GOD’S WITNESSES.
But it would not be difficult to show, at greater length than we have tarried to do, that in every sphere there have been men who feared God, and held forth a testimony for his truth, often amid open profanity or the oblivion of all that is sacred. Like Cornelius of old, devout men have adorned the doctrine of God our Saviour alike in the Army and the Navy. Among the accomplished devotees of Science, all do not forget God in the investigation of those laws by which He rules the world, or of those wonders which embody his wisdom and his power. Among those who cultivate the Arts, there have been many who, like the sculptor Bacon, might have caused it to be written on their tomb: “What I was as an artist, seemed to me of some importance while I lived; but what I really was as a believer in Christ Jesus, is the only thing of importance to me now.” GOD’S
WITNESSES. In every sphere, we repeat, God has had his witnesses, testifying to the power of his grace, it may be in sackcloth, as regards men, but yet in the sunshine of God’s favour. And who shall tell what unthinking men forego, by neglecting to do as these believers did—to make the religion of Jesus their guide, and Jesus himself their Alpha and their Omega! He is the rock that is higher than we. He is a sun and shield. He is life to the dead, and wisdom to the unwise. It is by His might that we conquer, and by His righteousness that we are saved. It is by His spirit that we are sanctified—and are they the wise who ignore all this?
MAN’S IDOLATRY.
MAN’S
IDOLATRY. Amid such meditations as these, it is one of the deepest lessons which meet us in the history of man, that there is room in his heart for every god but the true One. From the sun in the firmament down to the meanest reptile that crawls, all have been adored. The foulest human passions have been exalted to the rank of divinities, and worshipped in gorgeous temples with costly parade. Even after God has dwelt on earth as “God with us,” we find men in millions clinging to every god but Him—not merely the dead, but fragments of their bones, are adored, as possessing power to bless. Now, were the lamp of life admitted into the heart, it would instantly dispel such debasing delusions from minds of every class. It would guide man away from the rank to which sin degrades him, to that for which the gospel is designed to fit us; and the peace of God which passes all understanding is the portion of those who have thus hailed the truth of God and discarded the lies of men; who have welcomed the religion of Jesus to the soul, and dismissed the religion of nature as a blind guide, the religion of Rome as a dark, debasing superstition, the religion of unconverted men as fit only to lead us more assuredly to woe.
CHAPTER VII.
RELIGION IN OUR SOCIAL INTERCOURSE.
When the Word of God has obtained its true place in any man’s heart, it disposes at once of a hundred questions which were difficult or perplexing before. On the one hand, when we have the divine standard of right and wrong set up, it becomes immediately apparent that one class of actions are right, are just, are necessary, on the part of all who would make God’s will their rule. On the other hand, it becomes no less apparent that another class of actions are distinctly prohibited. No man who believes the Word of God to be his word can do these things.
But between these two, or the decidedly right and the decidedly wrong, there are some actions whose moral character it is not so easy to adjust. They are not so exactly described in the Word of God. They lie on the debateable territory between the right and the wrong. They may partake of the one character or the other, according to the circumstances in which they are performed. They may be right, for example, for me in sickness, but wrong for me in health; or the reverse.
Now, it is generally among these undecided cases that a man’s principles are exposed to the greatest strain. No one who professes to respect[T-15] the Word of God can refuse to do what is decidedly right, and as little can he refuse to shun the decidedly forbidden. If he do not shun it, he is detected as offering to the Bible only the mockery of respect—to its God only the semblance of homage. He has extinguished the lamp of life, and deliberately walks in darkness.
THE SABBATH LAW.