Page images
PDF
EPUB

not all been entitled to the means of attaining it.

Those who keep their pattern in their eye, though they may fail of the highest attainments, will not be satisfied with such as are low. The striking inferiority will excite compunction; compunction will stimulate them to press on, which those never do, who losing sight of their standard, are satisfied with the height they have reached.

for the performance of his promise, he swears by his holiness, as if it were the distinguishing quality which was more especially binding. It seems connected and interwoven with all the divine perfections. Which of his excellences can we contemplate as separated from this? Is not his justice stamped with sanctity! It is free from any tincture of vindictiveness, and is therefore a holy justice. His mercy has none of the partiality of favouritism, or capricious fondness of human kindness, but is a holy mercy. His holiness is not more the source of his mercies than of his punishments. If his holiness in his severities to us wanted a more substantial and more splendid illustration of it than the noble passage already quoted, for he is called 'glorious in holiness' immediately after he had vindicated the honour of his name, by the miraculous destruction of the army of Pharaoh.

He is not like to be the object of God's favour, who takes his determined stand on the very lowest step in the scale of perfection; who does not even aspire above it; whose aim seems to be, not so much to please God as to escape punishment. Many a justification, there cannot be at once a however will doubtless be accepted, though their progress has been small; their difficulties may have been great, their natural capacity weak, their temptation strong, and their instruction defective.

[ocr errors]

* 6

Revelation has not only furnished injunctions but motives to holiness; not only mo- Is it not then a necessary consequence tives, but examples and authorities. Be ye growing out of his perfections, that a rightherefore perfect' (according to your mea-teous God loveth righteousness,' that he sure and degree,) as your Father which is will of course require in his creatures a dein heaven is perfect." And what says the sire to imitate as well as to adore that attriOld Testament? It accords with the New bute by which He himself loves to be disBe ye holy, for I the Lord your God am tinguished? We cannot indeed, like God, holy.' be essentially holy. In an infinite being it This was the injunction of God himself, is a substance, in a created being it is only not given exclusively to Moses, to the an accident: God is the essence of holiness, leader and legislator, or to a few distin-but we can have no holiness, nor any other guished officers, or to a selection of eminent good thing, but what we derive from him— men, but to an immense body of people, It is his prerogative, but our privilege. even to the whole assembled host of Israel; If God loves holiness because it is his to men of all ranks, professions, capacities, image, he must consequently hate sin beand characters, to the minister of religion, cause it defaces his image. If he glorifies and to the uninstructed, to enlightened ru- his own mercy and goodness in rewarding lers and to feeble women. "God,' says an virtue, he no less vindicates the honour of excellent writer, had antecedently given his holiness in the punishment of vice. A to his people particular laws, suited to their perfect God can no more approve of sin in several exigences and various conditions; his creatures than he can commit it himself. but the command to be holy was a general He may forgive sin on his own conditions, (might he not have said a universal) law,' but there are no conditions on which he can Who is like unto thee, () Lord, among be reconciled to it. The infinite goodness the gods? Who is like unto thee, glorious in of God may delight in the beneficial purholiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?' poses to which his infinite wisdom has made This is perhaps the sublimest apostrophe of the sins of his creatures subservient, but sin praise (rendered more striking by its inter- itself will always be abhorrent to his nature. rogatory form,) which the Scriptures have His wisdom may turn it to a merciful end, recorded. It makes a part of the first song but his indignation at the offence cannot be of gratulation which is to be found in the diminished. He loves man, for he cannot treasury of sacred poetry. The epithet of but love his own work; he hates sin, for holy is more frequently affixed to the name that was man's own invention, and no part of God than any other. His mighty name of the work which God had made. Even is less often invoked, than his holy name. in the imperfect administration of human To offend against this attribute is repre-laws impunity of crimes would be construed sented as more heinous than to oppose any into approbation of them.* other. It has been remarked that the impiety of the Assyrian monarch is not described by his hostility against the great, the Almighty God, but it is made an aggravation of his crime that he had committed it against the Holy One of Israel.

When God condescended to give a pledge

Saurin.

The law of holiness then, is a law binding on all persons without distinction, not limited to the period nor to the people to whom it was given. It reaches through the whole Jewish dispensation, and extends with wider demands and higher sanctions to every Christian, of every denomination, of eve ry age, and every country.

• See Charnock on the Attributes.

A more sublime motive cannot be assign-I This infinitely blessed Being then, to whom ed why we should be holy, than because angels and archangels, and all the hosts of 'the Lord our God is holy.' Men of the heaven are continually ascribing holiness, world have no objection to the terms virtue, has commanded us to be holy. To be holy morality, integrity, rectitude; but they as- because God is holy, is both an argument sociate something overacted, not to say hy-and a command. An argument founded on pocritical, with the term holiness, and nei- the perfections of God, and a command to ther use it in a good sense when applied to imitate him. This command is given to others, nor would wish to have it applied to creatures, fallen indeed, but to whom God themselves; but make it over, with a little graciously promises strength for the imitasuspicion, and not a little derision, to puri-tion. If in God holiness implies an aggretans and enthusiasts. gate of perfections; in man, even in his low This suspected epithet, however, is sure-degree, it is an incorporation of the Christian ly rescued from every injurious association, graces.

if we consider it as the chosen attribute of The holiness of God indeed is confined by the Most High. We do not presume to ap-no limitation; ours is bounded, finite, imply the terms virtue, probity, morality, to God; but we ascribe holiness to him because he first ascribed it to himself as the aggregate and consummation of all his perfections.

Shall so imperfect a being as man then, ridicule the application of this term to others, or be ashamed of it himself? There is a cause indeed which should make him ashamed of the appropriation; that of not deserving it. This comprehensive appellation includes all the Christian graces; all the virtues in their just proportion, order, and harmony; in all their bearings, relations, and dependences. And as in God glory and holiness are united, so the apostle combines sanctification and honour' as the glory of man.

perfect. Yet let us be sedulous to extend our little sphere. Let our desires be large, though our capacities are contracted. Let our aims be lofty, though our attainments are low. Let us be solicitous that no day pass without some augmentation of our holiness, some added height in our aspirations, some wider expansion in the compass of our virtues. Let us strive every day for some superiority to the preceding day; something that shall distinctly mark the passing scene with progress; something that shall inspire an humble hope that we are rather less unfit for heaven to-day than we were yesterday.

not draw his lines at random; he has a model to imitate, as well as an outline to fill. Every touch conforms him more and more to the great original. He who has transfused most of the life of God into his soul, has copied it most successfully.

The celebrated artist who has recorded that he passed no day without drawing a line, drew it, not for repetition, but for progress; not to produce a given number of strokes, Traces more or less of the holiness of but to forward his work, to complete his deGod may be found in his works, to those sign. The Christian, like the painter, does who view them with the eye of faith. They are more plainly visible in his providences; but it is in his word that we must chiefly look for the manifestations of his holiness. He is every where described as perfectly holy in himself, as a model to be imitated by his creatures, and, though with an inter- To seek happiness,' says one of the faval immeasurable, as imitable by them. thers, is to desire God, and to find him is The great doctrine of redemption is inse-that happiness.' Our very happiness thereparably connected with the doctrine of sanc-fore is not our independent property; it tification. As an admirable writer has ob-flows from that eternal mind which is the served, 'If the blood of Christ reconcile us source and sum of happiness. In vain we to the justice of God, the Spirit of Christ is look for felicity in all around us, It can onto reconcile us to the holiness of God.'-ly be found in that original fountain, whence When we are told therefore that Christ is we, and all we are and have, are derived.-made unto us righteousness,' we are in the Where then is the imaginary wise man of same place taught that he is made unto us the school of Zeno? what is the perfection sanctification; that is, he is both justifier and of virtue supposed by Aristotle? They have sanctifier. In vain shall we deceive our-no existence but in the romance of philososelves by resting on his sacrifice, while we neglect to imitate his example.

[ocr errors]

phy. Happiness must be imperfect in an imperfect state. Religion, it is true, is iniThe glorious spirits which surrounded the tial happiness, and points to its perfection: throne of God are not represented as singing but as the best men possess it but imperfecthallelujahs to his omnipotence, nor even to ly, they cannot be perfectly happy. Nothing his mercy, but to that attribute which, as can confer completeness which is it itself inwith a glory, encircles all the rest. They complete. "With Thee, O Lord, is the perpetually cry, holy, holy, holy, Lord God fountain of life, and in Thy light only we of Hosts; and it is observable, that the an-shall see light.'* gels which adore him for his holiness are the

Whatever shall still remain wanting in

ministers of his justice. Those pure intelli- our attainments, and much will still remain, gences perceive, no doubt, that this union of attributes constitutes the divine perfection.

* See Leighton on Happiness.

let this last, greatest, highest consideration | I will magnify Thee, O Lord my strength stimulate our languid exertions, that God-My help cometh of God-The Lord himhas negatively promised the beatific vision, self is the portion of my inheritance.' At the enjoyment of his presence, to this at-another time soaring with a noble disinter tainment, by specifically proclaiming, that estedness, and quite losing sight of self and without holiness no man shall see his face. all created glories, they adore him for his To know God is the rudiments of that eter-own incommunicable excellences. Be thou nal life which will hereafter be perfected by exalted, O God, in thine own strength.'seeing him. As there is no stronger reasonOh the depth of the riches, both of the why we must not look for perfect happiness wisdom and knowledge of God.' Then in this life, than because there is no perfect bursting to a rapture of adoration, and burnholiness, so the nearer advances we make ing with a more intense flame, they cluster to the one, the greater progress we shall his attributes-To the King eternal, immake towards the other; we must cultivate mortal, invisible, be honour and glory for here those tendencies and tempers which ever and ever. One is lost in admiration of must be carried to perfection in a happier his wisdom-his ascription is to the only clime.—But as holiness is the concomitant of happiness, so must it be its precursor. As sin has destroyed our happiness, so sin must be destroyed before our happiness can be restored. Our nature must be renovated before our felicity can be established. This is according to the nature of things, as well as agreeable to the law and will of God. Let us then carefully look to the subduing in our inmost hearts all those dispositions that are unlike God; all those actions, thoughts, and tendencies that are contrary to God.

wise God.' Another in triumphant strains overflows with transport at the consideration of the attribute on which we have been descanting: ‘O Lord, who is like unto Thee, there is none holy as the Lord.'-'Sing praises unto the Lord, oh ye saints of his, and give thanks unto him for a remembrance of his holiness.'

The prophets and apostles were not deterred from pouring out the overflowings of their fervent spirits, they were not restrained from celebrating the perfections of their Creator, through the cold-hearted fear of Independently therefore of all the other being reckoned enthusiasts. The saints of motives to holiness which religion suggests, old were not prevented from breathing out independently of the fear of punishment; their rapturous hosannahs to the King of independently even of the hope of glory, let Saints, through the coward dread of being us be holy from this ennobling, elevating branded as fanatical. The conceptions of motive, because the Lord our God is holy, their minds dilating with the view of the And when our virtue flags, let it be reno-glorious constellation of the Divine attrivated by this imperative injunction, backed butes; and the affections of their hearts by this irresistible argument. The motive warming with the thought, that those attrifor imitation, and the Being to be imitated, seem almost to identify us with infinity. It is a connexion which endears, an assimilation which dignifies, a resemblance which elevates. The apostle has added to the prophet an assurance which makes the crown and consummation of the promise, that though we know not yet what we shall be, yet we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like hin, for shall see him as he is.'

In what a beautiful variety of glowing expressions, and admiring strains, do the

butes were all concentrated in mercy—they display a sublime oblivion of themselvesthey forget every thing but God. Their own wants dwindled to a point. Their own concerns, nay the universe itself, shrink into nothing. They seem absorbed in the effulgence of Deity, lost in the radiant beams of infinite glory.

CHAP. XI.

tues.

Scripture worthies delight to represent On the comparatively small faults and virGod; not only in relation to what he is to them, but to the supreme excellence of his own transcendent perfections! They expa- THE 'Fishers of Men,' as if exclusively tiate, they amplify, they dwell with unwea-bent on catching the greater sinners, often ried iteration on the adorable theme; they make the interstices of the moral net so wide, ransack language, they exhaust all the ex-that it cannot retain those of more ordinary pressions of praise, and wonder, and admi-size, which every where abound. Their ration; all the images of astonishment and draught might be more abundant, were not delight, to laud and magnify his glorious the meshes so large that the smaller sort, name. They praise him, they bless him, aided by their own lubricity, escape the toils they worship him, they glorify him, they and slip through. Happy to find themselves give thanks to him for his great glory, say-not bulky enough to be entangled, they ing Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of the majesty of thy glory.'

They glorify him relatively to themselves.

plunge back again into their native element, enjoy their escape, and hope they may safely wait to grow bigger before they are in danger of being caught.

It is of more importance than we are aware, or are willing to allow, that we take care diligently to practice the smaller virtues, avoid scrupulously the lesser sins, and bear patiently inferior trials; for the sin of habitually yielding, or the grace of habitually resisting in comparatively small points, tends in no inconsiderable degree to produce that vigour or that debility of inind on which hangs victory or defeat.

could not be perfected, and the smaller virtues are the threads and filaments which gently but firmly tie them together. There is an attractive power in goodness which draws each part to the other. This concord of the virtues is derived from their having one common centre in which all meet. In vice there is a strong repulsion. Though bad men seek each other, they do not love each other. Each seeks the other in order Conscience is moral sensation. It is the to promote his own purposes, while he hates hasty perception of good and evil, the pe- him by whom his purposes are promoted. remptory decision of the mind to adopt the The lesser qualities of the human characone or avoid the other. Providence has fur-ter are like the lower people in a country; nished the body with senses, and the soul they are numerically, if not individually imwith conscience, as a tact by which to shrink portant. If well regulated they become from the approach of danger; as a prompt valuable from that very circumstance of feeling to supply the deductions of reason- numbers, which, under a negligent admiing; as a spontaneous impulse to precede a nistration, renders them formidable. The train of reflections for which the suddenness peace of the individual mind and of the naand surprise of the attack allow no time. tion, is materially affected by the discipline An enlightened conscience if kept tenderly in which these inferior orders are maintainalive by a continual attention to its admoni-ed. Laxity and neglect in both cases are tions, would especially preserve us from subversive of all good government. those smaller sins, and stimulate us to those lesser duties which we are falsely apt to think are too insignificant to be brought to the bar of religion, too trivial to be weighed by the standard of Scripture.

But if we may be allowed to glance from earth to heaven, perhaps the beauty of the lesser virtues may be still better illustrated by that long an i luminous track made up of minute and almost imperceptible stars, By cherishing this quick feeling of recti- which though separately too inconsiderable tude, light and sudden as the flash from to attract attention, yet from their number heaven, and which is in fact the motion of and confluence, form that soft and shining the spirit, we intuitively reject what is stream of light every where discernible, and wrong before we have time to examine why which always corresponds to the same fixed it is wrong, and seize on what is right before stars, as the smaller virtues do to their conwe have time to examine why it is right. comitant great ones.-Without pursuing the Should we not then be careful how we ex-metaphor to the classic fiction that the Gatinguish this sacred spark? Will any thing be more likely to extinguish it than to neglect its hourly momentos to perform the smaller duties, and to avoid the lesser faults, which, as they in a good measure make up the sum of human life, will naturally fix and determine our character, that creature of habits? Will not our neglect or observance of it, incline or indispose us for those more important duties of which these smaller ones are connecting links?

laxy was the road through which the ancient heroes went to heaven, may we not venture to say that Christians will make their, way thither more pleasant by the consistent practice of the minuter virtues?

Every Christian should consider religion as a fort which he is called to defend. The meanest soldier in the army if he add patriotism to valour, will fight as earnestly as if the glory of the contest depended on his single arm. But he brings his watchfulness as well as his courage into action. He strenuously defends every pass he is appointed to guard, without inquiring whether it be great or small. There is not any defect in religion or morals so little as to be of no consequence. Worldly things may be little because their aim and end may be little. Things are great or small, not according to their ostensible importance, but according to the magnitude of their object, and the importance of their consequences.

The vices derive their existence from wildness, confusion, disorganization. The discord of the passions is owing to their having different views, conflicting aims, and opposite ends. The rebellious vices have no common head; each is all to itself. They promote their own operations by disturbing those of others, but in disturbing they do not destroy them. Though they are all of one family, they live on no friendly terms. Profligacy hates covetousness as much as if it were a virtue. The life of every sin is a The acquisition of even the smallest virlife of conflict, which occasions the tor-tue being, as has been before observed, an ment, but not the death of its opposite. actual conquest over the opposite vice, douLike the fabled brood of the serpent, the bles our moral strength. The spiritual encpassions spring up, armed against each my has one object less, and the conqueror other, but they fail to complete the resem- one virtue more. blance, for they do not effect their mutual destruction.

[blocks in formation]

By allowed negligence in small things, we are not aware how much we injure religion in the eye of the world. How can we ex

pect people to believe that we are in earn-without compunction. The habit of comest in great points, when they see that we mitting them is confirmed by the repeticannot withstand a trivial temptation, tion. Frequency renders us at first indifferagainst which resistance would have been ent, then insensible. The hopelessness atcomparatively easy? At a distance they hear tending a long indulged custom generates with respect our general characters. They carelessness, till for want of exercise the become domesticated with us, and discover power of resistance is first weakened, then the same failings, littleness, and bad tem- destroyed. pers, as they have been accustomed to meet with in the most ordinary persons.

But there is a still more serious point of view in which the subject may be considerIf Milton, in one of his letters to a learned ed. Do small faults, continually repeated, foreigner who had visited him, could con- always retain their original diminutivegratulate himself on the consciousness that ness? Is any axiom more established than in that visit he had been found equal to his that all evil is of a progressive nature? Is a reputation, and had supported in private bad temper which is never repressed, no conversation his high character as an author; worse after years of indulgence, than when shall not the Christian be equally anxious to we at first gave the reins to it? Does that support the credit of holy profession, by not which we first allowed ourselves under the betraying in familiar life any temper incon-name of harmless levity on serious subjects, sistent with religion? never proceed to profaneness? Does what

It is not difficult to attract respect on great was once admired as proper spirit, never occasions, where we are kept in order by grow into pride, never swell into insolence? knowing that the public eye is fixed upon Does the habit of incorrect narrative, or

us.

It is easy to maintain a regard to our loose talking, or allowed hyperbole, never dignity in a Symposiack, or an academical lead to falsehood; never settle in deceit? Bedinner; but to labour to maintain it in the fore we positively determine that small recesses of domestic privacy requires more faults are innocent, we must undertake to watchfulness, and is no less the duty, than it prove that they shall never outgrow their will be the habitual practice, of the consist-primitive dimensions; we must ascertain ent Christian.

that the infant shall never become a giant.

Procrastination is reckoned among the most venial of our faults, and sits so lightly on our minds that we scarcely apologize for it. But who can assure us, that had not the assistance we had resolved to give to one friend under distress, or the advice to another under temptation, to-day, been delayed, and from mere sloth and indolence been put off till to-morrow, it might not have preserved the fortunes of the one, or saved the soul of the other?

Our neglect of inferior duties is particularly injurious to the mind of our dependants and servants. If they see us weak and infirm of purpose,' peevish, irresolute, capricious, passionate, or inconsistent, in our daily conduct, which comes under their immediate observation, and which comes also within their power of judging, they will not give us credit for those higher qualities which we may possess, and those superior duties which we may be more careful to fulfil. Neither their capacity nor their opportuni- It is not enough that we perform duties; ties, may enable them to judge of the ortho- we must perform them at the right timedoxy of the head; but there will be obvious We must do the duty of every day in its and decisive proofs to the meanest capacity, own season. Every day has its own impeof the state and temper of the heart, Our rious duties; we must not depend upon togreater qualities will do them little good,| day for fulfilling those which we neglected while our lesser but incessant faults do yesterday, for to-day might not have been them much injury. Seeing us so defective granted us. To-morrow will be equally pein the daily course of domestic conduct, remptory in its demands; and the succeedthough they will obey us because they are ing day, if we live to see it, will be ready obliged to it, they will neither love nor es- with its proper claims. teem us enough to be influenced by our advice, nor to be governed by our instructions, on those great points which every conscientious head of a family will be careful to inculcate on all about him. It demands no less circumspection to be a Christian than to be a hero, to one's valet de chambre.'

Indecision, though it is not so often caused by reflection as by the want of it, yet may be as mischievous; for if we spend too much time in balancing probabilities, the period for action is lost. While we are reminating on difficulties which may never occur, reconciling differences which perhaps In all that relates to God and to himself do not exist, and poising in opposite scales the Christian knows of no small faults. He things of nearly the same weight, the oppor considers all allowed and wilful sins, what-tunity is lost of producing that good which ever be their magnitude, as an offence a firm and manly decision would have efagainst his Maker. Nothing that offends him can be insignificant. Nothing that contributes to fasten on ourselves a wrong habit can be trifling. Faults which we are accustomed to consider as small are repeated

fected.

Idleness, though itself the most unperforming of all the vices,' is however the pass through which they all enter, the stage on which they all act. Though supremely

« PreviousContinue »