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

THE BELIEVER’S OBLIGATIONS.

For these reasons, we return to say, that all compliance with customs founded upon what is known to be false, should be shunned in business by a man of God. All should be transparent as sunlight with him. He should never forget, that to escape detection is very different from being honest; and that the man who has committed himself to some course opposed to what is pure, or lovely, or of good report, must either trample conscience out, or endure its gnawings, as fable says Prometheus endured the vulture. There are temptations, we grant, in a state of society like ours, where gold is not merely a standard of value in the market-place, but often the standard of character among men. Withal, however, I am not bound to be rich; THE
BELIEVER’S
OBLIGATIONS. but I am bound not to bring an evil report upon the Christian name. I am not bound to remain in a certain sphere, and there draw a certain revenue; but I am bound not to sin. I am not bound to retain my position at the expense of conscience; but I am bound not to cheer on a covetous world to ruin by sharing its ungodliness or smiling upon its falsehood. Nay, by the grace of God, we are to hold fast our integrity. We are to say, “Get thee behind me, Satan,” to the most plausible pretext for sinning; and if there be few among our merchant princes who act on such maxims—if they be uncommon in the Market-place—that is because few go to the Word of God for their standard of duty—few, with meekness and reverence to the Holy One, combine in action these three clauses: “Not slothful in business”—“Fervent in spirit”—“Serving the Lord.” “One is your master, even Christ.” To him we are responsible in every relation; and that responsibility is discharged only when we remember the words: “Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.”

But we have only broken ground in regard to Christianity in the Market-place.

THE STANDARD.

It is a universal law, that every soul of man must have an object to pursue. The ambitious man has his object: he pursues it; and if he succeed in his pursuit, he sinks into the grave, crushed perhaps, like Tarpeia of old, by the weight of his success. And the covetous man has his object: he embarks his whole soul in the pursuit; and while a thousand who strive with him fail or are beggared, he who succeeds is perhaps the most signally wretched of them all. And the lover of pleasure has his object of pursuit: he dismisses the fear of God, and, like one who is ambitious of wretchedness, he drinks up iniquity, though along with it he drinks up poison to his soul. THE
STANDARD. In a word, the fool and the wise man, the young and the old, the ignorant and the learned, all have some master object to pursue. That object may involve destruction, for it may be sinful; or it may tend to dignify and ennoble, for it is pure and holy; but whatever be its character, it is a law in man’s nature, that, from the child amused with its toy, up to the hoary patriarch tottering forward to the grave, man must have something to fill and to engross his mind.

THE BIBLE’S LIGHT.

THE
BIBLE’s
LIGHT. Now, the Word of God, which is so exquisitely adapted to man, takes that great law fully into account; and we advert to that again, because it furnishes an opportunity for repeating, that that Word does not repress man’s activity—it only tries to give it a right direction: it does not leave man without a pursuit—it only presents him with one which is worthy of his immortal nature. Knowing that man wishes to advance or to rise, the Bible puts a light into his hand, and tells him to be the heir of God, a joint-heir with Christ. Knowing that man seeks to accumulate and amass, the Bible tells of unsearchable riches and treasures in heaven. Knowing that man’s strongest impulse is to seek his own happiness, the Bible perfectly responds to that, and offers the very peace of God: it points to a home of everlasting sunshine, without a tear, without one solitary want. There is thus no attempt to suppress, but only to direct, man’s aspirations. Nothing that God gave to man is to be extinguished: all is to be sanctified and sublimed.

THE UNIVERSAL LAW.

To make this plain, we observe that all are familiar with the power exercised over the soul by any new object or new pursuit. Begin with the earlier years of infancy. See a little child engrossed with his toy. His whole soul is absorbed by it; for a time it is his world. But present him with some new object; the former is speedily discarded, while the new engrosses the mind as the old had done. Or pass onward from childhood to youth. THE
UNIVERSAL
LAW. There also you see the same law prevailing. Mind is never left a blank. The old is discarded, but it is for the sake of the new; and man thus flits from object to object, the last being always the ascendant. Or pass upward to still graver years, and there also the same law prevails. One pursuit, one passion, one object of interest after another sways the heart, alternately expelled and expelling from the soul. The love of God in a converted soul supersedes the supreme love of the world. The pleasures of godliness take the place of the pleasures of sin. The power of the world to come overmasters the power of a present evil world; and thus a wise and exquisite law guides us in religion—a law as simple in its operation as that which keeps the planets in their orbits.

REASON AND RELIGION AT ONE.