or daily toil, there to apply the simple but often searching maxims which came from heaven to guide men through life on earth to glory.—We need expect no permanent amelioration for man except through the power and the prevalence of truth, and every attempt to elevate his nature to its true dignity by any other means, is either the effort of an empiric or the deception of an impostor. The simple theory of human progression, the only and exclusive means of purifying man, is to make him like-minded with God again.
THE LABOURS OF SISYPHUS.
THE
LABOURS OF
SISYPHUS. Now, as the mind of God can be learned only from his Word, everything but that will prove as unavailing as the labours of Sisyphus—
“Up the high hill he heaves the huge round stone;”
but it recoils in spite of all his toil, and so will every effort to elevate fallen man apart from the truth of God. We decline no fair ally. Nay, we would invoke the aid of all that is salutary either for mind or body. But unless the truth sit at the helm, and preside over all; unless the mind of God become the mind of man, man is still a degraded being; he is ignorant alike of his chief end and his chief good. In short, permanently to benefit man either for time or eternity without the knowledge of God, is a task as hopeless as that of Adam when he tried to hide among the trees of the garden.—Along the mountain-sides of some districts in this land we see traces of the culture of former generations at much higher levels than cultivation now reaches; but, deserted now as unproductive, these patches are re-claimed by the heath or the furze: they furnish no food at least for the use of man; and are not these significant emblems of the attempts to cultivate man without the knowledge of his God? The sepulchre may be white-washed, or sin covered over and concealed; but all is impurity, all is moral deformity still, in the eye of Him who judges righteous judgment.
THE SOVEREIGN PANACEA.
THE
SOVEREIGN
PANACEA. We therefore take the Word of God as the grand rule, the sovereign panacea in our hand. We try to apply the system of mingled holiness, and mercy, and truth, and love, which is there disclosed, to guide the lives of mortals; and in prosecuting this design, the following is our plan. We try to show—
I. Christianity in the Heart; for, unless it is found there, we need not expect to find it anywhere besides.
II. Christianity in the Home. It must next appear there. Parents and children, masters and servants, or the employers and the employed, must all feel the genial or the curbing power of truth in their several places and relations.
III. Christianity in the Workshop—from which its influence has too long been banished.
IV. Christianity in the Market-place, the place of bargains and of busy trade.
V. Christianity in the Professions: 1. The physician; 2. The lawyer; 3. The divine.
VI. Christianity in our ordinary social intercourse; and,
Finally, Christianity, as the crown and glory of man’s existence upon earth.
THE WILLING WORKMAN.
Now, it is too manifest to require any discussion, that unless Christianity be planted in the heart, it cannot control the life. A religion merely for the hand has never done much for man. A creed which teaches us only to cleanse the outside of the cup, has never succeeded in elevating us far, or making us kindred either with the pure or the lofty. A mere collection of doctrines, though each be scriptural and sound, has never availed to restore man to happiness and God. Merely to do as our fathers did, or hold, however tenaciously, a mere ancestral faith, is not the process by which the evil that is in man can be corrected. The soldier who is dragged to the battle-field is not likely to become a hero. The man who is carried to a foreign land in chains, seldom becomes one of its benefactors. He who needs compulsion and the rod ere he will acquire even the rudiments of learning, is not likely soon to become a ripe scholar. THE
WILLING
WORKMAN. In every department, it is the willing mind, the earnest spirit, the hearty, zealous labourer, who achieves great results. The heart must be thrown into the pursuit, even though it were only some menial employment; and if that be not the case, then, however he may be engaged, man will either be disgusted and repelled, or doomed to drag a heavy chain amid his toil.
THE HEART UNMASKED.
And this is pre-eminently the case in religion. It is with Him who looks on the heart that we have there to do—as is the heart, so is our religion. A new heart is accordingly the first and the grand desideratum. All the heart is to be given to God, and till that be conceded, we have not done obeisance to the first and great commandment. The law of God is to be written on the heart, or in truth we never obey it. We may as well suppose that the ten commandments could guide the Hebrews, while these precepts were merely written on the tables of stone, far up amid the clouds of Sinai, as that the truth of God can profit, or illumine the soul, while it only floats in the understanding or the memory, without sinking into the heart. Nay, the thunders of Sinai, amid which the commandments were given, had scarcely died away, when the people who had heard them ceased to fear and quake—they set up a golden calf, and worshipped it as their God; and that forms one of the most instructive facts of history. THE HEART
UNMASKED. It seems incredible to the man who does not know the guile which lurks in the heart, but it sheds a full though a lurid light upon the soul, in the eyes of him who has been guided by the truth through the intricate mazes of iniquity which exist within us.
TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD.
Or, far more than this. Ten thousand times ten thousand may possess the gospel as well as the law. Not merely the authority, the power, or the terrors of the Lord may be brought to bear upon their minds—His love, his pity, and compassion, may also be revealed, and entreaties the most touching, or invitations the most free, may be mingled with promises the most cheering, and all may be employed to induce us to profit by them, while the heart may continue proof against them all. TRUTH AND
FALSEHOOD. The truth of God may be no truth to us; His love in the Saviour may exercise no constraining power—and what is the reason? How are we to explain the fact that the mind of God has no control over the minds of myriads of men, so that countless favours are received without awakening one grateful response? The reason is, truth was never stamped upon the heart. It is not understood that with the heart man believes unto righteousness. The first and great commandment, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy strength and mind,” is not felt, and not obeyed; and men, in consequence, often drink up iniquity with the very Word of God open before them, soliciting their hearts and their affections for their Lord. They have his Word, but it is perverted to light them on the way to a more certain ruin.
This is all abundantly plain. If we have ever given so much as one solemn hour to God, to eternity, and the soul, it must be manifest that until the affections be set on things above, all else is vain. The heart is the citadel of the whole man, and until that be on the Lord’s side, the enemy will find a stronghold there, from which no power on earth can dislodge him. Is a man living in a state of estrangement from God? Does the Heart-searcher know that that man is perpetrating sin and regardless of his soul? The explanation of all that is, that the heart has never been given to God. Christianity is not there. Truth is not there—its place is occupied by lies. The love of the Saviour is not there. The Word of God is a dead and a despised letter. The foundation of the spiritual fabric has never been laid. The first impulse heavenward has not been given. The Spirit of God is not honoured in the heart as the temple where he delights to dwell. Religion at the best is a cold and formal thing. It only decorates the exterior, like trappings on a hearse. God is not in such a man’s thoughts—Christ is not in his soul the hope of glory. The gulf between God and him is still a yawning void, and the eternal life which is placed within his reach is practically despised.
The illustrations of religion in the heart crowd upon us on every side. Let us contemplate a few, and place them in the way of contrast.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
ILLUSTRATIONS.