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X 



BIBLE EMBLEMS. 



BY 

THE LATE REY. EDWARD E. SEEL YE, D. D. 

SCHENECTADY, K. Y. 




PUBLISHED BY THE 
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YOEK. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by 
the American Teact Society, in the Clerk's Office of the District 
Court of the Southern District of the State of New York. 



CONTENTS. 



I. The higher Rock 5 

II. The sun in his might - 28 

ni. The voice of blood 48 

IV. Christians God's temples G7 

V. God's witnesses 86 

VI. Christians shining 102 

VII. The raven and the dove - 118 

VIII. The rainbow 137 

IX. The smoking furnace and burning lamp 151 

X. The altar of incense 171 

XI. Eating under the juniper-tree 188 

Xn. The other side --- - 206 



PlillTCETOIT 




THSOLOGIGIiL^' 






BIBLE EMBLEMS. 



I. 

LEAD ME TO THE ROCK THAT IS HIGHER THAN I. 

Psalm 61 : 2. 

This is a humble cry: the cry of a soul 
needing help — a soul looking outside of and 
beyond self for aid and succor. 

Strange and unusual as it is to hear it, it 
is the most rational cry that the human soul 
ever uttered. 

It cannot be disguised, that man is unsat- 

IT, 

isfied with his present condition. He looks 
for something higher. He longs to become 
what he is not now. 

Every soul has within it the secret con- 
sciousness of imperfection, and a secret aspi- 
ration for improvement. Evils and infirmities 



6 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

now encompass it, but it lias an idea of a high- 
er state of being, and a more perfect develop- 
ment of spiritual life. 

The great question is, how man shall gain 
this spiritual life. Where is the power which 
shall effect his elevation and improvement? 
Where is he to look for that influence which 
will insure his progress, which will exalt and 
sanctify him, and fit him to fulfil the great end 
of his creation? Is it from earth, or heaven? 
Is it within him, or above him? Is it human, 
or divine? Is it nature, or is it grace? 

This is the vital question to be settled ; 
the turning-point of all our views of religion 
and humanity. 

We are satisfied that the only basis of 
man's improvement lies in his dependence 
upon almighty power. The only rock on 
which he can ever be satisfied to rest, is the 
Rock that is higher than he. If ever his con- 
dition is bettered, it must be by some agency 
outside of himself. If ever he is to reach a 
heaven of perfection and of blessedness, he 
must be drawn thither by a heavenly power. 

We confess we expect very little from all 



THE HIGHER EOCK. 7 

the flattering theories qf self-dependence and 
self-development. We are tired of the end- 
less talk of man's noble and sublime endow- 
ments, and his vast capacities for reaching his 
ultimate perfection. We turn away from much 
that is uttered under the guise of religion, 
which is little else than a ringing of perpetual 
changes on the progressive energy of human 
nature, and which utterly ignores the need of 
divine grace, while it teaches man to make 
himself a seraph. Yery empty is it all to us — 
this godless humanitarianism, discoursing per- 
petually upon human progress, while it says 
not a word about man's dependence upon any 
thing above himself. 

It may please the multitude to tell them 
that they must look solely to themselves for 
all the resources of a higher life. It tickles 
the vanity of men to preach to them of the 
virtues of self-reliance, and to exhort them 
with high-sounding oratory to cultivate their 
manhood, and follow the higher instincts of 
their nature ; to bid them behave worthy of 
themselves, to find the true law of their being 
in their own self-hood, and to rely upon the 



8 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

strength of their own spiritual muscle to climb 
to the higher regions of spiritual perfection. 
Men love to hear it. They listen readily to the 
voice of such charmers. It flatters their pride. 
It deifies their manhood. It gets rid of all 
those humbling notions of dependence upon 
God's power. It does away with all such use- 
less exercises as prayer and supplication. It 
tells men to be true to themselves, to kindle 
the sparks of their own manhood, and walk 
in the light of them, while it says nothing of a 
*'Rock which is higher than they." 

Grrand as such teachings may seem to many, 
they sound very sad to the Christian: sad, 
because they are not true ; sad, because they 
are as delusive as they are flattering. 
• According to all these theories, man is 
directed to himself for his own salvation and 
improvement. Nature, and not grace, must 
save him. He is his own rock on which he 
must build. He has no object above himself 
to look to. His god is his own developed hu- 
manity. What then is there for him to hold 
fellowship and communion with higher than 
himself? What is there to draw him upward ; 



THE HIGHER ROCK. 9 

what to excite him to action ? How can he 
rise above his own level? On what ladder 
will he plant his feet, and what object will 
attract his gaze and nerve him to exertion ? 

With nothing outside of himself and above 
himself to look to, you shut him up to grovel 
in the dust. Without the law of a higher 
attraction influencing him, man, with all his 
ambitious pretensions, will stay where he is. 
It is onlv when the sun is in the heavens, 
scattering its warm beams over the world, 
that the ocean sends up from its bosom its 
tribute to the sky. Destroy this solar attrac- 
tion, and no particle of moisture would rise 
above the surface. 

So the human soul aspires to something 
above itself, in obedience to the law of spirit- 
ual attraction which is beyond itself. Isolate 
it from Grod, who is far above it, turn away 
its thoughts from any rock higher than it, bid 
it look perpetu^ly inward and never out- 
ward and upward, and you have doomed it 
to despair. 

"Is it not strange," remarks the earnest 
and profound John Foster, ' ' to observe how 

1* 



10 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

carefully some philosophers, who deplore the 
condition of the world and profess to expect 
its melioration, keep their speculations clear 
of any idea of Divine interposition? No build- 
ers of houses or cities were ever more atten- 
tive to guard against the access of flood or 
fire. If He should but touch their prospective 
theories of improvement, they would renounce 
them as defiled, and fit only for vulgar fanat- 
icism. No time is too long to wait, no cost too 
deep to incur, for the triumph of proving that 
we have no need of a Divinity regarded as 
possessing that one attribute which makes it 
delightful to acknowledge such a Being — the 
benevolence which would make us happy. 

''But even if this noble self-sufficiency 
cannot be realized, the independence of spirit 
which has labored for it must not sink at last 
into piety. This afflicted world, ' this poor 
terrestrial citadel of man,' is to lock its gates, 
and keep its miseries, rathe# than admit the 
degradation of receiving help from God." 

That religion which is taught us in the 
Bible, is the opposite of all the cruel mocke- 
ries of a godless philosophy. It tells of human 



THE HIGHEE EOCK. 11 

progress. It bids us hope for a higher life. 
It cheers us with promises of deliverance and 
salvation. But it bids us ''cease from man, 
whose breath is in his nostrils," and points us 
to a Cause above ourselves. It sounds no 
panegyrics upon our manhood. It talks not 
of nature's doings, but of grace. It tells us 
not to trust ourselves, to rely upon our self- 
hood, but to consent to be helped by a divine 
power. It leads us not to ourselves, but to 
" the Rock that is higher" than we. 

And in so doing we maintain that the re- 
ligion of Jesus Christ alone meets the deep- 
felt want of our souls. 

After all the cherished pride of independ- 
ence, after all the praises sung to "our godlike 
manhood," after all the struggiings for self-de- 
velopment, the soul feels a consciousness of its 
weakness, and is burdened with a sense of its 
own impotency. There are occasions, not a 
few, when it gives the lie to all the shallow 
pratings of philosophy, and looks around it for 
help. It feels its own infirmities. It wants 
to escape from its loneliness and isolation. It 
reaches after a power which it does not pos- 



12 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

sess. It cries for a ''Rock which is higher'^ 
than it. 

The religion of Christ meets this condition 
of our nature. It tells me I must look beyond 
myself. It shows me where to look. It re- 
veals to me a Rock, firm, enduring, safe, 
where I may rest — not in me, but above me, 
"higher than I" — to which, if I would reach 
it, I must consent to be led, and to receive 
aid. 

In this school of religion are we taught the 
lessons of the deepest humility, and the most 
absolute dependence — lessons such as were 
never taught in the porch or the grove of re- 
fined philosophy. They are opposed to the 
strongest instincts of our carnal hearts. They 
extort from the soul the confession of its own 
helplessness : "Save, Lord, or I perish.'^ 

Yet conflicting as true religion is with the 
pride and self-confidence of carnal man, its 
provisions and conditions meet precisely the 
wants of a humble believer. This abnegation 
of self, and looking away from and above self, 
is the highest comfort of a Christian's life. 
This Rock, higher than he, is what he wants 



THE HIGHEE ROOK. 13 

to get hold of and lean upon. Lead me to it, 
is his prayer, uttered from every department 
of his soul. 

1. The understanding utters it, when it 
seeks for knowledge. It asks for a wisdom 
above its own, to instruct us in the great 
truths of our being, our relations to God, our 
duties, and our destiny. It feels that divine 
wisdom alone is competent to declare what the 
divine will is. 

Men may bid me hear it through the voice 
of reason ; but that cannot satisfy the soul. 
Like the spider wiiich spins its web from its 
own bowels and hangs it in the air, have men 
been long busy in deducing from their own 
reason their profoundest systems of truth and 
virtue, and in la^ang down the rule of daty 
which would guide them to life eternal. But 
the result of all such labors has been poor 
indeed. All the systems which reason has 
ever framed could never rise above the finite ; 
and multitudes of them have proved but met- 
aphysical cobwebs, entangling the soul which 
seeks to walk upon them in their perplexing 
meshes, till, in its strugglings, it breaks through 



14 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

them all, and drops down into the abyss of 
hopeless scepticism. 

I cannot trust my eternal welfare to such 
deceptive oracles. I want to hear a voice out- 
side of myself to teach me life and duty. I 
want to hear what God speaks to me, and to 
believe it because He speaks it. And though 
in his divine revelation he says many things 
which are not articulate to my reason, still 
reason forbids me not to trust in them. Faith 
lays hold of them, and climbs upward to rest 
upon "the Rock." Here the Christian soul 
takes refuge. To the infallible word of Grod 
it flies, from all the Babel utterances of ration- 
alistic errors, as its only security, its fortress, 
and high tower. 

2. The human will also needs to look above 
and beyond itself for the Rock of its support. 

"There is," says a profound writer, "a sen- 
timent to be found in divers forms among all 
men, the sentiment of the need of some exter- 
nal succor, of a support to the human will, of 
a force which can lend its aid and strength to 
our necessity." 

How true this is every Christian knows by 



THE HIGHER ROCK. l/> 

sad experience. "To will is present with me," 
says Paul, '' but how to perform that which is 
good, I find not.'' 

How changeable our volitions. How many 
purposes unexecuted lie like wrecks along the 
shores of our past history. The best of reso- 
lutions glow for a time in the soul, but the 
genial spark thus kindled is soon blown out in 
the wild tempest of the passions. Our states 
of mind are variable as the sky. They carry 
the will along with them. There are tides of 
human feeling, just as there are tides in the 
ocean, which ebb and flow in ceaseless agita- 
tion. That old Saxon monarch who with his 
courtiers went down to the shore and issued 
his command to the ocean surges to go back, 
till the waves, in mockery of his authority, 
dashed over his feet, was as successful as he 
will be, who thinks to subdue with the voice 
of his own authority the active elements with- 
in him, and to subject to. the mandates of the 
human will the troubled sea of thought and 
feeling in the soul. 

Oh, when thus my will is powerless for 
good, when resolutions strongly framed and 



10 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

guarded go down one by one under the shock 
of temptation, when thus I climb and fall back- 
wards, repent and sin, and repent again only 
to resolve anew, then it is I feel the need of 
something more potent to fix my resolutions 
and give stability to my purposes. Then it is 
I wait to hear the voice of God's authority, 
and ask to be led to some ' ' Rock higher 
than I." 

3. Again, to such a Rock as this the be- 
liever's affections naturally aspire. Unless 
some object more excellent and worthy than 
self be discovered, then is selfishness the 
highest virtue. Such an object cannot be 
found in the creature things which surround 
us. Magnify them as we may, the soul feels 
that they are inferior to itself; in all its at- 
tempts to love them and go out after them, the 
soul has a secret consciousness of degradation. 
It feels that it is stepping downwards and not 
upwards, when it turns its love upon the ma- 
terial vanities around it. There is, all the 
while, a suppressed sense of dissatisfaction, a 
wish and a longing for something better to love, 
something higher for the heart to reach after. 



THE HIGHEK ROCK. 17 

This feeling in the Christian makes him 
look upward. God as revealed in Christ is 
alone sufficient to till his heart. He discovers 
the holiness and excellency of his nature. He 
sees him with all the attributes of divinity and 
humanity harmoniously blended together, the 
chief among ten thousands ; the one altogether 
lovely. He feels that he is worthy of his 
love. He is drawn to him with the cords of 
love. He is looking higher than self. There 
is none upon earth he desires besides Him. 
Now he has found the only object he can safe- 
ly love. Other things have mocked him : 
earthly vanities have trifled with his affec- 
tions ; they have betrayed his trust ; but Christ 
fills his heart. He is a higher rock than him- 
self, and he turns thither as his only rest. 
Lead me to this Rock ; let my soul climb here 
above the lower level of earth and sense ; for 
here my hope shall not be put to shame. 

4. This higher Rock is the only refuge I 
can find when I feel the need of pardon and 
sanctification. The human conscience testifies 
of guilt. Grod's law has been set at naught, 
and its penalty has been incurred. Justice 



IS BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

demands a satisfaction for transgression, else 
the gate of reconciliation is closed for ever. 
How can this fearful difficulty be overcome ? 
How can God forgive the guilty? Shut me up 
to myself, and I am in despair. I could com- 
mit the sin myself, hut I cannot give the satis- 
faction. All my present attempts to obedi- 
ence can have no effect upon what I have done 
before. My guilt is where I cannot reach it. 
My prayers and tears and vows cannot wash 
out the damning record which stands against 
me. Even could I reform my life and tread 
in the path of holiness from this time forth, 
there is guilt already which I cannot cancel. 

Oh, the utter helplessness of the soul is 
one of the most agonizing feelings which attend 
conviction of sin. Guilt stares me in the face, 
after all my strugglings. The dark waters go 
over mv head, and I sink for ever, were it not 
for a rock I can seize hold of, which is Christ 
a Saviour. The gospel points me to an atone- 
ment made for me in the death of Jesus Christ, 
and bids me look by faith to the sacrifice of the 
cross. This is precisely what I want. 

Oh let me reach this Rock, and I can count 



THE HIGHER BOCK. 19 

over my transgressions without despair ; for 
here the justice of God is satisfied. Here is 
a full atonement for them all. Here God 
smiles upon me with a look of forgiveness, for 
the law is magnified, and grace abounds. Here 
is my refuge against all the accusations of 
conscience and the terrors of guilt. Here on 
this Eock I rest in peace, a high Rock, above 
the clouds where the lightning flashes of wrath 
play and justice hurls the bolts. 

Lastly, this divine Eock is the Christian's 
only support in the trying calamities of life. 
Whatever be their nature, whether tempta- 
tions, or afflictions, or spiritual distresses, he 
meets them by looking above and beyond 
himself for aid. 

There is a kind of heroism which the 
world applauds, exhibited sometimes by men 
in the trying straits of life, a gloomy heroism 
which inspires them to breast misfortune with 
an iron nerve, and "take up arms against a 
sea of troubles," in firm reliance upon their 
own indomitable will. It never quails before 
the face of danger, but will perish in ih^ fierce 
encounter rather than submit to fear. Often 



20 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

it assumes the form of a grim and sullen stoi- 
cism, which sheds no tear over the desolation 
of cherished hopes, and utters no plaintive cry 
over the wreck of lost affections. With dog- 
ged silence it buries the last of kindred, and 
at last lies down to die with features cold and 
mute as marble, and with sealed passports 
departs to the eternal world. 

This, which the world calls manly firmness, 
is a foul libel on humanity, but a few degrees 
removed from the sublime stolidity of the 
brute. 

The Christian lays claim to no such hero- 
ism, but looks for aid in trouble. He is will- 
ing to be helped. From the end of the earth 
will I cry unto Thee when my heart is over- 
whelmed, "Lead me to the Rock that is higher 
than I." 

The idea suggested is that of a sufferer 
struggling in the angry billows ; and while he 
feels his strength rapidly wearing out, he turns 
his eye in every direction across the bound- 
less waters to find some succor. No friendly 
sail is seen. Not a spar or plank is left of his 
shattered vessel. Every thing has gone down 



THE HIGHER EOCK. 21 

beneath the remorseless tide. But yonder 
looms a solitary rock high in the air. Storms 
rage about it in vain. The surges dash and 
roar around its base. The maddened waters 
are lashed into foam and spray. But there it 
stands, firm, unmovable, invincible. Heedless 
of tide and wave and storm, it looks tranquilly 
out upon the chafed and angry elements, as 
unconcerned as though naught but sunbeams 
played and zephyrs whispered. 

What that rock is to the wrecked and ex- 
hausted mariner who has at length reached 
its base, and lain down in its friendly clefts, 
such is Christ to the tossed and troubled be- 
liever. In the upheavings of life, when all 
other trusts have failed, and the waters of 
affliction are breaking over him, he betakes 
himself to God, and climbs upon the Rock of 
ages. 

He has no idea of standing on his manhood 
when distress and death confront him. He is 
willing to own his dependence, and humbly 
fly to Grod for aid. Faith in God is to him a 
mightier resource than the boasted iron nerve 
and proud unconquerable will of nature. 



22 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

The religion of the Bible teaches us humil- 
ity and dependence. Human nature needs help. 
Human nature must give up its vaporing. 
Sinners cannot save themselves. If we are 
ever saved, it must be by looking above, and 
not within. There is no regenerating power 
left in the carnal heart. No mere develop- 
ment of the man will ever result in his salva- 
tion. There must be an agency ah extra to 
interpose, else we perish. God, not man, 
must have the glory of our salvation. This is 
plainly the Bible method ; and the sooner we 
learn to look away from self to something 
higher, the nearer are we towards attaining it. 

Again, the gospel system meets our loants, 
as well as tells us of them. It reveals the 
Rock higher than we. It points us to a divine 
Saviour. The same voice which tells us of our 
necessities, tells us also of the supplies God 
has furnished to meet them all. Here divine 
knowledge is given to relieve our doubts, and 
enlighten our ignorance. Here is divine power 
tendered to help the feebleness of the will. 
Here is divine love exhibited to quicken our 
affections. Here is a divine atonement pro- 



THE HIGHEK ROCK. 23 

yidecl to expiate our guilt. Here is a divine 
Spirit revealed to sanctify our souls and fit 
them for heaven and glory. Why all this 
outlay for those who have ability to take care 
of themselves ? Why such vast provisions for 
men, if there be yet aught belonging to them 
which, by mere self-development, can make 
them holy and meet for heaven? Why such 
rich display of grace, if there be any' thing left 
to hope from in mere nature? 

It follows that faith is the great element of 
practical religion. " Believe, and thou shalt 
be saved,'* is the great command and promise 
of the gospel. Trust in Me for aid ; look up to 
the Eock for a refuge. Prayer therefore be- 
comes the vital exercise of a Christian life. 
It is the soul's outlooking beyond itself; its 
aspiration after God; the medium through 
which it receives blessings from its Saviour. 
For this faith in Grod is not mere spiritual im- 
becility, nor torpid helplessness. It is the 
movement of an earnest soul, awake to its 
deep necessities, and looking heavenward for 
help. Prayer is its earnest utterance, its 
living activity. Lead me upward, is its cryj 



24 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

help me to climb the rock ; bear me above 
temptations which draw me earthward ; sup- 
port me in the conflict which I must meet in 
my upward way to heaven. 

The strength of a Christian's life, paradox- 
ical as it may seem, lies in its dependence. 
Look up then to the Rock of your salvation. 
Wait at the throne of grace for aid ; wrestle 
earnestly in prayer, if you would rise above 
your present level. You are not shut up to 
nature's resources. You have a higher Rock, 
where you may build your house. And when 
the winds of trouble blow, and the floods of 
death sweep by, your house will stand the 
shock, and shelter you from harm, for it is 
founded on a rock. 

My dear, yet impenitent friend, our sub- 
ject tells you what you must come to in order 
to be saved. You must quit your hold on self, 
and consent to look without 3^ou for salvation. 
The sooner you look this fact plainly in the 
face the better. All your reliance upon your 
own self-hood, all your boasted progress in 
virtue, all your godless cultivation of your so 
called manhood, may be welcome incense of- 



THE HIGHER ROCK. 25 

fered on the altar of human pride, but they 
keep you away from the true salvation. 

The religion of the Bible is for sinners who 
need help. Its salvation is for those who are 
in a lost condition. You must admit this fact, 
or go without it. If you cannot consent to be 
saved by interposing grace, you must be left 
to nature, and the result will be at last, you 
will not be saved at all. If vou will not brook 
to be told that you are "poor and miserable 
and blind and naked," and that you must fuid 
in Christ Jesus a Rock higher than you, and 
trust in his atonement to remove your guilt, 
and pray for the Holy Spirit to wash and 
sanctify you, then you must do the best you 
can without a Saviour. You may carry your 
head up a while, and scorn to be a suppliant ; 
you may plume yourself upon your indepen- 
dence and self-reliance, and ask no favors of 
God or man ; you may disdain to utter a 
prayer, or a confession ; but your glory will 
be short. Death will soon strip you of your 
pride, and rob you of your boasting. God will 
call you to the judgment-seat, and put your 
manhood to the test. 



Bible Emblenis. 



26 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

My dying friend, yon cannot keep your 
present position ; you must abandon it ere long. 
Why not do it now? Why wait till you are 
driven from it to eternal disgrace, when you 
may now turn from it, and secure thereby 
eternal life? You have got to bow ; you have 
got to pray ; you have got to awake to a con- 
viction of your guilt, either now, or in eternity. 
Why not now — now, when help is near you, 
and salvation is offered you — now, when the 
Rock that is higher than you is accessible to 
you, and you are bidden to hide in its friendly 
clefts from the gathering storm of Jehovah's 
wrath ? 

You may refuse to look upon it now ; but 
not so hereafter. From your deep abyss of 
gloom your eye will see it far away in the 
upper world of glory, with the glad companies 
of the redeemed sitting upon its summit in 
eternal rest and peace, and singing with the 
angels. And the spontaneous prayer which 
would break from your lips, ''Lead me to 
yonder Rock that is higher than I," will be 
choked and silenced by the awful convic- 
tion, that between you and it there is a great 



THE HIGHEE KOCK. 27 

gulf fixed, a chasm which no tears can bridge, 
no prayers can span. Now the Eock is 
near. The Saviour reaches out his hand. 
G-rasp it, sinner, by faith. Hold on to it and 
climb to the strong-holds, or you must sink to 
hell. 



28 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 



II. 

fk$^ |uw in hk ^i^hU 

LET THEM THAT LOVE HIM BE AS THE SUN WHEN 
HE GOETH FORTH IN HIS MIGHT. Judges 5 : 31. 

Thus closes the song of Deborah, the judge 
and heroine of Israel. Its theme has been the 
thrilling events of the great battle with Sisera 
and the Canaanites, the victor}^ of Balak, and 
the overthrow of Jabin and his hosts. But at 
its close she rises from the particular event to 
a general prediction, in the form of a prayer 
for the destruction of all the enemies of Grod, 
and the safety and blessedness of his own 
people. "So let all thine enemies perish, 
Lord ; but let them that love him be as the 
sun when he goeth forth in his might." 

" Them that love 7wm" is a brief, but most 
fitting description of true believers, whether 
Jewish or Christian. Saints are distinguished 
from others, not only in their relations to Grod, 
but in their affections towards him. Eecon- 
ciled to God through Jesus Christ, they love 
him with a reverential, obedient, and constant 



THE SUN IN HIS MIGHT. -29 

love. Such are, in the highly poetic language 
of the prophetess, compared to the sun when 
he goetli forth in his might. 

A bold and extravagant figure indeed it 
appears to us at first view. To liken Chris- 
tians to the sun may seem presumptuous — the 
sun, that glorious orb which marshals at his 
command the planets and satellites that revolve 
around him — that great central fountain of 
light and heat, scattering his rays over the 
vast fields of immensity, imparting light and 
warmth and vitality throughout his vast terri- 
tories, and gladdening the numerous tribes of 
creatures Avhich inhabit them. 

But the comparison in the text is specific 
rather than general. It is to the going forth of 
the sun in his might — to his apparent motion 
round the earth, produced really by the revo- 
lution of the earth upon its axis. The Scrip- 
tures employ the language of common life when 
they describe the . phenomena of the natural 
world. 

The going forth of the sun is seen wdien he 
rises in glory in the eastern sky, and climbs 
the heavens in majestic splendor, scattering 



30 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

the mists and gloom of night ; when witli un- 
tiring steps he mounts the zenith, and bends 
his course along the western slope, till at the 
close of day he flings aslant over mountain- 
top and embosomed lake his parting beams, 
and dips his golden rim behind the horizon, to 
shine on other lands and gladden their inhab- 
itants. 

It is this tireless movement of the sun, 
this daily progress of the king of day, patrol- 
ling as with a giant's tread the ramparts of the 
skies, that the text employs to illustrate the 
course of God's people in the world. 

Parallel to the text is the passage in Prov- 
erbs 4th : " The path of the just is as the shin- 
ing light, which shineth more and more unto 
the perfect day." Our subject is then to 
study the life and experience of the Christian 
as illustrated by the sun when he goeth forth 
in his might. 

What more sublime and glorious sight can 
be conceived of than this every-day phenom- 
enon, so common that it is unappreciated and 
almost unnoticed by the multitudes of busy 
men — the going forth of the sun in his might ? 



THE SUN IN HIS MIGHT. 31 

ye effeminate children of sloth, it is worth 
snatching a lazy hour from your feverish beds, 
to rise before the dawn, and watch how the 
shadows of the night gradually soften and flee 
away at the approach of the sun-rising, and 
how the eastern sky lifts her curtains of crim- 
son and gold to welcome his coming. The 
various tribes of animated creation rejoice on 
every side. The lark warbles his glad notes, 
and soars high in the air to catch his first 
beams. 

It is the sun going forth in his might that 
quickens the life-pulse of nature, and scatters 
the gloom which enshrouded her. Fresh and 
joyous as a bridegroom coming out of his 
chamber, he lifts his head above the hills, and 
bathes the earth in the splendor of his rays. 
Shadows retreat through glen and valley to 
their caves. Breezes gently touch the forest- 
leaves, and chant their matinee. Placid lakes 
from their mirrored surface toss back the day- 
beams. Dew-drops pendent on the flower- ^ 
petals glisten like diamonds on a vestal's brow. 
Cascade and cataract with their silvery spray 
weave mimic rainbows in his beam.s. Distant 



32 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

mountains in solemn grandeur lift their tall 
peaks like golden turrets in the sky ; while 
from jutting promontory and wave -washed 
beech old ocean peals out her deep, full dia- 
pason, and hails the advent of the day. Ah, 
when I gaze upon a scene like this, I cease to 
wonder that in other lands, unvisited by the 
gospel, the Parsee bows and worships the ris- 
ing sun, and lifts his hands and prays with 
rapt devotion to the orb of day. 

Follow the sun's course from the horizon 
upward ; how, never halting, never wearying, 
he drives his fire-chariot through the long cir- 
cuit of the heavens. And when at close of 
day he bids us a short adieu, it is not with the 
jaded look of an exhausted courier whose 
strength is gone, but with the same effulgent 
countenance that he wore before. Still does 
he go forth in his might when, at evening, from 
his broad disc he throws with lavish profu- 
sion his effulgence over the floating clouds in 
the vault above, and over hill-top and plain 
stretched out below. 

Would you take the full meaning of the 
sun's going forth in his might, you must bear 



THE SUN IN HIS MIGHT. 33 

in mind that this his glorious career is not the 
jDhenomenon of a day, but that precisely tlius 
has he fulfilled his mission through weary cen- 
turies — that on the generations long forgotten 
he shone with the same exhaustless splendor ; 
and that since creation's birth, when he was 
commissioned by the Almighty to rule the 
day, he has never failed to walk the skies. 
Centuries have not wearied him ; ages have 
marked no wrinkles on his brow ; but as when 
the world was new he circled it with light and 
beauty, so now with the same might does he 
go forth weariless, changeless. 

What is there in this going forth of the sun 
in his might analogous to the life of the people 
of God ? Where is the point of comparison ? 
How is the moral experience of a Christian 
to be likened to this going forth of the sun ? 
Unlike the sun, he is not the centre of a mighty 
system. Unlike the sun, he has no inherent 
light to scatter around him. Eather like the 
moon than like the sun does he shine, borrow- 
ing all his light from Christ the Sun of right- 
eousness ; just as the moon gathers what beams 

she has from the sun. and reflects them towards 

2* 



3i BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

US with fainter and more subdued radiance. 
Like the moon, the Christian shines only when 
shone upon. 

In speaking of Bible imagery, we must be- 
ware of straining the figures employed, and 
forcing upon them an interpretation which is 
beyond their natural meaning. 

The text does not compare the light of the 
Christian with the light of the sun, but simply 
the Christian with the going forth of the sun. 

The analogy then leads us to speak, in the 
first place, of the j^rogressive nature of the 
Christian's life — his constant upward advance- 
ment. 

The sun is ever going forth. There is no 
pause nor cessation to his movements. Tem- 
pests and storms sweep over us, and calms 
succeed ; changes and revolutions mark every 
thing here on earth, but the sun stops not in 
his career. His work is never done. 

Even so is the Christian life — an onward 
movement, an advancement step by step in 
the work of grace. 

As Christians, there is no such thing as 
our standing still, or resting satisfied with our 



THE SUN IN HIS MIGHT. 35 

present attainments in knowledge and holi- 
ness. It is this onward impulse, this disposi- 
tion to push forward, this ardent longing for 
increasing grace, which is one of the strongest 
evidences that we are truly Christians. Hyp- 
ocrites and self-deceived ones occasionally are 
susceptible of religious emotion. Hypocrites 
may join the church, and stay there till they 
die, and yet feel no need of progress. But 
where grace is truly felt, it causes the believer 
to long; for more. The least conformitv to the 
divine image begets a desire for more holi- 
ness. It can be satisfied onlv bv awaking; in 
his likeness. " Xot as though I had alreadv 
attained,'' "I count not myself to have ap- 
prehended," is the sentiment of every true 
Christian soul. ''I press towards the mark 
for the prize of the high calling of God in 
Christ Jesus," is the fixed purpose of every 
believer. -^ 

The Christian's efforts in grace are not 
self-exhaustino;, but self-invig;orating\ The 
more he runs, the swifter of foot is he. The 
duties of yesterday never weary his strength 
for to-day. 



36 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

Would you test your piety? then look not 
back in the distance of years to find the evi- 
dences of your salvation. But look at the pass- 
ing weeks and months, to trace along their 
history the workings of divine grace. And 
Oh, let me warn you that you are trusting in 
a false and empty hope, unless there be found 
in your experience a growing conformity to 
Christ your Saviour, a series of conquests 
over temptations and besetting sins, a stead- 
ier fidelity in Christian duty, a deeper spirit- 
uality, a giving way of carnal lusts, a stronger 
faith, a brighter hope, and a nearer anticipa- 
tion of heaven and glory. For if you are 
indeed a Christian, there will be found in you 
an onward progress in a holy life, a moving 
forward towards perfection, which will justify 
us in comparing it to the going forth of the 
sun. 

Again, a Christian life is like the going 
forth of the sun, inasmuch as it is a progress 
involving a migldy power. The text si3eaks of 
the sun going forth in his ynight. The psalm- 
ist also describes him, ''rejoicing as a strong 
man to run a race." The apparent motion of 



THE SUN IN HIS MIGHT. 37 

the sun daily through the heavens, suggests 
the idea of almighty power. As if conscious 
of his strength, he strides like a giant across 
the sky. 

So is the Christian's progress in a holy 
life one which involves an outlay of exhaust- 
less energies. 

He lives through the power of God. His 
going forth is in the might of the Spirit which 
upholds him. 

When the apostle speaks of "the exceed- 
ing greatness of his power to us-ward who 
believe, according to the working of his mighty 
power, which he wrought in Christ when he 
raised him from the dead ;" when he talks of 
"striving according to his working, which 
worketh in me mightily f when he, in Ephe- 
sians, attributes his call to the ministry to the 
effectual working of the power of the grace 
of Grod ; and when he ascribes glory in the 
church by Jesus Christ throughout all ages, 
" unto him that is able to do exceeding abun- 
dantly above all that we can ask or think, 
according to the power that worketh in us;'' 
when too the apostle John tells believers that 



38 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

"greater is He that is in you than he that is 
in the world," do you not perceive that the 
very sun going forth in his might through the 
mid-heavens is a spectacle of omnipotence no 
grander or more sublime than a poor Chris- 
tian going forth from earth to heaven ? 

The necessity of this mighty interposition 
of the divine Spirit arises from the helpless- 
ness to which sin has reduced us, and the ob- 
stacles to a holy life which beset the Christian. 

This power of the Holy Ghost dwells in 
the believer: first renewing or regenerating 
him; and then sustaining him. It operates 
upon his own faculties in such a way that they 
are called out in earnest effort. Without this 
power given to us, who of us could stand? 
We "wrestle not against flesh and blood, but 
against principalities, against powers, against 
spiritual wickedness in high places." There is 
no greater mistake you can fall into than to con- 
ceive that a Christian life is a task of feeble- 
ness and imbecility. If you would go forth 
at all, you must advance with a perseverance 
which never despairs, a vigilance which never 
slumbers, and a courage which never quails. 



THE SUN IN HIS MIGHT. 39 

If you would call yourself a Christian, you 
must run like the athlete and struggle like 
the wrestler ; for the believer's course is a 
powerful movement, like the going forth of the 
sun in his might. 

Faith, the great executive principle of the 
Christian, is a far different thing from a mere 
assent to creeds and formulas. It is ^ power, 
a micjlihj power ^ quickened in the Christian by 
the Holy Spirit — a power which moves the 
will, and controls the lusts, and overcomes 
the world. Ask yourself. Do you know aught 
of such a power ? Have you felt its workings 
in your soul ? Has grace subdued your pas- 
sions and fixed your purposes ? Has it abased 
your pride and relaxed your covetousness ? 
Has it Avorked in you mightily ? If not, then 
has the kingdom of God come to you in word 
only, not in power. 

Again, the sun's going forth is a joyous 
progress. Nothing is more suggestive of joy 
than the sun shining. His very face is the 
synonym of gladness. Nature smiles beneath 
his rays. Lambs skip on the hill-sides, the 
birds sing gayly, the forests clap their hands. 



40 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

Fit emblem is the sun's going forth of 
the healthy development of a Christian life. 
Gloom and grace are not twin sisters. Joy 
is a prominent element in genuine experi- 
mental religion. "The fruits of the Spirit 
are love, joy, peace.'' '-' Let the righteous be 
glad," says David; "let them rejoice before 
God. Yea, let them exceedingly rejoice." 
"Rejoice in the Lord always;" "rejoice 
evermore," is the sentiment of the apostle 
Paul. 

The want of this holy joy in your experi- 
ence is no evidence of your deep piety. Rath- 
er is it a proof of a low and imperfect life — a 
defective faith. Surely it is the Christian, 
above all others, who should dwell in peace. 
It is he who can cherish in his bosom a felt 
sense of God's favor, which is life, and of his 
loving-kindness, which is better than life. It 
is he whose soul should walk all da}^ in the 
Imht of God's countenance. 

But let not this Christian joy be confound- 
ed with the boisterous merriment of the un-. 
godly. It is far, very far removed from the 
mere pleasures of sense. It is not to be sought 



THE SUN IN HIS MIGHT. dl 

for in the butterflies of fashion flitting in sa- 
loons of gayety, nor in the hoarse laugh of the 
midnight bacchanalian revel. It is not the 
silly trifling of brainless foolfe, who are lovers 
of pleasure more than lovers of God. But it 
is the calm, the tranquil joy of the soul at 
peace with God. Like the joyous sun should 
the Christian go forth, bright and peaceful, 
exhibiting in his life that steady hope and 
cheerful confidence and benignant peace which 
are as wide apart from the levity and thought- 
lessness of the world as they are from the aus- 
tere gloom of the cloister and the repulsive 
asceticism of the convent. 

Yours is the duty to exhibit to the world 
a joyous service to your Lord and Saviour. 
Yours is the privilege to show to your fellow- 
men that you have found happiness elsewhere 
than in folly and dissipation, and that there 
are other pleasures within your reach than 
the pleasures of sin, which are for a season. 

It is important also to observe, that al- 
though the life of a real Christian is always 
progressive, still this progress may not always 
be visible to himself, much less to others. There 



42 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

may be seasons when he can discover no ad- 
vancement, and when his course is obscured. 
It is even so with the going forth of the 
sun in his might. Every day he makes the 
circuit of the heavens. He is never station- 
ary. But all days are not the same : clouds 
sometimes gather ; storms and tempests rage 
above us ; the angry elements muster their 
grim cohorts in the sky ; the lightning flashes, 
the thunders roll ; the earth lies shrouded in 
the drapery of night. Where now is the sun, 
which a little while ago shone brightly upon 
us? Has he fled in terror? Has he retreated 
back, and hid behind the hills above which he 
rose at morn ? No, he has not faltered ; far 
above those clouds, beyond the reach of storm 
and strife, he still moves on undisturbed. 
Watch ; as the storm subsides, he shows the 
same bright, joyous face between the opening- 
clouds, and fringes their edges with his golden 
beams. Yonder he rides in the heavens, just 
as before. His going forth suffered no inter- 
ruption when the winds swept and the thun- 
der-clouds lowered. True, we could not see 
him ; but when the dark mantle is drawn 



THE SUN IN HIS MIGHT. 43 

aside, lo, there he is, undimmed, the same ma- 
jestic sun, still going forth in his might ; and 
yonder his rays are sporting with the rain- 
drops, and arching the horizon with the rain- 
bow, in whose brilliant colors the Almighty 
long ago wrote his covenant with the patri- 
arch and with mankind. 

So is it with the Christian's progress 
through the stormy trials and temptations of 
human life. External circumstances seem 
sometimes to conspire against him : the tongue 
of slander may be turned against him ; the 
envenomed shaft of malice may wound his 
character ; his integrity may be suspected, 
and his good name be cast out as evil ; dark- 
ness and unbelief may settle upon his own 
soul ; manifold temptations may suddenly sur- 
prise him, and he be left to doubt and ques- 
tion whether he be not a castaway : but we 
are not to conclude that such seasons are all 
against him. We believe that all the while 
there may be, there is, progress in such expe- 
riences. They are trials which test his faith ; 
they are fires which burn out the corruption 
which lurks within him. 



44: BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

Although Ave cannot discern in every case 
the precise benefit which is to be secured, 
although we cannot see why Grod allows some 
of his dear people to he buffetted continually, 
yet certain we are that all the temptations 
which overtake them and the afflictions which 
weigh upon them are disciplinary in their na- 
ture, and are made subservient to their ulti- 
mate sanctification. ji Even in the temporary 
lapses of the Christian, which surprise and 
overcome him, there may be the germ of fu- 
ture and higher advancement. Through these 
he learns his weakness, and is taught the les- 
son of humility and dependence ; and they 
are followed by a more resolute gathering up 
of his strength in God, and a more prayerful 
watchfulness, which give promise of future 
progress. And accordingly we have often 
seen the Christian come out of such experi- 
ence like gold tried in the furnace, a brighter 
Christian, a better man, a more chastened, 
humbled, sanctified believer, for whose good 
all things are made to work together, accord- 
ing to God's promise. Like the sun's going 
forth after storms have we seen many a saint 



THE SUN IN HIS MIGHT. 45 

emerge from the clouds of adversity, and in 
later days exhibit a consistency which told 
that the trials he endured had resulted in 
good. 

Be not discouraged then, Christian, be- 
cause all days are not alike to you. Think 
not that there can be no progress when you 
are encompassed with cares and vexed with 
temptations. Yield not your confidence when 
your way seems troubled ; for like the sun 
which goes forth in his might when the ele- 
ments are astir, so must you keep moving 
heavenward through the gloom and discour- 
agements of earth. 

Such are the Scripture representations of 
the life of Clod's own people. It is a progres- 
sive life — a powerful and a joyous life — a life 
advancing and maturing in the face of diffi- 
culties. 

Compare this, professing Christian, with 
your actual life. Perhaps you have long pro- 
fessed to love God and to serve him ; and 
what has been your progress ? Has the work 
of grace advanced so that now you can say 
that you are far beyond your former experi- 



4G BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

ence ? Can you find in the mastery over 
temptations, the crucifixion of your lusts, your 
habitual delight in the word of God and pray- 
er and holy living, and in your indifference to 
the world, its pleasures and its gains, that you 
have been moving onward and upward ? Oh 
then, in your sun-like path, we bid you })ress 
eagerly forward unto the perfect day. It is 
not time yet to relax a single muscle. You 
cannot halt or loiter. 

But are there some with whom it is far 
otherwise? After living in the church for 
years, are you just as cold and dormant, just 
as covetous and worldly as you were years 
ago ? And dare you liken your dwarfed and 
sickly life to the sun when he goeth forth in 
his might? Nay, rather must we describe 
you as a lost pleiad, or one of those "wan- 
dering stars" of which Jude speaks, "to which 
is reserved the blackness of darkness for 
ever." 

Are you growing in grace ? If not, you 
are graceless. If there is no movement, there 
is no life. If you are a Christian, there is in 
you a spiritual power of locomotion which will 



THE SUN IN HIS MIGHT. 47 

not let joii rest. A Christian goes forth like 
the sun. Once indeed the sun paused at the 
command of Israel's leader ; but there is no 
Gideon in the world ipighty enough to stop 
the sunlike course of the Christian in the path 
of grace ; nor is there a mount Gibeon to be 
found where you can bid him stand still. 



18 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 



HI. 

AND TO THE BLOOD OF SPRINKLING, THAT SPEAK- 
ETH BETTER THINGS THAN THAT OF ABEL. Heb. 
'l2:24. 

This is the last entry made in the rich in- 
ventory of spiritual blessings which Christians 
enjoy under the gospel economy. The blood 
of Christ shed upon the cross is called ''the 
blood of sprinkling,'' in allusion to the blood 
of the paschal lamb ; or more generally, to 
the blood of the burnt-offerings which was 
sprinkled upon and around the altar. The 
sprinkling of blood was, under the Levitical 
economy, the symbol of purification, as we 
are told by the apostle that "almost all things 
are, by the law, purged with blood." 

The text declares that the blood of Christ, 
shed for sinners, speaks better things than the 
blood of Abel, which was shed by the mur- 
derous hand of his brother, and called for ven- 
geance. 



THE VOICE OF BLOOD. 49 

There has always seemed to be a strange, 
mysterious influence in blood shed by vio- 
lence. It has a voice mightier than all other 
voices, which thrills the human soul with 
awful terror. Once the Almighty spoke in 
thunder from the blackened brow of Sinai ; 
but generations before and after that, he spoke 
to men through the medium of blood. This 
was the language of all the divine sacrifices 
offered in the remotest times. The instruc- 
tions of the whole Levitical economy were 
written in blood — blood upon the altar, upon 
the four horns of the altar, upon its sides, 
around it — ever speaking in language of deep 
and awful meaning to the worshipper. 

Man's blood shed by violence cannot be 
silenced. It has a cry which rings in the 
ears, a voice at which all living men start 
back aghast. It wails like an avenging fiend 
in the track of murder. It will not keep still. 
It summons the world to find out the guilty. 

The text introduces a contrast between 
the blood of Christ and that of Abel, or rather, 
between their utterances. Both spoke, and 
spoke with mighty power ; but their language 



Kil.le Khililenta. 



50 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

was far different. In the one it was terror, in 
the other ^6ac6. 

It may be a subject of inquiry, why this 
distinct and exclusive reference to the blood 
of Abel, when so many since his time have 
died by the hands of violence ? Every mur- 
der speaks, as well as Abel's. The bloody 
deed committed to-day will publish itself. It 
is the hardest thing in the world to conceal it. 
The providence of God often seems to turn 
the very arts and expedients which were de- 
signed to hide it and hush its voice, into the 
means of its detection. The stone cries out 
of the wall, and the beam out of the timber 
answers it. Blood will speak through walls 
of masonry, through deepest midnight dark- 
ness, across seas and deserts uninhabited. 

But passing over the many dark calendars 
of crime which generations had filled up, the 
apostle singles out Abel alone, as he was the 
first one of our race who died, and that by 
the hand of violence. That murder woke the 
first cry of blood which the world ever heard. 
It was when the world was young. And as 
then there were no human courts established 



THE VOICE OF BLOOD. 51 

to sit in judgment upon crime and punish the 
guilty, the Almighty himself came forth from 
his solitude and made inquisition for blood, 
and pronounced sentence upon the fratricide. 
The testimony upon which God convicted 
Cain, was the testimony of blood. It cried 
unto heaven from the ground ; and by the 
prompt and terrible interposition of the Al- 
mighty at that epoch, Grod impressed upon 
the race the sacredness of human life and the 
certain vengeance which would pursue the 
man who shed blood. 

The blood of Abel, though it spoke a lan- 
guage like to that of ten thousand murders 
since committed, still arrests attention ; for 
it was the lirst cry of murder which had 
shocked the world. It stands at the head of 
the dark roll of guilt which is still filling up. 
It stained for the first time the bosom of our 
mother earth. It flung a ghastly mangled 
corpse into the first family of our race, and 
deepened the gloom which, at the fall, settled 
upon the earliest history of humanity, into 
shadows black as Tartarus. 

These considerations would be enough to 



52 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

prompt the apostle to single out the death of 
Abel from all that followed it. 

And in the text he contrasts its testimony 
with that of the blood of Christ. 

What was its utterance ? What did the 
blood of Abel say ? Come with me and stand 
over the revolting spectacle. Look on the 
clotted gore and ghastly features of the mur- 
dered man, and hear the testimony : 

1. The blood of Abel testified to the actual 
infliction of the penalty of death which had 
been passed upon the race. It is evident that 
Adam and Eve could not have fully under- 
stood the full meaning of the curse which had 
been pronounced upon them. Spiritual death, 
consisting in a loss of holiness and separation 
from Grod's favor, they had already suffered. 
And they might have had some vague idea of 
that death which would close their earthly 
life, and dissolve the body back to dust ; but 
they could know very little about it. They 
had never seen it. The death of animals 
offered in sacrifice would help their concep- 
tions very little. Anxiously they questioned 
what more there was in the sentence which 



THE VOICE OF BLOOD. 53 

God had pronounced upon them. Time wore 
along ; their family increased : sons and daugh- 
ters grew up around them, and yet they had 
never witnessed an instance of death. Per- 
haps they began to doubt whether there was 
any thing more in the curse than what they 
had already suffered. With ruddy cheeks and 
growing strength, their posterity increased 
for more than a century after the fall. Their 
children's children smiled upon their knees. 
As yet they had never seen a corpse ; as yet 
the earth had not a single grave. 

But from the blood of Abel there came a 
message of unutterable anguish, which dis- 
pelled the faintest hope of escape from the 
threatened penalty. Around his body, stretch- 
ed on the bloody ground, gathered Adam and 
Eve and their descendants, and there in heart- 
rending agony and distraction gazed "on the 
dead man's ghastly features, and read in them 
the first lesson of death. Yes, there was 
death ! — death, which they had long talked 
about, and wondered what it was — death, 
which they had never seen before : it had 
come at last. 



54: BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

The awful revelation was before tliem. 
All doubt, all questioning about their fatal 
doom was gone. The king of terrors had 
entered upon his dominions, and set up his 
ghostly sceptre over every thing that breathed. 
There was his first conquest. 

And from that blood there went forth a 
voice which published to all the living the 
execution of the curse. Henceforth all hope 
of escape must be cut off. The work of death 
had now begun. Adam and all his race must 
prepare to die. 

2. The blood of Abel spoke of the deep 
and awful depravity of human nature conse- 
quent upon the fall. It showed that man's 
fallen nature was early ripe for the most 
atrocious wickedness. The seeds of corrup- 
tion implanted in that nature required no 
long period of ages to bring forth their fatal 
fruits. They developed themselves with most 
terrible rapidity. The earliest crime on rec- 
ord in the history of the race, is of Titanic 
proportions. Old as the w^orld has grown in 
guilt, it has yet found nothing to surpass it. 
Familiar as we are with its dark and dreary 



THE VOICE OF BLOOD. 55 

annals, its oft-repeated chronicles of wicked- 
ness, there is not in them all a more thrilling 
testimony to the deep and universal deprav- 
ity of fallen nature, than is uttered in that 
first cry of blood which went up from the 
ground into the ear of God. It would seem 
as though man's darkened spirit could not 
wait for death to begin his fatal work upon 
the species by what we now call the natural 
course of sickness and disease, but he must 
himself chide death with tardiness, and lift 
his own hand with murderous intent, and slay 
his fellow. 

The blood of Abel speaks not of Abel 
calmly yielding up his breath, while his head 
lies peacefully on his mother's lap. It calls 
us to no softened couch over which fond par- 
ents bend in agony, and catch the placid 
smile which lingers on the countenance, and 
gather up the few rays of hope which beam 
in the dying eye, and which seem to whisper 
that death may, after all, be not so formida- 
ble a thing. 

In no such way does it spe'ak to us. But 
it is Abel murdered, Abel stretched upon the 



56 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

rolcl ground, weltering in his blood, a man- 
gled, ghastly spectacle. And every clotted 
blade of grass, and every bloody stone has 
found a tongue, and cries, "A brother's hand 
has done the hellish deed." We stand aghast, 
and ask for no more appalling testimony to 
the total depravity of the species. Try as we 
may to soften down the hideousness of that 
depravity, after all our study to find some- 
thing to relieve the odiousness of that corrup- 
tion which festers in the soul, there is a voice 
in the earliest history of the race, a voice of 
blood which mocks our arguments and ban- 
ishes our cherished convictions. 

3. The blood of Abel cries for vengeance. 
It was the only testimony the Almighty pro- 
duced when he summoned Cain to trial. The 
deed was done in secret. No one saw it. No 
one heard the dying man's last groan. Plis 
lips were sealed, his tongue was stiff and cold, 
and the murderer thought that by a brazen 
and persistent denial of his crime, he could 
escape detection. But though Abel could not 
testify, and no living man saw the uplifted 
hand which smote him, still there were wit- 



THE VOICE OF BLOOD. 57 

nesses enough. Dumb things grew eloquent, 
and the voice of blood published the foul 
deed to Grod and man. 

From what we have read of the history 
of murderers, it would seem that there was 
something more than a rhetorical figure in 
those words in Genesis, which give a voice to 
the blood shed by violence. Hundreds and 
thousands have heard such a voice. Often it 
amounts to nothing, that the assassin has con- 
cealed his crime from his fellow-men, and can 
walk abroad in the community with no sus- 
picious eyes turned towards him. He is 
haunted by something which keeps publishing 
his guilt. The ghastly visage of his victim 
rises before him, and follows him. It shakes 
its gory locks at him, crossing his path every- 
where like an avenger who will not be ap- 
peased. Its avenging cr}^ rings in his ears. 
He starts at the sound of his own footsteps. 
Every thing seems to echo it. The rustling 
of a leaf alarms him. The murmuring water- 
fall tells the bloody tale ; the winds wail it 
through the air. It seems to him that all the 
world has found it out. Inanimate things 

3* 



58 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

have grown articulate, and published it. He 
expects the next man who meets him in the 
street will accuse him to his face. And not 
unfrequent is it, that by the very alarm and 
uneasiness, the strange anxiety and restless- 
ness which he betrays, the eye of suspicion is 
turned upon him, and a clue is furnished, 
which leads to the disclosure of his crime. 

This avenging cry of blood is the hardest 
thing in the world to silence. It will not be 
appeased without the life of him who shed it. 
It is the voice of retributive justice, speaking 
from the throne of God, and echoed from the 
inner judgment-seat of the human conscience, 
demanding blood for blood. It is an awful 
voice, which, for the first time, the world 
heard when Abel's blood was shed. 

But it is time we turned to listen to an- 
other voice to which the text invites us. It 
is indeed the voice of blood ; but it is a strange, 
a new voice, wdiich speaks a new language to 
the soul. It is the "blood of sprinkling." The 
crucifixion of the Son of Grod was a most foul 
and atrocious deed of blood : but in conse- 
quence of a special and extraordinary arrange- 



THE VOICE OF BLOOD. 59 

ment by the Groclhead, called the covenant of 
redemption, that blood spilled on Calvary re- 
ceived a new significancy, and spoke better 
things than blood had ever spoken before. 

1. The blood of sprinkling speaks better 
things to God^ than the blood of Abel did. 
That blood cried unto God from the ground 
for vengeance, but the blood of Christ sends 
aloft to the Almighty's throne a far different 
testiniony. It speaks to Grod of a full satis- 
faction made to his law and justice for the 
sins of guilty men. It stands before the eter- 
nal Majesty, and challenges the divine attri- 
butes of truth and holiness and justice to say 
aught they can against the sinner's acquittal 
and acceptance. It holds up before the glit- 
tering sword of justice the cleft side and 
dripping hands of Jesus, and boldly asks, Is 
not this enough? It declares to Grod that 
now it is consistent with himself and his right- 
eous government to pardon the transgressor, 
and extend to him the open hand of reconcili- 
ation. It pleads for guilty sinners in the 
heavenly world, and before the throne of Je- 
hovah ; and louder than the roll of the eter- 



GO BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

nal anthem, and tlie shoutings of the angelic 
choirs, its mighty and prevailing voice is 
heard, "Spare him; for I have found a ran- 
som." It bids mercy reveal her lovely face, 
and sway her sceptre over a fallen, but now 
redeemed world. Yes, the blood of sprink- 
ling is heard in the highest heaven. It speaks 
in the ear of God. 

2. It speaks to me^i. It proclaims to them 
a new and living way of approach to Grod. 
The apostle tells us, in the epistle to the He- 
brews, that this way is through the blood of 
Christ, and that Christ hath consecrated this 
way to us through the veil, that is to say, his 
flesh. 

Before this new provision was made, the 
only way of acceptable approach to God was 
through the covenant of works which required 
complete personal obedience to the divine 
law. That way was closed. Sin broke it up, 
and man had no possible means of repairing 
it. Another way must be discovered, else 
we must remain under condemnation. The 
blood of sprinkling opens up a new and living 
way. It speaks to men of pardon^ and assures 



THE VOICE OF BLOOD. 01 

them that the sacrifice of the cross was a full 
propitiation for their sins, which God himself 
has approved. It declares to sinners, that now 
God can be just, and the justifier of the ungod- 
ly ; that it has done all that was necessary to 
satisfy divine justice and avert the sentence 
of wrath which was over them, and that the 
very God who before appeared to them as a 
consuming fire, is now plenteous in mercy, 
and ready to forgive. 

3. The blood of Christ speaks peace to the 
human conscience. Anxious as the sinner may 
be to escape the penalty of his transgressions, 
his conscience holds him to the conviction 
that that penalty must be endured ; for God, 
v/hatever else he be, must be a God of justice, 
and must insist upon the sanctions of his law. 
Much as our selfish nature longs to escape 
suffering for sin, the conscience sternly says 
it cannot be. That suffering must be met. 
The penalty of transgression must be borne. 

And now comes in the voice of blood, and 
says it has been borne, for the dying Saviour 
was made a curse for us. His cruel sufferings 
were in the stead of ours, and "on him was 



G2 • BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

laid the iniquity of us all." Conscience can 
now be at rest, for its claims are satisfied. 
There is peace through the blood of the cross. 
The sinner may take refuge here from every 
accusing voice, and cherish the sweet con- 
sciousness of forgiveness. 

Again, it speaks of inward cleansmg from 
pollution. Under the Levitical service, the 
sprinkling of blood was the symbol of purifi- 
cation. It typified the effects of the blood of 
Christ. The soul that comes to it experiences 
an inward renewing, and becomes the seat of 
gracious affections, implanted by the Holy 
Spirit. 

And lastly, it speaks of final and complete 
salvation in the heavenly world. It is the 
purchase price of redemption which God the 
Father has already accepted from Christ his 
Son. It is all a sinner needs to enter heaven. 
By it he is fully justified, and adopted into 
the family of God. It fills the soul with joy 
and peace, and enables it to hope with confi- 
dence for the future glory. It is the believ- 
er's title to eternal life, which he can carry 
with him through the gates of death, and 



THE VOICE OF BLOOD. 63 

which secures him a joyous welcome to the 
realms of purity and bliss, whither the Fore- 
runner has already gone to prepare mansions 
for his people. 

Such is the language which the blood of 
sprinkling speaks. No other blood ever spoke 
like it. No other voice has borne such tidings 
of great jo}^ to sinners. Turn your anxious 
ear to every quarter ; go listen to the law ; 
go through the universe and summon all the 
voices which testify of the Almighty, which 
bespeak his might and majesty, his wisdom 
and goodness, and you listen in vain for any 
utterance of peace and hope and favor to a 
sinner, like that which is proclaimed in the 
blood of Calvary. That voice which breaks 
forth from the cross of Jesus is the apocalypse 
of the world's redemption. 

It is the voice of hope and salvation for a 
lost and guilty race. It reverberates along 
the arches of the heavenly world, and calls 
forth a smile of reconciliation on the face of 
the Almighty. It rolls over against Sinai, 
and lo, the dark clouds scatter, and the light- 
nings cease to flash, and the thunders grow 



64 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

still. It comes to the human soul burdened 
with guilt and shame, and assures it of par- 
don, peace, and eternal life. 

Thousands upon thousands have heard it, 
and gone to glory listening to it. It is still 
speaking. It will keep on speaking till all 
the dwellers on this earth shall hear it, and 
an innumerable company out of every kindred 
and tribe and people shall be saved by it. 

I conclude with the solemn words of cau- 
tion with which the apostle follows up the 
text : '' See that ye refuse not him that speak- 
eth." 

There are many calls in the world which 
we may well refuse to listen to. Many are 
crying, Lo here, and, Lo there, whom we may 
refuse to follow. There are many teachings 
in the various departments of science and his- 
tory which are interesting and profitable sub- 
jects of study; but we may remain in igno- 
rance of them without materially affecting our 
well being for time or for eternity. 

It is not so with this voice which speaks 
to us in the blood of a crucified- Saviour. 
Here are utterances which it well becomes. 



THE VOICE OF BLOOD. 65 

every man to hear and study. It will not do, 
sinner, to turn away from it. It is a voice 
of authority and power. It tells of the inex- 
orable work of divine justice, of the stern 
exactions of God's violated law. It tells of 
an expiation for your sins, of deliverance from 
the wrath to come. It publishes hope and 
salvation to the guilty and the lost, pardon 
and reconciliation with your offended Grod. 
It invites you to trust your guilty soul upon 
the Saviour, to come with godly sorrow for 
all your transgressions, and accept of Grod's 
free grace in a Redeemer. It assures you 
that your God, against whom you have sin- 
ned, is now ready to forgive ; that his hand 
of mercy is reached out to you, and heaven 
and eternal life are open to you. Oh, hear 
it ; it is the only hope left for you. In all the 
universe there is no voice like it, which can 
bring peace and comfort to your soul. Oh, 
hear it. Though other voices call loudly to 
you, and importune you; though the world 
besets you, and business, pleasure, wealth, 
and honor clamor in your ears ; though pride 
and passion and sinful lusts cry out, and seek 



66 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

to drown its utterances, still turn your ear to 
tlie cross, and seek salvation in the atonement 
which is published there. 

For, ah, if you "refuse Him that speaketh," 
you must perish. You have, in so doing, 
thrust away from you the only provision which 
has ever been inade to save you from wrath 
to come. You close behind you the door of 
reconciliation which the Son of God has open- 
ed. You trample under foot the only flag of 
truce which heaven has sent down to this 
revolted province. You put an end to all 
further negotiations for peace, and you rush 
on the thick bosses of Jehovah's buckler. Oh, 
pause, we beseech you. Stop before you re- 
ject the great salvation. Come and listen a 
while to what the blood of Jesus says. Pon- 
der it well before you turn away. Take into 
account the consequences of its rejection, and 
see if you can well afford to refuse its bless- 
ings. 



CHRISTIANS GOD'S TEMPLES. 67 



IV. 



KNOW YE NOT THAT YE ARE THE TEMPLE OF GOD, 
AND THAT THE SPIRIT OF GOD DWELLETH IN 
YOU? 1 Cor. 3:16. 

The frequency with which the apostles 
speak of Christians under the figure of a tem- 
ple, is worthy of special notice. In the sixth 
chapter of this epistle, Paul calls our bodies 
the temple of the Holy Grhost. In the second 
epistle, he calls believers the temple of the 
living God, in whom Grod dwells. In Ephe- 
sians he describes them as a great building, 
upon Christ the corner-stone, fitly framed to- 
gether, growing unto a holy temple in the 
Lord. 

The apostle Peter, also addressing Chris- 
tians, says, "Ye also, as lively stones, are built 
up a spiritual house ;" and Jude in his epistle 
exhorts them to build themselves up on their 
most holy faith, and keep themselves in the* 
love of God. 



68 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

The figure of a temple was a common and 
favorite one with the apostles. Two reasons 
may be assigned for this. 

It was easily understood by those whom 
they addressed. The Christian converts, 
whether at Corinth, at Philippi, or at Rome, 
were familiar with these structures. In almost 
every city of Asia Minor and the whole 
Roman empire, their massive columns and 
lofty domes adorned their streets, and invited 
them to the worship of the gods. The sacred 
temple of the true God at Jerusalem also was 
not unknown to those who were scattered over 
Asia Minor. Many of the early converts in 
those parts were of Jewish extraction, and 
were well acquainted with the temple service 
at Jerusalem. The figure of a temple was a 
familiar one, and universally understood by 
the early Christians. 

A second reason for its frequent use in the 
New Testament is its appropriateness and sig- 
nificancy. The apostles employ it to present 
Christians in their peculiar position and obli- 
. gations. It is a most suggestive figure, some- 
times applied to Christians individually, at 



CHEISTTANS GOD'S TEMPLES. 69 

other times to them as a body, the church fitly 
framed together, and growing unto a holy 
temple in the Lord. 

1. The temples of antiquity were most 
costly structures. Seldom were they erected 
out of the fortunes of any private individual ; 
the resources of an empire were often spent 
upon them. The contributions of all the cities 
of Greece were expended on the famous temple 
at Delphi ; its gorgeous shrines were thickly 
overlaid with gold, and within its walls were 
gathered the choicest statuary, and all the 
combined wonders which art could furnish. 

At Rome, the magnificent temple of Jupiter 
shone with the gilding of more than 12,000 
talents, while upon its foundation alone was 
expended thirty thousand pounds weight of 
silver. 

Ancient Athens exhausted her wealth and 
the sublimest achievements of art upon those 
vast and imposing structures built in honor of 
the gods. The Parthenon, rising in majestic 
splendor on the brow of the Acropolis, dazzled 
the eyes of the beholder. Every thorough- 
fare boasted of some splendid pile. In the 



70 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

age of Pericles, the vast treasures of Greece, 
the finest marbles from the Parian quarries, 
the chisel of Phidias and the pencil of Zeuxis, 
the brass and ivory and gold and ebony and 
cypress from many lands, were all employed 
upon those structures which rendered Athens 
the wonder of the world. 

The temple of Grod at Jerusalem also was 
built at vast expense. The nation brought 
their gifts. No private individual was able 
to construct it. 

And are not Christians like the ancient 
edifices, in the cost which has been incurred 
in their behalf? Does not the apostle justify 
this point of comparison when, after saying 
that our bodies are the temple of the Holy 
Grhost, he immediately adds, "for ye are 
bought with a price?" In estimating what it 
cost to make a human soul, ruined and defiled, 
into a spiritual temple for God, we cannot 
enter into any arithmetical calculations of 
dollars and cents; for says the apostle, "Ye 
were not redeemed with corruptible things, 
such as silver and gold." But we must speak 
of a great expenditure, a mighty outlay which 



CHEISTIANS GOD'S TEMPLES. 71 

lias been incuiTed. To build the soul's ruins 
into a temple is a grander, costlier work, than 
to build the Parthenon. Man could build the 
latter, but Grod alone could build the former. 
And even for him to do it, required a new and 
special administration, and the sacrifice of his 
only Son. 

In constructing these spiritual temples, the 
eternal Son left the realms of glorj^, and be- 
came "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with 
grief.'' He was rich, but he became poor, 
that we, through his poverty, might be rich. 
To compute the cost of this work, you must 
take the measure of that infinite sacrifice 
which the Lord Jesus has made for you : tell 
what it was to leave the throne of heaven, and 
become a man on earth ; to obey the broken 
law and bear its curse ; to die in agony upon 
the cross. To compute the cost, you must 
reckon up the value of that blood which was 
shed on Calvary, and of the mighty agency of 
the Holy Spirit which is actually employed in 
restoring and refitting the human soul. 

There is no earthly calculus which can 
furnish the true answer. There are no cor- 



72 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

ruptible things, such as silver and gold, which 
can be weighed against the precious blood of 
the Son of God. Yet this was the price paid 
for your redemption. This is what these 
Christian temples cost- — temples which the 
world cares little for, but temples growing 
beautiful to the eye of God, around whose 
portals angels hover as ministering spirits, to 
bear aloft to the throne the prayers which are 
breathed within them. 

2. A temple is remarkable for its durability. 
It is not like a tent, 6r a tabernacle, pitched 
for a short season, and then taken down. The 
materials which are used, and the manner of 
their construction, show that it will endure. 
The temples of antiquity were built for ages. 
Plutarch, when speaking of those of Athens, 
says, " Now they are old, they have the fresh- 
ness of a modern building. A bloom is dif- 
fused over them which preserves their aspect 
untarnished by time, as if they were animated 
with a spirit of perpetual youth and unfading 
elegance." 

Those sacred structures, so familiar to the 
early Christians, stood unchanged while gener- 



CHKISTIANS GOD'S TEMPLES. 73 

ations passed away. Time seemed to pass 
tliem by, while men and all their other works 
mouldered under his touch. 

How aptly does this suggest to us the im- 
perishable nature of that work which the Holy 
Spirit carries on in the temple of the human 
soul. It is no ephemeral work. Every Chris- 
tian coworking with God, is working for eter- 
nity. That soul which has become a temple, 
will stand the changes of time, and the floods 
of temptation. The world cannot demolish it. 
It is a work of grace. And where God has 
begun it, he will carry it on to the day of re- 
demption. 

The durability of a temple also symbolizes 
the imperishable nature of the church, the 
great house which God is building in the world. 
It shall advance till the world shall end. Other 
institutions wear out. Colossal edifices of state 
totter and fall, and the wrecks of mighty dynas- 
ties lie strewn along the centuries. But while 
every thing else grows old, the church of God 
endures. The great house grows greater ; 
spiritual builders are at work, in our own and 
in other lands, quarrying out new stones, and 



r.;M(> SmMi'ms. 



74 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

polishing tliem, and setting tliem in tlie walls. 
Many a time have its enemies battered it, and 
threatened to lay it in heaps ; but the gates of 
hell have not prevailed against it ; it endures ; 
it still rises ; column after column is added to 
it ; it will rise till frieze and cornice and arch 
and dome are finished, and the top- stone shall 
be set with shoutings of Grace, grace unto it. 
The church, the great temple of Grod, shall 
stand. 

3. The temples of antiquity were distin- 
guished by their beauty of proportion and per- 
fection. The Greeks and Eomans employed 
the genius of their master artisans and their 
finest sculptors. All that the highest skill 
and taste and cultivation could do was pro- 
fusely lavished on those immortal works of 
art ; and the results produced were -those 
modejs of architectural strength and sjmnne- 
try which succeeding ages, with all their boast- 
ed progress, have not excelled. Unity of 
design, the adjustment of many parts in one 
harmonious whole, each part fitted to its ap- 
propriate place, with nothing left out and noth- 
ing superfluous, but all united to produce an 



CHRISTIANS GOD'S TEMPLES. 75 

impression of beauty and harmony on the 
mind of the beholder — these were the charac- 
teristic excellences of those grand old tem- 
ples to which the apostle compares Christians 
in our text. 

They too are temples in the harmony and 
proportion of that character which the Holy 
Ghost builds up within them. Christian char- 
acter is symmetrical. Like a stately temple, 
it combines many parts. Faith, love, humil- 
ity, patience, meekness, hope, endurance, for- 
giveness, courage, zeal — all these are the ma- 
terials which constitute the spiritual edifice. 
But distinct as they are, they together make 
one consistent character. 

This harmony of the Christian graces is 
one of the best tests to distinguish true piety 
from its counterfeits. The want of this is sin- 
gularly apparent in the bigot or the enthusiast. 
Such persons generally exhibit a dispropor- 
tioned, unbalanced character. A few virtues 
stand out in unnatural prominence, while oth- 
ers seem wanting altogether. A few duties 
they Avill perform with the utmost punctilious- 
ness, while others equally essential they never 



76 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

think of. Religion with them becomes identi- 
fied with some favorite dogma or ism, and 
tends in that direction to a monstrous devel- 
opment. This distortion of character, this 
fungus growth in one direction and utter bar- 
renness in others, evinces a want of grace alto- 
gether. Such persons are not temples framed 
by the Holy Ghost. Rather are they like 
rude, unsightly structures reared by some 
unskilful hands. Remember, if you are a 
Christian, you must exhibit the work of relig- 
ion in your whole character. You cannot cul- 
tivate one grace at the expense of another. 
You cannot be all faith and no love ; all hu- 
mility and no self-denial ; all zeal and no char- 
ity. It is not in that way the Holy Spirit 
works. The different parts of the spiritual 
edifice, says Paul, are ''fitly framed togeth- 
er," and "grow unto a holy temple in the 
Lord.'' 

4. Another peculiarity of the temples was, 
that they were the property of the deity to whom 
they were dedicated. No private individual 
owned them. Neither kings nor emperors 
nor the state were their proprietors ; but they 



CHRISTIANS GOD'S TEMPLES. 77 

were regarded as belonging solely to the gods 
in whose honor they were built. 

And how true is this of Christians, those 
spiritual temples which God has in the world. 
The apostle, speaking of the whole church of 
God, says. He has purchased it with his own 
blood. And to believers individually he says, 
''And ye are not your own 5 for ye are bought 
with a price." " None of us liveth to himself, 
and none of us dieth to himself ; whether we 
live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's." A 
better title in the universe cannot be found 
than that which Christ has to Christians. He 
has bought them, ransomed them, redeemed 
them. They are his absolutely. He is the 
sole proprietor of these temples. No one else 
owns them. They do not own themselves. 
This is your position, my Christian friend. 
What you are and what you have about you 
belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ. You owned 
his right to it all when you professed to be his 
disciple. Whatever demand is made upon 
you for your time, your labor, or your prop- 
erty, by him or his cause, you are in duty 
bound cheerfully to pay. Ye are God's build- 



78 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

ing ; ye are GocVs temple ; ye are not your 
own. 

5. The significancy of the figure employed 
in the text will further appear when we con- 
sider the use to which a temple is devoted. 

A temple was regarded as the dwelling- 
place of a divinity. The pagan temples had 
their sacred shrines, attended by priests or 
vestals, who claimed to repeat the oracle 
uttered by the gods. In the true temple at 
Jerusalem, Jehovah manifested his special 
presence, and the holy of holies was his dwell- 
ing-place. The Christian therefore may well 
be called a temple ; for says the apostle, 
" The Spirit of God dwelleth in you." 

The hearts of many impenitent men are 
sometimes visited by God's Spirit, as is indi- 
cated by the sudden awakenings of conscience ; 
but never is the Spirit said to dwell with them. 

Christians are truly temples, as they enjoy 
the presence of God's Spirit. That presence 
is manifested not by oracular voices or ecstatic 
visions. Fanaticism may recite the vagaries 
of the imagination, and call them new revela- 
tions of the Spirit; it may be ever on the 



CHRISTIANS GOD'S TEMPLES. 79 

look-out for signs and omens, and boast that 
it can "dream dreams;" but such manifesta- 
tions are no proof of the indwelling of God's 
Spirit. 

It is not in this way the Bible teaches us 
that the Spirit of God dwelleth in us ; but it 
points us to the fruits of the Spirit, which are 
far different. He shows his indwelling by 
enlightening the believer into the truth. He 
reveals the things of God to us. He quick- 
ens faith in us, and prompts to duty. He fills 
the soul with peace and joy, by showing us 
the promises of God's word, and pointing to 
their certain fulfilment. He guards us against 
temptation, by quickening us to prayer. He 
guides us in duty, by pressing upon the con- 
science the precepts and commands of Christ. 
In this way does the Holy Spirit give evidence 
of his presence. In this way he dAvells in 
believers. There may be seasons when tlie 
Christian loses the consciousness of His pres- 
ence ; but He has not departed : even in his 
backslidings, the Spirit does not forsake him, 
for the temple where He has dwelt he leaves 
not to desolation. 



80 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

• Again, the Christian soul is a consecrated 
temple, a holy place. 

Even the pagan temples were consecrated 
places. They were employed for such rites 
and observances as were supposed to be ac- 
ceptable to the deity which dwelt in them. 
Some of their festivals were scenes of revolt- 
ing licentiousness, it is true ; but they were 
not displeasing to the divinity they honored, 
for those divinities themselves were as pol- 
luted as their worshippers. Their temples 
and shrines were as pure as the gods whose 
name they bore. 

The temple of Jehovah, at Jerusalem, was 
most holy, for Jehovah is the God of holi- 
ness. Holiness was enstamped on every stone. 
''Holiness unto the Lord" was written upon 
its every apartment. No unclean thing was 
allowed to cross its sacred threshold. No 
profane hand was allowed to touch its conse- 
crated vessels. That sacred temple, inhabited 
[by the God of infinite purity, in whose siprht 
'^■^^r:t^2ihe heavens are not clean-<Vthat sacred temple 
whose inner shrine none dare approach but 
the mitred priest in robes of sanctity and with 



CHEISTIANS GOD'S TEMPLES. 81 

sacrificial blood, and he but once a year — that 
temple is a symbol of a true Christian soul — 
a consecrated, holy soul. This attribute, holi- 
ness, is the strong point of comparison. "For 
the temple of God is holy," says the apostle, 
"which temple ye are." Not that the believer 
attains to* immaculate purity in this life, for 
the New Testament teaches no such doctrine 
of Christian perfection ; but he is holy in that . 
he is a consecrated one, devoted to God's ser- 
vice. Indwelling sin may manifest itself, im- 
perfections may trouble him, but his mind and 
will are against them. He does not seek them. 
He does not go out to drag any polluted thing 
within the temple. No, he hates their pres- 
ence ; he longs and prays to be free from sin. 
Whatever imperfections are within him are 
the remains of former corruptions, and grace 
is overcoming them. 

We must bear in mind that this spiritual 
temple is not new in its material parts. It is 
an old, ruined, dilapidated temple, rebuilt, re- 
paired, cleansed, and reinhabited. The devil, 
who before held it, has been banished. The 

Holy Ghost has taken possession, and set it 

4.* 



82 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

apart for God. Yet some vestiges of its old 
state linger here and there for a time ; the 
divine Architect has not yet finished it. When 
it is done, it will be pure as heaven, and shine 
in the beauty of holiness for ever and ever. 
The work is going on. 

The Christian is no longer a sinner, court- 
ing sin ; he is set apart for a sacred use ; he 
is taken away from the service of sin; the 
world has no right to him ; he has no right to 
go after it. Oh it is not every use you can 
put a Christian to, for he is devoted to the 
service of God ; he is called into holiness : he 
is washed and sanctified. 

And now, in the review of our subject, let 
us walk about these living temples and notice 
their most prominent peculiarities, that we 
may see what manner of persons we ought to 
be in all holy conversation and doctrine. 

As temples, they are costly edifices, bought 
with the blood of Jesus Christ. They are en- 
during, built to stand the temptations of time, 
to survive the wreck and conflagration of the 
last day. They are beautiful in their propor- 



CHKISTIANS GOD'S TEMPLES. 83 

tions, with no heavenly grace left out, and no 
foul deformities suffered to remain. The}^ be- 
long to Grod. They are not their own. They 
are God's building. They are the dwelling- 
places of Grod's Spirit. They are holy : wash- 
ed, sanctified, and consecrated to God's ser- 
vice. 

Such is the picture of God's people which 
the apostle holds up before us when he says. 
^' Ye are the temple of God.'^ I confess it is a 
bold and highly-drawn picture ; but it was the 
pencil of inspiration, and not mine, which drew 
it. The soul of every true saint is that tem- 
ple. It has a holy of holies where God's Spirit 
dwells. The world, the flesh, and the devil 
have been cast out. It has an altar on which 
the sacrifice of thanksgiving is laid, a censer 
in which burns the incense of prayer, which 
rolls aloft to heaven, while the voice of praise 
and adoration echoes through its arches and 
along its aisles. 

Sublime and beautiful picture ! Is it a 
fancy piece ; or is it a reality ? It is a reality. 
The apostle's soul was such a temple. There 
were such temples in Corinth when he wrote 



84 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

tliis epistle — temples more grand and beauti- 
ful than all the Corinthian columns and gilded 
domes which adorned that city. Every true 
saint is such a temple. Every professor of 
religion claims to be one. 

My friend, take the picture home, and look 
at it. Study it well, and see if you can see 
yourself in it. Ah, you professing Christian, 
does your soul look any thing like it? If 
indeed it be a temple, does it not become you 
to watch its portals with untiring vigilance, 
lest pollution enter it? Have you kept the 
temple pure? Our text calls you to serious 
self-examination. Gro inside the temple, and 
look about. See if its walls be not hung round 
with pictures of earthly idolatry. See Avhether 
pride and vanity and fashion have not built 
their altars within. See whether greedy ava- 
rice has not set up the tables of the money- 
changers there, and well-nigh turned the tem- 
ple of the soul, which is Grod's house, into a 
house of merchandise. Listen whether there 
is heard there the tumult of angry passions, 
and the clamors of selfish and forbidden lusts. 

Oh search the temple well, for God will 



CHEISTIANS GOD'S TEMPLES. 85 

search it soon. ''The Lord shall suddenly 
come to his temple ; but who may abide the 
day of his coming, and who shall stand when 
he appeareth ? For he is like a refiner's fire, 
and like fullerls soap." 

None but the pure in heart, the sanctified 
in Christ Jesus, will endure the trial. These 
shall stand the fires of the judgment-day, and 
shine in bliss and glory for ever in the city of 
God. 

But not a few professed temple-builders 
will be confounded, and their work consumed ; 
for the fire shall try every man's work, of 
what sort it is. 



86 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 



V. 



YE ARE MY WITNESSES. Isa. 43:10. 

There is a sense in which all the works of 
Grod declare his glory, and bespeak his eter- 
nal power and godhead. But in the work of 
redemption through Jesus Christ his Son, he 
places his people in a peculiar position, and 
employs them in a special mission. They are 
surrounded with a world of ungodliness and 
impenitence, and he has commissioned them 
to bear an authoritative testimony in behalf 
of Him. 

As professed believers, they stand before 
the world as those who are the subjects of his 
grace, who have embraced and tried that re- 
ligion which is offered to them in Christ Jesus. 
They claim to have actually received Christ, 
and to have submitted to his authority. God 
calls them his people ; they call themselves so. 
In them grace exhibits what it can do by 
what it is already doing. 



GOD'S WITNESSES. 87 

They hold a peculiar relation to a godless 
world around them. God acknowledges them 
to be standing for him: '' Ye are my witness- 
es." They are bearing testimony in his be- 
half before the jury, consisting of the multi- 
tude of unbelievers. They are credible wit- 
nesses. The world is willing to listen to their 
evidence, and judge of the religion of Christ 
by what they say and do. 

They represent the Saviour whose name 
they bear. They are speaking to the world 
in all they say and do, wherever they go. 
They are always on the stand giving in their 
testimony. The ungodly world is listening to 
them, and taking down the evidence, and 
judging of Christ and of his religion by the 
declarations which they make ; and they have 
a right to do so. 

Grod says of these professing Christians, 
''Ye are my witnesses.'' And other men say. 
We will hear you and take your testimony, 
and cross-examine you, and give our verdict 
from what you declare to us. Every Chris- 
tian, by his very profession of religion, puts 
himself in this solemn position, and invites 



88 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

the scrutiny of the world. He cannot escape 
from it. He must testify for God, and woe 
be to him if in his life and conversation he 
belies his profession, and dishonors his Sav- 
iour's cause. 

God has a testimony of himself in his writ- 
ten word. But this documentary evidence 
will not satisfy an unbelieving generation. 
Men want parol evidence to confirm it. They 
call for the living witness, and insist upon 
examining him and hearing him give in his 
testimony. Professing Christians are such 
witnesses. And what they say in their lives 
and professions is often of far greater weight 
with the ungodly, than what is said by inspir- 
ed evangelists and apostles. This living tes- 
timony of God's people is a kind of evidence 
which carries conviction with it. The Bible 
itself points men to it, and tells them to de- 
cide by it upon the value of its own utter- 
ances. "Ye are my witnesses," saith God. 
"Ye are our epistle," says the inspired apos- 
tle. The world will take knowledge of them 
that they have been with Jesus. 

All parties concerned seem to agree upon 



GOD'S WITNESSES. 89 

the important position the people of God occu- 
py in this world. Grod expressly declares 
that they are his witnesses. They say the 
same when they openly profess his name. 
They take the stand before the jury of the 
world, and raise their hand to heaven and 
swear that they will testify for Christ. The 
world looks on, and says. We will hear the 
testimony, and judge of what religion is, and 
what is the genius and spirit of the gos- 
pel system of salvation by what we find in 
them. 

The case then seems fairly opened, and all 
parties understand the issue. Let us look 
further at the nature of the evidence. 

1. Believers are Christ's witnesses as to 
the real value and efficacy of that salvation 
which the gospel offers. As it is presented 
in God's word, it claims to be effectual in tak- 
ing away the curse of sin, and in bringing the 
sinner back to peace and reconciliation with 
God. It claims to quiet the fears of a guilty 
conscience, to awaken a sense of pardon and 
good hope of eternal life, and to furnish, in 
the atonement and death of Jesus Christ the 



90 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

Saviour, all that tlie guilty soul needs for its 
justification and peace with God. 

Bat does it do this ? Can it really accom- 
plish in the soul of a sinner this which it 
claims to do ? Does it ever actually prodnce 
such a change of feeling, awaken such hopes, 
restore such peace, as it tells about? On this 
subject, believers are important witnesses. 
They profess to have tried the efficacy of 
these representations in their own experience. 
They tell the ungodly they have found this 
sense of pardon, have felt this peace, have re- 
joiced in those hopes which the gospel speaks 
of. They have come to Christ as the atoning 
sacrifice, and he has proved himself to be to 
them all he claimed to be. 

The work of grace in the hearts of Chris- 
tians is such, that they can tell sinners what 
it is. They declare it in their songs of praise, 
their thanksgivings and prayers, and earnest 
love to their Redeemer. 

2. Professing Christians are witnesses to 
the world as to what that standard of morality 
is, which the precepts of the gospel require of 
its followers. They profess to live according 



GOD'S WITNESSES. 91 

to that standard. They have taken the com- 
mands of Christ to be their rule of duty, and 
they virtually tell others to judge of what the 
religion of Jesus Christ requires, by the way 
they live and act. They have undertaken to 
give a practical exhibition of what is the 
meaning of those Bible directions which com- 
prise the sum of religious duty. The question 
with them is not what the world thinks to be 
right or wrong, not what public opinion ap- 
proves or disapproves ; but what does Christ 
command. This is their rule of duty ; this is 
what they profess to live by. And the world 
understand it so. They therefore take what 
they find in Christians' lives and conduct to 
be what religion consists in. They care not 
to search for the letter of the precept in the 
Scriptures, so long as they have the living 
witness before them, w^ho says he is showing 
it to them every day. 

Christians are such witnesses. They may 
well tremble at their position. But they have 
placed themselves in it. They have under- 
taken to be witnesses for Christ. Oh, it be- 
comes them to be careful what they are say- 



92 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

ing. It becomes them to inquire what idea 
the world gets of Christ and his religion, from 
the way they carry themselves among their 
neighbors. 

Every one knows that example is more 
powerful than precept. Every professing 
Christian's example directly involves in it the 
honor of Christ, and the welfare of his cause. 
It is competent evidence, and the world takes 
it. That professor who lives in violation of 
Christ's commands, and by his example ap- 
proves what the religion of the gospel forbids, 
is a perjured witness on the stand, and gives 
a false testimony. 

That Christians are thus expounders of 
the gospel, witnesses as to what are the duties 
it enjoins, and what constitutes practical re- 
ligion, none can deny. The impenitent take 
them to be such. Whatever Christians do, 
they say must be right. Whatever the church 
practices and countenances, is a sufficient jus- 
tification for them in doing the same. What- 
ever is done in the green tree, can certainly 
be done in the dry. 

If Grod's people can travel and visit on the 



GOD'S WITNESSES. 93 

Sabbath, or engage in promiscuous dancing 
and card-playing in the nightly assemblies of 
amusement and frivolity, or resort to the 
gamester's arts to make money for Christ, 
surely such practices cannot be wrong for 
others ; for Christians would not do wrong, 
nor deny their principles. The world reason 
in this way, and they reason well. The logic 
is good, and cannot be refuted. They have a 
right to take notice of Christians as God's 
witnesses, and to infer that whatever they do 
is consistent with the morality of the New 
Testament. 

3. Christians are witnesses to the . world 
as to what are the sacrifices and self-denials 
which the religion of Christ requires of its 
disciples. That the gospel does make these 
a condition of discipleship is plain to every 
mind. Whosoever doth not ' ' deny himself, and 
take up his cross," cannot be my disciple. 
Again and again are Christians said to sacri- 
fice all for Christ, and to be crucified to the 
world. Now what these Scripture represen- 
tations mean may be learned by the practical 
lives of God's people, for they profess to be 



94 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

living such lives of self-denial, to deny ungod- 
liness and worldly lust, and to 'live soberly, 
righteously, and godly in this present world. 
In them the impenitent find what religion pro- 
hibits ; how it 'separates its follower from the 
world; how it lays its cross upon him, and 
calls upon him to bear reproach and shame 
and wrong and persecution for Christ's sake. 
Such a testimony Christians are bound to 
give; and blessed be Grod, they have been 
able to give it in all ages of the world. For, 
They are Grod's witnesses in their endur- 
ance of suffering for Christ. Even when laid 
aside from the active, stirring duties of life, 
and passing through seasons of sore trial, they 
are still in the service of Christ, and giving to 
the world a most valuable testimony of the 
sustaining and comforting power of his relig- 
ion. Witness-bearers they are still, when 
they endure with a cheerful patience the 
wearisome nights which are appointed to them, 
and in the midst of disease and the sinkings 
of nature can tell to all around them of a 
peace which passeth all understanding, of a 
joy and hope which are undimmed by all the 



GOD'S WITNESSES. 95 

distress of the present hour. Who can meas- 
ure the influence which the religion of Christ 
has gained in the world through this kind of 
testimony? — a testimony which the witnesses 
have given in when their eves were suffused 
with tears, and earthly misfortunes pressed 
sore upon them — a testimony plaintively whis- 
pered in the dark midnight of affliction, from 
the couches of languishing, the chambers of be- 
reavement, and the graves of the lost and the 
loved. It many a time seems that the Chris- 
tianas usefulness is gone, when he is no longer 
able to sing in the sanctuary and engage in 
active labors for Christ ; but it is often far 
otherwise. Though life's scenes be changed, 
he is bearing witness still ; and through 
months of inlirmity and suffering is telling 
the world what Christ can do to cheer and 
comfort when all other comfort is gone. "Ye 
are still my witnesses," says the Redeemer to 
his people, "even when I chasten you sorely; 
and through your testimony the world shall 
know of my powder to save and comfort." 

But though all the sufferings of God's 
people are made to testify of the power of His 



96 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

grace, special significance attaches to those 
which are endured directly for Christ, which 
arise from the hatred and persecution of the 
world. Of those who, in past ages, have seal- 
ed their testimony with their blood, who in the 
dungeon, at the stake, and on the scaffold have 
owned Christ and defied the rage of their tor- 
mentors — of such emphatically Christ says, 
"Ye are my witnesses." The very word 
martyr signifies a witness, in the Greek 
language. 

And the testimony of such as have suffered 
and died for Jesus has carried with it a power 
which none can measure. It has forced con- 
viction on the minds of the bitterest^enemies 
of the cross, and taught the world how a be- 
liever can triumph over suffering, and conquer 
death. Though nowadays but little of this 
kind of testimony is heard, except what is 
echoed down from past centuries of the 
church's conflicts, still believers are bound to 
testify many times against the scoffs and opposi- 
tion of the ungodly. Their lives and example 
must, even now, frequently speak out boldly 
against the prevailing iniquity, and testify in 



GOD'S WITNESSES. 97 

the face of scorn and loss and bitter oppo- 
sition. But it is a good confession when you 
stand up for Christ, and meet the bufifetings 
of the world for it. For every stripe you re- 
ceive there seems to come an echo from the 
upper throne, most cheering, "Ye are my 
witnesses." 

We have thus endeavored to show the po- 
sition which Christians occupy in the world as 
witnesses for God. They testify to men what 
the religion of the gospel actually means, 
what it is, and what it can do for sinners. 
They tell to a doubting world that it is a real- 
ity. They have tested it in their experience ; 
have tried its hopes and promises, and tasted 
its saving power. The ignorant and unbeliev- 
ing world can go to them and ask questions, 
examine them, and demand to know all about 
the cross, and the whole system of salvation 
which centres there. 

These witnesses are speaking all the time. 
Their lives are voiceful everywhere. In the 
family, and in the church; in the marts of 
business, and the intercourse of social life ; 
in the days of sunshine and prosperity, and 



Bible KmbWnig. 



98 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

the nights of gloom and sorrow, the world is 
listening to what they say, and canvassing 
their evidence. Their testimony is long and 
full. It is either for or against their Master. 
Christ Jesus is willing that his religion 
shall be tried by the lives of his disciples. 
What other system will bear to be put to such 
a test? Did scepticism ever proclaim its tri- 
umphs thus? Did the philosophic infidelity of 
the last century dare to boast of France re- 
deemed from superstition under the reign of 
terror, and point to Danton, Mirabeau, Robes- 
pierre, and the heroes of the guillotine, and 
say, These are my witnesses? Would Paine 
and Bolingbroke ever think of summoning 
from the foul attics and purlieus of vice and 
degradation their begrimed followers, educated 
in their tenets, and proclaim to the world, Be- 
hold, these are our witnesses? Does Univer- 
salism ever muster its motley crew from the 
dram-shops, the gambling hells, and the broth- 
els, and parade them before the public gaze to 
testify what it can do for man^s moral welfare 
and restoration? No. Every system of false- 
hood and error shrinks from the ordeal, and 



GOD'S WITNESSES. 99 

would hide its disciples from observation, 
rather than stand them up before the world, 
saying, These are my witnesses. 

But Christianity dares to do what no other 
system dares. God has written his great 
scheme of salvation on the page of revelation. 
But while a doubting, unbelieving world is 
slow to study and receive it, he sets his peo- 
ple boldly up before them, and challenges them 
to read in their lives and doings what his re- 
ligion can accomplish. Look here, he bids 
an ungodly world, and judge what the cross 
can do. Trace the influence of the gospel 
upon these who have accepted it, and tried it, 
and hear what they are saying of its power 
and grace ; for they are my witnesses, saith 
the Lord. 

Such is the Christian's attitude before the 
world : testifying every hour, speaking through 
all his life for Christ. Oh what a blessed, an 
exalted privilege ! Oh what an awful respon- 
sibility! Every member of the church is in 
this position; every professing Christian is 
testifying. And, fellow-witnesses, what is the 
testimony we are giving? Are any disposed 



100 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

to shrink back from the position? Are any 
conscious that their lives do not read weir for 
Christ? There is no escaping from the re- 
sponsibility. Ye who have made a profession 
of Christ before the world are committed. 
Ye have taken the witness-stand, and the 
world is hearing you. Professing Christians, 
the voice of God Almighty says, "Ye are my 
witnesses, '' and there is no escape for you. 
You have spoken; you have got to speak. 
You may seal up your lips, but your very 
silence speaks. "Ye are my witnesses." 

Hear it, ye professors, when ye go out into 
the world of ungodliness ; when ye stand in 
the market-place for gain, and deal with a 
world of covetousness and greed ; when ye 
seek for pleasure and preferment : ' ' Ye are 
my witnesses." Hear it when tempted to 
step aside and hold your religion in abeyance 
for a season, that you may join hands with the 
careless and the vain : ' ' Ye are my witnesses." 
Ye cannot drop your vocation ; ye cannot stop 
the testimony. Gro where you will, it follows 
you. Was your hoarse laugh heard in the 
saloon, among the fast young men whose eyes 



GOD'S AVITNESSES. 101 

were red over the wine-cup? Were ye seen 
in the companies of fashion and dissipation, 
whirling in the dance, rattling the dice, or 
bending over the card- table? Have ye for- 
saken the services of devotion, the sanctuary, 
and the prayer-meeting, for the society of 
open worldliness and ungodliness? Ye have 
not done testifying yet. God Almighty's 
voice follows you, and rings in your ears, "Ye 
are my witnesses." Your testimony may have 
been dishonoring to God ; it may have been 
damaging to the cause of Christ; but God 
claims you as his witnesses, and will settle with 
you when he comes to review the testimony 
at the judgment-day. And your false, treach- 
erous souls, blackened with the damning guilt 
of a life-long perjury, will meet a doom which 
will make the hell of lesser sinners, when com- 
pared with it, seem almost a heaven. 



102 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

VI. 
Ilnristians Ihinittg* 

LET YOUR LIGHT SO SHINE BEFOEE MEN, THAT 
THEY MAY SEE YOUR GOOD WORKS, AND GLORIFY 
YOUR FATHER WHICH IS IN HEAVEN. Matt. 5:16. 

The people of Grod are the light of the 
world — luminous bodies, shining amid the 
moral darkness around them. 

Two kinds of bodies, in the physical world, 
are mediums of light. Those which are in 
their very substance luminous, as the sun, the 
fixed stars, or a burning lamp. These shine 
by virtue of their own properties. Their light 
is inherent and underived. Another class of 
bodies shine only by reflected light. Opaque 
in their nature, they send back only those rays 
which are sent upon them. Such are the 
moon, the planets and their satellites — lumin- 
ous only upon the surface, but dark within. 

In a certain degree. Christians resemble 
this latter class of bodies ; but not altogether. 
The light they possess is indeed a derived 
light, and not self-originated. They are by 



CHRISTIANS SHINING. 103 

nature dark and rayless ; but the light which 
has shone upon them penetrates beyond the 
surface, and makes the very inner soul lumin- 
ous with its radiance. It generates light: it 
transforms them into living light-bearers. 
They not only reflect the beams which fall 
upon the surface, but send forth from within 
new rays of moral brightness. "God," says 
the apostle, "who commanded the light to 
shine out of darkness, hath shined in our 
hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of 
the glory of Grod in the face of Jesus Christ." 

Christians, then, are not mere reflectors, 
luminous only on the surface ; but they radiate 
light from their own inner being. This light 
is owing to the illuminating power of the Holy 
Spirit, awakening, converting, and sanctifying 
them. By that power they are made in the 
image of Christ, and saved. Such is the light 
they possess — a light enkindled within them, 
and reflected from them. 

Our Saviour teaches, in the text, that this 
light which they have 7nust shi7ie through their 
practical lives and conduct. ' ' Let your light so 
shine before men, that they may see your good 



104 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

works, and glorify your Father which is in 
heaven." It is the very nature of light to 
shine. Christians shine through their holy 
lives. Their good works are the rays which 
they emit. The world sees them, and judges 
of them. In all they say and do for Grod, in 
the spirit which they manifest, and the exam- 
ple they exhibit, they scatter light around 
them. Other men see it. 

The tendency of this is to prompt others 
to glorify God the Father^ — "that they, seeing 
your good works, may glorify your Father 
which is in heaven." This too must be the 
motive to prompt Christians to diligence in 
good works. It is not to exalt themselves, 
but to honor Grod. Not to establish a ground 
of merit in the sight of God, not to build up 
a righteousness of their own, do they strive 
for a holy life, but to glorify God. Not to 
shine and bedazzle others by the splendor of 
their virtue ; but to shed around them that 
light which they have received, to reflect the 
beams which have illuminated them, and there- 
by lead others to praise and glorify God for 
his wondrous work of grace in them. 



CHBISTIANS SHINING. 105 

Hence we derive the proposition thai; God's 
people, redeemed by tlie blood of Christ, and 
regenerated by the Holy Spirit, are shining 
ones, exhibiting the glory of God, beyond any 
other of his creatures or works. 

In illustrating this proposition I remark, 
that God is revealed to us only through his 
works. "No man hath seen God at any 
time." Purely spiritual in his nature, and 
infinite in his perfections, we cannot know 
him, except through his works. How he 
is known to angels and the pure spirits of 
heaven, we cannot tell ; but to us, the Lord is 
known by the operation of his hands. His 
character and glory are reflected to us by his 
doings. Yet the different works of God man- 
ifest to us his glory in different degrees, ac- 
cording to their nature. 

1. His material creation exhibits to us his 
omnipotence, his wisdom, skill, and greatness. 
When we cast our eyes upward and view the 
boundless fields of immensity studded with 
suns and satellites, sweeping the trackless ter- 
ritories of space with no discord or confusion, 
and til en turn our eye earthward and survey 

5* 



106 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

the infinite variety oi material objects around 
us, with properties varying endlessly, and yet 
all combined in one beautiful and harmonious 
whole, our minds cannot resist the impression 
of the might, the grandeur, the magnificence 
of Deity. Here we behold his glory as the 
great Architect, the omnipotent Creator. 

2. But when we advance from mere lifeless 
matter to his doings with living, sentient 
creatures, who are capable of enjoyment and 
of suffering, these exhibit his glory in a higher 
perfection than any material handiwork ; for 
here appears the goodness and benevolence of 
God, seen in the constitution of these creatures 
for happiness, and the abundant means which 
he has provided for their well-being. In 
moulding and shaping the material universe 
into an infinite variety of forms, God publishes 
his glory as a skilful and mighty builder ; but 
when he comes to people these material worlds 
with sentient creatures, and displays an adap- 
tation of all to promote their enjoyment, then 
does the Deity rise far above the place of a 
mere architectural designer, and proclaim his 
kindness and his love. The irrational crea- 



CHRISTIANS SHINING. 107 

tion, from the summer insect which sports out 
its brief existence in the sunbeams, to the 
flocks and herds which range the valleys 
clothed with verdure, all unite their testimony 
that God is good, and his tender mercies are 
over all his works. 

Ascend now a step higher. Follow up the 
scale of being from mere sentient, irrational 
creatures, to moral, responsible intelligences. 
Here is reflected a new class of the Creator's 
attributes. Here there shines a glory which 
the whole material universe never could re- 
veal. In creating and dealing with moral 
agents, endowed with reason and moral sense, 
the Almighty manifests the truth, the justice, 
and the holiness of his character. These glo- 
rious perfections of God rise infinitely above 
his mere natural attributes ; and they require 
creatures endowed with a moral nature, and 
under a moral government, in order to their 
manifestation. God might build worlds upon 
worlds, and deck them with far more gorgeous 
splendors than are flung over this one we live 
on ; but were they unpeopled by any rational 
intelligences, they could publish nothing of 



108 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

God's glory, except that he was a builder of 
mighty power and skill. This is what Nature, 
in her works, declares of God. But when 
God calls into, being his moral creation, he 
advances far beyond the position of a mere 
architect, an almighty builder, to that of a 
moral governor ; and in the unfoldings of his 
character we discover what we never could 
see elsewhere, the beauty of holiness, the maj- 
esty of justice, the excellency of truth. 

These lofty perfections of the divine nature 
are reflected in His dealings with moral beings, 
and nowhere else. In rewarding holiness, and 
punishing transgression, Jehovah exhibits the 
transcendent purity of his own being. Holy 
angels in their raptures, and fallen angels in 
their woes, reflect the moral glory of the 
Godhead. In dealing with them, God pub- 
lishes to the universe his supreme regard for 
his holy law, and that "righteousness and 
judgment are the habitation of his throne." 

Is there any higher glory than this possi- 
ble? Are there any perfections of God back 
of these which wait to be revealed; any grander 
purposes and movements of the divine mind 



CHRISTIANS SHINING. 109 

which can enhance the lustre of his character, 
and add to the splendor of that "light, inac- 
cessible, and full of glory,'' which surrounds 
his dwelling-place ? Yes, there are. 

It is in his relations and dealings with 
redeemed men, in saving sinners, and restoring 
them from a fallen, ruined state, to holiness 
and bliss. Here is a new glory thrown around 
his character, a new theatre of action. Here 
the divine mind grapples with the great prob- 
lem of moral evil, and proposes to save the 
sinner without compromising His truth and 
holiness. Here the perfections of love and 
mercy, compassion and forbearance, favor to 
the wretched, grace to the undeserving, all 
break forth. 

These perfections of God's nature could 
never have been known to his intelligent 
universe without a plan of salvation for sin- 
ners. The angels in the realms of holiness 
never could have called them into exercise. 
Much as God might delight to reward and 
bless them, he could not show aught of com- 
passion or grace to them, for there could be 
no possible room for God to exercise any such 



no BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

dispositions towards such beings. Mercy can 
be exercised only towards tlie wretched, grace 
only to the unworthy, long-suffering and for- 
bearance only towards the guilty ; but in the 
case of holy beings, God can find nothing to 
forgive, nothing to bear with, nothing to de- 
velop the riches of his grace. 

We see then, how redeemed sinners ex- 
hibit the glory of God in a strange and pecul- 
iar light. When God moves to save them, he 
displays a new class of perfections, which never 
could be known except as they are here mani- 
fested. Every Christian is a. living epistle, 
publishing something of God which the intelli- 
gent universe can read nowhere else. Every 
Christian declares that God is a God of in- 
finite grace and mercy, long-suffering and for- 
giving ; a God full of compassion and love. 
He is a living witness to these perfections, 
for he is a guilty creature rescued from sin 
and hell. In him God displays precisely those 
traits of his character which awaken the pro- 
foundest admiration of his creatures, which 
attract them towards him, which enkindle love. 
Indeed we may say that, were it not for the 



CHRISTIANS SHINING. Ill 

plan of salvation for sinners, there wonlcl exist 
in the divine nature a class of perfections of 
which his creatures must be for ever ignorant. 
But this plan lifts the veil, and bids us be- 
hold the infinite heart of Grod. The Christian 
is the being in whom God displays these ex- 
cellences ; he is the trophy of grace ; he re- 
flects the glory of the Godhead beyond any 
thing seen in all other creatures. None but 
he can testify of Jehovah's boundless grace 
and compassion, of the triumph of infinite 
wisdom and love in baffling the arts of Satan, 
and rescuing a lost sinner from hell and fitting 
him for heaven. This work is the climax of 
Jehovah's undertakings, and the Bible plainly 
teaches that to angelic minds there are no 
operations of the Godhead, throughout his 
vast dominions, which can compare with this 
in interest and in glory. 

Again, as has been already remarked, 
Christians are not mere reflectors of God's 
glory; but there is a light beaming from 
within them which makes them luminous, for 
they are made to resemble Christ in their 
character ; they are created anew in the image 



112 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

of Christ; they are begotten of him, and are 
said to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ." A.11 
true Christians do thus resemble, at least in 
some degree, the Saviour. 

But Christ is the grandest manifestation of 
the Grodhead ever made to creatures. He was 
' ' the brightness of the Father's glory, and 
the express image of his person." No other 
display of the Godhead can be compared with 
that of the Word made flesh. And surely it 
must follow that creatures who resemble him 
must reflect, in the highest degree, the glory 
of God. Angels may be perfect in holiness, 
but their character does not present the same 
moral aspect as that of Christians who have 
been saved and sanctified. Both will be holy ; 
but in the character of a perfectly sanctified 
Christian there will appear many things which 
an angel never can exhibit. It will resemble 
that of Christ more than that of Gabriel, and 
in so doing will manifest the glory of God as 
it shone in the face of Jesus Christ. 

To what an honorable and exalted position 
does the Bible advance the Christian ! Set in 
the firmament of intelligent beings, he shines 



CHRISTIANS SHINING. 113 

with a peculiar light, like a star whose beams 
emit a peculiar halo, and whose twinkling 
disc wears a brighter effulgence than its fel- 
lows. ' ' The heavens declare the glory of God, 
and the firmament showeth his handiwork." 
Angels reflect that glory in a higher degree ; 
but sinners raised from guilt and ruin, and 
made sons of God, furnish the grandest exhi- 
bition of the divine perfections ever made. 
Such is the relation Christians sustain to God 
and to other intelligences — they are reflectors 
of God's glory. 

But when I read my text I learn that they 
are not mere passive reflectors. They are to 
give light not merely as polished mirrors hung 
in the sunbeams ; they are to shine from within, 
as well as on the surface. There must be a 
settled aim and purpose 'to scatter light about 
them. ''Let your light so shine," says Christ. 
The word "so" here implies that you have a 
deep responsibility as to the kind of light you 
give, and the effect produced by it. It is a 
light which must be made to shine through 
your good works, your holy lives. And those 
works must be prosecuted in such a way that 



lU BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

men shall be led by them to "glorify your 
Father which is in heaven.'' Here is the great 
law of Christian activity : that all you do shall 
be done in a way which shall tell for the glory 
of God. Christian friend, here is the govern- 
ing principle of your life. It requires you to 
act with reference to the good of others. It 
bids you keep ever in view the influence of 
your conduct upon those around you. 'Tis a 
high, a noble principle — the glor}^ of Grod. 
'T is an unselfish principle, which will enable 
you to display to the world all the graces of a 
hol}^ life without pride or ostentation, and so 
to walk that men will give God the glory of 
any good they find in you. 

Ah, we fear it is a principle too often 
wanting, even with those who profess to be 
God's people. Many have no objection to let 
their light shine while they can be appreci- 
ated; many are willing that others shall see 
their good works, and glorify themselves for 
them ; many will devote their time and labor 
to the cause of Christ so long as they can have 
the preeminence, and impress others with the 
idea of their own importance. Their light 



CHRISTIANS SHINING. 115 

will sliine, but shine only to let the world see 
their own perfections, and pay homage to their 
sanctity. 

But far different from this is the spirit of 
a Christian's service. It is not self, but God 
who must have all the glory. Let it so shine, 
says Christ, that it shall lead all who see it to 
render God the glory. Let ungodly men learn 
from your holy lives the reality and excellency 
of that salvation which you have tasted. Let 
the light of your example shine so that they 
too shall be led to seek the same divine illu- 
mination. Let all your works point them to 
that Redeemer who has called you out of 
darkness, and prompt them to seek him as 
their own. Thus will they glorify your 
Father which is in heaven. 

Such is the spirit of the Saviour's words 
before us, and the practical inquiry for us all 
is, How do our lives correspond with this 
spirit? 

First of all, have we really any light to 
shed around us ? A mere profession is worth- 
less as an empty lamp. Have our hearts been 
illuminated by divine grace ? Has the dark- 



116 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

ness of guilt and ignorance and error been 
scattered there ; and have we tasted the 
sweets of pardon, peace, and sanctiiication ? 

Depend upon it, we can give no light to \ 
others without first having our own hearts 
illuminated by the Holy Spirit. A mere pro- 
fession of religion, unaccompanied by the ac- 
tive virtues of piety, will give no light. Let 
us then look closely within, and ask. Have 
we any light of grace ourselves ? And in 
connection with this, and following it, will 
come the inquiry, What good are we doing to 
the world by it ? Oh, my brethren, the Sav- 
iour bids us look around us upon our fellow- 
men and ask, What has all our religion 
amounted to ? What have we accomplished for 
God's glory ? How much light have we scatter- 
ed? Whom have we enlightened and saved 
through our Christian influence ? What souls 
have we led to repentance and belief in Jesus 
Christ ? Has our light shone to any purpose ? 
Have we been the instruments of instructing 
and saving others ? Inquiries like these must 
come upj for God's people are the light of the 
world, and their mission is to reflect his 



CHRISTIANS SHINING. 117 

glory as no seraph even can do it. It there- 
fore follows that the question of your influence 
upon the world around has vitally to do with 
the question whether you are a child of God 
at all ; for if there is no light radiating from 
your life, there is none in you. If your light 
does not shine, it is because you have none ; 
wherever it exists in the soul it must shine out. 

Every Christian has a positive influence 
for good. All do not shine with equal power 
and brilliancy, but they shine. Some scatter 
their rays far and wide, and become the moral 
lights of their generation, and some only 
glimmer like a feeble taper ; but even the taper 
gives light to some, and so ever}^ Christian 
must shed rays of light upon some soul. 

Christian friends, where are those rays 
falling from your lives and conversation ? 
Whose way do they enlighten? Do your 
children see them? And have you, by the 
lustre of your Christian example, led a single 
soul to Christ ? Oh look well to the influence 
you are exerting. Beware lest your profes- 
sion be in vain ; for " if the light that is in you 
be' darkness, how great is that darkness !" 



118 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

VII. 

AND IT CAME TO PASS AT THE END OF FORTY DAYS, 
• THAT NOAH OPENED THE WINDOW OF THE AEK 
WHICH HE HAD MADE : AND HE SENT FORTH A 
RAVEN, WHICH WENT FORTH TO AND FRO, UNTIL 
THE WATERS WERE DRIED UP FROM OFF THE 
EARTH. ALSO HE SENT FORTH A DOVE FROM HIM, 
TO SEE IF THE WATERS WERE ABATED FROM OFF 
THE FACE OF THE GROUND. BUT THE DOVE 
FOUND NO REST FOR THE SOLE OF HER FOOT, AND 
SHE RETURNED UNTO HIM INTO THE ARK ; FOR 
THE WATERS WERE ON THE FACE OF THE WHOLE 
EARTH. Genesis 8:6-9. 

The narrative which contains these words 
introduces us to one of the darkest and most 
desolate periods in the history of our world. 
Rapid and appalling had been the progress of 
human degeneracy. Religion and virtue had 
well-nigh become extinct, and all flesh had 
corrupted its way on the earth. The good 
men of the antediluvian age were dead, while 
but one of the hoary patriarchs was left to 
bear witness for Jehovah before a God-despis- 
ing generation, and to perpetuate the succes- 
sion of the faithful in the world. It was time 
for God to work, for men had made void his 



THE RAVEN AND THE DOVE. 119 

law. The vast population of this globe was 
swept away by a deluge of waters — that most 
awful visitation of divine vengeance, the evi- 
dences of which are to this day found, and 
the traditions of which are preserved among 
the primitive nations of every continent. 

Eighteous Noah and his household were 
alone preserved by special divine interposi- 
tion. Forewarned of God, he prepared an 
ark for the saving of himself and his family, 
which in due time was freighted with the rem- 
nant of the human race and pairs of the vari- 
ous tribes of the irrational creation, and float- 
ed upon the wide waste of waters, beneath 
which lay buried all the monuments of an 
apostate and heaven-daring generation. 

Forty long days were numbered after the 
flood began to abate, and still the huge ark 
floated on the boundless deep, and the patri- 
arch's heart grew anxious about the future. 
With a trembling hand he opened the window 
of the ark, and sent forth the raven to seek 
for some tidings of a buried world ; but the 
bird came not back. Though the waters were 
dark and the desolation unbroken, still she re- 



120 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

turned not to the friendly shelter which had 
so long protected her, but chose to allay the 
cravings of hunger, and live amid the wrecks 
and ruins which drifted to and fro upon the 
broad abyss. Days again pass slowly away. 
Another messenger is dispatched to seek for 
tidings. The dove leaves the window of the 
ark, and spreads her pinions and soars away 
over the wild expanse ; but the unpropitious 
skies are overhead, the green fields and shady 
woodlands are gone ; no nourishment is found 
amid the shattered fragments, and no objects 
of delight are seen across the dreary wastes. 
The raven may perch upon the drifting offal, 
and screech out its hoarse notes amid the aw- 
ful solitudes ; but the timorous dove, finding 
no rest for the sole of her foot, hastens her 
flight back to the patriarch, and nestles securely 
in the friendly ark. 

There are materials for profitable reflec- 
tion in this simple story. Let us condescend 
to learn lessons of true wisdom from the raven 
and the dove. ^ 

1. In the solitary ark floating securely on 
the flood you may discover no unfit emblem 



THE BAVEN AND THE DOVE. 121 

of that only s])iritual refuge which God has 
provided for our ruined race in the person 
and work of his Son Jesus Christ. The fear- 
ful apostasy of our first parent drove our race 
out upon an ocean of gloom and of peril. The 
special presence and favor of the Almighty 
was withdrawn, though his providential care 
over us as his creatures remained. But pur- 
poses of mercy were yet cherished in the 
divine mind, and the plan oi salvation was 
revealed through Jesus Christ. 

Here alone, in Christ, God manifests to us 
his gracious presence. Xowhere else in all 
the departments of his works does he admit us 
to his fellowship, or speak to us of his mercy. 
Take away from the world the special mani- 
festation of God in Christ, and there is no way 
left for man to hold any communion with his 
Maker, no pledge of mercy or grace to him, 
no hope of security and happiness in the favor 
of his Sovereign. Man is left to drift on the 
dark billows of sin without a ray of deliverance, 
and without a single speck floating upon the 
wide expanse to tell him that he is not utterly 
abandoned to destracttoft. 

HR.ie Fmlilems. 6 



122 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

But never has our world i^resented such 
an aspect of hopeless desolation. Even in the 
awful catastrophe of the deluge, when conti- 
nents and isles with their teeming population 
were buried deep in the abyss of waters, and 
the sunbeams glistened only upon the bound- 
less sea — then, when this rolling orb, which 
on the day of its creation looked fair and beau- 
teous among the morning stars, had been 
transformed into a wandering beacon of al- 
might}^ wrath — there was left one memento of 
lingering mercy, one solitary testimonial that 
Jehovah's presence and favor were not clean 
gone for ever ; for the ark floated upon the 
face of the waters. Terrible as was the spec- 
tacle which the deluged globe presented of 
Grod's vengeance, still the storm-proof ark 
which sheltered the patriarch proclaimed the 
precious truth that there was one spot left 
where God appeared in mercy, one place of 
refuge and security for those who would em- 
brace it, one point where hope gleamed over 
the future, and where God delighted to bo 
gracious. 

The ark was the symbol of that more glc- 



THE RAVEN AND THE DOVE. 123 

rious Ark of safety provided for lost men in 
the salvation of Jesus Christ. Out of Christ 
the world is dark and stormy, and God is a 
consuming fire. On the tempestuous ocean of 
guilt we are tossed to and fro, and no bright 
isles of innocence lift their heads along the 
horizon and invite us to their secure retreats. 
The salvation scheme of Jesus Christ is the 
only refuge. Here alone God is seen hover- 
ing over the waters, and speaking of reconcil- 
iation and fellowship. Nowhere else has he 
offered to us a shelter ; but to this God-pro- 
vided Ark we are bidden to flee for refuge, 
which is amply furnished against every emer- 
gency, and which will safely bear us up . 
through the floods of temptation and the bil- 
lows of death, and finally bring us to the 
haven of rest beyond the grave. 

To its sacred enclosure we are invited, as 
the last spot where the soul can find its recon- 
ciled God. Outside the elements are raging, 
the night of guilt is brooding, the thunders of 
Sinai are muttering, and the dun-colored sky 
is lurid with the flashes of impending wrath ; 
within is the presence of God, the assurance 



124 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

of peace, and the hope of heaven. Over the 
wastes of a fallen and sin-ruined world ap- 
pears the salvation of Jesus Christ like the 
ark of the patriarch riding out the storms of 
the deluge. Here Grod is dwelling with men. 
Here is rest to the storm-driven soul. Here 
its guilt and alienation are put away from it, 
and it no longer lives without Grod and with- 
out hope. We have then discovered, in the 
ark which God directed Noah to build for the 
saving of himself and his family, a type of 
Christ and his salvation. 

Let me now ask you to advance a step, 
and contemplate in the raven and the dove a 
representation of two o])])osite descriptions of 
human character. The one, that which finds 
no enjoyment in the presence and favor of 
Christ, and sees and feels no necessity for the 
provisions of salvation which are made in him ; 
the other, that which is ever turning from the 
supports of this world and its delusive prom- 
ises to seek its refuge and its resting-place in 
the presence of Christ and the favor of God, 
which flies to the hope set before it in the 
gospel, and nestles securely in the bosom of 



THE RAYEN AND THE DOVE. 125 

the Saviour. The&e two characters are the 
ungodly and the Christian — the children of 
this world and the children of God — differing 
in their tastes and habits and conduct from 
each other as the raven differs from the dove. 

The ark where God and the jjatriarch 
dwelt together was no welcome retreat for the 
raven. Though it had saved the wild bird 
from inevitable destruction, and for many a 
weary day had carried it safely above the an- 
gry flood, still in the society which it afforded 
or the associations which it furnished there 
was naught that w^as congenial to its untamed 
nature ; but preferring to roam unprotected, 
even amid solitude and gloom, it instinctively 
seized upon the first opportunity to escape 
what was indeed its friendly asylum, but which 
appeared to it only a prison-house. On the 
threshold of the open window the raven flap- 
ped its wings and soared away. Farewell to 
the ark, screamed the wild bird in the air, 
while the good old patriarch stood for a mo- 
ment to watch its flight. 

Though the scene without was one of un- 
bounded desolation, where the storm clouds 



126 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

revelled and the fierce winds ble^y and dashed 
the dark-crested waves madly against the sky ; 
though the fields where it once fed, and the 
tall trees Avhere it was wont to build its nest 
were buried many a fathom deep beneath the 
floods, and all that was once fair and beautiful 
on earth was gone, still the bird of storm 
turned not homeward to the quiet ark ; still 
in vain the patriarch opened again and again 
the window, and leaned upon the casement 
long and anxiously, to look out for the absent 
messenger. The bird would not come back. 
The sun goes down in clouds, and night set- 
tles slowly on the deep, but no return. The 
cravings of hunger are felt, but the carnivo- 
rous rover despises the well-stored granaries 
of the ark, and makes its evening meal out of 
the carcasses that drift upon the waters. 
Perched upon some floating ruin, it croaks 
out its hoarse requiem over the sepulchres of 
the unnumbered dead, and sleeps without a 
dream of the far-off ark. 

Look yonder at that kaven, and behold an 
emblem of lost and straying man without God 
in the world. No truth is more universallj^ 



THE EAVEN AND THE DOVE. 127 

certain, than that man's real happiness and 
welfare is to be sought only in the smile and 
favor of his Grod. The more the human soul 
is brought into unison with its Maker — the 
nearer it advances to Deity — the more im- 
mediately it feels the presence of God and 
draws its, supplies from him, the more sure is 
its present peace and its future bliss. It was 
once happy in this condition. Adam and God 
were friends. The primary effect of sin has 
ever been to separate man from God. The 
example of our first parents in hiding them- 
selves among the trees of the garden, from the 
voice of the Lord, is an example which has 
been imitated by all the generations of their 
descendants. But the intervening distance 
between us and God has been surmounted by 
the Mediator. The fearful chasm has been 
spanned, and God now draws nigh unto us in 
the gospel of his Son, and invites us to draw 
nigh to him. Here, in the plan of salvation, 
he bids us accept of his grace. Here is the 
ark of safety, where no thunderbolts of his 
wrath will strike us, but where we may rest 
securely from the storms of the present life, 



128 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

and the retributions of the coming one. Here 
we are told to flee for refuge and hope. And 
once sheltered in this ark of salvation, we may 
have Grod our friend, and Jesus our Saviour. 
An open door is set before us, and the invita- 
tion given, " Come thou and all thy house into 
the ark." 

But carnal man prefers to roam. Tossed 
upon the troubled waters of life, where all is 
danger and uncertainty, he still persists in 
neglecting the great salvation, and like the 
raven, flies to and fro in search of happiness 
and safety. Life, to men without God, is but a 
chartless ocean, over which they course their 
way amid floating wrecks and ruins, vainly 
bent on satisfying the soul. High on the 
waters rides the ark of mercy, and the voice 
of God is heard inviting them to enter. But 
though the skies of life are so changing, and 
its waters so dark and troubled, that they oft- 
times feel the need of better resources, still 
they look not to the gospel, but toil and fly 
from one to another quarter, crying, Who will 
show us any good? They want nothing to do 
with God. They care not for his favor. They 



THE RAVEN AND THE DOVE. 129 

prefer to live as far away as possible, and seek 
all their support amid the resources of the 
world. 

Look at the sceptic, who, giving himself 
over to the dominion of infidelity, would blot out 
eternity from the future, and would repudiate 
the very being and the presence of the Al- 
mighty. As he travels through life away from 
God, and with no hope for the future ; as im- 
mortality is to him a blank, and the world 
naught but chaos over which destiny and 
chance preside, and death is an eternal night, 
to what shall we liken him, but to the raven, 
far off from home, flapping its wings in the 
empty air where every thing that once breath- 
ed was dead, and where all was silence, deso- 
lation, and gloom. 

Watch the men that toil for the riches of 
this world, who day by day ply their exhausting 
labors, and nightly dream of treasure heaps 
and gold, while God is put far from their every 
thought, and the gospel is neglected, and eter- 
nity thrust away from them, and the soul is 
left to glean its only comforts amid the per- 
ishable and fading possessions of earth, like 

G* 



130 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

the wandering bird scouring the unbroken 
main, and seeking its abiding place among the 
floating wrecks of ruined palaces of bygone 
splendor. 

Or what shall we say of those who banish 
from their minds the thoughts of God, and live 
only in the round of sensual indulgences, 
prostituting their every faculty to the service 
of the basest appetites, mid giving an un- 
bridled rein to sensual propensities ? Where 
shall we find their prototype, but in the bird 
of prey that loved to breathe the putrid air, 
and gorge its appetite upon the carcasses which 
the waves washed up. 

In short, differ as men may in their indi- 
vidual tastes and habits, there is this one 
prominent characteristic belonging to them 
all — an utter estrangement from God and 
Christ : an estrangement so inveterate, that 
all the trials and afflictions and disap- 
pointments of life are insufiicient to bring 
them to seek security in him. Like the wan- 
dering raven, they fly from one to another 
refuge ; "but none saith. Where is God my 
Maker, that giveth songs in the night ?" 



THE KAVEN AND THE DOVE. 131 

We turn now to consider the opposite de- 
scription of character which is symbolized by 
the DOVE, which found no rest for the sole of 
her foot, and hastened back to the ark. 

It- is the Christian who has been brought 
near to God, and lives in the enjoyment of his 
presence. Once, like the raven, he loved to 
wander, and with the ungodly around him, he 
careered his way without Grod, and chased to 
and fro the vanities of this world. But by 
the regenerating grace of God, he is changed 
into a man of another spirit. The alienation 
and distance between him and God have been 
overcome, and he now finds his happiness in 
the felt presence and communion of that God 
from whom he has so long turned away. 

'Tis the peculiar characteristic of the Chris- 
tian, that he seeks, in the favor and presence 
of God, those delights which the ungodly 
strive for in vain among the objects of the 
world. He differs from them in his tastes and 
pursuits. He seeks in one direction, they in 
another. The current of his desires is so 
changed, that he feels estranged where they 
are most at home. What they most value he 



132 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

cares but little for. The company they delight 
in, he has no real sympathy with. He sits 
not in the seat of the scorners, but his delight 
is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth 
he meditate day and night. 

He may engage in the pursuits of secular 
life ; he may be seen in the places of business 
and toil and enterprise, and bear a share in 
the rough struggle of the outdoor world ; yet 
his chief pleasure is not found amid the cares 
of business and the schemes of profit, but in 
the fellowship of God and in the duties of 
devotion. Here his soul abides in peace. The 
service of Christ is congenial to his spiritual 
nature. His better thoughts ever dwell upon 
the unseen and eternal. Business and care 
may crowd upon him through the day ; but 
he turns his footsteps homeward when the 
sun goes down, and like the dove returning to 
the ark, he seeks communion with God in 
the meditations of the closet. It is to him a 
welcome exchange to leave the bustling com- 
panionship of the world for the society of the 
Saviour. While the ungodly revel amid their 
tumultuous gayeties, he finds in the retire- 



THE RAVEN AND THE DOVE. 133 

merit of his devotions those joys that a stran- 
ger intermeddle th not with, and feels that as 
the hart panteth after the water brook, so 
panteth his sonl after God. While tempta- 
tions thicken around him, and strange voices 
are calling to him and bidding him wander 
further and further away, he still finds his 
only security in the presence of the Saviour, 
and flies to him like the dove to the arms of 
the patriarch. 

God is his refuge too in the season of 
affliction and trial. Sometimes the world 
grows doubly dark, and crosses and disap- 
pointments overwhelm his soul ; but the dove 
knows where to turn when the storm rages, 
and he flies for support and consolation to the 
presence of the Redeemer. In the time of 
trouble God will hide him in his pavilion, in 
the secret of his tabernacle will he hide him, 
till these calamities be overpast. It is the 
prevailing desire of the Christian to seek after 
God. Afflictions, crosses, and disappoint- 
ments all drive him there. Like the dove 
wandering with weary wing over the dark 
abyss, he finds no rest for the sole of his foot 



134 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

till lie betakes himself to the hiding-place of 
Jesus, and reflects how, ere long, the rough 
billows of life will be passed, and he shall be 
safely moored in the calm haven of eternit}^ 

Pause here a moment, and reflect upon 
the radical difference between a true Chris- 
tian and a worldling. The one is brought 
nigh unto God ; the other is without God in 
the world. In the prevailing bent and pur- 
pose of their lives they are opposites. Their 
dispositions lead them in contrary directions. 
The providential dealings of God with them 
produce widely different results. The same 
storms of affliction which drive the Christian, 
like the dove, homeward to his refuge, oft- 
times tempt the ungodly to fly, like the raven, 
further and further from the Ark of safety. 
"The wicked will not seek after God." 

These are the two great classes of human 
character which the Bible everywhere distin- 
guishes. To one or the other class we all 
belong. We may multiply our distinctions 
between men as we please, and assign to one 
and another his relative position in the scale 
of human excellence ; but at the last there 



THE RAVEN AND THE DOVE. 135 

will remain but one broad line of separation 
between those who walk with God, and those 
who know him not. Tried by this test, where 
shall we be found ? When the last storm of 
death shall gather, and the world be swept 
away from us, shall we be borne in the Ark 
of safety to the Ararat mountains of the 
heavenly land, and rest beneath the effulgent 
bow of the Redeemer's glory ; or shall we be 
driven out upon the shoreless waters of an 
eternity where the storms never cease their 
fury, and where the blackness of darkness for 
ever broods ? 

This momentous question of our future 
state is being settled by our present charac- 
ter. Are you living now in the fellowship 
and favor of God ? We are told of the patri- 
arch who rode out the deluge, that through the 
long previous years he "walked with God.'^ 
Is such the temper of your soul ? Are you at 
home with Christ? Is God the portion of 
your spirit, and do you love the conscious- 
ness of his presence, and do you fly to him 
for aid ? Can you live here within his cove- 
nant, and conform to his requirements, and 



136 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

lay hold upon his promises ? Can you count 
all things but loss for him, and give up the 
world with its pleasures and its charms for 
the society and the service of the Lord Jesus ? 
Or do you prefer to live a stranger to Christ, 
and a worldling in your desires and habits, 
without a shelter, though eternity must be to 
you a state of exile from all the holy and 
happy family of Grod ? 



THE RAINBOW. 137 

VIII. 

I DO SET MY BOW IN THE CLOUD, AND IT SHALL 
BE FOE A TOKEN OF A COVENANT BETWEEN ME 
AND THE EAKTH. AND IT SHALL COBIE TO 
PASS, WHEN I BEING A CLOUD OVEE THE EAETH, 
THAT THE BOW SHALL BE SEEN IN THE CLOUD. 
Gen. 9 : 13, 14. 

The old world is gone. Its teeming popu- 
lation has been swept away by the besom of 
Jehovah's wrath. The earth has been puri- 
fied by the terrible baptism of water, and 
refitted to be the dwelling-place of new gen- 
erations. Noah and his family are its sole 
inheritors. The human race are starting 
anew as it were, in a new world. 

The Almighty signalized this grand era in 
the world's history by a special manifestation 
of himself to Noah, the chief representative of 
the future generations. He entered into cov- 
enant with him ; he gave him a new grant of 
eminent domain, formally installed him as the 
rightful possessor of the earth, and bade him 
repeople it and rule it. 



138 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

Most cheering must have been such tokens 
of favor and regard from the Almighty to that 
lone, solitary family as they looked over an 
empty, desolate world. 

Although they were saved, yet an air of 
deep sadness and melancholy must have rest- 
ed upon every thing around them. The rec- 
ollection of those awful scenes through which 
they had passed must have haunted their 
thoughts, and troubled their slumbers with 
frightful dreams. What if the sun shone 
again in beauty? What though their children 
should multiply, and they should again build 
cities, and repeople its desolate territories ? 
Would not the storm clouds gather again, and 
the race be swept to destruction by similar 
successive judgments? Ah, would they not 
look up with terror every time the heavens 
grew dark, and fear lest the world should be 
drowned whenever the rain descended ? 

To allay all such apprehensions, while he 
commissioned them to repossess the earth, 
Jehovah assured the patriarch that the deluge 
would never be repeated. He kindly con- 
descended to enter into covenant with Noah, 



THE EAINBOW. 139 

that lie and his posterity need have no fears 
of a second deluge ; and promised that he 
would never do what he had done, and drown 
the world. The text declares to us what was 
the outward sign or token of this covenant: 
"I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be 
for a token of a covenant between me and the 
earth. And it shall come to pass, when I 
bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow 
shall be seen in the cloud." 

The idea that the rainbow was somethino- 
more than a mere natural phenomenon, that 
it was a pledge or token of something which 
God had promised to men, is preserved 
among the traditions of many heathen nations. 
Homer distinctly speaks of it in a remarkable 
passage in the Iliad, where he describes the 
glittering armor of Agamemnon as reflecting 
various lights, like colored rainbows — 

"Jove's wondrous bow, 
Placed, as a sign to man, amid the skies." 

Before considering the spiritual signifi- 
cance of this symbol, the inquiry naturally 
arises, Was the rainbow a new phenomenon in 
the natural world, seen for the iirst time after 



140 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

the deluge ; or had it been a familiar sight to 
the antediluvians ever since the creation, and 
only selected by God and pointed out to Noah 
as a memorial of His promise made to him ? 

The man of science may presume to decide 
this question very easily by showing that the 
rainbow is no supernatural phenomenon, but 
is explained on the simplest principles of 
natural philosophy ; that it is produced by 
the refraction of the sun's rays through drops 
of water falling from the clouds, and is always 
seen when the sun and the clouds come into a 
certain relative position to the beholder ; and 
therefore, that through the centuries previous 
to the deluge, mankind must many a time have 
witnessed the same beautiful arch spanning 
the heavens, and wondered at its variegated 
splendors. 

But there are other considerations which 
have inclined learned and profound scholars 
to the opinion that the rainbow, for the first 
time mentioned in the text, was indeed new 
to Noah and his family, and that the genera- 
tions of men before the flood never gazed 
upon such a sight. 



THE EAINBOW. 141 

We confess a strong bias to this latter view. 
It lends peculiar interest and significancy to 
this token. It is the sign of the promise that 
God will not again drown the world. Clouds 
may gather, storms rage, torrents roar, but 
their fury shall be stayed ; and on the spent and 
receding clouds shall be hung the sun-lit bow, 
and from every tint and hue of its gorgeous 
drapery shall come whisperings of assurance 
to mortals who gaze upon it, that mercy tri- 
umphs over judgment. 

"I will set my bow in the cloud," says 
Jehovah. There, in the midst of the very 
elements which have caused alarm ; there, 
where the lightnings flashed and the thunders 
pealed, and wrath and darkness gloamed over- 
head, there will I write my covenant in lines 
of beauty, and you and your posterity shall 
read it and rejoice. 

But we need not stop with interpreting 
this symbol as a pledge against a mere physi- 
cal overthrow of the world by water. 

We seek for a deeper spiritual significance 
in it. Although in its primary application it was 
a sign of God's covenant with Noah, it leads 



142 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

our minds forward to a more perfect covenant, 
a covenant of grace, in which are contained the 
promises of God which shield his people from 
all spiritual evils which threaten them. . 

The import of the rainbow in its spiritual 
signification is worthy of special notice. We 
do not explain it so generally as some who 
regard it as a symbol of God's willingness to 
receive men into favor again, or that it only 
indicates the Almighty's faithfulness in fulfil- 
ling his promises. We interpret it more spe- 
cially as a symbol of divine protection to 
God's people from imminent and threatening 
dangers- — that protection pledged in the cove- 
nant of grace in Christ Jesus to those who 
have fled for refuge to him. Such seems to 
be the idea conveyed by it in the vision of 
Ezekiel, where he speaks of what he saw over 
the throne above the heavens "as the appear- 
ance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day 
of rain." A similar sight was enjoyed by 
John in Patmos, where in vision he beheld 
the throne in heaven : "And there was a rain- 
bow round about the throne, in sight like unto 
an emerald." 



THE KAINBOW. 143 

These references to the rainbow justify 
us in interpreting it as a symbol of grace 
returning after judgments ; a pledge of Grod's 
promise to stay the course of vengeance, to 
limit threatening evils that they shall not de- 
stroy, to arrest impending dangers, and suc- 
cor his people when they are most exposed 
to destruction. 

The bow in the cloud then is not a mere 
sign of Grod's fidelity to his promises in gen- 
eral, but a particular token of his grace nigh 
at hand in emergencies, a sign for the hour of 
trouble and distress and alarm, a token of 
grace — not when the sky is clear, but when 
the heavens frown, when fear comes to the 
soul and it looks anxiously round for help. 
As a physical phenomenon it had this sig- 
nificancy. God set it in the cloud. It was 
brought forth only in the darkened heavens. 
It was nursed and cradled in the storm. 

When therefore, at summer's sunset, I 
gaze upon the beautiful iris arching the east- 
ern horizon and resting on its dark back- 
ground of clouds, my thoughts go out beyond 
the covenant of Noah to a richer covenant of 



IM BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

grace, and I read in its gorgeous colorings a 
pledge of those provisions against spiritual 
dangers made in the mediatorial work of 
Jesus Christ. While the physical eye is 
delighted with the beauteous spectacle in the 
lower heavens, faith soars upward and sees 
around the throne of the Almighty's glory a 
brighter bow set there through the mediation 
of the incarnate Son. It is the pledge and 
token of grace to sinners. It is the sign of 
the covenant of redemption. 

When, upon the apostasy of man, the 
heavens gathered blackness and the clouds 
of divine wrath swept overhead, portending 
a deluge of divine justice ; when the guilt of 
our transgressions left us with no covering 
from the eternal storm, the eternal God placed 
himself between us and hell, and by his own 
sacrifice upon the cross drew upon himself 
those magazines of vengeance. The divine 
law was satisfied in his atonement ; the clouds 
broke and scattered around the Almighty's 
throne. Light streamed athwart the gloom, 
and the Sun of righteousness, with healing in 
his beams, threw out its rays upon the retir- 



THE EAINBOW. 115 

ing storm, and arched the clouds of justice 
with the brilliant bow of peace and recon- 
ciliation. Every rainbow painted in the natu- 
ral heavens points us to what Christ has done 
in the spiritual world. The physical eyeball 
sees the one, faith gazes upon the other. Both 
are associated with the idea of danger, both 
bespeak security and deliverance. 

You perceive then the spiritual lesson 
conveyed to us by the rainbow in the clouds. 
It tells of God's covenant of grace with his 
people, and the promises under that covenant 
of safety in the midst of fears. 

How adapted is this lesson to the condi- 
tion of believers in their present state. Oh, 
what could faith do without the bow in this 
stormy, troubled world ? How many are the 
clouds which darken the believer's way! But 
God has set his bow in every one of them — 
his pledge of deMverance and support. 

Sometimes the dark cloud of his own 
transgressions settles terribly upon the Chris- 
tian's soul. The convictions of his heinous 
guilt almost drive him to despair. He asks 
himself, How can mercy reach so vile a sin- 



ljl>>1e Embleiiis. 



146 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

ner? how can such iniquity as mine be par- 
doned ? Yainlj does he look within himself 
for any thing to hope for. Ashamed and 
speechless, he has no satisfaction for the law's 
demands. That law condemns him, conscience 
condemns him ; but faith discovers deliverance 
in the atonement of the Lord Jesus. The cov- 
enant breaks upon his soul — his Saviour has 
died for him. His guilt is fully atoned for ; 
and there is the bow of the covenant prom- 
ises lighting up the cloud. "I will set my 
bow in the cloud/' says God, and when Sinai 
thunders in the soul I will arch its summit 
with the iris from the cross. 

Again, how do the clouds of temptation 
sometimes thicken over the Christian's way — 
temptations from within and without. And 
what discouragements press upon him from 
the rising corruptions of his heart and the 
onsets of the world. How often does he groan 
under his own weakness, and ask, Can such a 
one ever get through to heaven ? But lo, in 
the covenant there are promises exactly meet 
for his condition, that he shall be held up to 
the end ; and faith discovers bows in all 



THE EAINBOW. 147 

these clouds, which whisper to him of final 
triumph. 

In those clouds of temporal disappointment 
which frequently overshadow him, marked by 
the failure of business enterprises, want of 
success in one and another undertaking, and 
which doom him to the lot of toil and poverty — 
in those clouds which stamp the seal of failure 
upon his mere earthly life, God sets his bow 
to comfort all his people. It is the promised 
inheritance of heaven ; the recompense of the 
reward — the treasures which wax not old. 
Here is the Christian's comfort under the re- 
verses of earthly fortune, and the clouds soften 
and break while faith gazes upon the bow above 
them. 

When life's blackest clouds gather, in 
the forms of bereavement and death, there 
are promises enough in the covenant to gild 
them all. "It shall come to pass when I 
bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow 
shall be seen in the cloud." This is God's 
covenant promise to his people. And would 
you know how faithfully he keeps it, contem- 
plate the experience of God's true people in 



148 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

trials, when the world was dim with shadows. 
Call to mind your own experience, faithful 
one. Did you not find treasured in the prom- 
ises of grace such comforts as you never knew 
before — a power in prayer, a drawing near 
to Christ, a witness of the Spirit — all pro- 
ducing a peace and resignation which kept 
you from despair? 

In all this discipline of trials, God reveals 
his resources to his people ; and in the abun- 
dant consolations provided for them, and 
which Christian faith appropriates, in the 
strength given in trials, in the clear shining 
of the promises athwart the clouds of adver- 
sity, they discover the beautiful significancy 
and the actual fulfilment of Jehovah's pledge 
and token to the patriarch, that he would set 
his bow in the cloud, and when he should 
bring a cloud over the earth, the bow should 
be seen in the cloud. 

Have you, my friend, a vital interest in 
that covenant of grace, which arches life's 
stormiest days with the bow of peace, and 
contains the pledge of salvation in the future 
life ? These blessings are covenant blessings. 



THE RAINBOW. 149 

They come not to us naturally, as a matter of 
course. They are secured only by a special 
stipulation — an arrangement which God has 
made through Jesus Christ, as a Saviour and 
a Mediator. They belong to us only by faith 
in Him who purchased them. Have you ac- 
cepted the conditions of grace : repented, 
sought forgiveness, given your heart to God, 
solemnly embraced the covenant? Only by 
so doing can you enjoy the benefits. Only 
by resting under the everlasting covenant can 
you look up and see the bow. 

Ah, you may stubbornly persist in impeni- 
tence, but you will find dark days ere long. 
Ere life be through, the skies will grow dark 
and troubled. Clouds of divine wrath will 
hang overhead. Clouds black as those which 
gloomed on Sinai's summit, will marshal their 
fearful elements, and fill you with alarm. 
Persist in impenitence, and you will hear 
naught from them but thunder- voices of a vio- 
lated law, and see naught but vivid flashes 
of retributive justice. No promises of de- 
liverance fringe their edges with a thread of 
silver light ; no sunshine of hope breaks be- 



150 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

tween them to scatter them ; no bright bow 
of safety spans the firmament, and publishes 
Jehovah's pledge of reconciliation. Outside 
the covenant they are clouds of wrath, por- 
tending an eternal deluge of fiery indigna- 
tion which shall devour the adversaries of 
God. Fly then for refuge ; fly to the shelter 
of the covenant. Come to Christ Jesus for 
salvation. Come before the storm breaks in 
fury. Come where you can stand and see 
the bow when life's tempests sweep ; when the 
heavens are dark ; when the night of death 
settles. 



THE SMOKING FURNACE. 151 

IX. 

TH^ Imahiug Fttruac? and iBurniug |aw^* 

AND IT CAME TO PASS, THAT WHEN THE SUN WENT 
DOWN, AND IT WAS DARK, BEHOLD A SMOKING 
FURNACE, AND A BURNING LAMP THAT PASSED 
BETWEEN THOSE PIECES. Gex. 15: 17, 

The scene here described between Jeho- 
vah and the patriarch is one of a\\M and 
mysterious interest. Long ago, w hen he came 
out of Ur of the Chaldees, God promised 
blessings to Abram and his posterity. But 
as yet there w^ere no signs of the fulfilment. 
Many years had since rolled by, years of fluc- 
tuations and trials. The stirring events of the 
war of the four kings and the deliverance of 
Lot were brought to a close ; and Abram 
had once more retired to a quiet pastoral life, 
rich, honored, powerful among the surround- 
ing tribes. 

But though he had grown great, there was 
one corroding care wdiich preyed upon his 
heart. Ah, what condition of human life is 
there, which has not its secret sorrow^? What 
house so bright as never to have a shadow 



152 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

across its hearth? Abram was treading along 
the vale of years, childless and a stranger. 
Eliezer of Damascus seemed likely to inherit 
his vast possessions. 

At this period, when Abram's anxiety 
deepened, and hope began to grow impatient, 
God appeared again to him in vision, and re- 
newed his covenant promises. And in answer 
to the patriarch's request for some outward 
sign or ratification, the Most High directed 
him to slay a heifer, a she-goat, and a ram, 
and divide the parts, and set them the one 
over against the other, that one might pass 
between the parts. 

In ancient times the ratification of cove- 
nants was attended by the most solemn rites, 
in which the contracting parties participated. 
In the 34th chapter of Jeremiah there is an 
explicit reference to a ceremony like the one 
here described: "And I will give tlie men 
that have transgressed my covenant, which 
have not performed the words of the covenant 
which they made before me, when they cut the 
calf in twain and passed between the parts 
thereof — the princes of Judah, and the prin- 



THE SMOKING FUENACE. 153 

ces of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, and the priests, 
and all the people of the land, which passed 
between the parts of the calf — I will even 
give them into the hand of their enemies." 
In these solemnities the contracting party or 
parties passed between the parts of the slain 
victim, in token of their full assent to the stip- 
ulations made, imprecating upon themselves 
a most bitter curse if they should violate 
them. The ceremony was of the nature of a 
most solemn oath. 

Nor was it confined to the Israelitish na- 
tion alone, but similar rites were observed 
among other people. In the third Book of 
the Iliad, Homer describes the solemn ratifi- 
cation of the covenant between the Greeks and 
the Trojans, according to the terms of which 
Menelaus and Paris were to determine the 
great quarrel between them in single combat. 
Victims were slain, their heads distributed 
among the chiefs of the hostile parties, their 
palpitating limbs placed opposite to each other 
on the ground, while the officiating priest ut- 
tered a prayer to Jupiter, accompanied by a 
most awful imprecation upon any one who 

7* 



154 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

should break the solemn oath. Livy also, the 
Eoman historian, records a like solemnity on 
the occasion when the Eoman and Alban na- 
tion agreed to settle their contest by the com- 
bat of the three Horatii and the three Curia- 
tii. Then too the Eoman priest slew the 
victim, and called Jupiter to witness their 
vows, and strike the violator as he struck the 
victim. 

In this fifteenth chapter of Genesis, the 
sacred writer describes"^ a sacred institution, 
which Homer, a thousand years later, found 
among the Greeks ; and the Eoman historian, 
still later, records as in use among his coun- 
trymen. The intent, or meaning of the solem- 
nity, was evident. Abram well understood it ; 
for without any particular instruction record- 
ed, he prepared the sacrifice. 

It must have been a day of overwhelming 
interest to the patriarch. Early in the morn- 
ing God directed him to make his prepara- 
tions. He obeyed with promptness, and slew 
the animals, and arranged their parts upon 
the ground. Having passed between them 
himself, thus acknowledging his obligations in 



THE SMOKING FURNACE. 155 

the covenant, he sat down alone to wait for 
Jehovah to signify his presence. What 
strange, unearthly thoughts revolved in his 
anxious mind ! What a condition for a crea- 
ture to be in — a lonely man watching for God 
to come ! 

The day wore by ; the sun was far down 
the west ; the shadows were deepening on the 
earth : the weary patriarch dropped his head 
upon his breast, and slept. A horror of great 
darkness fell upon him ; and then came a 
vision and a voice, which revealed to him the 
future. When this had passed, night had set 
in ; and in the darkness the weary watcher 
waited, near the limbs of his slain victims, for 
Jehovah to reveal his presence and seal his 
promises, till at length, through the thicken- 
ing gloom and spectral silence, the Shechinah 
is discovered, moving in awful majesty near 
the sacrifice. A smoking furnace and a burn- 
ing lamp passed between those pieces. 

Abram understood it all : God's visible 
presence was before him ; Jehovah had rati- 
fied his covenant; the deed was done. The 
patriarch was satisfied. He had not been im- 



156 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

posed upon by his fancy; he had not been 
deceived by some ignis fatuus. It was Jeho- 
vah's presence he had looked upon; it was 
Jehovah's own doings, making his covenant 
sure to him. 

Yet all he saw was a smoking furnace and 
a burning lamp pass between the pieces. He 
heard no voice ; he saw no living personal 
form : but that appearance before him Avas 
Jehovah's sign. He doubted not a moment; 
he asked for nothing more. It is evident that 
the manner in which Grod signified his pres- 
ence on this occasion had a peculiar signifi- 
cance in it, that there was a peculiar fitness 
in the form which he assumed — ct smokiiig fur- 
nace and a burning lamp — rather than some 
other visible form. 

We believe that these signs indicated not 
only that Jehovah was there, but who that 
Jehovah was. They exhibit God as hiding^ 
and yet revealing himself. The smoking fur- 
nace, dimly visible, and followed by the 
burning Jamp, presents the side which the 
Almighty turns toAvards us, marked by oh- 
SGurity, and light. The Most High is known, 



THE SMOKING FUENACE. 157 

and yet unknown ; revealed to us, and yet 
concealed. 

And we believe that a correct view of God, 
as exhibited to us in his word and providence, 
will correspond with the view which the patri- 
arch had of him in the loneliness and darkness 
of that night, when He sealed His covenant 
with him. 

We hold that in the goings forth of his prov- 
idential government for thousands of years, 
and in the utterance of his word, there are the 
same traces of light and obscurity, of conceal- 
ment and illumination, which were symbolized 
to Abram ; and the same God who passed be- 
tween the pieces of his sacrifice under the form 
of a smoking furnace and a burning lamp, is 
still passing before us all in a like manner. 

Such is the Almighty whenever he turns 
himself towards us. And while I gaze with 
the patriarch upon the awful solemnities of 
that hour, that smoking furnace and burning 
lamp seem to move, not only across that spot, 
but over the ages and the world, and indicate 
the presence and the doings of God in all the 
conduct of his government. 



158 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

Turn first to the written revelation which he 
has made to us through prophet and evangel- 
ist. In the very first promise made to man 
after the fall, so dim yet cheering, did he not 
pass before Adam much as he did before the 
patriarch? In that promise of the seed of the 
woman bruising the serpent's head, so vague, 
so indefinite and obscure, there seems at first 
only the smoking furnace ; but while we 
steadily look at it, it brightens into a burning 
lamp, which beckons faith to look down the 
future and hope for deliverance from the 
curse. 

In all that God has revealed of himself 
and his purposes in his word, he passes before 
us in mystery as well as light. He lifts the 
veil but a little way ; he allows us to see but 
a part of his plans and doings. 

The prophetic parts of the Old Testament 
Scriptures illustrate this blending of obscurity 
and light. The predictions of a coming Mes- 
siah were clear, and yet mysterious ; so that 
the Jews failed utterly to interpret them 
aright, or to recognize Him when He appeared 
as ''He of whom Moses and the prophets did 



THE SMOKING FUENACE. 159 

write." Those predictions now appear plain 
to us, for we study them in the clear light of 
their fulfilment. 

In like manner, other prophecies of great 
events which have already been accomplish- 
ed — as the Babylonish captivity, the over- 
throw of ancient cities and kingdoms, and 
the destruction of Jerusalem — now seem to us 
most graphic and distinct, because history and 
facts have thrown their light upon them. But 
of those prophecies which yet await their ful- 
filment, how true is it that a veil of obscurity 
still rests upon them. How various and con- 
flicting have been the theories of those who 
have anxiously studied them. The restora- 
tion of the Jews, the destruction of antichrist, 
the second coming of Christ, the millennium 
reign — these and the like subjects have taxed 
the ingenuity of the learned for ages. Yet all 
have failed to find out the Almighty's specific 
programme, or to tell beforehand what shall 
be the exact fulfilment. The God of proph- 
ecy passes before us as a smoking furnace, and 
a burning lamp. 

The strictly doctrinal portions of God's 



160 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

word exhibit him to us in this twofold atti- 
tude of obscurity and of light. Plainly enough 
has he revealed to us our duty. Clear and 
authoritative is his voice, speaking to us in 
the Decalogue. The burning lamp shines 
clear and steady through all the preceptive 
deliverances of the Scriptures; but ah, the 
great questions and paradoxes which have 
perplexed the human soul in all ages, the un- 
solved problems of natural religion over which 
thought has wearied and despaired, are left 
unanswered. How sin could be allowed to 
enter a moral system ; the harmony of the 
divine foreknowledge with human freedom; 
the election of grace ; man's moral helpless- 
ness and responsibility — these and such like 
subjects remain unexplained. Revelation 
does not attempt to lift the mysterious cloud 
which still hangs over them. Jehovah con- 
descends to no explanation of his doings ; nor 
by a single word does he seek to vindicate 
the infinite wisdom of his administration. 
Clouds and darkness are round about him. 
With none of us does he take counsel. The 
great truths of revelation reach beyond our 



THE SMOKING FURNACE. 161 

grasp. We see but in part, and we know but 
in part. The gospel brings us near to God ; 
but even there he covereth the face of his 
throne. The intermingling of obscurity and 
light which was symbolized by the smoking 
furnace and the burning lamp, characterizes 
the entire field of the Almighty's revelations. 
2. God, as manifested in his providential 
government, is properly exhibited to us in 
the imagery of the text. His ways are past 
finding out. When we contemplate the world 
at any particular period, we are lost in confu- 
sion and perplexity. We feel assured that 
the Almighty governs ; but his purposes are 
hidden. Mankind seem scarcely to notice his 
presence. Seldom can we detect his control- 
ling hand. It is only by extending our obser- 
vation over a wider field, and taking in the 
grand sweep of providence through successive 
generations, that we attain to the clear concep- 
trons of his moral government. At first view, 
we see little of his movements, and they are 
indefinite and obscured, like the dim smoking 
furnace passing by us ; but by a more patient 
and careful study we are enabled to discover 



162 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

that all the events which take place in the 
world are under the Almighty's superintend- 
ence, and that, back of all the derangement 
and confusion of human affairs, there is an un- 
seen but mighty hand bending the current of 
events, which by the interposition of checks 
and restraints and judgments makes the wrath 
of man to praise him. 

Thus in the midst of all the darkness of 
providence, there is discoverable a plan of in- 
finite wisdom. And he who humbly and de- 
voutly meditates upon the progress of human 
events, detects the presence of the Almighty, 
ofttimes indeed vaguely, like the feeble glim- 
merings of the smoking furnace, but often 
distinctly and clearly, like the burning lamp. 
Thus does Jehovah, in his providence, move 
through the ages in much the same manner as 
he appeared to the patriarch, when the fur- 
nace and the lamp passed between the pieces 
of his sacrifice. * 

But why need we range abroad ? Why 
look far away? Who that devoutly studies 
the ways of Providence towards himself, who 
that habitually contemplates what he has 



THE SMOKING FURNACE. 163 

passed and is passing through, does not dis- 
cover the Almighty wrapped in the same 
mysterious drapery which he wore when he 
appeared to Abram ? 

Yes ; the smoking furnace and the burning 
lamp still pass before us, and shape our lives. 
How manv times has God touched the hidden 
springs of action, and turned the current of 
our history ! How often has he mysteriously 
hedged up our way, and disappointed us ; 
made our surest calculations fail, our favorite 
plans miscarry ! How has he led us by a way 
we knew not, and caused us to stand perplex- 
ed, bewildered, and alarmed at his unlooked- 
for interpositions ! What sudden calamities 
have befallen us ; what sore chastisements 
have come upon us ! How many times has 
God's face been hid in clouds! How often 
have we asked. What can his doings mean? 
Why does he scatter our possessions? Why 
is health prostrated, and we left to languish 
amid pains and sicknesses? Why did he let 
death make those little graves in the church- 
yard, where our darlings are sleeping, who 
used to fill our homes with sunshine, and paint 



164 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

rainbows in the clouds of life's pilgrimage? 
Oh how many times are we perplexed at the 
Almighty's doings ! In such seasons of disap- 
pointment and affliction, we think upon God 
and are troubled. He passes before us in the 
thick gloom and darkness of the night of sor- 
row : about all we can see of him is a smoking 
furnace, with its smouldering embers, scarcely 
emitting from within a pale, faint, spectral 
gleam, while dim wreaths of clouds whirl and 
roll above it. God's ways seem dark and 
impenetrable. Such are our first impressions. 

But while we continue to gaze upon his 
doings, and follow out his providences to their 
conclusions ; when, after Time with his sooth- 
ing balm has assuaged the first sharp pangs 
of our wounded hearts, we stady carefully the 
tendencies and results of God's dispensations 
with us. Oh how often do the clouds break 
and scatter, and the deep mysteries of his 
dealings receive a new interpretation. 

How many of our doubts and questions 
find an answer. How do future months and 
years vindicate the wisdom of those doings 
which we once thought could not be vindicat- 



THE SMOKING FURNACE. 1G5 

ed. How do we afterwards see that when 
God took away some blessings which we dearly 
loved, it was to make room for greater ones 
to come. When he stopped our way in some 
favorite pursuit of life, and beckoned us against 
our will in another path, he saved us from ruin 
and disasters which we were blind to. When 
he snatched our loved one away to heaven, he 
broke up the sinful idolatry which was ensnar- 
ing us, and called us heavenward too. When 
he dashed from our hand the cup of worldly 
prosperity we were pressing to our lips, it was 
because we were growing delirious under its 
draughts. 

It is thus, while we calmly trace through 
successive years God's doings, we begin to see 
the furnace grow luminous, and close behind 
it the burning lamp lights up the Almighty's 
footsteps. We may not indeed comprehend 
the whole. We cannot clear up all the mys- 
tery that surrounds him. But though the fur- 
nace still continues to move and smoke before 
us, yet the lamp is ever going with it 5 and its 
cheering rays relieve the gloom, so that faith 
and hope can follow. 



166 BIBLE EMBLENS. 

Such is the method of God's dealings with 
us all. He passes before us in mingled mys- 
tery and light. The longer we trace his doings, 
the clearer is the light. A hasty, superficial 
study of his providence leaves us in painful 
gloom and doubt. But a patient and humble 
attention to his plans reveals much to relieve 
our fears and inspire in a Christian a steady, 
trusting, joyous confidence. 

We must never expect to arrive at a full 
and undimmed prospect here. We see but in 
part. But ah, I think I can see something in 
the gradual imfoldings of God's providence, 
and in 4:he steps the believer now passes 
through, which heralds a coming period when 
we shall see the whole. Even now the shad- 
ows grow fainter the longer we gaze. A grey 
light streaks the field of vision which was once 
in total darkness. Even now, when faith turns 
her eye out long and steady, night seems soft- 
ening into morning. And from these phenom- 
ena I expect yet to see the whole. Even 
now, while I watch year after year, the fur- 
nace smokes less and less, the lamp burns 
stronger, brighter. And a little way beyond 



THE SMOKING FURNACE. 167 

me heaven waits to welcome me, where I shall 
see as I am seen, and know as I am known. 
Oh blessed hope ! 

A little longer we follow where the fur- 
nace and the lamp lead the way; but when 
we arrive at yonder world the furnace will 
be left behind. No cloud and smoke there 
to obstruct our vision ; but the lamp of lire 
alone remains. It is God's unvailed glory 
illuminating the realms of bliss. Oh, weary 
pilgrim, keep close to the furnace as it moves 
before you like the pillar with which Jehovah 
led the twelve tribes in the desert, and it will 
guide you home. And then it will smoke no 
more ; but the lamp of fire will never go out, 
for in its exhaustless splendor you shall spend 
an eternity of joy. 

Our subject thus presented, furnishes ma- 
terials for a few profitable reflections. 

1. In this blending of mystery and light 
which characterizes Grod's present manifesta- 
tions, he has in view the promotion of his 
own glory. For the pure and unfallen inhab- 
itants of heaven, it may be proper for him 
to unvail himself and his doings, and allow 



168 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

them to contemplate him in cloudless majesty ; 
but when he turns himself to sinful creatures 
like us, it is becoming in him whom we have 
offended not to allow us to approach too near. 
A jealous reticence marks his revelations. 
His infinite glory and majesty impress our 
minds as deeply by what he hides from us, as 
by what he sliows us. His silence is some- 
times as awfully eloquent as his speech. The 
dim, smoking furnace often conveys to us 
ideas of his incomprehensible might and maj- 
esty and greatness as deeply as does the 
burning lamp. 

2. The Most High has designed this ob- 
scure and mixed economy of his to be a 
source of moral discipline to us all. 

It serves to check our arrogance and pre- 
sumption, and promotes true humility. It 
teaches us that he has ways that are past our 
finding out, and that all our boasted wisdom 
is folly when compared with his. It tells vain 
man that he cannot tread in the Almighty's 
footsteps, nor fathom his deep designs. 

Our entire dependence too is thrust upon 
our convictions by this mode of the Almighty's 



THE SMOKING FURNACE. 169 

working. Often we are forced to feel that we 
cannot rely upon our own forecast and pru- 
dence. Our own will is not strong enough to 
shape events and make them subserve our 
wishes. Grod's unseen hand is ever interfer- 
ing, and reminding us that without his blessing 
we can do nothing. 

And how too is faith tried and encouraged 
by this economy : tried when all we can see of 
God, many times, is like a smoking furnace, 
dark and obscure, when reason asks and gets no 
answers ; and anon encouraged, when through 
the mystery there shines the burning lamp. 

This present life is the great school of 
Christian faith. Where reason's eyesight fails, 
faith can see the v/ay. It can see but in part, 
it is true, for our earthlv state answers well 
to the prophet Zechariah's description: ''And 
it shall come to pass in that day, that the light 
shall not be clear nor dark. But it shall be 
one day which shall be known to the Lord : 
not day, nor night ; but it shall come to pass 
that at evening time it shall be light." 

Moreover, how adapted is our subject to 
cheer God's people and prompt them to quiet, 



Bible Erableras. 



170 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

patient resignation under dark and afflictive 
providences. What if sometimes we can see 
nothing but the furnace smoking ; we know 
fiiat behind it somewhere is the lamp of fire. 

How too are we impressed with the truth 
that there is something left for us to learn in 
heaven, something yet unrevealed which we do 
not see, but which we hope for, which makes 
us reconciled to the thought of leaving' this 
dim, misty realm of time, and to wait in anx- 
ious expectation till the day break and the 
shadows flee away. Oh be content, Christian, 
a little longer to walk by faith, for by and by 
the smoking furnace will have passed away 
for ever, and heaven will welcome you to its 
cloudless revelations. 

Learn to walk humbly before that God 
who surrounds your path. See him in the 
clearest form in which he has revealed him- 
self, even in the incarnate Son our Saviour. 
Through him alone can we approach the 
Father. Through him alone can we hope to 
see his face, and obtain salvation ^nd deliver- 
ance from his wrath. 



THE ALTAK OF INCENSE. 171 

X. 

AND THOU SHALT MAKE AN ALTAR TO BURN IN- 
CENSE UPON. AND THOU SHALT PUT IT BEFORE 
THE VAIL THAT IS BY THE ARK OF THE TESTI- 
MONY, BEFORE THE MERCY-SEAT THAT IS OVER 
THE TESTIMONY, WHERE I WILL MEET WITH 
THEE. ExoD. 30:1, 6. 

The saying of Augustine, that in the Old 
Testament the New is hidden, and in the New 
Testament the Old is opened up, agrees with 
the teachings of Paul in the epistle to the 
Hebrews, which declare that the rites and 
ceremonies of the Mosaic institute serve unto 
the example and shadow^s of heavenly things. 
This being so, the institutions of the ancient 
church of God are not obsolete and meaning- 
less to us. Although their literal observance 
has ceased, still the profound and important 
truths of which they were the symbols sur- 
vive — truths which shine forth unveiled in the 
clearer revelation of the gospel. These ancient 
symbols claim our careful study still ; for they 
are helps to faith now, and serve to illustrate 
and enforce those didactic truths of the New 



172 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

Testament which, through the feebleness of 
our spiritual perceptions, often fail to impress 
us as they should. 

Our attention is directed by the text to 
the altar of incense placed in the tabernacle 
which Moses constructed under the immediate 
direction of God. 

The tabernacle was designed to be the 
local habitation of God, to bring him near to 
his covenant people, and to keep up a: direct 
intercourse between him and them. 

Through it God condescended to help the 
natural weakness of the human mind. In deal- 
ing with divine and spiritual things, the soul 
universally feels the need pf help. It is lost 
in the infinity of God's nature. It longs for 
some definite apprehension of him, some nearer 
fellowship than it can enjoy in the conception 
of the great unseen and distant Jehovah. The 
pathetic desire of Job finds a deep response 
in every thoughtful soul: "Oh that I knew 
where I might find him, that I might come 
even to his seat." 

The gospel dispensation satisfies this crav- 
ing for some visible link to conduct our 



THE ALTAR OF INCENSE. 173 

thoughts to Groci, by exhibiting to us God 
manifest in the flesh — the divine Word dwell- 
ing: amono; us. But before Christ came no 
such aid appeared. God however gave to 
his ancient churcl the tabernacle, where he 
would dwell ; thus bringing distinctly to their 
minds his presence in the midst of them. 
Here lies the spiritual significance of that 
sacred structure. It was God's dwelling- 
place among the people. It brought God 
near to them, holding converse with them, 
and approachable by them. 

This sacred structure consisted of two dis- 
tinct parts : the inner chamber, called the 
holy of holies, where Jehovah dwelt. There 
was the ark of the covenant, upon which 
rested the mercy-seat, and over which hov- 
ered the two cherubim with extended wings. 
There the shechinah abode, the strange, un- 
earthly sign of Jehovah's presence. 

This hallowed apartment was hidden from 
the public gaze. No creature footstep dared 
to cross its threshold, save the high-priest, 
and he but once a year, on the great day of 
atonement. God indeed dwelt among his peo- 



174 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

pie, but it was in awful, mysterious, solitary 
grandeur, which allowed no rude familiarity, 
no irreverent approach. 

The second apartment of the tabernacle 
was called the holy place, where the priests 
and Levites daily ministered ; the furniture of 
which w^as the altar of incense, the table of 
show-bread, and the golden candlestick with 
its seven lamps. The vail separated this part 
from the holy of holies. Here the people 
appeared only by their representatives in the 
priestly office. 

Surrounding the entire structure was the 
court, enclosed by curtains, where the Israel- 
ites assembled and brought their sacrificial 
offerings. In this court stood the altar of 
burnt-off*erings. Here was the spot where the 
blood of the bullocks and of rams was shed ; 
where the altar fires blazed ; where the robed 
and mitred priest gathered the blood with 
which he entered the holy place. Here the 
penitents confessed their sins and sought for 
pardon. Here the grand scene was enacted 
which proclaimed continually that without the 
shedding of blood there was no remission. 



THE ALTAE OF INCENSE. 175 

Bear in mind this description of the sev- 
eral parts of the tabernacle and their design, 
while we approach immediately to the altar 
OF INCENSE and study the deep spiritual sig- 
nificancy Avhich surrounds it. 

Observe, that connected with this sacred 
structure there are but two altars. 

The first one that confronts us when we 
would approach where God is, is the "altar 
of burnt-offerings," in the outer court. We 
gaze here upon the bloody sacrifices. Here 
are the touching scenes of suffering and death. 
Here are the types of the great atonement 
made in the passion and death of Jesus Christ. 
Here we are taught that if we would attempt 
to reach God's presence, we must first of all 
come to the blood of Christ. We must stand 
by the altar of burnt-offering. We must find 
the Lamb slain from the foundation of the 
world. There was no way into the holy of 
holies of the tabernacle but by that altar. 
There is now no way to God but through a 
dying Saviour. 

Within and beyond this altar, in the holy 
place, stood the second altar, the altar of 



176 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

incense. What was the spiritual significance 
of this altar ? On it no victims were slain, no 
blood was shed ; but the priests daily burnt 
upon it incense, a preparation of pure frank- 
incense and other sweet spices, which yielded 
a fragrant and refreshing odor. 

The symbolical meaning of this incense- 
offering is plainty given us in the Scriptures. 
It is not propitiation or atonement ; that is 
made already in the outer court ; but it is the 
pure devotion of the saints — the prayers, in- 
tercessions, and worship of Grod's true people. 
Thus David says, in the 141st Psalm, "Let 
my prayer be set forth before thee as incense, 
and the lifting up of my hands as the evening 
sacrifice." Here is a direct reference to the 
priests' burning incense on the altar every 
evening at the time of sacrifice, when they 
entered the holy place to light the lamps of 
the golden candlestick. 

The prophet Malachi also describes the 
pure worship of the universal church of God 
by the same symbol : ' ' For from the rising of 
the sun, even unto the going down of the 
same, my name shall be great among the Gren- 



THE ALTAK OF INCENSE. 177 

tiles : and in every place incense shall be 
offered unto my name, and a pure offering ; 
for my name shall be great among the hea- 
then, saith the Lord of hosts." Again, in 
Luke 1:10, we read that when Zacharias the 
priest went into the temple to burn incense, 
the Yfhole multitude of the people were pray- 
ing without at the time of incense ; that is, 
while they stood in the outer court and wor- 
shipped, the incense was burning in the holy 
place before the vail. But more impressive 
still is the scene which John witnessed in his 
vision of the heavenly world : "And another 
angel came and stood at the altar, having a 
golden censer : and there was given unto him 
much incense, that he should offer it with the 
prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar 
which was before the throne. And the smoke 
of the incense which came up with the prayers 
of the saints, ascended up before God out of 
the angel's hand." In chapter five he declares 
that the golden vials full of odors are the 
prayers of saints. 

In these Scripture passages we have a 
clear explanation of this altar of incense 

8* 



178 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

standing in the lioly place. The offering 
made upon it is not of blood ; it is the fra- 
grant breath of flowers, the odor of beauteous 
plants, exhaling their sweet and ravishing 
perfume from their own inner life, and filling 
the holy place with a refreshing vapor most 
delightful to the sense. This is God's chosen 
figure of the devotions and prayers of true 
believing hearts who approach near to him. 
These offerings of the heart are sweet to Jeho- 
vah as the balmy fragrance of choicest flowers. 
They are the soul's exhalations, the breath- 
ings of its spiritual life, the fervent aspirations 
of the renewed and sanctified spirit, as de- 
lightful to God as are the sweetest odors of 
the rarest plants and spices to the bodily 
sense. 

Oh what a view do we get of God wdiile 
we crowd around this incense altar. 'Now we 
can pray in earnest; now we can offer him 
our best and holiest affections ; now we pour 
out our thanksgivings and confessions ; for 
our worshijD rolls heavenward like the fra- 
grant cloud of burning incense, and God above 
is pleased to accept it and to bless it. 



THE ALTAE OF INCENSE. 179 

But let US be careful what we call wor- 
ship. Let us not forget that the incense of 
our prayers and devotion derives its perfume 
directly from the intercession of Christ, who, 
as our high-priest, has gone into the holiest 
before us with his blood. Without a living 
faith in him, a vital union with him, so that he 
intercedes not only for, but in us by his Holy 
Spirit, we cannot stand before this altar. 

We have no incense. If there be any ex- 
cellency in our prayers, or purity in our de- 
votions, to insure their acceptance, it is because 
of his Spirit making intercession for us. We 
burn our incense before the mercy-seat, and 
the cloud rolls heavenward from the altar ; 
but whatever fragrance it bears is derived 
from the cloud already there, the incense of 
the Saviour's intercession, with which it min- 
gles and floats around the throne, breathing 
sweet odors before Jehovah's face. 

We are standing in the holy place. Let 
us examine well the incense we presume to 
offer, for says Jehovah, ''Ye shall offer no 
strange incense thereon, nor burnt-sacrifice, 
nor meat-offering: neither shall ye pour 



180 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

drink-offering thereon." Special directions 
were given, and special care was taken for 
the preparation of this incense of the taber- 
nacle. It was associated with the deepest 
sacredness. The people were forbidden to 
use it upon any common occasion ; the priests 
alone could burn it upon the altar. 

Is it in the power of language to teach us 
more impressively than this incense-altar 
does, that we should come with the utmost 
care and preparation to present to God our 
prayers and worship? Think not that any 
thing and every thing you may bring as in- 
cense will be accepted. Yain will be your 
lip-service ; vain your cold, heartless offer- 
ings. Strange incense it is you profess to 
burn when the soul still harbors its evil pas- 
sions, when pride and worldliness and sensu- 
ality are cherished there. There may be the 
bowed head, and the bent knee, and the sol- 
emn utterance of devotion ; but God's imme- 
diate eye is on you, and will detect the 
emptiness of all your service. Such service 
is a profanation of the holy place. Such in- 
cense only provokes the Most High to anger. 



THE A.LTAE OF INCENSE. 181 

Beware lest the fire you kindle to burn it with 
break forth upon you and consume you, for 
says Jehovah, ''Ye shall offer no strange in- 
cense" upon my altar. What then must be 
the state of our hearts in order that we may 
bring a pure offering of incense before God? 
What is necessary to acceptable prayer and 
worship ? 

To answer this, come once more by the 
altar and examine its position. It stands in 
the holy place of the tabernacle. To reach it 
the worshipper must come through the outer 
court — must pass the altar of burnt-offering. 
There he learns that there is no access to God 
except by blood. There he learns of atone- 
ment through the sacrifice of Christ. There 
he stands as a sinner who needs an expia- 
tion. There he makes his confession, and 
lays his hand upon the head of the sacrificial 
victim. He can get to the incense-altar only 
after he has stood there and found a propitia- 
tion for his sins. 

Learn then, that if you would assay to 
approach God, you must come first of all to 
the cross. You must find an atonement for 



182 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

your sins through the Lamb of God. There 
is no other way of access to him but by faith 
in the blood of Jesus. Come first to Calvary, 
and gaze upon the great propitiation, the Vic- 
tim dying amid the altar-fires of divine justice. 
Come as a sinner, for pardon and purification. 
Come with his blood sprinkled upon you, with 
faith in his merits only, or else you cannot 
gain access to God. 

2. The altar of incense stood very near 
the holy of holies, the immediate dwelling- 
place of God. ''And thou shalt put it before 
the vail that is by the ark of the testimony, 
before the mercy-seat that is over the testi- 
mony, where I will meet with thee." To 
burn our incense upon this altar we must 
come very near to the mercy-seat, to the vail, 
to the holy of holies. Faith in the merits of 
a Eedeemer emboldens us to take this place. 
It is most holy ground we stand on when we 
offer our praises and prayers upon this altar. 
We are close to God. The incense-cloud as- 
cends, and penetrates the inner sanctuary. 
We gain a fellowship and communion with 
God. Faith brings us to cordial intimacy 



THE ALTAK OF INCENSE. 183 

with Grod. Such is the nature of that accept- 
able worship which was so vividly symbolized 
by the burning incense in the holy place be- 
fore the mercy- seat. 

3. But it is worthy of remark that near as 
was this altar to the Shechinah and the cheru- 
bim, the vail still hung between. Near as we 
draw to God in prayer and worship, he is still 
invisible to sense. Christ, our great Interces- 
sor, has entered within the vail. Our vision 
cannot follow him, whom not having seen we 
love. We cannot yet gaze upon the immedi- 
ate glory ; we cannot yet approach the throne. 
The vail hangs before us, and ''we walk by 
faith, not by sight." We stand with holy rev- 
erence, and bring the incense of our hearts 
upon the altar ; but we dare not attempt to 
look within. Faith stops there, waiting at 
times to catch the whisperings of grace from 
off the mercy-seat, and to hear the rustling of 
the vail. "There will I meet with thee," 
says Grod. There the true worshipper will 
hear the answers to his prayers ; there will 
the soul find peace and blessedness. 

Such are some of the great truths symbol- 



184 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

ically taught in this department of the Jewish 
tabernacle. Nor can it be said that the pious 
Israelites did not understand them. They, 
read the impressive lessons ; they saw the 
meaning of those rites ; they looked beyond the 
outward and the sensible. I verily believe 
they had a quicker discernment of the deep 
spiritual meaning of God's ancient ritual ser- 
vice than many so-called Christians who boast 
of gospel light and privileges. Yes ; it might 
be well for many to go to school to Old Testa- 
ment believers to revive their piety, to follow 
the ancient priest through the solemnities of 
the tabernacle service, and learn from the sweet 
singer of Israel the spirit of devotion. 

What a view does this subject give us of 
what true worship is. It is the incense of the 
soul rising up to heaven like a perfumed cloud. 
It is near fellowship of the heart with God. 
The prayers and confessions, the supplications 
and thanksgivings of the saint bring him close 
to the merc3^-seat. Nothing but the vail hangs 
between him and God. ''There will I meet 
with thee," saith Jehovah. This is the Old 
Testament view of true devotion. Oh how 



THE ALTAE OF INCENSE. 185 

far beyond the cold and distant formalism, the 
hackneyed routine of many Sabbath services 
of these NeAV Testament times. Oh was not 
God nearer in thought to many a pious Jew 
standing in the tabernacle court, than he is to 
multitudes in our gospel sanctuaries, who 
gather there, not to meet with God and trem- 
ble and rejoice in his felt presence, but only 
to listen to a creature worm, and find enter- 
tainment in the eloquence of the preacher ? 

Again, how strait appears the way of ac- 
cess to God. How carefully must we approach 
him. Many seem to think that God is easily 
accessible, and that they can come to him at 
any time and in any way they please 5 that 
little or no preparation is needed to gain his 
favor; that the sinner in the hour of sudden 
alarm can cry for mercy and be saved ; that 
the dying reprobate may mutter a prayer and 
go to heaven ; that the heartless formalist may 
read his collects and please God ; that no 
matter what may be the creed or life, God 
may be found whenever the sinner wishes for 
him ; that all may seek and find him in the 
way they please, and one way is as good as 



186 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

another. Such are the loose notions many 
entertain of gaining heaven. 

But our subject scatters them like the 
chaff of the threshing-floor. The holy of 
holies, where God waits to meet with us, is 
not reached in any way we please. The 
heart's incense must be carried within the 
holy place before it can be offered. There 
stands the only altar on which it can be burn- 
ed. But to get there we must first find an 
atonement at the altar of burnt-ofifering in the 
outer court. There is no getting near to God 
but through the blood of Christ. There is no 
salvation in any other name. Only as a sin- 
ner, contrite and believing in a dying Jesus, 
can you find God. Go, stand by the cross: 
there, with deep repentance and humble faith, 
seek for an interest in the pardoning blood of 
the Son of God, and then may you pass 
through to the holy place, and pray and 
praise and worship. But without first coming 
to the atonement of Jesus Christ, all your pre- 
tended regard for God is mockery ; your re- 
ligious service is but strange incense, which 
God abhors. 



THE ALTAR OF INCENSE. 187 

Before we close, let us lift our eyes up- 
ward from these patterns of heavenly things 
to the heavenly things themselves. For in 
heaven, John tells us, he saw the golden al- 
tar, and the angel with the incense-censer be- 
fore the throne. This incense-offering is the 
prayers of saints. In that world of blessed- 
ness the altar stands without the vail before 
the throne of God. There the redeemed wor- 
ship face to face ; there they gaze upon the 
Godhead, and cast their crowns at the feet of 
Jesus. Faith gives way to vision, and they 
behold the face of God in righteousness. Oh 
what a prospect lies before the saint. Are we 
preparing for such a service? Do we expect 
to join in the worship before the throne? 
How diligent should we be to cultivate a spirit 
of devotion while in this tabernacle below. 
Though we are now outside the vail, how 
should we strive by faith to meet with God, 
and find answers to our prayers. What a 
solemn hour should this be to us in the sanc- 
tuary, when we appear before the mercy-seat 
and offer the incense of our prayers and 
thanksgivings. 



188 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

XL 

ARISE AND EAT; BECAUSE THE JOURNEY IS TOO 
GREAT FOR THEE. 1 Kings 19 : 7. 

These words, tliongli originally spoken to 
the prophet of God under peculiar circum- 
stances, may still have a meaning when ap- 
plied to the believer. Though written afore- 
time, they were written for our instruction 
when we are brought into straits and trials. 

They came to the prophet in one of the 
darkest hours of his ministry. Though he had 
gone through Samaria with signs and wonders, 
and though he had signally triumphed over the 
prophets of Baal, and had witnessed their de- 
struction, still the reformation of the nation 
which he had looked for seemed further off 
than ever. All the miracles he had wrought, 
and all the teachings he had uttered, seemed 
to be worse than in vain ; for now, instead of 
submission, there is nothing but exasperation, 
and the abandoned Jezebel swears vengeance 
Lipon the prophet. He despairs of the re- 



THE JUNIPER-TREE. 189 

demption of Israel, and turns his back in flight 
from Samaria. Without any special divine di- 
rection, he wanders over into the territories of 
Judah as far as Beersheba. But there is no rest 
for his troubled and dejected mind ; and he 
flies from the haunts of men and plunges onward 
and onward into the wilderness towards Horeb, 
as though, in the savage wildness and solitude 
of nature, he would find sympathy with the 
desolation that reigned within him. 

But night overtakes the wanderer, and he 
is forced to halt and lie down under the pro- 
tection of a juniper-tree. There his troubled 
thoughts dwell upon the past, and he revolves 
in his mind the complete failure of his mis- 
sion to Samaria, the miracles which he had 
wrought, and the vengeance which was pursu- 
ing him. All was lost. 'Twas useless to un- 
dertake to preach more or to labor more for 
that idolatrous people. Disappointment has 
crowned his every exertion, and not a ray of 
hope shines from the future, to call back the 
request of the Tishbite that he may die. In 
his despair and anguish he mutters, "It is 
enough ; now, Lord, take away my life.*' 



190 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

He sleeps. But one of the ministering 
spirits is at his side, in this hour of desperate 
extremity. The prophet, at his touch, starts 
up and eats. The gnawings of hunger being 
partially allayed, he again sinks down to sleep, 
till again the angel touches him, and bids him 
eat the more ; for he is not to die yet. He 
has not yet done his work ; he must tread the 
wild crags of Horeb, and back to Ahab and 
Samaria, once more. "Arise and eat; for the 
journey is too great for thee." 

We must have a poor faculty of apprehend- 
ing spiritual lessons, if we allow this narrative 
to pass without some practical instruction. 

We do not tax our imagination severely in 
order to see, in the person of Elijah, a repre- 
sentation of the child of God in seasons of 
depression and despair. Not unfrequently is 
he brought into the position of the prophet. 
Not at all times is he privileged to stand upon 
Zion, and to rejoice in hope. But a thousand 
circumstances in life conspire to disappoint his 
hopes and becloud his prospects, till he flees 
from his post, and is found far away under the 
juniper-tree in the wilderness. 



THE JUNIPER-TKEE. 191 

When the sanguine expectations which he 
indulged at the beginning of his discipleship, 
become one by one disappointed ; when he 
finds that Christian experience is a far differ- 
ent affair from what he had conceived of; 
when straits and trials spring up around him 
at every turn of life, such as he had not 
counted on, and the work of grace in his heart 
seems, after all, to amount to nothing ; when 
new and unlooked-for symptoms of corruption 
are daily brought to light, and the ardor of 
his first love is dampened by the checks and 
crosses that thicken around him — when thus his 
early dreams are dissipated, and his heart feels 
a sickness and a faintness come over it, do you 
not see that he is in the wilderness ? Oh who 
has not sickened at the slow work of grace 
within him? Who has not marked the sad 
contrast between what he once said he would 
be, and what he is ; and who has not felt the 
harassments of doubt and the vanity of his 
own strugglings, till he despaired of success, 
and fled like the prophet to the wilderness? 

And then ofttimes the little good which the 
Christian accomplishes in the world is enough 



192 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

to drive him to dejection. The Tishbite fled 
because he saw no good from all his labors. 
Doubtless he had expected that, with the sup- 
port of miracles, he should soon have worked 
a reformation in Israel. But though at his 
word the heavens had been shut up, and though 
at his prayer the fire of Grod had descended to 
attest his mission, still the whole outlay of 
means seemed to end in nothing. His expec- 
tations had not been met ; and under the 
burden of the keenest mortification, the most 
hopeless dejection, he lies down by the jimi- 
per-tree and pra}- s for death. Have you never 
lain there with him. Christian ? 

When cast down in spirit, in view of your 
personal infirmities, you have asked for the 
good you have done in the world around you ; 
when your efforts for Christ seem all to prove 
abortive ; when your kindly warnings are 
disregarded, and in spite of your prayers and 
solicitude, iniquity abounds, and none turn to 
the Lord ; when the more you strive for the 
Kedeemer, the more your good is evil spoken 
of ; when the wicked around you seem grow- 
ino; worse and worse, and disappointment and 



THE JUNIPEK-TKEE. 193 

unbelief becloud your heart, and you see no 
tope, and the wilderness is around you — Oh, 
when thus the heart droops, do you not feel 
that you are in the wilderness ? 'T is indeed 
a dreary situation. But in life's pilgrimage, 
the Christian sometimes journeys that way. 
He has his hours of sadness, of heart-sick- 
ness, of deep despondency and dejection, of 
bitterness which a stranger intermeddle th 
not with. He is at times left to experience 
the burdens of life, the faintings of faith and 
hope — to feel that notwithstanding his long 
trial of the Christian life, all is jeoparded, and 
that nothing remains for him but to cast him- 
self down with the fugitive prophet under the 
juniper-tree, and say, ''It is enough ; now, 
Lord, take away my life.'^ 

But what we would observe is this : that 
the Saviour has provisions for his children 
however desolate may be their condition. It 
was in this dreary extremity of the prophet, 
that God revealed unto him his presence. 
Worn out with hunger and fatigue, despair- 
ing of hope, and feeling even life itself to be 
a burden, the fugitive drops to sleep. And 

BUj!« Embltiine 9 



194 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

now God, by a miracle, comes to his rescue. 
A cake baken on the coals is beside him, 
and the cruse of water, to refresh him and 
keep him from destruction. Here God came 
to his prophet and revived his confidence. 
Here he gives him a token that he has not 
given him up, but sends his Angel to rouse 
him from his dejection and bid him eat. 

Not to the prophet alone has God manifest- 
ed his presence and aid, but to all his dear chil- 
dren as they sit and sigh under the tree where 
the prophet slept. Not that, when we are cast 
down and desolate, we actually feel a hand 
touching us, and see before us the cruse of 
water and the cake upon the coals ; but we 
find the same deliverance, and the rustic table 
is virtually set before us and served by a 
spirit hand. ' In the appointed means of grace 
we find the aliment that sustains our souls. 
The divine ordinances seem to us more pre- 
cious than ever while we sit under the juni- 
per-tree. In the sweet promises of the word 
of God, in the dawn of Sabbath hours, in the 
tender and timely lessons of the sanctuary, in 
the Bethel seasons of prayer, in these means 



THE JUNIPEE-TKEE. 195 

afforded to us, we find the cruse of water and 
the cake that will refresh us. We may lightly 
esteem them in a time of ease and plenty ; we 
may think little of a cruse of water and a cake 
when we repose in abundance ; but in the wil- 
derness, when hunger and faintness come over 
us, and the juniper boughs are our only cov- 
ering, then they are as sweet to us as to the 
w^eary Tishbite. 

When spiritual famine is gnawing at our 
hearts, and all is desolate and forsaken around 
us ; when sickness has prostrated us, or death 
has cut down our companions around us, till 
the world seems empty, and a hue of decay 
and death tinges all the objects which w^e 
look at; when darkness and disappointment 
and disaster all weigh upon our spirits, and 
God is all that is left to us — how should we 
live were it not for the cake and the water 
cruse? How do we grasp the very means 
which we before had too often slighted. 

We call up the neglected promises, and 
there is life in them. Our troubled thoughts 
find vent in earnest prayer ; and whether we 
lie stretched on the bed of languishing, or 



196 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

wrestle in the closet, or meditate in the sanc- 
tuary, we find the water cruse is beside us, 
and we are kept from fainting. Oh, it is 
when, under the load of crushing sorrow and 
dejection, the wanderer sinks down by the 
shrub of the desert, it is then he prizes the 
cruse and the cake. Many of you, I doubt 
not, were you to call to mind the season when 
you valued most the presence of the Master, 
when you wrestled nearest the mercy-seat and 
experienced the most surprising deliverances, 
would point to the days of sore trial and weari- 
ness, when you gave up all hope, and when, 
turned out from the world, you sat alone and 
sighed under the juniper and waited for death. 
There you fed upon the bread of life. And 
though you felt that you were pilgrims in the 
desert, you still felt that you were not for- 
saken. 

But, brethren, we need not only the pro- 
visions made for us in the means of grace, but 
we need also a friendly hand to help us to 
partake of them. We need our attention 
called to them with a voice that can reach the 
inner ear ; for too often, with all our distress 



THE JUNIPEK-TREE. 197 

and dejection, there comes also a lethargy and 
insensibility which, if unbroken, must at last 
prove fatal. The care-worn prophet, with all 
his wretchedness and despair, still reclined 
his head and slept. Hungry and weak and 
way-worn, a droAvsiness nevertheless came 
over him, and he must needs be aroused if he 
was to be strengthened. The cake is there, 
and the cruse of water is there, and the coals 
are glowing, but the pilgrim heeds them not. 
What a figure is this of the complaining and 
dejected Christian who is starving for the 
spiritual food that is beside him, and at the 
same time sleeping in his sorrow. Despond- 
ency and unbelief have so paralyzed his 
heart that he takes no nourishment, even 
though the promises and the Sabbath and the 
sanctuary are before him ; but they are dead 
to him, they are useless to us all, so long as 
we sleep on. 

But beside the man of Grod, as he lay 
and slept under the juniper-tree, there was 
not only the cake and the water cruse, but the 
Angel too. And here, in the touch and the call 
of the Angel, me thinks I discover a most beau- 



198 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

tiful emblem of the Holy Spirit standing by 
the means of grace, and bidding the believer 
^^ arise arid eatP The presence of that min- 
istering spirit was necessary to the prophet's 
preservation. Without his friendly touch, he 
would doubtless have slept on, and death 
closed the scene ere the day dawned, and 
the cruse of water and the cake have been in 
vain. 

Thus too we need a present Spirit to 
rouse us to partake of the blessings that are 
brought to us ; for though we may complain 
of want, we are too indifferent to the supplies 
afforded us. Though we feel that we are pil- 
grims in the desert, though we sigh and faint 
by the juniper boughs, we sleep there too. 
Our eyes are heavy, and we do not see the 
water cruse, though it is at our side. We do 
not appreciate our privileges, nor draw nour- 
ishment from them. They may all be at 
hand — the Sabbath w^ith its sacredness, the 
Bible with its promises, the sanctuary with 
its lessons, the mercy-seat with its covenant — 
but not till the Holy Grhost shall bid you arise 
and eat, will these means avail you aught. 



THE JUNIPER-TREE. 199 

That Spirit is sent out to accompany the 
means of grace. He bids you arise and eat. 
He comes to rouse you from your slumbers. 
He comes to stop your murmurs. He comes 
to point you to the provisions at your side, 
and bid you rise and eat. Eat of these means 
of grace ; use them to revive your fainting 
spirit, to increase your strength. Though you 
may have used them many a time before, still 
you are called upon to eat and eat again. 
The Spirit and the bride say, Come. 

We would second the Spirit's voice, and 
call to you in the wilderness to arise and eat. 
It becomes you to-day to heed the call. There 
is reason for the Spirit's rousing you, for you 
are yet away from home, and the journey is 
too great for you. Perhaps you may feel no 
pressing need. Perhaps, like the Tishbite, you 
have tasted a little, and you would lie down 
to sleep. But the prophet knew not what 
was before him, as the Angel did ; and hence 
he is again aroused with the warning, "The 
journey is too great for thee." Christian, you 
know not what awaits vou. You need these 
ordinances. You need this Lord's table 



200 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

spread before you. You need these means 
of grace, for you are in the wilderness, and 
the desert must be crossed. Your strength 
and patience will be sorely tried, and your 
provisions will be short. Arise and eat, for 
you will have no other supply but this. You 
must take up with a pilgrim's fare. The 
remainder of life's journey is before you, and 
it will be too great for you unless you prepare 
in time. 

You may stand aloof from this our table, 
and despise our humble ministrations as 
though they were not good enough for you. 
We do not pretend that our supper is equal 
to the one above. We can give you but trav- 
ellers' fare, but such as it is it will sustain you 
on your journey. Our entertainment to-day 
is as simple as the prophet's rude meal which 
he ate beneath the juniper-tree ; but remem- 
ber, that but for that water cruse and baken 
cake he would have perished in the lonely 
solitudes. And we lay as high a claim for the 
gospel institutions to-day. Without them you 
must faint and die. Underrate them as you 
will, Grod has appointed them to sustain his 



THE JUNIPER-TEEE. 201 

children in the desert. Your neglect of them 
will be followed by exhaustion, for "the jour- 
ney is too great for thee." 

We cannot indeed anticipate the circum- 
stantial history of any one of you. We can- 
not traee out in the wild desert sands the 
pathway over which each one of you must 
wander. No, we cannot discover where one 
of us will be to-morrow. Our experiences 
may be far different from each other. We 
shall each have our peculiar difficulties, and 
no two of us will travel with the same foot- 
step and the sanje burden. 

But though we cannot tell the future to a 
single one of you, though we cannot calculate 
your reckoning at all, still we can assure you 
that "the journey is too great for you." We 
shall all of us need the cruse of water and the 
cake ere we get through, for we have no abid- 
ing place here. There will doubtless be many, 
days when this world will look more desolate 
than ever, days of temptation and of conflict. 
The adversary will doubtless harass your wan- 
derings, and hedge up your way ; you must 
yet fight "the world, the flesh, and the devil." 

8* 



202 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

Again and again will you be obliged to 
retrace your wayward steps, and water your 
path with the tears of bitter repentance and 
regrets. Again and again will the world so be- 
dim your eyesight and bewilder your thoughts 
that you shall have lost sight of heaven and 
plunged in its vanities. And the heart-work 
too is not yet all done. You must yet keep 
up the warfare with corruption. You must yet 
keep up the struggle of grace and fight the 
fight of faith. 

"The journey is too great for you." There 
may be years of conflict yet before you. There 
may be fiery trials in reserve. Light as may 
seem the enterprise now, you will find it 
great enough before you get to heaven. 
'T will seem great when sorrow and disap- 
pointment shall gather round us, and when 
the hours of fierce temptation give way only 
to the hours of deepest darkness ; 't will seem 
long when the cross seems ever to stand by 
the roadside, and when year after year we 
get no clearer views of heaven, our home. 

Grreat is the journey ; and we shall feel it 
so when onward and onward we travel, and 



THE JUNIPER-TREE. 203 

our companions one by one drop at our side, 
till we are left to tread our way alone. 'T will 
be great when the dependencies of life fail, 
and the calamities of life shall thicken around 
us. When the hopes of earth shall wither, 
and the friendships of earth shall vanish ; 
when the past shall appear as vanity, and the 
heart shall recoil from the future ; when fathers 
and mothers, and brothers and sisters, and all 
the loved ones of our early days, shall have 
vanished from our sight, and no long familiar 
voice shall speak to us in the solitudes of 
earth's wilderness ; then, as we stagger on, 
with our staff trembling in our hand, shall we 
feel that the journey is too great for us. 

You may say that it will be short to some 
of us ; that even now the sandals are loosen- 
ing and the city is coming nearer. Yes, some 
of us will not journey long. But short as may 
be that journey, it is too great for you. For 
remember how it winds up with the death- 
groan, the faintness, the weakness, the sink- 
ing, the dimness, the muffled farewell. Great 
journey this through the dark valley and 
through the wild surges — too great for us. We 



201 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

cannot explore the pathway ; 't is dark and 
dubious. We have seen multitudes set foot 
upon it, and they all turned pale'. The pil- 
grims have not come back to us to tell us of 
it, but we know enough about it to know that 
the journey is "too great for us." 

Yet, brethren, we are all hurrying thith- 
erward. Are we strong enough? What shall 
sustain us in the desert? Behold, God has 
supplied us with his gifts. Behold, ye who 
are desponding, ye who are wayworn, ye who 
are despairing beneath the juniper-tree, the 
cruse of- water is beside you. Eise and eat, 
for the journey is too great for you. Oh, who 
of us will not gladly come ? 

What should we do without these blessed 
ordinances and precious privileges? To-day 
the Master spreads our table in the wilder- 
ness. Once more he would refresh our hearts 
and lend vigor to our graces. He meets us 
with the tokens of his love. Come, beloved, 
and meet the Master. Come from your mur- 
murings at the waters of Meribah. Come from 
your drowsiness and despondency beneath the 
juniper. Arise and eat, for the wilderness is 



THE JUNIPEB-TEEE. 205 

jet before you. Take the cruse of water and 
the cake to-day, for it may be long before you 
have another opportunity. Supplies in the 
desert are at best precarious ; and so uncer- 
tain is our pilgrimage, that we know not that 
we shall meet again. 

Have we full strength for the onward ad- 
vancement? Would not a look at the Master 
profit us? Would not a friendly seat by the 
side of our fellow-pilgrims, and a kind look 
and a mutual, fervent prayer encourage us? 
Or are we equal to the journey without all 
this? Beware, my Christian friend,. how you 
neglect the gospel means which are given you. 
Beware how you turn a cold shoulder to the 
simple cruse of water which God sends down 
to you, for he tells you that the journey is too 
great for you. 



206 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 



XII. 

LET US PASS OVER UNTO THE OTHER SIDE. 
Mark 4 : 35. 

The facts and incidents in the history of 
our blessed Lord which the Holy Ghost has 
seen fit to preserve and hand down to us 
through the evangelists, furnish us materials 
for instruction and profitable meditation. The 
gospel is not all didactic ; nor need the relig- 
ious discourse be wholly such. It is well at 
times to omit the carefully framed propositions 
of a systematic theology, and dwell ui3on the 
simple narratives of the New Testament not 
merely as naked facts, but as pleasing alle- 
gories, or reflections of spiritual things. May 
we not read this narrative with such a pur- 
pose? As we follow the disciples in their 
night expedition across the sea of G-alilee, may 
we not have suggested to our minds the Chris- 
tian's course through the voyage of life towards 
the distant, unseen shore of eternity? Let us 
carry this idea with us while we study the 



THE OTHER SIDE. 207 

parts of this simple, but graphic narrative of 
the evangelist. 

1. It was at the call and command of Christ 
the disciples embarked upon their expedition. 
"Let us pass over unto the other side.'' 
There is no intimation that they had planned 
the journey, or had thought of leaving Caper- 
naum before ; but they took their departure 
solely in obedience to the direction of their 
Master. They acknowledged his authority ; 
they trusted in his wisdom. Their faith and 
confidence in him prompted them to do his 
bidding ; and without questioning t4ie reasons 
of his orders, they at once loosed from the 
harbor and set their sails, outward bound, for 
the other side. 

It is even so with the believer when he 
forsakes the world of sin and vanity, and sets 
out on a Christian life. He hears a call from 
God, like that which Abraham heard when he 
left his country and his kinsmen for another 
land which Grod would show him. The invita- 
tions and commands of Christ prompt him to 
give up the world. Were it not for such a 
call he would live and die in his natural state 



208 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

of sill. No inward promptings of his own ; no 
feelings of dissatisfaction with his present con- 
dition ; no mere natural longings and aspira- 
tions, however deep felt, would move him to 
an earnest outlook beyond the present vanity, 
and to a heartfelt separation from the seen 
and the temporal which is around him. But 
when the external call of the gospel is attend- 
ed by the internal call of the Holy Spirit, he 
feels a quickening power ; he hears and obeys 
the divine command. Faith in the Eedeemer 
leads him to obedience. He quits the world ; 
he tears himself away from its deceitful charms, 
and consents to follow Christ. 

2. I speak of their destination as express- 
ed in the command of the Master. It was, 
'' TJie other side.'''' They set sail, not for a 
short excursion along the coast, or an evening 
trip off from the mainland, and then to return ; 
but across the sea to another country and a 
different shore. The words of the Master 
point onward, onward beyond the billows to 
the far-off land. To "the other side" is the 
sailing order by which the disciples set their 
helm and trim their sail; to "the other side'' 



THE OTHEE SIDE. 209 

they point while they loose from their moor- 
ings at Capernaum, and say good-by to the 
fishermen left behind upon the beach. 

And is there not another side to our exist- 
ence than the one we are now on? Is there 
not some shining shore beyond this one — be- 
yontl the billows, beyond the cloud-banks ; 
something, if not discernible by our sense 
vision, at least discoverable by faith? 

This side is familiar enough to us. We 
have trodden it and explored it ; we know its 
features — a state of sin and disappointment, 
of temptations and illusions, a thousand vani- 
ties and shams ; life ofttimes seeming a chaos 
of contradictions, pleasures glittering, syrens 
singing, sorrows brooding, hopes decaying. 

" This side^^ where we are is a strange side, 
a dim, dubious shore, where tides ebb and 
flow we know not how ; where the mirage 
plays upon our vision, and fills the atmosphere 
with phantoms which seem to us realities ; 
where we seek for happiness in vain, till 
death removes us from the fitful, toilsome 
scene. 

But is this all? Is there not.another side, 



210 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

a different 'state, a better life to look to? The 
Christian who has heard the call of Christ has 
learned of another side than this one, another 
life besides the present. The call of Christ to 
him is to the other side. It directs him not to 
the things seen and temporal, but to the un- 
seen and eternal. It points him far over the 
sea of life to the distant shore, the other and 
the better country. This is the Christian's 
destination. For this he sails when he cuts 
loose from the world of sense and sin. Faith 
catches glimpses of its glories; for it is ''the 
substance of things hoped for, the evidence of 
things not seen." For this he lives in ex- 
pectation ; for this he parts with sinful pleas- 
ures, and waits with patience till it comes. 
So long as he hears the Saviour's voice saying, 
" To yonder shore,^^ he can content himself with 
being a stranger here. Oh it is this "looking 
for a better country " that sustains him in temp- 
tations now. How cheering is the prospect! 

When, Christian, you are troubled on 
every side here, how refreshing the Master's 
words. To "the other side." Yes; the pious 
heart often exclaims. Blessed be Grod, there 



THE OTHEE SIDE. 211 

is the other side, far different from this side ; 
a future unlike the present ; a heavenly land, 
whose scenery and surroundings are not those 
of earth. That other side is what you live 
for, Christian. Oh forget it not when tempted 
here ; remember it, my brother voyager, when 
you hear the music along these shores of time, 
and would steer towards the havens of carnal 
ease and lie becalmed among the spice islands 
of Avorldly indolence and j^leasure ; remember, 
when the Saviour called you to a Christian 
life, he pointed far away and said, To ''the 
other sideT 

3. The time of their departure. "When 
the even Avas come, Jesus said unto them, 
Let us pass over unto the other side.'' The 
din and turmoil of the day were past; shad- 
ows thickened ; the world was growing dark ; 
the curtain of night was silently overspread- 
ing the land and the sea: it was time to em- 
bark for the other side. And is not this sug- 
gestive of the circumstances under which the 
Christian enters upon a Christian life and sets 
out for heaven ? 

Oh if the present life had no shadows, we 



212 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

should never look beyond it ; if this side was 
always bright, we should care little for the 
other. But it is a part of our heavenly ' 
Father's discipline, to visit us with trials and* 
disappointments to wean us from this world. 
Ofttimes the sun of our prosperity goes sud- 
denly down at noon ; worldly plans miscarry ; 
sickness preys upon us ; friends die, and fam- 
ilies are broken up ; the world do n't seem so 
bright as it used to be : this side gathers gloom 
and shadows. Then it is the soul is more 
open to the call of Christ; then it is, often, 
that the sinner is brought to forsake the 
world, and obey the voice of the Master say- 
ing, ''Pass over unto the other side." It is at 
evening, when this world is growing, dark, 
that the believer obeys the command of 
Christ, tears himself away from his sinful 
lusts with bitter, repenting tears, and ex- 
changing sight for faith, embarks on his voy- 
age to the distant heavenly shore. 

It is evening; for although there be no 
temporal calamities sore pressing you when 
you become a Christian, it is still a time when 
the world has lost its sunlight to your soul, 



THE OTHER SIDE. 213 

and when eternal things have flung their 
shadows over the heart and made every thing 
on these shores of time look dim and fading. 
Then we are ready for Christ. Then, when 
conscience is aroused, and the overhanging 
clouds of divine justice darken this side and 
alarm us, then we set out for heaven, and 
heed the invitation of the Saviour which beck- 
ons us to the other side. It is at such a time 
the believer enters on a Christian life. 

4. We follow him on his voyage to the 
other side, and notice the important fact that 
Christ'' s jpresence is with his people through all 
their way. Standing on the seaside at Caper- 
naum, he sent not the disciples away alone. 
His word to them was not, ''Go yonder ;^^ 
but stepping on board their vessel, he says, 
"Let us pass over unto the other side." He 
himself will share their fortunes ; he will go 
with them; though night be setting in, and 
dangers hover on the deep, they shall not go 
alone. No more shall the Christian. "Lo, I 
am with you always," is the blessed assurance 
of his Saviour. The presence of Christ is the 
great source of a Christian life. 



214 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

This is all the saint can depend upon ; this 
is what the gospel promises to him. Christ is 
said to dwell in his disciples — to abide with 
them. His divine influences are their only 
guarantee of safety. As well might the mar- 
iner be far at sea in a night of tempests, with- 
out helm or chart or compass, as the Christian 
attempt to navigate the troubled waters of life 
without the Saviour with him. 

Better not attempt the voyage than start 
out alone for the other side. If you would 
leave these shores of sin and worldliness at 
all, see to it, first of all, that Jesus is with 
you in the ship, and that it is Ms voice alone 
you hear, as you set sail, saying, "Let us pass 
over unto the other side.'' 

Once more, in the night voyage of the 
disciples over the sea of G-alilee I see shadow- 
ed forth the changing phases of a Christian 
life. As they cast off from Capernaum, the 
evening breezes gently pressed their sails ; the 
silvery ripples murmured on the shore ; their 
little ship moved smoothly out at sea. The 
disciples sit in the cool evening air on deck, 
and watch the stars which, one by one, light 



THE OTHER SIDE. 215 

up the vault above them as the shadows 
deepen and the shores grow dim. They 
have hardly missed their Master. They 
scarcely noticed that he had retired from 
their presence. • But as the night wore on, 
alarmed at the dangers which surrounded 
them, the affrighted disciples look around for 
their absent Lord ; and finding him asleep, 
they waken him with their cries for help. 
The Saviour, calmly rising from his pillow, 
looks out upon the angry elements, and speaks 
the word of poAver: ''Peace, he stilV^ And 
the mad winds cease their roar, and the wild 
waves lie down to rest. 

" 'Ye waves,' lie whispered, ' j)eace, be still.' 
They cahned like a pardoned breast. " 

Once more propitious breezes waft them on- 
ward, till the morning dawn slowly glimmers 
in the eastern sky, and reveals, in dim out- 
line, the mountain summits of the other side. 

In all this I think I see something which 
reflects the lights and shades of a true Chris- 
tian life. How does the believer at his con- 
version set out for heaven with the conscious- 
ness that Christ is with him. How, after the 



210 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

throes of conviction are past, does lie expa- 
tiate in the sweet peace of believing, and re- 
joice in hope of the glory of God. How little 
dreams the convert of coming danger. How 
propitious the opening of his voyage. Often 
is his course so quiet that he suspends his 
watch, and loses sight of the near presence of 
Christ. Seasons come when he grows negli- 
gent, and perhaps feels no more of Christ's 
near presence with him than the disciples on 
the sea thought of their sleeping Master. 
Christ is not gone from him ; but his ardent 
love towards Him has abated, and he no 
longer has that felt consciousness of His value 
he once had, nor does he realize his depend- 
ence as he should. 

Trials come ; temptations thicken ; doubts 
and fears arise ; Satan harasses him, and in- 
ward corruptions start into life again. Then 
is the soul tossed, like the disciples on the 
sea ; then does the struggling believer look 
round for his Saviour, and cry, "Save, Lord, 
or I perish." Such trials of our faith come in 
the regular course of a Christian towards the 
other side, like the storm-belts near the tropics 



THE OTHEE SIDE. 217 

which lie in the sailor's route from one hemi- 
sphere to the other, and through which he 
must steer his way. 

You and I, Christian, have sailed in such 
latitudes, and heard the winds of temptation 
blow, and felt the waves of distress dash over 
our frail bark. Thus we learned our weak- 
ness ; thus were we humbled ; thus were we 
taught to watch and pray ; thus did we fly to 
Christ, and cry, ''Lord, carest thou not that 
we perish?" 

And it was his voice alone that stilled the 
tempest, and hushed the conflict of the soul. 
How sweet the peace of the believer after sea- 
sons of sore spiritual temptations! Great is 
the peace felt in the new-born soul when first 
it hears the voice of forgiveness ; but there 
are other scenes, subsequent experiences, 
when, after fierce contests with lusts and pas- 
sions, the Saviour gives the victory. Then 
when it is over there is a deeper tranquillity 
in the soul than was ever felt before. Then 
when we have weathered out the rough gales, 
and the heart has become sanctified and hum- 
bled, and we have got as it were out of sight 

Bible Embleins. 10 



218 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

of land on this side, then do we reach a clearer 
atmosphere, and enjoy the refreshing gales of 
the Spirit, which, like the trade-winds, bear 
us steadily along to port. 

It appears that the disciples' expedition 
over the sea of Gralilee was propitious in its 
beginning and at its close : their troubles lay 
along the middle passage. We may remark 
how this is generally the case with the Chris- 
tian's voyage to heaven. G-enerally his latter 
course is tranquil as he draws near to the other 
side. Ofttimes indeed he catches glimpses of 
the shining shore, and on the sunlit hills be- 
yond descries something like the domes and 
turrets of the celestial city. Ofttimes when 
well over towards the other side faith bright- 
ens almost into vision ; he seems to hear the 
distant music, and grows impatient to step 
ashore. We watch his dying pillow till his 
heaving breast lies still. He has reached his 
eternal home ; he has passed over unto the 
other side. i, 

I have thus endeavored to employ the 
narrative of the evangelist to illustrate some 
of the prominent features of a Christian's life. 



THE OTHEE SIDE. 219 

He leaves the world of sin and vanity in obe- 
dience to the effectual call of the Holy Spirit. 
His destination is the better country on the 
other side. The Master who called him goes 
with him all the way, delivers him from 
the trials and dangers which beset him, and 
guides him over the sea of life to the heavenly 
shore. 

How does this description compare with 
your own experience? Have you truly obey- 
ed the call of Christ, and embarked for the 
other side? While the sailing order of our 
text is before you, it is a good time to heave 
the lead, and take an observation. On what 
course are you sailing, and what progress are 
you making in your voyage? Ah, may we 
not ask some who professed once to leave all 
for Christ, whether after all the stir and prep- 
aration of your setting sail you have not put 
back into the old port you set out from ? Are 
you not still living in your sins ? 

Others may not have travelled far, though 
it be months or years since you started. Alas, 
there are not a few professing Christians who 
seem never to lose sight of land this side. 



220 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

Years may have fled, but they have not gat 
many leagues at sea yet. Clinging to earthly 
things ; in love with the pleasures, fashions, 
and follies of this life ; hankering for wealth 
or position, they do little else than hug these 
shores of vanity, and coast along among the 
green isles of temptation which are near them. 
Heave the lead, my brother, and see where 
you are. The Master's orders are, ''To the 
other side J'' And if you have been loitering in 
these waters of worldliness and carnality, it 
becomes you, by repentance, prayer, and self- 
denial, to change your course and steer straight 
for heaven. 

Others in the heavenly voyage may have 
reached the storm-belts, where dangers threaten 
and skies grow dark. The waves of affliction 
dash over the soul ; doubts and misgivings 
trouble you ; crosses and discouragements be- 
set your way, and often you tremble lest you 
be a castaway : but courage, my brother ; if 
Christ be with you, you need not fear. Call 
to Jesus in the storm, and you shall ride it 
out. Think not that you have lost your course. 
If Christ be in the ship, if the soul has found 



THE OTHEK SIDE. 221 

him near, then head right to the wind and 
keep your course for heaven. "These light 
afflictions, which are but for a moment, work 
out for us an exceeding and eternal weight of 
glory." 

And, my aged friends, may I not describe 
you as well-nigh over the sea of life, and near- 
ing the other shore ? Tell us, ye weather- 
beaten saints, have you not got through the 
rough middle passage, and heard the voice of 
Jesus say to the storms, "Peace, be still?" 
Scores of years have passed since you em- 
barked with Christ; the world has changed, 
you have changed, and you are evidently 
nearing port : tell us, do you not feel that the 
night is far spent, and the day is at hand ? Is 
not Christ nearer and nearer to you by faith, 
and do you not hope to be with him soon in 
glory? 

Christian, do n't you sometimes see land on 
the other side ? Are not the hills of Beulah 
in the distance, and the celestial gates ? Oh 
tell us, as you near the other side does not 
faith catch glimpses of the redeemed and the 
Redeemer ? Christian, you are almost home. 



222 BIBLE EMBLEMS. 

Death will soon furl the sail, and moor you by 
the shore. 

My impenitent friend, the call of the gos- 
pel comes to you substantially in our text to 
"pass over unto the other side." Oh when 
will you give up this world, and live for 
heaven ? Though you may refuse to obey 
the call, you cannot stay here long. Life has 
another side, and you must, ere long, depart. 
There is an eternity to which you are going — 
a dim, dark, dismal shore, on which you will 
be cast at death, far off from heaven. 



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