146

"I hate vain thoughts."-PSA. cxix. 113. THOUGHTS are the offspring of the mind, or the exercise of our reasoning powers; and they are either good or bad; if the latter, they owe their origin to the fall of man.

Man in his pristine estate, as coming from the hand of his Maker, had no evil thoughts, he was perfectly pure; but when he fell, which he did of his own free-will, and through no fault of his Maker, his thoughts became evil, and that continually; whereby he rendered himself displeasing and obnoxious to his Creator, and brought ruin and condemnation on himself and his posterity.

Who can enter into the feelings of Adam when his Maker accused him of his criminality, when under the frowns of his holy parent, his sense of guilt, his dismissal from his native paradise, his loss of the divine fellowship of the Son of God, and the just sentence pronounced against him! Well might he confess his fault, and well might he hide himself through shame and fear.

But David said, "I hate vain thoughts." It was the new man, or new principle in David, that gave utterance to these words; for the old man, or corrupt principle, loves vain thoughts.

By vain thoughts are meant, any thoughts hostile to pure religion, such as worldly, unprofitable, sceptical, Goddishonouring, idolatrous and blaspheming thoughts opposed to the wisdom, the holiness, and the righteousness of God, and the welfare of a good man.

These thoughts embitter the christian's life, they are his plague, the burden of his soul, they obstruct his search for truth, they mar his comforts, they are thieves and robbers, and stand in the way

of communion and fellowship with God, and his Christ: yes, and Satan makes himself very busy in injecting such thoughts into the mind of a good man.

Now David saying, "I hate vain thoughts," shews us that he was a man of God, a man decided for God, and was against anything irrelevant to the character and mind of Jehovah, and the peace and welfare of his own soul. David seems to exclaim in the bitterness of his soul, as though he had said," You don't know my feelings, how much I am annoyed, and what I suffer by such thoughts;" this shews the honesty of David, and the sincerity and reality of his religion, even that of the true God of Israel. And this is the feeling and saying of every Godfearing man, of every true believer in Jesus, who is often saying and singing with the poet,

"Far from my thoughts vain world begone,
Let my religious hours alone;

Fain would mine eyes my Saviour see,
I wait a visit, Lord, from Thee."

It was David's honour, and David's joy, at times, to have great, exalted, and sublime thoughts of the eternal Jehovah; hence the grandeur of his poetical effusions in many of his psalms, and which have thrilled through the hearts of many thousands of the many generations since his day.

Being a true Israelite and worshipper of the God of the Hebrews, it was David's wish to have such thoughts as were acceptable to his God; and perhaps no man ever hated vain thoughts more than did David, the man after God's own heart, and true type of the expected Messiah. Vain thoughts are base intruders; sometimes forcing themselves upon a good man when

he is reading the word of God, sometimes in his prayerful moments, and sometimes when under the sound of the gospel. The cunning of the old serpent is here manifest. It was the earnest prayer of the psalmist, "Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation (or thinking moments) of my soul be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.” (Psa. xix. 14.) Thoughts by Daniel are called his cogitations. (ch. vii. 28.)

Although thoughts are considered the exercise of thinking, yet when they come suddenly and forcibly on the mind, they come under the notion of injection, as they are not counted, or sought after, and may be from some particular circumstance, or from some evil, or good spirit; so that neither good thoughts or bad thoughts are always the effect of thinking or reasoning, for both may at times be sudden; hence we hear people say, "The thought struck me all in a moment."

Again, we find at times that our thoughts do not rise in quick succession, but are dull, heavy and slumbering, and thus the Psalmist prays, "Quicken me according to thy word;" so that a divine power is necessary to enliven and keep a believer in pursuit of that which is good, and cause him to endure to the end. "All my

springs are in Thee." (Psa. lxxxvii. 7.)

Sometimes our thoughts are scattered, incoherent, and unconnected, and this may give rise to false notions, in divinity. Good thoughts are always acceptable to a good man, whether they are sudden, or from the exercise of thinking; though they may perhaps be prized more when they are the result of the act of thinking, as then they are the effect of labour of mind, of prayer, and careful reading, and so reward the inquirer. "In the multitude of my thoughts within me (said David) thy comforts delight my soul." Hard thoughts of God, even when they emanate from a godly man, as sometimes they do on account of the providence and dealings of God in the path of life, are discreditable, injurious, and dishonouring. Jonah was angry with his Maker; David said, "Thou has shewed thy people hard things; thou hast made us drink the wine of astonishment. (Psa. lx. 3.) And what but the grace of God, and the power of the Holy Spirit can induce, or enable a man to say, "It is the Lord, let Him do as seemeth Him good."

Thus

Many of our ideas and contemplations are obtained by hard thinking, by close study; and this is often the case with

147

literary persons, whose minds swell into volumes, and with scientific men, whose sketch and line of thoughts are draughted on paper, constructed into models, and afterwards enlarged for general usefulness; all which is the gift of the Great Creator, who gives to men their thinking powers as seemeth good in his sight, for all men do not, cannot think alike.

Our better thoughts, instead of becoming fixed in the mind, and doing us good in the future, are often fleeting and transitory; they pass away from us like a shadow on the wall, or a dream in the night season.

Our thoughts are good when they are godly, when they are Godlike, which shew they emanate from a good principle, even one of grace in the heart superadded by the Holy Ghost. Thus as on the one hand, out of the unregenerate heart proceed evil thoughts, so on the other hand, "Out of the abundance of the renewed heart, the mouth speaketh good things." Indeed, the Apostle Paul announced for himself and his brethren in the ministry, "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God," (2 Cor. iii. 5); which agrees with what he said in another place, "By the grace of God, I am what I am." (1 Cor. xv. 10.) And so of all true believers in Jesus.

A newly awakened sinner, one whom the Holy Ghost has taken in hand, has thoughts, troublesome thoughts, souldistressing thoughts, self-condemning thoughts. He sees holiness and justice in his Maker, but he beholds no mercy, no pardon, no forgiveness for him, hell must be his final doom; he seeks peace and joy, but finds none; his heart is broken, but there is none to bind it up; his conscience is wounded, but he finds no healer; Sinai thunders its curses, and flashes lightning into his inmost soul. He is a debtor to the whole law, and has nothing wherewith to pay, he is under the arrest of justice, he is a prisoner and cannot come forth. He bestows his alms upon the poor, he tries a round of duties, he resolves to mend his ways, he puts on the form of piety, and fancies his righteousness exceeds that of others; then he runs from preacher to preacher, he listens to the prayers and conversation of the godly; still he has no inward peace, nor joy in God, till the Holy Ghost reveals to him a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord; then his thoughts begin to change. He has now a view of God in Christ, not only as just, but as

148

merciful and gracious, as a God pardoning iniquity, transgression and sin through his atoning sacrifice. He finds God has thoughts of peace and salvation towards him, and not of final destruction. Now his chains are knocked off, he is loosed,

the prison doors are opened, he flies to the cross of a crucified Jesus, finds rest for his soul, and enjoys the liberty of the children of God.

(To be continued.)

Ir was a quaint but beautiful fancy which led ancient artists to paint around the heads of saints, apostles, and martyrs haloes of golden glory; but it was a whisper from immortal truth which prompted them to encircle the head of the the Redeemer of men with a halo more effulgent than all others. I am conscious of the fact that when the Saviour trod this lower world, no visible lustre adorned his person; on the contrary it was predicted of Him by Isaiah, "When we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him." Isaiah liii. 2. Yet was the painter's idea one of loveliness and power; for what could so well have shadowed forth the light which Jesus threw around him as the glory-emanations to which I have alluded. True it is that a very celebrated modern sceptic has impiously averred, that, "The conduct of Jesus does not seem to me to have been that of a perfect man." And he further adds, "How any one can think him a universal model, is to me still less intelligible.

In consistency of goodness, Jesus fell far below vast numbers of his unhonoured

disciples." I do not now pause to inquire who these "unhonoured disciples i

were,

SO

to which the christian church has done so much injustice; but I do say that the book in which these gratuitous animadversions are found, appcars to me evidently to convey to its reader what ought to be called phases of doubt, instead of "Phases of Faith," that the opinion of its Author is of very little moment. Not only so; against the impressions of the learned professor may be placed this indisputable fact, that numbers of men, who have never pretended to receive either the old or new testament as a distinct and pre-eminent revelation of God's mind towards humanity, have, neverthe

"Phases of Faith," by Professor Newman. "Chapman's Library for the People." (pp. 163, 164.)

66

less, been arrested and entranced by "the moral beauty of the Saviour's character." Perhaps no man of refined taste and kindly disposition ever exceeded in bold, brazenfaced infidelity, the poet Shelly; yet an examination of his works will show, that even Shelly always had before his mind's eye a model man," and that that man was "The man Christ Jesus." Thomas Cooper, the secularist lecturer, was, through all the fearful storm of unbelief and fight of conflicting convictions which for years disturbed his soul, bound to the new testament by an adamantine chain; and that chain was, "Ths moral beauty of the Saviour's character." In "The Purgatory of Suicides," Cooper, even while fiercely denouncing the ministers of religion, utters this ejaculation,

"O Christ! how worshipfully great thou art!" And he speaks of Jesus as "The Nazarene the Good;" One

"Who the hungry fed As well as taught, who wept with men, and bent In gentleness and love o'er bier and bed, W here wretchedness was found, until it fled." Coming from such lips, under such circumstances, such testimony to the moral beauty which adorned the walk and conversation of Jesus, as recorded by the sacred historians, is peculiarly valuable. "Jesus of Nazareth" presents before the eyes of mankind a life at once attractive and unique. Napoleon the first, when at St. Helena, in a conversation with Count de Montholon, thus spoke; "The religion of Christ is a mystery, which subsists by its own force, and proceeds from a mind which is not a human mind. We find in it a marked individuality which originated a train of words and maxims unknown before. Jesus borrowed nothing from our knowledge. He exhibited in Himself the perfect example of His precepts. Jesus is not a philosopher; for His proofs are miracles, and from the first His disciples

adored Him.

In fact, learning and philosophy are of no use for salvation; and Jesus came into the world to reveal the mysteries of heaven and the laws of the Spirit. Alexander, Cæsar, Charlemagne, and myself founded empires; but upon what did we rest the creation of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ alone founded His empire upon love; and, at this hour, millions of men would die for Him." It

149

would be easy to multiply testimonials of this sort. And of such a kind is the evidence of men, far from orthodox, to the unselfish, and noble character of the Founder of our common faith. Well did the poet Young exclaim,

"Talk they of morals? O thou bleeding Lamb! Thou maker of new morals to mankind! The grand morality is love of Thee."

We now proceed briefly to describe the condition of the Church generally at the close of the Apostolic age. Notwithstanding the bitter enmity of all, both learned and unlearned, among her Pagan persecutors, she gradually made way in all parts of the Roman Empire. Though the old Roman faith in the gods was giving way to a hollow scepticism, yet the Romans were as ready as ever to persecute to the death those who disowned the deities of the empire. The state of society was very corrupt. Licentious and degrading practices, unknown to the better days of Rome, marked the approach of its decline and fall, and the protest of the Christians by word and example against the vices and crimes of the age drew upon them the hatred of their enemies, as much probably as their refusing to do homage to the Gods, though the latter was generally the pretext for persecution. Still, in spite of all, they grew and multiplied.

Taking the Mediterranean sea for our centre of observation, we find, at this period, flourishing churches established in nearly every city situated around it. Thus, at the eastern extremity, there were the churches at Jerusalem and Antioch. Passing westward, we come to Alexandria, queen of the seas in those days, the mistress of the arts and sciences of the world. Here the Septuagint version of the Hebrew Scriptures was made, and here at an early period Mark introduced the Christian religion, and in the year 100 the commencement of the second century, and the period we are now contemplating, Clement presided over a large and prosperous church. Passing from thence across the Mediterranean northward, we arrive at Corinth, Athens, Philippi, and Ephesus, where Christian converts had

been gathered into churches of saints, under the immediate eye and care of the Apostles. And then far to the west there was Rome, the centre of law and government; a church consisting of Jews and Gentiles, grew and flourished under the very eye of the Pagan Emperor. Cities first, then villages, became centres of Gospel light in all parts of the Roman empire, and though generally composed of the meanest and poorest of the people-slaves artisans and women-they soon began, from their numbers, to attract the hostile notice of the ruling powers.

How must a thoughtful heathen have wondered at the rapid spread of this strange religion, without an altar, a temple, or an image; without a priest or a sacrifice; without either solemn liturgy, or gorgeous festival, and, far as he could see, without a God! Other religions had confined themselves to a single people and a single land; but this breaks down all barriers of race and language, and takes root in every soil.

It is pursued everywhere with a storm of persecution, but it spreads the more widely and takes root the more firmly. Power cannot put it down, learning cannot argue it down, ridicule cannot laugh it down, calumny cannot slander it down. With the learned and the illiterate, the Greek and the Barbarian, the Pagan and the Jew, all arrayed against it, it possessed a subtile influence which defied them all. And the heathen of modern days, the learned sceptic like Gibbon, or the coarse infidel like Paine,- have tried in vain to account for the wonderful progress of early Christianity, apart from its Divine origin and the Divine power which accompanied its promulgation.

Passing from the external aspect to the internal condition of the early church at