any of our fellow-creatures have laid us under? What have they done for us? suffered for us? How few, how inconsiderable, how unexpensive, how unattended with any thing like sacrifice and self-denial, have their acts of favour been! But he, without our desert, and against the greatest demerit, remembered us in our low estate; and, in his love and pity, redeemed us. And how? He was made a curse for us. He bore our sins in his own body on the tree. By his stripes we are healed. Where does he stand? how does he appear? when he says, My son, give me thy heart?— "See, from his head, his hands, his feet, "Or thorns compose so rich a crown?" And can we wonder at the result? "Were the whole realm of Nature mine, "Demands my soul, my life, my all." No legal process ever produced this surrender. The display of terror and mere authority never made one cordial convert to any cause. Would you be induced to love another, by his commanding you to do so, and his threatening you, if you do not? No; but by a display of love-Love begets love. And we love Him, because he first loved us-At the Cross we are effectually wooed and won-There we are drawn, and there we are bound with cords of a man and the bands of love. Lastly. His engagement to reward our devotedness to him. Christians are not mercenary; but they cannot serve him for nought. The recompense must be of grace, and not of works-so much the better is it for their hope: for it is to be measured and judged of now, not according to their doings, but his own abundant mercy, which is to be displayed therein. Hence will he say at last, with regard to those poor performances over which they have blushed and wept, "Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." But he is not unrighteous to forget their work of faith and labour of love, even now. In keeping his commandments, there is great reward. Great peace have they that love his law; and nothing shall offend them. He is the best of masters. He furnishes them with ability for their work. He lays no more upon his servants than he enables them to bear. He will comfort them in affliction. He will not cast them off in old age. He will remember the kindness of their youth. When heart and flesh fail, he will be the strength of their heart and their portion for ever. And at death, receive them to himself; that where he is there they may be also.-Sinners talk of the pleasures of sin; but they never commend them at last. The people of the world boast of its amusements and delights; but they never speak well of it at parting. In every season, in every condition, however trying, the Christian can say-Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord. "Then Peter said, Lo, we have left all, and followed thee. And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting." SEPT. 17.-"Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for me and thee.". Matt. xvii. 27. In the midst of this supernatural scene, a sanction is thus given by our Saviour, to the use of means. The supply was, in its source, preparation, and announcement, miraculous; yet Peter, who is to receive it as a favour, is to procure it by his instrumentality. The peculiar nature of the instance only renders it the more conclusive: for if our Lord would not dispense with the use of means in an extraordinary case, surely he will not dispense with it in an ordinary one. Some good, but not very wise people, seem to think that instrumentality detracts from the Divine glory; and that God is honoured more by acting im-mediately. But instrumentality supposes and requires agency: and the means themselves are always the Lord's own; and he gives them their success. His producing an effect by various concurrences and co-operations, displays more of his perfections, and gives more opportunity to observe them, than his causing a result, by an instant volition. Here was something which Peter could do, and something which he could not do. He could not replenish the fish with the money, or make it to swim in the direction of his bait; but he could procure the bait, and throw in the hook; and in the most likely place; and stand; and watch. Why does not the Lord dispense with all this? and cause the fish to spring on shore? and appear at once upon Peter's table? Because he would not sanction indolence. Because he would render even his miracles moral, as well as marvellous. Because his exertions were not a mere parade of power; but a display of wisdom and goodness, meeting indigence, relieving weakness, confirming faith: but not encouraging folly and presumption-teaching us to trust-but forbidding us to tempt him. In like manner, there is always something which we cannot do; and something which we can dobut the evil is, that we commonly derive from the former, excuses for our neglect of the latter: and so God's agency becomes a reason for our inactivity, instead of exciting our diligence-perfectly contrary to the meaning of the Apostle, when he says, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you to will and to do of his good pleasure." In natural things we are wiser. Can the husbandman produce an ear of corn? He knows it is perfectly impossible. But he can manure, and plough, and sow; and in the use of these he expects the divine efficiency-but never in the neglect of them. No man can quicken his own soul. But there are means which are designed and adapted to serve us; and we can pray, "Come, thou north wind, and blow, thou south." It is thus that religion possesses the evidence of analogy; and in the God of grace, we see the God of nature. He feeds the fowls of the air, not by putting it into their mouths; but by furnishing provision; and giving them wings, and eyes, and feet, and beaks, to find and make it their own-"That thou givest them, they gather" -And thus "he satisfies the desire of every living thing." He could warm us without the fire, and sustain us without food-but we know what would be the consequence were we to disregard these, under a notion of honouring him by a dependence on his agency. Though the effect here was beyond the means, yet there was an adaptation in them. Peter was a fisherman; and he is employed in his own line: and his fishing was not only the condition of the result, but the medium-and conduced to it. And in general we may observe that while the insufficiency of the means serves to display the power of God, the suitableness of them shews his wisdom. And such a suitableness there is. A pen cannot write without a hand to use it; yet there is an adaptation in the instrument to the work. Some seem to use the means of grace only as tests of their submission to the Divine appointment-not as things which have a real tendency even in themselves to do them good. They expect the Divine blessing in them, but not by them -i.e. not as an effect resulting from them under the Divine influence-as if in the use of them they were planting and watering pebbles, which, by an Almighty exertion, could be made to yield produce-instead of using them as a man sows wheat, and looks for wheat to arise from it-not without God, but by God, in his own way. Faith cometh by hearing; and hearing tends to produce it, by informing and convincing the mind. The same may be said of a religious education, in forming the moral and pious character of the child. -Peter did well not to disobey, or reason; but to follow implicitly the Divine order; fully expecting success. And he was not-could not be-disappointed. And thus let us act without murmuring, or disputing. Let us use the means which he has prescribed, not only swayed by his authority, but relying on his promise-that none of those that wait for him shall be ashamed. SEPT. 18.-" I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water.” Zech. ix. 11. PERSONS may be prisoners, as felons, as robbers, as debtors, as captives taken in war. The character of the subjects of Divine grace, by nature, involved all these. A pit wherein there is no water is a situation expressive of destitution, wretchedness, and danger. |