And another wishes the Word of God put down, because he remembers its effects upon his soul in earlier years, when a godly parent tried to impress it on the conscience and the heart. He has now cast these instructions behind his back. He has learned to sin with a high hand; and as the sight or the sounds of the truth re-awaken his old concern, he is eager to drive it from his presence. The very sight is a sting to his conscience. A single clause may be like a death-knell, and that man hates it with a perfect hatred. ITS
ROOT. That is the root of much of the infidelity which is now so rife—not the want of proof, but the evil heart of unbelief; not mere ignorance, but the preference of sin to holiness.
Or a third among our fellow-workmen may be one who has known some signal hypocrite. That pretender sought, perhaps, to promote some sinister object by a religious profession. Perhaps he prayed; perhaps he was a reprover of other men’s sins; perhaps he was an eager advocate for sound doctrine, and would endure no departure from it—yet, after all, he may be unmasked as a mere pretender. It may be discovered at length that he was all the while living in sin, concealed, but long continued, such as to indicate that his religion was a pretence, and his strictness that of a Pharisee. Now, having discovered the hollowness of that man’s pretensions, some gladly rush to the conclusion that all religion is a pretence; they greedily grasp at the conviction, because it favours their own licentiousness, that “there is none righteous, no, not one.” Religion in every form is therefore regarded as an offence, or discarded as an imposture.
Or, in the workshop beside us, we may find some other man who affects to be scientific. He knows a little of Geology, and is able to overthrow Moses and the Bible. He is acquainted with the secrets of Chronology, and thinks that there are far older histories—older by many thousands of years—than the records of Scripture pretend to be. Or that man has heard a little of Ethnography, and because he is ignorant, he thinks it can be proved that all the dwellers on the earth did not spring from Adam and Eve. Or perhaps his learning takes the direction of tracing the Vestiges of Creation, and he concludes that man can create—generally, that creatures can make each other, and that God is therefore unnecessary. These, and similar pretensions of science, falsely so called, may have taken hold of some minds around us, and amid the multitude of such assailants, who are bold, as streams are brawling, in proportion to their shallowness, it may not be always easy to be steadfast and unmoveable.
But to render us unmoveable—to arm us against such assailants—nothing will suffice, till Christ dwell in our hearts by faith; till his truth be our property; till the Saviour be a Saviour, and pardon a pardon, to us. A religion which has merely been handed down to us by our fathers, will not stand the rude shock of such assaults as have been named. We need to be rooted and grounded in the truth. We require a better and a deeper teaching than man’s. It must be a fixed conviction in our soul, that religion does not consist in observing mere forms or seasons, however devoutly. Christ must dwell in the heart, just as the blood must be in the body, and circulate there as a vitalizing power.
THE PANOPLY.
On this subject we cannot be too urgent. THE
PANOPLY. While there is absolutely no panoply but truth, our convictions need to be reinforced by the feeling, that it is not toil that degrades man; it is not hard labour that ranks him among the lower orders; it is sin. Adam, in innocence, had to work, and that did not degrade him. But he sinned, and that laid him in the miry clay. Paul the apostle had to work, and felt no dishonour in it. The only dishonour which he knew, was rebellion against God; and if we would resist the temptations which assail us from without or from within, we need to make sure that we are on the Lord’s side; that his truth is in our hearts; that it keeps watch in our souls, ready to sound an alarm, and summon us to action against every enemy. Without that, surrounded as we are in the workshop with clouds of enemies, we shall be like the willow wand before the blast, and driven of the wind and tossed; but with the grace of God in the soul, we may be strong in the Lord and the power of his might; we may beat back our assailants—some have won them to their cause. No power but truth, we repeat, will ever make us steadfast. Some invest our “cottage homes” with the attractions of poetry, and tell that
“Fearless there the lowly sleep,
As the bird beneath their eaves.”
But it is not poetic embellishments—it is nothing factitious in man’s lot—it is the simple truth of God uniting to Christ, that elevates or ennobles the soul.
BAPTISMAL SUPERSTITION.