Page images
PDF
EPUB

the star in the east brightens into the glorious light of the Sun of Righteousness, and all the mercies of redemption are clearly displayed through the Angel of the Covenant.-Bishop Sumner.

TRUTH-not to be Served by Falsehood.

It is not lawful to tell a lie for God's truth; because God will not be served by that which He hates, and there are no defects in truth which need such violent remedies. God hath created and communicated to mankind not only sufficient but abundant justifications of whatsoever He hath commanded us to believe; therefore He hates infinitely to have His glorious economy of faith and truth to be disordered and discomposed by the productions of hell, as every lie is of the devil.-Bishop Taylor.

TRUTH.-The Simplicity of

The truth as it is in Jesus, whilst, in one view of it, so profound that the highest angel's intellect may be lost in the contemplation of its mysterious depths, is yet, in another, so simple, that the lisping babe at a mother's knee may learn its meaning.-Professor Caird.

TRUTH-in a Small Compass.

Truth lies in a small compass; and if a well has been assigned her for a habitation, it is as appropriate from its narrowness as its depth.-Colton. TRUTH.-Speak the

Speak the truth, by all means; let it fall upon the hearts of men with all the imparted energy by which the Spirit gives it power; but speak the truth in love, and, perchance, it may subdue them by its winsome beauty, and prompt their acknowledgment that it is altogether lovely. Such an one, holding truth in the heart, speaking it lovingly from the lip, exhibiting its power in the beneficent workings of the life,-such an one will be the chief benefactor of his species, though eloquence may pour no eulogy on his merits, and though the common annals of fame may pass him by.-Dr. Punshon.

TRUTH.-The Triumph of

Truth scorns the impotence of man; and on the grave of many a persecutor, it has, with undying energy, once more reared its divine banner.-Zschokke.

Whether it be ridiculed, travestied, or crushed beneath a heap of hostile theories, truth, when its day is come, will issue from your rubbish in all the brightness of its eternal youth;-will trample under foot your accumulations of falsehoods;—will look full at the sun, and the whole earth beholding her shall clap its hands.—Gasparin.

TRUTH.-The Triumphs of

The triumphs of truth are the most glorious, chiefly because they are the most bloodless of all victories, deriving their highest lustre from the number of the saved, not of the slain.-Colton.

TRUTH.-The Voice and End of

All truth speaks in one voice, and, though in different tones, for one end; that voice is the voice of God-that end is the weal of man.-Dr. Thomas.

TRUTH.-The Way to Teach

The most powerful way of teaching truth is to show what it has done for you.-H. W. Beecher.

TRUTH-Written and Spoken.

Truth written, as compared with truth spoken, is as the winter to the summer sky: it may be clear and calm, unfolding the distinctive form and peculiar hue of all the objects on which its beams descend, but it is cold, very cold. Under its influence the landscape will wither, and the rivers will freeze.-Dr. Thomas.

TRUTH and ERROR.

Truth crushed to earth shall rise again:
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes with pain,
And dies among her worshippers.—Bryant.

TRUTH and FICTION.

Truth herself, if clouded with a frown,

Must have some solemn proof to pass her down;

But fiction rises pleasing to the eye,

Men will believe, because they love the lie.-Churchill.

TRUTH and REASON.

He laboureth in vain who shall endeavour to draw down heavenly mysteries to human reason; it rather becomes us to bring our reason to the adorable throne of divine truth.-Lord Bacon.

TRUTH and VIRTUE.

The study of truth is perpetually joined with the love of virtue; for there is no virtue which derives not its original from truth; as, on the contrary, there is no vice which has not its beginning from a lie. Truth is the foundation of all knowledge and the cement of all society.-Dryden.

TRUTHS. Different Effects of

The same truths uttered from the pulpit by different men, or by the same man in different states of feeling, will produce very different effects. Some of these are far beyond what the bare conviction of the truth, so uttered, would ordinarily produce. The whole mass of truth, by the sudden passion of the speaker, is made red hot, and burns its way.-Dr. J. W. Alexander.

TRUTHS.-Divine and Human

The truths of God are best dressed in the plain culture and simplicity of the Spirit; but the truths that men commonly teach are like the reflections of a multiplying glass: for one piece of good money you shall have forty that are fantastical; and it is forty to one if your finger hit upon the right. Men have wearied themselves in the dark, having been amused with false fires; and instead of going home, have wandered all night in untrodden, unsafe, uneasy ways; but have not found what their souls desire.-Bishop Taylor.

TRUTHS-Neglected.

Truths of all others the most awful and mysterious, and at the same time of universal interest, are too often considered as so true that they lose all the power of truth, and lie bed-ridden in the dormitory of the soul, side by side with the most despised and exploded errors.-S. T. Coleridge.

TRUTHS.-Opposite

To suppose the possibility of two opposite truths, is to overturn the foundation of human certainty, and to render all our faculties useless.-Locke.

TYPE. The Completion of a

A type is no longer a type when the thing typified comes to be actually exhibited. Dr. South.

TYPE.-Definitions of a

A type is an action or occurrence in which one event, person, or circumstance, is intended to represent another, similar to it in certain respects, but of more importance, and generally future. The Scriptures describe a type as "a shadow of good things to come." Shadows are not exact resemblances, but give only a dark outline, yet with sufficient distinctness to convey some general idea of the body, especially when afterwards we have the body with which to compare them.-Nicholls.

A type is not only a resemblance of some future thing, but it was designed to resemble it in its original constitution.-Bishop Marsh.

TYPE.-The Prophetical Character of a

A type is a species of prophecy; only it goes beyond the mere prediction of that future which it portrays; it anticipates it, and enables the worshipper already to partake in its benefits. Thus the paschal sacrifice not only exhibited the future sacrifice of the Lamb of God, but those who took part in the offering shared by anticipation the benefit which it foreshadowed.-Dr. Edersheim.

TYPES.-The Importance of the

The great importance of types is that we can look back upon a regular connected series of revelations, originating at the creation of the world, and delivered in sundry ways, and by divers instruments, and at various times, so that it was impossible to suppose any human concert, and yet all uniting to prefigure the advent and work of that great and glorious Saviour in whom we trust.-Beausobre. TYPES.-Perverted Use of the

While we may justly consider the death of Christ, and His resurrection from the dead, as events that are typified in the Old Testament, we should be careful not to consider everything mentioned in the Hebrew Scripture as a type; for this will expose the whole doctrine of types to ridicule for instance, what can be a greater burlesque on the Scriptures than to suppose, as some have done, that the extraction of Eve from the side of Adam, while he was in a deep sleep, was intended as a type of the Roman soldier's piercing our Saviour's side while He slept the sleep of death? Such ideas as these, vented sometimes by novices, and sometimes by more aged divines, gave a greater proof of the wildness of their fancies than the correctness of their judgments.-Professor Stuart.

TYPES.-The Prescriber and Interpreter of the

God Himself prescribed our sacred types, and will, in time, disclose their purport.-Klopstock.

TYPES.-The Re-Massing of

A thousand types

A thousand tribes have chosen; but the hour,
Already hawk-like, preens its wings for flight,
When all shall be re-massed in one great creed;
All being shall be re-begotten; all

Worship re-dedicate; all signs afresh

Thrice hallowed; the degenerate lapse of time
Having twice fused the symbol with the truth;

All dark things brightened, all contrariants blent;
And truth and love, per-radiating life,

Be the new poles of nature; earth at last

Joining the great procession of the skies.-P. J. Bailey.

UNBELIEF.-The Evil of

U.

Unbelief not only blinds the eyes to the purity of the Law, but deafens the ears to the music of the Gospel, and deadens the affections to the glories of heaven.-W. Secker.

Unbelief is the occasion of all sin, and the very bond of iniquity. It does nothing but darken and destroy. It makes the world a moral desert, where no divine footsteps are heard, where no angels ascend and descend, where no living hand adorns the fields, feeds the fowls of heaven, or regulates events. Thus it makes nature, the garden of God, a mere automaton, and the history of Providence a fortuitous succession of events; a man, a creature of accidents, and prayer a useless ceremony. It annihilates even the vestiges of heaven that still remain upon the earth, and stops the way to every higher region.-Dr. Krummacher.

UNBELIEF.-Feeling respecting

There is nothing I feel more than the criminality of not trusting Christ without doubt. Oh, to think what Christ is, what He did, and whom He did it for, and then not to believe Him, not to trust Him !-Dr. Heugh.

UNBELIEF.-The Locality of

Unbelief takes place only on earth; there is no such thing either in heaven or hell.-Maclaurin.

UNBELIEF.-The Origin of

Unbelief has its origin in the aversion of the mind to the high and holy principles of the Gospel. There is a demand, made in that Gospel, of every lofty imagination, and every high thought, being brought into captivity to Christ, which is repugnant to that reckless independence of mind in which an unbeliever glories. To such a mind Christianity is too humbling; its meek, and lowly, and crucified Saviour appears mean and uninteresting, and he easily turns from the thought of Him who has no form or comeliness to the contemplation of some stormy hero of romance. Its strict morality,-exercising a minute inspection over every movement of the inner man, and claiming to be a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart,-is felt to be an uncomfortable restraint, like an individual who follows us through every path and winding which we take to avoid his presence. Above all, its doctrine of the cross,-staining, as it does, all human glory, reducing the loftiest to a level with the meanest in the sight of God, and making all heavenly blessedness to depend on Him who was crucified as a felon between two thieves,―outrages that high sense of merit which would exalt itself as the eagle, and set its nest among the stars.-T. Pearson.

UNBELIEF.-The Service of

Unbelief does an inevitable service to the faith which it attacks. It forces earnest believers in Jesus Christ to minimize all differences which are less than fundamental: it compels Christian men to repress with a strong hand all exaggeration of existing motives for divided action: it obliges Christians, sometimes in spite of themselves, to work side by side for their insulted Lord.-Canon Liddon. UNBELIEF.-The Sinfulness of

There is no sin like unbelief: all the poison of all the sins in the world are in it.-Romaine.

UNBELIEF.-Various Forms of

There are the various ramifications of the subtle spirit of Unbelief:-Atheism, discarding its former audacity of blasphemy, assuming now a modest garb and mendicant whine, asking our pity for its idiosyncrasy, bewailing its misfortune in not being able to believe there is a God;—Rationalism, whether in the transcendentalism of Hegel, or in the allegorizing impiety of Strauss, or in the pantheistic philosophy of Fichte, eating out the heart of the Gospel, into which its vampirefangs have fastened ;-Latitudinarianism on a sentimental journey in search of the religious instinct, doling out its equal and niggard praise to it wherever it is found, in Fetishism, Thuggism, Mohammedism, or Christianity-that species of active and high-sounding scepticism, which, for want of a better name, we may call a Credophobia, which selects the confessions and catechisms as the objects of its especial hostility, and which, knowing right well that if the banner is down the courage fails, and the army will be routed or slain, "furious as a wounded bull runs tearing at the creeds,"-these, with all their offshoots and dependencies (for their name is Legion) grouped under the generic style of Infidelity, have girt themselves for the combat, and are asserting and endeavouring to establish their empire over the intellects and consciences of men. And as this spirit of Unbelief has many sympathies with the spirit of Superstition, they have entered into unholy alliance" Herod and Pilate have been made friends together"--and, hand joined in hand, they are arrayed against the truth of God.-Dr. Punshon.

UNBELIEVER.-An

He is one of Satan's courtiers.-J. Hill.

UNBELIEVER.-Appeals to an

Every appeal to an unbeliever is like a spark of fire falling into the water, which is no sooner in than it is out.-W. Secker.

UNBELIEVERS.-The Credulity of

What shall we think of the credulity of unbelievers? What is the faith of a Christian to their belief? Christians believe difficulties because they are abundantly confirmed; but unbelievers swallow improbabilities and impossibilities! Their rejection of the Gospel cannot arise from an intellectual but a moral cause. They do not want evidence, but disposition.-Jay.

UNCTION-Defined.

It is a gentle warmth which makes itself felt in the powers of the soul. It produces in the spiritual world the same effects as the sun in the physical. It enlightens and it warms. It makes us know and love. It is a gift which is spent and lost, unless we renew this sacred fire, which must always be kept burning;

« PreviousContinue »