These two questions being clearly answered, the grand copula, upon which the meaning and force of the text depends, is readily understood as to the quality of the life which it involves. It evidently means a good life, a holy life, an obedient life, a humble life, a pure life out of a pure heart. It means that the just or righteous shall live a life conformed in all respects to the character of that state of heart in which love to God holds dominant rule, and subordinate love to man prompts to a life of vital charity.
I. Who are the just? The just, in the sense of the text, are those who are righteous, and who desire to grow more and more righteous in God's sight. Men may be righteous in their own sight, and very unrighteous in God's sight. And precisely the reverse of this: they may be great sinners in their own sight, and just or righteous in God's sight. This last state was Paul's experience when he pronounced himself "the chief of sinners." He felt that he was righteous or just in God's eye; but in his own eye, enlightened by the Word and Spirit of the Lord, he was vile. This consciousness gave vent to many exclamations such as these: "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Again: "For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, there dwelleth no good thing." On the other hand, the Pharisee, who stood praying in the temple was righteous in his own view of himself, and "thanked God that he was not as other men"—a sinner like unto them, he meant, of course. This line of thought suggests another question:
How are men to become righteous or just? "For the scripture hath concluded all under sin." This same apostle tells us that "we are justified [made righteous] by faith; ... for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness." Probably no passage of Scripture has been subject to worse misconstructions than this one. It has been made to teach that a mere declaration of faith in Christ procures the instantaneous forgiveness of all sin, passes the sinner out of death into life, makes him a regenerate child of God, and gives him an inalienable title to citizenship in heaven. But I have not so learned Christ, nor do I understand Paul to teach anything like this. I do not deny that a sincere and heart confession of Christ is a step, the first step, to these heavenly blessings; but I do deny that Christian perfection rests upon a naked confession of him by the mouth. The thoughtless sinner does not know Christ. He has never in heart so much as asked the question: "Who is he, Lord, that I may believe on him?" God has never been in all his thoughts. "The world knew him not," and the world knows him not now. When one, then, is suddenly wrought upon by some influence as was the Philippian jailer, by which, in his distress, he cries out, "What must I do to be saved?" the answer that Paul gave is exactly the right answer. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." And this leads to my second and last question:
What is faith? I will here give Paul's definition. We come to God by faith. "And he that cometh unto God"—or to Christ the same—"must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." Faith must, then, be the very first step in the direction of receiving good from the Lord. We see striking examples of this in the life of Jesus on earth. What brought the throng from all directions that attended and even pressed him? It was faith, the belief that he could do them good. But it was not spiritual or heavenly good they sought so much as bodily good. Jesus reminded them of this in the words: "Ye seek me, not because of the miracles,—" not because you desire proofs of my divine power to save your souls from eternal death,—"but because ye ate of the loaves, and were filled." But true faith, the faith that saves the soul, the faith by which the just shall live, is a loving acceptance of the Word of God; every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God; for by this doth man live. And how does man live by it? By obeying it, by making its precepts the rule and guide of his life. By faith the Word becomes "a lamp unto his path." "It is as the light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." All who believe the Lord's words, as contained in our New Testament, because they love their truth, and from the heart desire to live,—this means, order their lives and conduct by them,—believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And these have the promise of eternal life: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
These were the leading thoughts in Brother Quinter's discourse to-day. We stay all night in Jonesborough with Dr. Alpheus Dove.
Wednesday, May 30. Go back to the meetinghouse where the Annual Meeting was held; arrange some matters left back in our hands; then go together to Brother Jacob Nead's, where we stay all night.
Thursday, May 31. Start homeward.
Sunday, July 22. Meeting at Turner's schoolhouse in the Gap. Brother Solomon Garber is with me. Mark 12 is read. Dine at the widow James Turner's, and go to James Fitzwater's, where we stay all night on our way to some of the western counties of Virginia.
The counties to which the two brethren were going are included in West Virginia, which, as is well known, was organized a State during the Rebellion. The people living among the mountains are generally hospitable, and much attached to the scenes of their childhood and that wild freedom of nature found in the mountains that surround them. The motto engraved upon the State Seal of West Virginia is very expressive and appropriate, and in Latin reads thus: "Montani liber semper sunt." Translated, it reads thus: "Mountaineers are ever free." The people are noted for the attention with which they listen to the preaching of the Gospel. Brother Kline often spoke of the pleasure it gave him to preach in these sections, because the Word was received with so much readiness. His success among them proved this. They were devotedly attached to him; and it is questionable if in any part of the Brotherhood deeper grief was felt over his martyrdom than that which filled the hearts of the brethren and sisters and friends in West Virginia.
Monday, July 23. Cross the Shenandoah mountain over to the South Fork, and have meeting at Zion, in Hardy county, 2 Corinthians 5 was read. Dine at Nimrod Judy's, and in afternoon have a small gathering at Leonard Brake's on the Fork four miles below Zion, for social prayer. We then cross the Fork mountain to John Judy's, on South Mill Creek, where we have night meeting, and stay all night. Attended three meetings to-day; and traveled thirty-three miles on Nell's back across two very high mountains.