1. Because in themselves was the moral cause of suffering. Sin is the cause of all suffering, and sin was in them. To weep over suffering, and be indifferent to sin, is the same as the tyrant weeping over the groans of the slave, whose agonies he is, at the same moment, producing; or as the murderer weeping over those wounds in his victim which he inflicts as the tears flow. 2. Because the moral cause of suffering can only be removed by penitential sorrow. The sorrow which Mary displayedwho washed his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head-and which Peter felt, who wept bitterly at the touching glance of Christ's eye-this is "the godly sorrow" which is ever necessary to free humanity from suffering. My sentimental friend, the subject has a solemn lesson to thee. Often hast thou wept as thou hast read the tragic narrative of our Saviour's love, or as thou hast listened to one of those discourses on the subject, too often framed for the unworthy purpose of exciting the vulgar sympathies, and producing a popular effect. Infer not from this that thou art a Christian. Such tears prove nothing. Christ requires no tears for himself, and thou hast no tears to spare. He does not require one for his sufferings, but oceans, if thou hast them, for thy sins. His religion has to do not with the sensuous but with the spiritual sympathies of the soul; seeks not to captivate our sense for transient forms, but our sense for everlasting principles. Analysis of Homily the Forty-eighth. "Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency."-Psa. lxxiii. 13. SUBJECT:-A Right Act, but a Wrong Opinion. I. HERE IS A RIGHT ACT. Cleansing the heart and washing the hands mean the cultivation of personal holiness; and this is certainly a right work for man. It implies three things:(1) The consciousness of personal defilement; (2) the possession of a cleansing element; (3) the effort of personal application. Moral evil is the defilement,-Christianity is the cleansing element,—and practical faith is the personal application. : II. HERE IS A WRONG OPINION. The writer thought that it was "in vain." Three facts show that this is a great mistake (1) That moral holiness involves its own reward. (2) That moral holiness is promoted by temporal adversity. (3) That moral holiness will meet with its perfect recompense hereafter. No; this cleansing the heart is no vain work. No engagement is so real and profitable. Every fresh practical idea of God is a rising in the scale of being and bliss; every conquest over sense, appetite, and sin, is a widening and strengthening of our spiritual sovereignty; every devout sentiment, earnest resolve, and generous sacrifice, attune our natures to higher music. Without holiness, what are we? Empalaced and enthroned, with an empire at our feet, we are but decorated dust-lost men— -"children of the wicked one." "Had I a throne above the rest, Where angels or archangels dwell, One sin unslain within my breast Would make that heaven as dark as hell." Analysis of Homily the Forty-ninth. "There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy."Jas. iv. 12. I. HIS PRE-EMINENCE. "One lawgiver." There are many in the universe, but there is ONE above all. (1) His authority is underived. All other legislators act on trust; they are responsible to some one-He to none. His laws are neither from the precedents or suggestions of others, but from himself. (2) His laws are constitutional; they are written in the very nature of the subject. Hence (1) they are unalterable. Human legislation is a history of changes, because it is not based upon the universal elements of humanity. (2) They involve their own sanction. No officer is necessary either to apprehend the transgressor, or to inflict the penalty: with the act come both the punishment and reward. (3) They are the ultimate standards of conduct. Things are good or evil, perilous or safe, according to their approximation to the laws of this ONE Lawgiver. -- II. HIS PREROGATIVE. He is able to save and to destroy. There is no other being in the universe who can either really save or destroy. There are three classes of moral beings in the universe (1) Those that he can destroy, but never will. These are unfallen angels and sainted men. He could hush, by a volition, all the anthems of the holy worlds, but so long as holiness exists he will never do so. (2) Those that he could save, but never will. He could redeem the population of the nether world, but the Bible gives us to understand that he never will. (3) Those that he can either save or destroy. These are men on earth. If a human sovereign possess the prerogative to save a condemned criminal, and he nevertheless perish, it must be for one of three reasons. It must be either that he is indisposed to use it, or that it is not expedient for him to use it, or that the criminal spurns it. Neither of the two first will apply to God. The Bible declares his willingness, and the atonement makes it expedient. K The Genius of the Gospel. (Continued from Vol. II., page 66.) [ABLE expositions of the gospel, describing the manners, customs, and localities alluded to by the inspired writers; also interpreting their words, and harmonizing their formal discrepancies, are happily not wanting amongst us. But the eduction of its widest truths and highest suggestions is still a felt desideratum. To some attempt at the work we devote these pages. We gratefully avail ourselves of all exegetical helps within our reach; but to occupy our limited space with any lengthened archæological, geographic, or philological remark, would be to miss our aim; which is not be make bare the mechanical process of scriptural study, but to reveal its spiritual results.] SIXTH SECTION.-Matt. iv. 1—11. Temptation of Christ; or, the Typal Battle of the Good. WE have stated that there are four points of similarity between our Saviour's conflict in the wilderness, and that in which every good man is engaged; it was a battle in the soul— a battle for dominion, a battle won by faith, and a battle resulting in glory. Having discussed the first at considerable length, we proceed at once to the consideration of the remainder; and as we find our space so limited, and we are not disposed to carry on this subject to yet another number, we must condense it to the utmost. We remark, then "All these II. THAT IT WAS A BATTLE FOR DOMINION. things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me." The great end Diabolos sought in each attack, was the prostration of Christ's soul to the sway of his principles-the achieving of his infernal sovereignty over his inner being. This dominion meant at least two things: first, the subordinating the spiritual to the material-the getting of food, wealth, and power, at the sacrifice of great spiritual rights; and, secondly, the subordinating of the divine to the self-seeking—having the sense of God and duty swamped by personal considerations. God's will renounced, and personal will adopted as the sovereign principle. If this be the meaning, it follows that what was fruitlessly attempted with Christ, has succeeded in the case of humanity. Diabolos holds almost an absolute dominion. Everywhere the material is in the ascendency-the body with its five senses is on the throne-intellect, genius, and even consience, are its serfs. And everywhere is the divine will subordinated to the human. Alas, alas! the world has fallen down, and is now on its knees before Satan. Now it is certainly suggested that this submission is the way to worldly possessions. I will give thee the world, says the EVIL ONE, "if thou wilt fall down and worship me." Is it not a general truth, that man must prostrate all that is divine in his soul to material and selfish impulses if he would gain much of the world?—that the highest prizes of mammon are awarded to souls on their knees in the dust before Diabolos ? Wouldest thou get worldly wealth and greatness, my friend? Then remember that moral prostration of soul is the condition. "ALL THESE THINGS WILL I GIVE THEE, IF THOU WILT FALL DOWN AND WORSHIP ME." What was it III. THAT IT IS A BATTLE WON BY FAITH. that enabled Jesus to stand triumphantly against the powerful assaults of the arch-enemy of souls? Not miraculous, but moral, power-power of faith. But faith in what? First. Faith in the true Source of existence. "It is written" (Deut. viii. 3) "Man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord;" or, as Olshausen has it, by "everything which proceedeth from the mouth of Jehovah." The language may mean either that man requires something more from God than bread in order to live, or that God's "word" or volition is the source of life. The former is true. Were we nothing but flesh and blood, bread might support us, but we are intellect-imaginationheart-conscience, and we crave for truth, beauty, goodness, God, as well as bread. Souls cannot feed on bread. But although this is a truth, the latter, we think, is the truth here taught. God's "word," or will, is the source of life. He can sustain us without bread, and starve us with it. The words of his mouth |