name, and knew it only to abhor-we will never believe that he could be proof against this mustering of the past-he might be proof against invective, proof against reproach, proof against remonstrance; but when we brought memory to bear upon him, and bade it peo

But there is more in this exhortation than the summons to repentance: memory is appealed to as an assistant in the duty to which men are called. In other parts of Scripture we find great worth attached to consideration-as when the Psalmist says, "I thought on my ways, and turned my feet to thy testimonies." Here the turning to God's testimonies is given by David as an immediate consequence on the thinking on his ways, as though consideration were alone necessary to in-ple itself with all the imagery of youth, sure a speedy repentance. The great evil with the mass of men is, that, so far at least as eternity is concerned, they never think at all-once make them think, and you make them anxious; once make them anxious, and they will labor to be saved. When a man considers his ways, angels may be said to prepare their harps, as know ing that they shall soon have to sweep

we believe that, for the moment at least, the obdurate being would be subdued, and a sudden gush of tears prove that we had opened a long sealed-up fountain.

And we know no reason why there should not be a like power in memory, in cases which have no analogy with this, except in the general fact, that men are not what they were. If we ar

ray before us the records of man's pristine condition, and avail ourselves of such intelligence as it hath pleased God to vouchsafe, we may with sufficient truth be said to remember whence we fell. And very energetic and persuasive would be this remembrance. We should feel that we were gaining a great moral hold on a man, if we prevailed on him to contrast what he is, with what Adam was ere he ate the forbidden fruit. It is a contrast which must produce the sense of utter degradation. The waving trees of Paradise, and the glorious freshness of the young creation, and the unrestrained intercourse with God, and the beautiful tranquillity of human life-these will make the same kind of appeal, as the fields where we played in our boyhood, and the roof which sheltered us whilst yet untutored in the vices, and unblenched by the sorrows of the world. I was by creation a lofty being, with a comprehensive understanding, a will that always moved in harmony with the divine, and affections that fastened on the sublime and indestructible. I am, through apostacy, a wayward thing, with crippled energies, contracted capacities, and desires engrossed by the perishable. I had a body that was heir to no decay, a soul rich in the impress of Deity; but now I must go down to the dust, and traces of the defaced image are scarcely to be found on my spirit. I had heaven before me, and might have entered it through an obedience which could hardly be called a trial; but now, depraved in inclination, and debased in power, to what can I look forward but tribulation and wrath? Oh, this it is to remember from whence I am fallen.

of better days; and there will be a penetrating power in the once gladdening but now melancholy strain, which there would not be in the shrill note of vengeance. And thus in each case, memory may be a mighty agent in bringing me to repentance. It can scarcely come to pass, that I should diligently and seriously remember whence I am fallen, and yet be conscious of no desire to regain the lost position. I cannot gaze on Paradise, and not long to leave the wilderness; I cannot see in myself the wanderer, and not yearn for the home I have forsaken. And therefore is there a beautiful appropriateness in the message with which St. John was charged to the angel of the church at Ephesus. We know that except men repent, except the indifferent be roused to earnestness, the backsliding recovered to consistency, nothing can prevent their final destruction. And wishing to bring them to repentance, we would waken memory from her thousand cells, and bid her pour forth the imagery of what they were, that they may contrast it with what they are. If we can arm against them their own recollections, we feel that we shall have brought to bear the most powerful of engines. Our appeal is therefore to the past, our summons is to the shades of the dead. And though we know that no remonstrance, and no exhortation, can be of avail, except as carried to the heart by the Spirit of the living God, yet are we so persuaded of the power of consideration, and of the likelihood that those who are brought to consider their ways will go on to reform them, that we think we prescribe what cannot fail of success, when, in order that men may repent, we entreat them, in the words of our text, to remember from whence they are fallen, and do the first works.

And if I have been, like the Ephesian Church, what Scripture calls a backslider, may not memory tell me of But we turn from the exhortation to comforts I experienced, when walking the threatening contained in our text, closely with God, of seasons of deep "I will come unto thee quickly, and gladness when I had mortified a pas- will remove thy candlestick out of his sion, of communion with eternity so place, except thou repent." It is not real and distinct that I seemed already difficult to determine what the calamidelivered from the trammels of flesh? ty is which is figuratively denoted by It may well be, if indeed I have de- the removal of the candlestick. St. clined in godliness, that, though mu- John had beheld one like unto the Son sing on past times, there will be ex- of man, magnificently and mysteriouseited within me a poignant regret. ly arrayed, standing in the midst of There will come back upon me, as upon seven golden candlesticks, and holdthe criminal in his cell, the holy musicing in his right hand seven stars. The

greater evidences of divine favor on which to rest a persuasion that they should not be cast off and deprived of their advantages. Yet how completely has the candlestick been removed from Judea. The land of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob; the land which held the ark with its mysterious and sacramental treasures; the land where priests made atonement, and prophets delivered their lofty anticipations; the land which Jesus trode, where Jesus preached, and where Jesus died; has been tenanted for centuries by the unbeliever, profaned by the followers, and desecrated by the altars, of the Arabian impostor.

evangelist is expressly informed that
the seven stars are the angels, or bi-
shops, of the seven churches; and
that the seven candlesticks are those
churches themselves. Hence the can-
dlestick represents the christian church
as erected in any land; and therefore
the removing the candlestick out of his
place can mean nothing less than the
unchurching a nation, the so withdraw-
ing from them the Gospel that they
shall lose the distinctive marks of a
christian community. We need not be
over-careful as to the exactness with
which we preserve the metaphor. If
the candlestick be removed, the mean-
ing must be that the spiritual light is
removed; or that a land which has
been blessed with a knowledge of chris-es.
tianity, and thereby brought specially
into covenant with God, is deprived of
the advantages which it has failed to
improve, and dislodged from the re-
lationship into which it had been ad-
mitted.

And this may take place, for undoubtedly this has taken place. There are indeed clear and encouraging promises in Scripture, sufficient to assure us that neither outward opposition, nor inward corruption, shall prevail to the extinction of Christ's church upon earth. But these promises refer generally to the church, and not to this or that of its sections. They give no ground for expecting that the church, for example, of England, or the church of Rome, will never cease to be a church-on the contrary, their tenor is quite compatible with the supposition, that England or Rome may so pervert, or abuse, the Gospel, as to provoke God to withdraw it, and give it to lands now overrun with heathenism. There may be, and there are, promises that there shall be always a candle in the world; but the candlestick is a moveable thing, and may be placed successively in different districts of the earth.

And we say that this unchurching of a nation is what has actually occurred, and what therefore may occur again, if mercies be abused, and privileges neglected. We appeal to the instance of the Jews. The Jews constituted the church of God, whilst all other tribes of the human population were strangers and aliens. And never were a people more beloved; never had a nation

We appeal again to the early churchWhere are those christian societies to which St. Paul and St. John inscribed their epistles? Where is the Corinthian church, so affectionately addressed, though so boldly reproved, by the great apostle of the Gentiles? Where is the Philippian church, where the Colossian, where the Thessalonian, the letters to which prove how cordially christianity had been received, and how vigorously it flourished? Where are the Seven Churches of Asia, respecting which we are assured that they were once strenuous in piety, and gave promise of permanence in christian profession and privilege? Alas, how true is it that the candlesticks have been removed. Countries in which the Gospel was first planted, cities where it took earliest root, from these have all traces of christianity long ago disappeared, and in these has the cross been supplanted by the crescent. The traveller through lands where apostles won their noblest victories, where martyrs witnessed a good confession, and thousands sprang eagerly forwards to be "baptized for the dead," and to fill up every breach which persecution made in the christian ranks, can scarce find a monument to assure him that he stands where once congregated the followers of Jesus. Every where he is surrounded by superstitions little better than those of heathenism, so that the unchurching of these lands has been the giving them up to an Egyptian darkness. And what are we to say of such facts, except that they proveprove with a clearness and awfulness of demonstration, which leave ignorance

« EdellinenJatka »