A Lamp to the Path / Or, The Word of God in the Heart, the Home, the Workshop and the Market-Place

by W. K. Tweedie

There are some dark-souled tribes in Africa, whose whole religion consists in charms and incantations. By means which we need not tarry to describe, they try to ward off what they reckon evil, or to obtain what they reckon good. Now, strange as it may appear, that folly is native to the mind of man. The very same tendency which makes a degraded savage trust to a charm, makes some who are not savages trust to rites, and ceremonies, and forms. One man concludes that he and his children are born again, or made the children of God, BAPTISMAL
SUPERSTITION. by the mere fact that they were baptized—that is, by a ceremony. Another thinks that his soul is right, because he worships among Christians. A third concludes that all is well, because the sacrament of the Supper has been administered to him; that rite is to many a soul what the extreme unction of popery is—a charm, an incantation, and nothing more. Now, while that is the only form of religion in man’s soul, he will prove the ready victim of the snares and entanglements of the workshop. If the truth of God be not rooted in the heart, no man can stand. We repeat it, and repeat it—there is only one power that can either make us steadfast or keep us so—the grace of God in truth; and the man who confides in aught else for conquest, is already tottering to his fall.

OUR ALLIES.

OUR
ALLIES. Observe, however, we disown no right ally in this holy warfare. All knowledge that deserves the name—science as far as it can be acquired—should be acquired by every occupant of the workshop, and some memorable examples of success in its culture could be named. These, and all that can either strengthen or expand the mind, should be cultivated to the uttermost of our power; but with all these, the mind may become an easy prey to baseless delusions, unless the wisdom which comes from above be our guide. While we hold our convictions firmly, we must hold them as God’s truth, and in God’s strength, or they will soon be wrung from our grasp. To be self-reliant is in some respects a duty which we owe to ourselves; but yet to trust to our own resources, our own wisdom or strength, is the high way to shame and confusion at the last. We are prepared to resist and to triumph only when we have on the whole armour of God. If we try to realize a Saviour’s love, we have a sure defence; but whatever would withdraw us from that holy influence, whether it be the deceitful heart within, or an ensnaring world without, is just like the smoke from the abyss—it is loaded with darkness and death to the soul.

HUMAN DEVICES.

HUMAN
DEVICES. There is a canoe floating lazily on the waters of the St. Lawrence. All is bright on either side; and forests which nothing but the wild beast or the tempest has disturbed for centuries, wave in the plenitude of summer richness. In that canoe there is a boatman asleep, and the gentle gliding of his little craft is fitted rather to rock than to rouse him. Gradually, however, the river flows more rapidly. The boat, with its sleeping cargo, feels the suction, and now rushes with increasing velocity along. Its agitation at length rouses the sleeper, but it is too late. His skiff feels the resistless power of the current; and, amid wild gesticulations, he plunges into an abyss where his very fragments are destroyed. And similar results are seen in the moral world, when men permit themselves to be drawn within the suction of that current which is sweeping so many down to ruin for ever.

SECULARISM.

Were it needful further to enforce this subject, we might refer to the ever-varying forms of delusion which heady and selfish men often obtrude on the notice of their fellow-workmen. Even in the course of a single generation we may count scheme after scheme—Utopian reforms—charters—new distributions of property or power—all designed to enlist men’s sympathies in favour of some dream-like project, only to plunge its abettors into a deeper abyss than before. SECULARISM. The most recent of these assumes the name of Secularism. It has for its object the abolition of Christianity, and all that relates to the soul. One of its leading maxims is, “The precedence of the duties of this life over those pertaining to another world;” and, by the advocacy of such opinions, the system and its supporters adapt themselves to all that is low and grovelling in the fallen soul. They beguile the unwary, and make an easy conquest of those who have no religion but that of their country or their fathers. Or another dogma of the system is, that “the atonement of Christ is unsatisfactory as a scheme, and immoral as an example;” and by such tenets men would tear up the foundation on which the hopes of mortality repose: they proudly but blindly sport with their own ruin, and glory in lowering themselves to the level of the beasts which perish.

THE HEAVENLY ANTIDOTE.

Now, against such satanic schemes, there is no safeguard but one—the truth as it is in Jesus, planted in the heart by his Spirit, and tended there by his grace. Our religion, or what we call religion, will perish like flax before the flame, when such deceivers assail, unless we have felt the truth in its power, and know, in spite of all opposition, that it can guide, can purify, can bless the soul. What more congenial to man than to be told that he need not care much about his soul? What can throw open the door for indulgence so widely as to be assured that we need not prepare for hereafter—that earth is all? What can more perfectly pamper the selfishness of man than to be told that “spiritual dependence may lead to material destruction?” Hence the danger of such bold blasphemies. They find an ally, and often a ready welcome, in the heart of man; THE
HEAVENLY
ANTIDOTE. and hence also the necessity of getting hold and keeping hold of the heavenly antidote to all such delusions. That antidote is the truth—the truth of God felt in the heart, and guiding the life; and with that in our possession, we repeat in our possession, we may humbly take up the great Reformer’s eulogy, and say, “I will not fear the face of man.” God and man, this world and the next, are alike provided for in the Word; and when we learn to welcome all God’s revelation, we shall be guided into every good and holy way.

THE COWARDICE OF SIN.