130 THE CHRISTIAN TO WAIT FOR HIS LORD. not the world, neither the things of the world; for you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. Love to the world is a sin peculiarly below the character of an heir of immortal glory. If such a thing could be, how debasing would it be thought, for an angel or saint to descend from heaven, to amuse himself with an infant's toys! In the light of eternity, the world and all its concerns are childish trifles, compared with the Christian's immortal hopes and grand concerns. If you neglect them, through attachment to a dying world, you act almost as unworthy of your character, as an angel would act of his, were he to leave the glorious employments of heaven, and come to earth for the sake of an infant's playthings. Crowns and kingdoms, riches and honours, the most extensive or the most exalted, are mean as a baby's toys, compared with the crown to which you aspire, and with the honour of belonging to the family of God. § 13. Learn from this important view of your condition one lesson more. It should teach you to live waiting for your Lord. The blessed Jesus has taught us to live waiting for his coming. "Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord. Blessed are those servants, whom the lord, when he cometh, shall find watching." "I say unto all, Watch."k The followers of Christ are described as those who have turned from idols to serve the living God, and to WAIT for his Son from heaven. Important representation! may you feel it aright. A waiting frame of mind is that the Christian should ever cherish.-But, what is it to wait? Let a familiar illustration furnish a reply. As The father of a numerous family leaves his children, intending to go and settle in a foreign land. Before he departs he says, "My dear children, I am going to leave you for a while, but not for ever. I am going to prepare for you, in a country where we shall be happier than we can be here. soon as I have made the needful preparations, I shall return to fetch you; therefore, wait and be ready." The father departs; his children continue in their old abode, but with new feelings. It is hardly like their abode now; for they are expecting to go. They pursue their needful duties, attend as (i) Luke xii, 35-38, 40. (k) Mark xiii. 33-37. WRETCHEDNESS OF THE WORLDLY-MINDED. 131 before to necessary concerns, but still their hearts are gone after their father. They are looking for their new abode. They are waiting for their father's coming. Such are the feelings and views which you should cherish. Not feelings that will prevent your discharging the duties of life; that will drive you into a desert, or turn you to a hermit; but, that will lead you to act and live as not at home, but looking for your Lord; waiting as those children would wait. Not building on long years below. Not expecting great things here, but with a heart untied from the world, ready to go be the warning ever so short, and to welcome your Lord let him come ever so soon. Blessed are they who indulge this watching, waiting spirit: the King of heaven and earth has pronounced them blessed. § 14. But, perhaps, I am addressing one of a character very opposite to that described in these pages. Perhaps you who read these lines are no member of the family of God;-no fellow-citizen with the saints;-no heir of heaven and immortality. If it be so, O! let me for a moment affectionately speak to you. How pitiable is your condition! Your transient morning might be the dawn of an immortal day! Your vain, half-painful, half-pleasing life on earth, might be the forerunner of an endless life of unmixed bliss above! But, you slight the Saviour who would conduct you to that abode. You, who might, through the grace of Jesus, ascend to the kingdom of God, and range that blessed world for ever, are satisfied, alas! with the low scenes of earth. You might rival angels, as an inhabitant of heaven; but, by taking up your portion here, become the rival of the brutes that perish. Here you bury all your hopes. Here you renounce that great salvation, which once finally lost can never be regained. O, sinful and unhappy choice! When we see swine wallowing in the mire, we see them gratifying themselves, and losing nothing, by their filthy pleasure; but, when we see immortal creatures wallowing on earth in the mire of sin and sensuality, we see them losing more than any tongue can express. Were we, every where around us, to see persons, once the amiable and intelligent ornaments of society, renouncing all the delights of life, and seeking no higher happiness than to roll with swine in the mud, or to grovel in a dunghill; could we 132 WRETCHEDNESS OF THE WORLDLY-MINDED. see a more pitiable sight? or one that would raise more melancholy reflections? Alas, we might exclaim, how changed are these! once so amiable, now so debased! once so blessed, now so miserable! once the ornaments of the world, now far more debased than the trusty dog, or the generous horse! But, one sight appears more melancholy. To see millions that might be heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; that might, in seraphic bliss, walk the spacious regions of heaven, and, washed in the blood of the Lamb, be happy and glorified for ever: to see these slighting the only Saviour's grace and love, rejecting immortal hopes, and damning their own immortal souls; to see the young and the aged, the gay and the grave, the cheerful and the sad, the rich and the poor, doing this by millions, is a pitiable sight indeed! What must it appear to the angels of heaven? "Could they tremble, 'twere at such a sight." Are you one of the number? Unhappy creature! how poor! how wretched! how undone! O, awake before eternal ruin awakes you! and while the Saviour invites you to his fold, to his family, be not so besotted by sin, so led captive by the devil, as to refuse the offered mercy. CA BODL ANA CHAPTER VII. ON CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. § 1. WHEN heathen philosophers described their virtuous man, they represented him as filled with self-conceit and pride, in consequence of the virtues he had acquired, and the heights to which he had raised himself above the common level. One of them represents this man of virtue as superior to the gods; because they were virtuous by nature, but he by choice. Such was the Satanic pride inculcated by the men that modern infidels admire. Christianity requires HOLINESS INDISPENSABLE. 133 holiness of the most elevated kind, but connects this holiness with the deepest humility. "Be ye holy, for I am holy." "Follow holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord."b The Scriptures recognize not as a thing of any value, that negative kind of virtue, which consists in doing no harm. To leave undone what we ought to do, is as really sin, as to do what we ought not. Accordingly, the Christian's faith is represented, not as faith which merely preserves him from evil, but which "works by love." The Christian's love is described, not as love which evaporates in empty professions, but which constrains "him to live not to himself, but the Lord Jesus Christ."d The servant who had one talent committed to him which he neglected to improve, is declared to be a slothful and wicked servant; not because he had wasted that talent, but because he had made no improvement of the trust. The blessed Saviour describes myriads as condemned to destruction with the devil and his angels, not for crimes they had perpetrated, but for the neglect of duties they had omitted. When the different virtues that should adorn the Christian character are compared to fruit, this fruit is represented as indispensably necessary. This lesson is inculcated by the Lord in various expressive ways. He taught it by the parable of a fig-tree planted in the vineyard. The owner sought fruit, not leaves; and his forbearance was extended to the tree, under the hope of its producing fruit. The great Husbandman expects the fruits of piety, and the leaves of a fair profession will not be valued where the fruit is wanting. By an expressive miracle the Lord taught the same important lesson, when he said to the barren fig-tree, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. Many professors of religion appear satisfied, if they disgrace not their profession by flagrant inconsistency; yet, let such consider the fig-tree in the vineyard was not ordered to be cut down because it bore pernicious fruit, but because it bore no fruit. The tree which withered at Jesus's word, was not blasted because it was covered with poisonous berries, but because it had nothing but leaves. As the adorable Jesus thus declares, that his followers will produce the fruits of holiness; he also declares, that this will not be in a small and inconsiderable (c) Gal. v. 6. (f) Luke xii. 6-9. (a) 1 Pet. i. 16. (6) Heb. xiii. 14. (e) Matt. xxv. 41-43, 45, 46. (d) 2 Cor. v. 15. (9) Matt. xxi. 19. N 134 degree. When he compares himself to a vine, and his disciples to the branches, he says of those disciples, "He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear MUCH fruit.” In the parable of the sower, he describes his disciples as producing thirty, sixty, and a hundred-fold; some as rising to piety much more elevated than that of others; yet, while some yield a hundred-fold, those who produce the least yield thirtyfold. Ask the husbandman, and he will tell you, that thirtyfold is no inconsiderable increase. Conformable with these representations are the divine admonitions. "Be ye stedfast, unmovable, ALWAYS ABOUNDING in the work of the Lord."i "Be diligent, that ye may be found of him in peace WITH PAUL AN EXAMPLE OF CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. OUT SPOT AND BLAMELESS." "k ויי § 2. An instructive example of the spirit with which Christians should pant after holiness, was exhibited by the apostle Paul; "Herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence towards God and man.' A conscience void of offence towards God, that should charge him with no neglect of God's precepts, that should witness, that he devoted his whole heart, and all he was and had, to God. A conscience void of offence towards men, that should bear testimony to his concern to discharge all the duties of life, to do to all as he would have them do to him, to furnish none with any cause of complaint against him, but rather, as far as ability extended, to do good to all around him. This he laboured to possess always. Yet, after all, acknowledged himself less than the least of all saints; the chief of sinners, saved by grace. The same spirit breathes in his affectionate address to the Philippians:-"Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect; but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."m When St. Paul made this impressive declaration, he had probably been nearly thirty years a Christian. His splendid course was nearly run; he had laboured above measure; he had suffered much; he had been enabled to exemplify, in no common degree, the mild and brilliant glories of Christianity—the zeal (h) John xv. 5, 8, 2. (i) 1 Cor. xv. 58. (k) 2 Pet. iii. 14. |