Bible Emblems

by Edward Eli Seelye

The work of grace in the hearts of Christians is such, that they can tell sinners what it is. They declare it in their songs of praise, their thanksgivings and prayers, and earnest love to their Redeemer.

2. Professing Christians are witnesses to the world as to what that standard of morality is, which the precepts of the gospel require of its followers. They profess to live according to that standard. They have taken the commands of Christ to be their rule of duty, and they virtually tell others to judge of what the religion of Jesus Christ requires, by the way they live and act. They have undertaken to give a practical exhibition of what is the meaning of those Bible directions which comprise the sum of religious duty. The question with them is not what the world thinks to be right or wrong, not what public opinion approves or disapproves; but what does Christ command. This is their rule of duty; this is what they profess to live by. And the world understand it so. They therefore take what they find in Christians’ lives and conduct to be what religion consists in. They care not to search for the letter of the precept in the Scriptures, so long as they have the living witness before them, who says he is showing it to them every day.

Christians are such witnesses. They may well tremble at their position. But they have placed themselves in it. They have undertaken to be witnesses for Christ. Oh, it becomes them to be careful what they are saying. It becomes them to inquire what idea the world gets of Christ and his religion, from the way they carry themselves among their neighbors.

Every one knows that example is more powerful than precept. Every professing Christian’s example directly involves in it the honor of Christ, and the welfare of his cause. It is competent evidence, and the world takes it. That professor who lives in violation of Christ’s commands, and by his example approves what the religion of the gospel forbids, is a perjured witness on the stand, and gives a false testimony.

That Christians are thus expounders of the gospel, witnesses as to what are the duties it enjoins, and what constitutes practical religion, none can deny. The impenitent take them to be such. Whatever Christians do, they say must be right. Whatever the church practices and countenances, is a sufficient justification for them in doing the same. Whatever is done in the green tree, can certainly be done in the dry.

If God’s people can travel and visit on the Sabbath, or engage in promiscuous dancing and card-playing in the nightly assemblies of amusement and frivolity, or resort to the gamester’s arts to make money for Christ, surely such practices cannot be wrong for others; for Christians would not do wrong, nor deny their principles. The world reason in this way, and they reason well. The logic is good, and cannot be refuted. They have a right to take notice of Christians as God’s witnesses, and to infer that whatever they do is consistent with the morality of the New Testament.

3. Christians are witnesses to the world as to what are the sacrifices and self-denials which the religion of Christ requires of its disciples. That the gospel does make these a condition of discipleship is plain to every mind. Whosoever doth not “deny himself, and take up his cross,” cannot be my disciple. Again and again are Christians said to sacrifice all for Christ, and to be crucified to the world. Now what these Scripture representations mean may be learned by the practical lives of God’s people, for they profess to be living such lives of self-denial, to deny ungodliness and worldly lust, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. In them the impenitent find what religion prohibits; how it separates its follower from the world; how it lays its cross upon him, and calls upon him to bear reproach and shame and wrong and persecution for Christ’s sake. Such a testimony Christians are bound to give; and blessed be God, they have been able to give it in all ages of the world. For,

They are God’s witnesses in their endurance of suffering for Christ. Even when laid aside from the active, stirring duties of life, and passing through seasons of sore trial, they are still in the service of Christ, and giving to the world a most valuable testimony of the sustaining and comforting power of his religion. Witness-bearers they are still, when they endure with a cheerful patience the wearisome nights which are appointed to them, and in the midst of disease and the sinkings of nature can tell to all around them of a peace which passeth all understanding, of a joy and hope which are undimmed by all the distress of the present hour. Who can measure the influence which the religion of Christ has gained in the world through this kind of testimony?—a testimony which the witnesses have given in when their eyes were suffused with tears, and earthly misfortunes pressed sore upon them—a testimony plaintively whispered in the dark midnight of affliction, from the couches of languishing, the chambers of bereavement, and the graves of the lost and the loved. It many a time seems that the Christian’s usefulness is gone, when he is no longer able to sing in the sanctuary and engage in active labors for Christ; but it is often far otherwise. Though life’s scenes be changed, he is bearing witness still; and through months of infirmity and suffering is telling the world what Christ can do to cheer and comfort when all other comfort is gone. “Ye are still my witnesses,” says the Redeemer to his people, “even when I chasten you sorely; and through your testimony the world shall know of my power to save and comfort.”

But though all the sufferings of God’s people are made to testify of the power of His grace, special significance attaches to those which are endured directly for Christ, which arise from the hatred and persecution of the world. Of those who, in past ages, have sealed their testimony with their blood, who in the dungeon, at the stake, and on the scaffold have owned Christ and defied the rage of their tormentors—of such emphatically Christ says, “Ye are my witnesses.” The very word martyr signifies a witness, in the Greek language.

And the testimony of such as have suffered and died for Jesus has carried with it a power which none can measure. It has forced conviction on the minds of the bitterest enemies of the cross, and taught the world how a believer can triumph over suffering, and conquer death. Though nowadays but little of this kind of testimony is heard, except what is echoed down from past centuries of the church’s conflicts, still believers are bound to testify many times against the scoffs and opposition of the ungodly. Their lives and example must, even now, frequently speak out boldly against the prevailing iniquity, and testify in the face of scorn and loss and bitter opposition. But it is a good confession when you stand up for Christ, and meet the buffetings of the world for it. For every stripe you receive there seems to come an echo from the upper throne, most cheering, “Ye are my witnesses.”