GROVE CHAPEL "THE PATH OF THE JUST." A Sermon PREACHED IN GROVE CHAPEL, CAMBERWELL, ON SUNDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 12TH, 1875, BY THOMAS BRADBURY. "But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day."-Prov. iv. 18. IN N the first chapter of this wondrous book of Proverbs, sixth verse, we read: To understand a proverb, and the interpretation (an eloquent speech, margin); the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.” And in the preceding verse: "A wise man will hear, and will increase learning and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels." Now, for wise counsel there must be a wise Counsellor, and for the understanding of a language foreign to that country in which we were born and in which we have found a home, there must of necessity be an Interpreter. Everything independent of this wise Counsellor, of this great Interpreter, is dark and gloomy, vague and meaningless. Who is this wise and wonderful Counsellor? Who is this great and marvellous Interpreter? Who can bring from the deep which coucheth beneath the proverbs of this mysterious Book words of instruction, comfort, and encouragement? It is that "One Man among a thousand," of whom Solomon wrote in Eccles. vii. 28. He is the One of a thousand of whom Elihu spoke to Job: "If there be a Messenger with him, an Interpreter, One among a thousand, to show unto man His uprightness" (Job xxxiii. 23). This is the Man of JEHOVAH'S counsel, the exponent of His will, the Revealer of His secrets, the Interpreter of His Word and providence. He, the Son, has a commission from the Father to declare and give His words to the people of His choice. He shows no hesitancy in the execution of the commission, but rather exhibits an intensity of desire to communicate His Father's mind to all the children given to Him in covenant before the foundation of the world. See! "O righteous Father, No. 130.-FRICE ONE PENNY. the world hath not known Thee; but I have known Thee, and these have known that Thou hast sent Me. And I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it; that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them" (John xvii. 25, 26). Our Jesus, the Son of the Father's love, is our only Interpreter, He alone can reveal the Father, and to Him we can say, with Peter, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life" (John vi. 68). One of a thousand! Ay, One of a thousand! for we only go to Him after we have sought counsel from the 999. Is not this the case with you and me? If there appear any difficulties on the face of God's Holy Word, if we experience perplexities in His providence, seek we not counsel one of another, instead of appealing to Him who can unravel all mysteries, remove all doubts, and bring us into the light of JEHOVAH? Blessed be God, this is the Messenger of love to our hearts, the Interpreter of light to our understanding, and the Communicator of life to our drooping spirits. As we behold His uprightness, by the illuminating power of the Holy Ghost, we worship God in the Spirit, make our boast in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. Look at that precious portion in Eph. i. 17:-"That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him; or, as you read in the margin, "for the acknowledgment of Him." Now, without the acknowledgment of a precious Christ, in the passage before us, there will be no shining light to our souls; but as we are brought by the teaching of the Holy Ghost to acknowledge Him, all difficulties in connection with the passage vanish, and that is fulfilled in our hearts' experience :-" With Thee is the fountain of life, and in Thy light shall we see light." That's it! In the person of a precious Christ we have One who gives us to understand a proverb, and the interpretation; while His grace-filled lips and eloquent speech make plain the words of the wise, and throw glorious and gracious light upon their dark sayings. The Father hath given us a spiritual understanding (1 John v. 20); the Son of His love opens the understanding (Luke xxiv. 45); the blessed Spirit enlightens the understanding, and takes of the beauties, blessings, and bounties of the covenant, and shows them unto us (John xvi. 13-15). In this everlasting, sure, and well-ordered covenant, the children of God have secured unto them a gracious Interpreter who is called by way of pre-eminence, "The Wisdom of God" (1 Cor. i. 24). He is not simply wise, but Wisdom; and those who are wise in Him, are wise indeed, and all are fools beside. In the person and work of Emmanuel, dark sayings and parables appear plain, precious, and profitable; but without Christ" this book of Proverbs is a collection of puzzles and paradoxes. Without Him these dark sayings prove Solomon almost a greater taskmaster than Moses. Ah! blessed be God, the Interpreter has " appeared, and from these precious proverbs He gives to the children of Zion many a sweet lesson in the language of Canaan. This Interpreter has to do with a language which earthly linguists cannot touch. The reprobate Pilate could translate from Greek into Hebrew, and from Hebrew into Latin (Luke xxiii. 38), but our Interpreter opens up the dark sayings of His own Book in Heaven's own language-the language of the redeemed sinner's need, the language which speaks an abundant supply according to JEHOVAH'S riches in glory by Jesus Christ. Let us look at the text. "But!" This word throws it in striking contrast with something stated immediately before. Look at ver. 14: "Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away. For they sleep not except they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall. For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence." If you want moral maxims, here are some most excellent for fast young men in these days of degeneracy and profligacy. Though, mark you, moral maxims may suit hypocrites and proud professors, but the power of the Holy Ghost will alone satisfy the living children of God. "But!" Here we see the contrast between the two paths-the path to eternal perdition, and the path to eternal glory; the path leading to the grip of Satan, the other to the everlasting and unceasing embrace of a covenantGod and Father; the one leading to holiness, happiness, and heaven, the other to corruption, death, and damnation. "But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." As we search through God's blessed Book we find this path described in a variety of ways. In the sermon on the mount, that remarkable exposition of the spirituality of the Divine law, we find two gates, two ways. See Matt. vii. 13, 14: "Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that go in thereat. Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." Look again at Job xxviii. 7, 8: "There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's eye hath not seen. The lion's whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it." See! Satan's brood cannot tread that path, such are ignorant of it, and go gaily on their way to eternal destruction. The vulture's eye sees not the path to glory. The vulture, according to the law of Moses, was an unclean bird, typical of all unclean professors from that day to the end of time; so, then, no unclean professor, however high he may soar in the regions of Scriptural knowledge and religious attainment, can for a moment see and enjoy the hidden mysteries of this path. Balaam, with marvellous light in his head and eloquence on his tongue, might behold wonders from the tops of the rocks; but he remained totally ignorant of the way to the heart of a covenant God in Christ. "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man; but the end thereof are the ways of death" (Prov. xvi. 25). If I were standing here as a mere moralist, I might expatiate on the evils of debauchery, immorality, and profligacy, and spend my time in seeking the outward reformation of the masses; but having been led into the depths of inbred corruption and uncleanness, I cannot waste my energies and compromise my commission in cleansing and adorning the religious exterior while the interior spiritually is corruption itself, and the cleansed and adorned one must go to the depths of hell with a lie in his right hand. The Gospel of the grace of God teaches elect ones to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly. Where do we find such incentives against sin as those found in the revelation of the terrible sufferings of the sinless Saviour on Calvary's bloody tree? Objectors to the truth of Divine sovereignty may start up and ask, "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" But the true-born child of God hurls back the hellish suggestion with, "God forbid! How shall we that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" while it is gloriously true that where sin abounded grace did much more abound. But, the path of the just is a narrow one. How broad is it? What are its bounds? See! So narrow, that none but Christ can truly walk therein. It is a holy path, and there is none holy but the Lord. It is a living path, and there is no life but in Christ. Where is the just? "There is not a just man upon earth that doeth good and sinneth not." Where is the path of the just? He who is truly the Just One is also the Path in whom we walk. The first man Adam was made perfect, upright; but in the development of the Divine purposes, the introduction of evil into this world became a certain and a startling fact. This is a marvellous mystery, before which God-wrought faith bows with profound reverence, and waits until all is explained above. In our finite capacity, and with our poor, weak stretch of mind, we cannot comprehend the secret things which belong unto the LORD our God, but as He communicates His secrets, and opens up His glorious counsels, new and Divine delights seize our hearts, causing us to glory in Him our covenant God and Lord. Many imagine that when Adam sinned, being questioned by the Eternal Word, he threw the blame of his act upon God and Eve. Ah, my friends, Adam did nothing of the kind. Adam, the figure of Him who was to come, stood trembling before the Eternal Word, for He it was who sought Adam in the cool of the day, and found him behind the trees of the garden. He called to Adam, not to Eve, "Where art thou?" And when before assembled worlds the last Adam shall appear, His Eve shall hear Him say, "Here am I, and she whose sins I bore and whose responsibility I took upon Myself is here, righteous in My righteousness, comely in My comeliness, accepted in Me." Our first father Adam laid not the blame upon his Eve. He confessed unreservedly his sin in a plain statement of the facts"The woman whom Thou gavest with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." The woman hesitated not, when confronted, but said, "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." Can anything be plainer? This is a marvellous type of Christ and His Church! O how gloriously does the last Adam, our most glorious Christ, appear, as He takes to Himself every sin, every charge, every accusation which may be laid against His Church, and puts them for ever away, while He cleaves to her His own loved wife and hates to put away. But in Adam the first we see sin, guilt, shame, and condemnation. He begat a son in his own likeness, not in the image of God, for, "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" Adam's sons and daughters are all corrupt, depraved, unrighteous. Look at Gen. vi. 5 : "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil and that continually." Mark! Only evil, always evil. This is universal, total depravity. Imaginations, thoughts, purposes, desires of man's heart only evil, without one redeeming feature or compensating quality. Moral improvements, educational advantages, religious observances, effect no change before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. Only evil, continually evil, never anything else but evil, is God's judgment concerning universal man. Turn with me and glance at the first three chapters of the Epistle to the Romans. The first chapter gives an awful description of the Gentile world; yet not more awful than true. So frightful is the account given, that to read it in a mixed congregation must bring the crimson blush of shame to one's cheek. The second chapter displays religious man with all the privileges, rites, ceremonies, and so-called means that God could bestow upon him. And what was the religious Jew as he stood fortified with the rites of his religion, but destitute of the grace of God? Simply a spangled hypocrite, an enemy of God. Now, look at the third chapter and ninth verse: "We have before proved, both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin." Now, he had not proved anything of the kind, but as you read in the margin of this verse, he had charged them as being all under sin. He then proceeds in a string of quotations from the Old Testament Scriptures to prove the charge. And, what a picture! Philosophers, philanthropists, political economists, prelates, priests, princes, and plebeians, all ignore and discard it. Yet, "Let God be true, but every man a liar." Listen to the wise man: "Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made. man upright; but they have sought out many inventions" (Eccles. vii. 29). Such is the perversity of human nature, that, |