His life is undesirable for himself. II, Such a life is not desirable First on ACCOUNT OF OTHERS. It renders no real good to others. True, a wicked man of genius and intelligence, and enterprise, and means, may contribute something to improve the material condition of his fellow men, but mere material good is not real good, and may become the occasion of real evil in the soul. You may by your intelligence lift an ignorant man to the lofty heights of knowledge ;-you may by your wealth lift a poor man to great posssesions, but intellectual and secular elevation merely, are moral degradations. The greatest moral paupers are often found in mansions, and the greatest moral serfs on thrones. Secondly-It produces incalculable mischief. "Can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit?" No more can a bad life produce spiritual good to others. In the spiritual as in the material, like begets like. "One sinner destroyeth much good." The language, the habits, the spirit, the example of a wicked man are necessarily pernicious. Hence his exit from the world is not to be regretted. Like Jehoram, he departs "without being desired." It is not desirable for him to continue. Is it desirable that germs of disease shall continue in the atmosphere that we breathe ? that streams of poison should run into the waters we drink? No more is it desirable that wicked men should continue to live. Every wicked man as he leaves the world may well say, better would it have been had I never been born, and better too would it have been for the race, the universe, had I never conceived a thought, spoken a word, performed a deed. Wit the Flavour of the Mind. WHEN wit is combined with sense and information; when it is softened by benevolence and restrained by principle; when it is in the hands of a man who can use and despise it-who can be witty and something more than witty,-who loves honour, justice, decency, good-nature, morality, and religion ten thousand times better than wit-wit is then a beatiful and delightful part of our nature. Genuine and innocent wit like this is surely the flavour of the mind. Man could direct his ways by plain reason, and support his life by tasteless food; but God has given us wit, and flavour, and brightness, and laughter, and perfumes, to enliven the days of man's pilgrimage, and to charm his pained steps over the burning marl. SYDNEY SMITH. SEEDS OF SERMONS FROM THE MINOR PROPHETS. MALACHI. [If the Bible as a whole is inspired, it is of vast importance that all its Divine ideas should be brought to bear upon the living world of men. Though the pulpit is the organ Divinely in tended for this work, it has been doing it hitherto in a miserably partial and restricted method. It selects isolated passages, and leaves whole chapters and books for the most part untouched. Its conduct to the Minor Prophets may be taken as a case in point. How seldom are they resorted to for texts! and yet they abound with splendid passages throbbing with Divine ideas. It is our purpose to go through this section of the Holy Word; selecting, however, only such verses in each chapter and book as seem the most suggestive of truths of the most vital interest and universal application. MALACHI-Which means messenger-the last of the Hebrew prophets, is a man whose personal history is wrapped in utter obscurity. He is supposed to have lived after Haggai, and Zechariah, and was contemporary with Nehemiah. It is likely that he occupied a relationship to Nehemiah somewhat analagous to that which Haggai and Zechariah sustained to Zerubbabel. The general opinion is that he flourished about the year 420, B.C. This was that brilliant period in Greece in which flourished some of its greatest men. Cimion, son of Miltiades, distinguished as a commander: Pericles the greatest of Athenian statesmen, under whom Athens attained a splendour that made her the wonder and admiration of all Greece: Phidias, the celebrated sculptor, and a host of distinguished artists; Simonides and Pindar, eminent lyric poets: Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides distinguished dramatists; and Herodotus who has received a title really due to Moses, the "Father of History." tion involves two things: (1.) A souls. It is in truth the only reformation worth having. II. The URGENCY of the spiritual reformation required. The neglect thereof incurs - First: A curse. "I will even send a curse upon you and I will curse your blessings." "I will curse your benedictions. Not the personal advantages and perquisites enjoyed by the priests, but the blessings they pronounced upon the people. The service had been merely formal without any sort of reverence in it: the blessings they uttered should retributively be evacuated of all efficacy and should be a mere formula." are -Dr. Dods. What an awful thing to have blessings turned into curses, and yet if we unregenerate and unrenewed this takes place by the very laws of our moral constitution. As hemlock turns even the sunbeam into poison, corrupt souls turn God's blessings into maledictions. Its neglect incurs-Secondly: A rebuke. According to Kiel, Ewald, and others the expression, "Behold I will corrupt your seed," should be, "Behold I will rebuke your arms." Perhaps the idea is, I will wither your power, I will check the growth of your posterity. There is no true prosperity without spiritual reformation.— The neglect incurs - Thirdly: Contempt. "I will spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your the maw of the victims sacrificed on the feast days: the maw was the perquisite of the priests (Deut. xviii. 3.) which gives peculiar point to the threat here. You shall get the dung of the maw, as your perquisite, instead of the maw. And one shall take you away with it, i.e. you shall be taken away with it, it shall cleave to you wherever you go (Moore). Dung shall be thrown in your faces, and ye shall be taken away i. e. removed out of the way, as dung would be, dung begrimed as ye shall be. (I. Kings xiv. 10. Jer. xvi. 4. xxii. 19)."-Fausset. CONCLUSION: Are we the subjects of this spiritual reformation? Have we been renewed in the spirit of our minds? "Marvel not that I say unto you ye must be born again." No. CCCLVIII. The Minister of Divine Truth. "MY COVENANT WAS WITH HIM OF LIFE AND PEACE," etc.— Malachi ii. 4—19. We have here the minister of Divine truth as he always should be, and as he often is, I. The minister of Divine truth as he ALWAYS SHOULD BE. We learn First: That he should be a man Divinely called. "Ye shall know that I have sent this com mandment unto you that My covenants might be with Levi, saith the Lord of Hosts." What was the Divine Commission to the priesthood? Here it is "Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest hath turned My wrath away from the Children of Israel while he was zealous for My sake among them, that I consumed not the Children of Israel in My jealousy; wherefore say, Behold I give unto him My covenant of peace, and he shall have it and his seed after him." (Num. xxv. 11-13). The Aaronic priests were called of God to be the ministers of life and peace to the people. Two of the greatest blessings of being. What is existence without life, intellectual and spiritual life, and what is life without peace, peace with self, the universe, and with God? We learn-Secondly: That he should be a man of profound reverence. 66 I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared Me, and was afraid before My name." The priest was not only to be entirely free from a volatile and frivolous spirit, but to be profoundly reverential, pervaded by a holy awe. He was to be impressed with the solemnity of the commission with which he was entrusted. We learn-Thirdly: That he should be a man of moral truthfulness. "The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips." The moral laws which he has to inculcate and administer are to be regal forces in his own soul, and embodied in his life. He is to be free from the control of all shams and theories, a man of stern, moral, realities. We learn-Fourthly: That he should be a man of practical devotion. "He walked with Me in peace and equity." His life should be a walk, there should be progress in it, he should walk with God, and walk with God in "peace and equity." We learn-Fifthly : That he should be a man of the highest usefulness. "And did turn many away from iniquity." Iniquity is man's curse and ruin : to turn him from that is to save him, and that is the work of the true minister. The commission given to Paul was to "turn men from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God." We learn-Sixthly: That he should be a man of the highest intelligence. "For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts." Being a senger of the Lord of Hosts," he is to understand and appreciate the wonderful message, and give it from his own mouth to the people. Such is what Levi, as an ideal priest, was and did, and every minister of Divine Truth must be and do the same. What a high mes standard to aim at. How its light condemns and abashes most of us. We have here II. The minister of Divine truth as HE OFTEN 18. The false minister is here represented First: As swerving from the right. "But ye are departed out of the way." Ye are very different in your conduct from the ideal priest and even from your actual predecessors in office, your careless teaching, your superficial dealing, your contentment with formulas and external rites, and your personal laxity, have given men a prejudice against religion altogether. Instead of helping men to accept the truth and live Godly lives you have caused even those who wished to do so to take offence and turn away. A sceptical age is necessarily the result of externality and heartlessness in the religious teachers of previous generations. The false minister is representedSecondly: As leading the people astray. "Ye have caused many to stumble at the law." Not only by their speech but by their conduct do many who profess to be ministers of God's word lead the people to stumble. Their inconsistent life, their theological jargon, their exclusive spirit, lead the people to "stumble" at Divine things. The false minister is represented here-Thirdly: As perverting the truth. "Ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi." How many there are who tamper with the word of God, who employ it to support some favourite prejudice, or to buttress their little sect! How far for example, is our conventional theology unlike the theology of Christ. The false minister is represented here-Fourthly: As becoming contemptible. "Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people." Ministers who hunt after honor, popularity, gain, become contemptible in the estimation of intelligent and unsophisticated souls. The pulpit of England is certainly sinking into contempt with the English people. This is a sad calamity. The decrease in the number of those who attend churches, compared with the increase of population, the growth of a literature in thorough antagonism to the spirit and aims of Christianity: and the fact that the great bulk of the reading and thinking men of England stand aloof from all churches, plainly show that the pulpit of England is sinking into popular contempt. Primates and prelates, and preachers are treated with ridicule in nearly all popular literature and scientific discussion. A more terrible sign of the times I know not than this. The "salt" of the pulpit has lost its "savour," and it is being trodden under foot with disdain and contempt. Trodden under foot by our authors |