saved man. It is very instructive to note how many backsliders there are among professors of mature age. The most grievous cases of falling away are not from the ranks of young disciples, but from those who ought to have been safe examples for them! If you have lived to be grey-headed, remember your silver hair may make a fool’s cap yet! There are other lessons, but they will keep till another year. We will end our Sermon with some lines of Charles Wesley’s, not known to all our readers:—
“But did the great apostle fear
He should not to the end endure,
Should not hold out, and persevere,
And make his own election sure?
Could Paul believe it possible,
When all his toils and griefs were past,
Himself should of salvation fail,
And die a reprobate at last?”“Who then art thou that dar’st reject
The sacred terms, the humbling awe,
As absolutely saved,—elect,—
And free from an abolished law?
Dost thou no self-denial need,
No watch, or abstinence severe;
In one short moment perfected!
An angel—an immortal here?”
XXII. GOOD-FRIDAY.
One wonders how it came to have that name! We cannot help feeling, that if other titles were as well-deserved, it would be a blessing to the world. For instance, if Nobleman, Gentleman, Reverend, &c., were as descriptive as this day’s name, there would be many happier people than there are.
No wonder that it should be called “Good,” for it helps us to look back to the time when the best action the world has known, or can know, was done. We gaze upon the Cross, and we thank God for His unspeakable gift. One knows not which to admire the most: the Love that could smite the Well-beloved, or the Love that could, for the sake of enemies, bear the blow?
How do our readers mean to spend the day? We have no right to bind any man’s conscience, and seek to have others do as we do, except they are led in the same direction, and yet we wonder how those who observe the day at all, can allow themselves to spend it in dissipation.
We are no admirer of those who make the day one of sadness and gloom.
It is GOOD-FRIDAY,
and we cannot understand how men can allow themselves to act as though it were Bad Friday, as though they could hear the hammer nailing Christ to the cross. A high churchman’s conscience is a wonderful thing, and in nothing is it so
surprising as this, that it can allow itself to act as though Jesus were slain and in His tomb! Has not the Lord Himself spoken? Let us listen to Him who speaks in rebuke to those who would darken our homes and places of worship, and cheat themselves into a sentimentality which again sees the corpse of Jesus laid in Joseph’s grave.