“When Adam sinned, there was issued against him the writ of death, written by the finger of God in the book of the moral law. Adam had heard it read before his fall, but in seeking to become a god, by eating of the fruit of the tree, had forgotten it. Now God read it in his conscience, and he was overwhelmed with fear. But the promise of a Redeemer having been given, Mercy arranged that sacrifices should be offered as a typical payment of the debt. When God appeared on Sinai, to enter into covenant with His people, He brought this writ in His hand, and the whole camp understood, from the requirements of the law, that they must perish; their lives had been forfeited. Mercy devised that a bullock’s blood should be shed, instead of the blood of man. The worshippers in the temple were bound to offer living sacrifices to God, that they might die in their stead, and be consumed. Manoah feared the flames of the sacrifice that was offered upon the rock; but his wife understood that, since the angel had ascended in the flame, in their stead, it was a favourable omen. Every worshipper, by offering other lives instead of their own on the altars of God, acknowledged that the ‘handwriting’ was in force against them, and their high priest had minutely to confess all their sins ‘over’ the victim. Yet, by all the blood that ever crimsoned Levi’s robe, and the altars of God, no real atonement was made for sin, nor forgiveness procured for the smallest crime. All the sacrifices made a remembrance of sin, but were no means of pardon. More than two thousand years the question had been entertained, how to reconcile man with God. The ‘handwriting’ was real on Mount Ebal every year; meanwhile the debt was fast accumulating, and new bills were being constantly filed. The books were opened from time to time; but to meet the claims there was nothing brought to the altar but the blood of sacrifices, as a sort of draft in the name of Christ upon the Bank of Gold. When Heaven, and earth had grown weary of this fictitious or seeming, pardon of sin, I hear a voice exclaim: ‘Away with sacrifices, and burnt-offerings: Heaven has no pleasure in them; a body has been prepared for me. Lo, I come to reconcile man with God by one sacrifice.’ He came, ‘leaping upon the mountains, and skipping upon the hills.’ Calling at the office where the ‘handwriting’ lay, when only eight days old, He signed with His own blood an acknowledgment of the debt, saying: ‘This is an earnest, and a pledge that my heart’s blood shall be freely given.’ The three-and-thirty years have expired; I see Him in Gethsemane, with the priceless purse of gold which He had borne with Him through the courts of Caiaphas and Pilate; but to them the image, and the superscription on the coin was a mystery. The Father, however, recognised them in the court of Sinai, where the ‘handwriting’ was that demanded the life of the whole world. The day following, ‘the Virgin’s Son’ presented Himself to pay the debt in liquid gold; and the treasure which He bore would have set free a myriad worlds. He passes along the streets of Jerusalem towards Sinai’s office; the mercy-seat is removed to ‘the place of skulls;’ as He proceeds, He exclaims: ‘I am come not to destroy, but to fulfil the law.’ Send in, before the hour of three, each curse, and threat ever pronounced against my people. Bring in the first old bill against Adam as their head. I will redeem a countless host of infants to-day; their names shall be taken out of old Eden’s accounts. Bring in the many transgressions which have been filed through the ages, from Adam until now; include Peter’s denial of me last night; but as to Judas, he is a son of perdition, he has no part in me, having sold me for thirty pieces of silver. We have here an exhaustless crimson treasure,—enough to meet the demand; enough to fill every promise, and every prophecy with mercy; enough to make my beloved, and myself happy, and blest for ever! By three in the afternoon of that day, there was not a bill in all Eden, or Sinai, that had not been brought to the cross. And when all was settled, Christ bowed down His head, but cried with a loud voice: ‘It is finished!’ The gates of death, and hell trembled, and shook. ‘The posts of the doors moved at the voice.’ The great gulf between God, and His people was closed up. Sinai appeared with the offering, and grew still; the lightnings no longer flashed, and the thunder ceased to roar.”
“Death as an Inoculator.
“Death may be conceived of as a gigantic inoculator. He carries about with him a monstrous box, filled with deadly matter, with which he has infected every child of Adam. The whole race of man is doomed by this law of death. But see! This old inoculator gets paid back in his own coin. The Son of Man, humbling Himself to death, descends into the tomb, but rises immortal. He seized death in Joseph’s grave. But, amazing spectacle! with the matter of His own immortality He inoculated mortality with death, whose lifeless corpse will be seen, on the resurrection morning, among the ruins of His people’s graves; while they, with one voice, will rend the air as if eternity opened its mouth, exclaiming: ‘O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’”
“Time.
“Time, considered as a whole, is the age of the visible creation. It began with the fiat, ‘Let there be light;’ and it will end with the words: ‘Come, ye blessed of my Father,’ and ‘Go, ye cursed.’ Each river, and mountain, town, and city, hovel, and palace, every son, and daughter of Adam, must undergo the change, pass away, for whatever is seen is only for a time. The time of restoration, by the presence of the glory of Christ, will be the morning of judgment, and resurrection. That morning will be the last of time: then eternity begins. From that time, each man will dwell in his everlasting home: the ungodly in a lake of fire, that will burn for ever; while the joy, and happiness of the blest will know no end.
“Oh the fearfulness of the word everlasting, written over the door of the lake of fire! Oh the happiness it will create when read above the eternal kingdom!
“Time is the age of the visible world; but eternity is the age of God. This limitless circle centres in Him. The age of the visible world is divided into years, and days, according to the revolutions of the earth, and sun,—into weeks, in memory of the world’s creation, and the resurrection of Christ,—into hours, minutes, seconds, and moments. These last can scarcely be distinguished, yet they are parts of the great body of time; but seven thousand years constitute no part of eternity. One day, and a thousand years, yea, millions of years, are alike, compared with the age of God, forming no part of the vast changeless circle that knows neither loss, nor gain. The age of time is winding up by minutes, days, and years: the age of God is one endless to-day; and such will be your age, and mine, when we have once passed the limits of time, beyond which Lazarus is blessed, and the rich man tormented. My brethren in the ministry, who in years gone by travelled with me from one Association to another, are to-day living in that great endless hour!
“Time is an age of changes, revolutions, and reforms; but eternity is calm, stationary, and changeless. He who enters upon it an enemy to God, faithless, prayerless, unpardoned, and unregenerate, remains so for ever. Great changes take place in time, for which the new song in eternity will never cease. Natures have been changed, and enmity has been abolished. In time, the life covenant was broken, and man formed, and sealed his compact with hell. One, equal with God, died upon the cross, in the form of a servant, to destroy the works of the devil, and to unite man, and God in the bond of peace through His own blood. Time, and language would fail to recount what in time has been accomplished, involving changes from life, to death, and from death, to life. Here the pure have become denied, and the guiltless condemned; and here, also, the sinner has been justified, the polluted cleansed, the poor enriched, the enemy reconciled, and the dead have been made alive, where one paradise has been lost, and a better regained. The new song from the midst of eternity sounds in our ears. Hear it! It has for its subjects one event that took place in eternity, and three that have transpired in time: ‘Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings, and priests unto God, and His Father: to Him be glory, and dominion for ever, and ever. Amen.’”
“The Timepiece.
“You may move the hands on the dial-plate this way, and the other, and finger as you please the machinery within, but if there be no mainspring there your labour will be in vain. So the ‘hands’ of men’s lives will not move, in holy obedience, at the touch of the law, unless the mainspring be supplied by God through the Gospel; then only will the whole life revolve on the pivot of the love of Christ, as upon an imperishable diamond. It is not difficult to get the timepiece to act well, if the internal machinery be in proper order; so, with a right spirit within, Lydia attends to the word, Matthew leaves ‘the receipt of custom,’ Saul of Tarsus prays; and the three thousand repent, believe, and turn unto the Lord.
“A gentleman’s timepieces were once out of order, and they were examined, when it was found that in one of them the mainspring was injured; the glass which protected the dial-plate of the other was broken; while the machinery of the third had got damp, and rusty, although the parts were all there. So the lack of holiness, in some cases, arises from the want of heart to love God; another man has not the glass of watchfulness in his conduct; another has got rusty with backsliding from God, and the sense of guilt so clogs the wheels of his machinery, that they must be well brushed with rebuke, and correction, and oiled afresh with the Divine influence, before they will ever go well again.
“The whole of a Christian’s life is a reaching forward; but he has to begin afresh, like the people of Israel in the wilderness; or, like a clock, he has constantly to recommence at the figure one, and go on to that of twelve, through all the years of his experience on earth. But after the resurrection, he will advance, body, and soul, to the figure of million of millions, never to begin again throughout eternity. The sun in that world will never rise, nor set; it will have neither east, nor west! How often has an invisible hand wound up thy religious spirit below, but there the weights will never come down again!”
“Parable of the Birds.
“A gentleman kept in his palace a dove, a raven, and an eagle. There was but little congeniality, or friendship amongst them. The dove ate its own proper food, and lodged in the aviary. The raven fed on carrion, and sometimes would pick out the eyes of an innocent lamb, and had her nest in the branches of a tree. The eagle was a royal bird; it flew very high, and was of a savage nature; it would care nothing to eat half-a-dozen doves for its breakfast. It was considered the chief of all birds, because it could fly higher than all. All the doves feared its beak, its angry eyes, and sharp talons. When the gentleman threw corn in the yard for the dove, the raven would be engaged in eating a piece of flesh, a part of a lamb haply; and the eagle in carrying a child from the cradle to its eyrie. The dove is the evangelical, industrious, godly professor; the raven is the licentious, and unmanageable professor; and the eagle the high-minded, and self-complacent one. These characters are too often amongst us; there is no denomination in church, or meeting-house, without these three birds, if there be birds there at all. These birds, so unlike, so opposed, never can live together in peace. Let us pray, brethren, for union of spirit in the bond of peace.”