We stand much for authority, for rights of station, and the sacred warrant of the pastoral commission—and we do well, for without them there would be no order in the world, no joint progress in a common path; no peace, no security. When every man in Israel did what was right in his own eyes, and nothing by direction or consent, it was a day of trouble and disaster, of ruin and confusion. They who will own no guide in the way they have to tread, had need be well acquainted with the road.
It would be well if such men, who despise all guides, would be content to go alone—but was it ever so seen in all the world? Are not such the men who strive most eagerly to press others into their train from all quarters where they can obtrude themselves and spread their pestilent opinions, and lay their destructive snares?
But the rules of pastoral advice derive their obligation from the simplest forms of truth; were it otherwise, how would they meet the varied calls for choice and resolution which come forward in the course of human life? If the truth itself has no special period for the height and measure of its growth in human breasts, yet it has for its perpetual standard God’s own eternal attributes. In those perfections of the Deity, the sure test of truth is established. Our Lord’s apostle takes this ground; “He that cometh to God, must believe that he is;”—and observe what follows, “and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him;”—in which two particulars, the existence of God, and the never-failing characters of truth, wisdom, equity, and goodness in such expressions of his favour, the sure foundations of his moral government are laid, as well as the sum of every moral and religious obligation. This appears in all the articles of faith, and in all the acts of duteous service; it appears in all that God hath done for us in the great work of our redemption more especially, and in all that he requires of us in order to a future recompense.
Let no vicissitude in things by which men are tried, but with a sure refuge under all events for the dutiful, tempt you for a moment to forget that the “ways of God are equal:” it was his own challenge to backsliding Israel, and the last result will not fail to confirm it. Let no light conceit at any time induce you to suppose that the great truths, upon which the hope of our salvation is built, may be regarded as things indifferent, for which another season may be found; or that such things, with all their convincing proofs and trains of evidence, are placed beyond our reach. Can we think that our Lord’s word is not verified, that, “Wisdom should be justified of her children?” And with respect more particularly to disingenuous pleas of difficulty, do we find the rules of faith and duty things so hard to be ascertained? Have we no sufficient traces of them in the light of conscience; in the bright tokens and communications of God’s own grace and solemn declarations, in the powers of right discrimination, without which there could be no reasonable choice of any thing that best deserves our compliance? Have we not (blessed be God!) the sacred, never-erring Word, which has been written for our learning, and for our sure direction in all things needful to salvation?
It is much to be observed, in such general statements, that the Apostles of our Lord never failed to add to their reasonings with Jew or Gentile, scribe or sophist, such comprehensive testimonies of the grounds of faith and the fruits of holiness in those who continue true to their engagement, as will leave no room for uncertain tests or bold opinions, for endless fluctuations in the mind and conduct, with doubts and difficulties of our own creating. It is true, that in the revelations of God’s will there are things which no human faculties, or even those of the purest of created beings in the realms of light, could penetrate, until the Most High so graciously revealed them,—things which relate to his own Essence, with his purposes and counsels for the redemption of mankind; but is it so hard to understand that when all was forfeited, God should send a Saviour from the throne of glory to become the new Head of mankind, by taking flesh, and in that nature, which He by his Divine prerogative had power to assume, to fulfil all that wherein our common sire had failed? Was not this a nobler exercise of Divine wisdom, than the creating a new race, and leaving that triumph to the common foe to God and man, that one such race was lost? Is it so hard to be understood, that to vindicate the credit of God’s Holy Law, there should be one sufficient satisfactory atonement, one sacrifice never more to be repeated or renewed? or that, by the prevailing intercession of the same Divine Redeemer, the gates of Heaven should be set wide to a rescued race, whose own exertions should from thenceforth be well employed, in spite of all the force and all the artifices of the common adversary? The glory of Divine grace is thus exalted, when the first gifts of God are again directed to their proper ends. To raise children unto Abraham of the stones of the desert, had been, no doubt, an easy task to the Almighty; but would it have served so highly to his glory, as the preservation and recovery of the first formed race? Is it so hard to perceive how signally the conspiring attributes of God, his justice, truth, and mercy, were thus illustrated and made to meet together in that work of redemption, which was accomplished in Christ Jesus? Does it require much scope of argument or pains of study to enable us to see, that to redeem mankind was an object no less worthy of Divine interposition, than to create them from the first?
Again, could we safely remain strangers (as some would gladly seem to do) to the several branches of all moral obligations, when they have been confirmed anew, and drawn out into manifest example, and set before us so expressly for our imitation, in our Lord’s own life?
St. Paul’s brief enumeration of faith, hope, and charity, forms the sum of what in other places he sets forth with a large detail of things required of us, all serving to the same end and intent: only, remember carefully what that end is,—it is not the same for which Christ wrought and suffered, and He only could sustain; yet is it the “reasonable service,” or “living sacrifice of the whole man,” which is required, in order not only to our own improvement, which could not thrive without it, but in order to a promised recompense, which, together with the freedom of the Gospel state, were procured for us at so rich a cost. The ransom paid, the heritage obtained, by one only righteous Mediator, how widely do they differ from the promised recompense for the faithful and sincere! and yet how consistent are these things in their whole effect! There is one judgment-seat for both, and one form of judicial sentence, though in different respects, is applied to both; but how different is the language in which the same Apostle speaks of each. There is no need to call in the suffrage of a fellow-witness to correct his view, for both he and his fellow-witness, when they speak of the same things, use the same language, and declare the same consistent judgment.
And what, then, is our Lord’s compendious draft of things required of us in the days of our probation? it is “to love the Lord our God with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the mind, and with all the strength; and our neighbour as ourselves.” Will you strain a flight beyond this, and regard the care for yourselves as too low a pitch for your wishes to excel, or for the native worth of what is good? Do but consider that the welfare and the happiness of his reasonable creatures formed the first object and design of the Creator, and can never cease to be his purpose; consider, too, that any kind of moral goodness which should not be good for us, would want just so much of real goodness, and of its proper and essential excellency. It was one of the vilest errors of the heathen world, and one which prevailed much, as their earliest historian tells us, that there was envy towards man among the gods; and no wonder, if the rule of Providence could be placed in such hands as they feigned for its administration.
Again, as the truth itself is always true, and virtue, which is its image, is no less uniform and constant, most groundless and injurious must be those restrictions which would shut out any one real virtue or its exercise from the Christian pattern; for in so doing we should detract just so much from its integrity. You may reverse the proposition if you think fit, and say, with truth, that every virtue puts on the Christian character, not from any date of their adoption, but as they are cherished and enhanced by new motives and inducements, and strengthened by the bond of unity and concord in the Christian household.
Can I forget at this moment, befriended as I have been in the past scene of my labours, that among the virtues which some would leave to the heathen, together with the patriot spirit and the courage to maintain it, Friendship has been made to share the sentence of exclusion? At this rate the noble-minded Jonathan could not be added to the list of worthies, to recount which St. Paul found the day too short. But the glowing pen of David has inscribed the name of his generous and ever-constant friend with the sons of faith, in characters which no time shall efface. And what then? Had our blessed Lord no family of friends which brought him even weeping to the grave of Lazarus? Was it for nothing that it was then said, “Behold how he loved him?” Had our Lord no disciple who was laid in his bosom at the paschal feast; to whom also He gave his last charge concerning her who should be blessed among women? Most gladly, therefore, shall I pay the debt of friendly obligation on my removal from among you, and cherish that good property of mind which has so many moral motives for exciting its first growth, and brings forth so many moral fruits in its maturity which may be stored in everlasting garners.