God. "Ye have said it is vain to serve God." There is a great difference between serving God and serving man. (1) In the one case the servant benefits the master, in the other the sole benefit is the servants. (2) In the one the service is estimated by work actually done, in the other by work earnestly purposed. (3) In the one there is a surrender of freedom in the other there is the attainment of it. He who engages to serve man must surrender some portion of his liberty, he who serves God alone secures the highest freedom. Religion is Secondly: To keep God's ordinances. "We have kept His ordinance." This is only a branch of the service, or perhaps the method of doing it. God has ordinances or institutes, some are moral, some are ceremonial; the latter may cease to bind, the former are everlastingly in force. Religion is Thirdly: To walk mournfully before the Lord. "We have walked mournfully before the Lord." To"walk' before the Lord is religion in perfection, religion in heaven. It implies an abiding consciousness of the Divine presence, and continual progress in the Divine Will. Walking "mournfully" characterises the religion of earth, it is associated with penitence, contrition, etc. The walk of religion is only mournful here. Here we have TED. II. Practical religion DEPRECIA"Your words have been stout against Me, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, what have we spoken so much against Thee? Ye have said, it is vain to serve God, and what profit is it that we have kept His ordinance ?" Men say this First When religion does not answer their secular expectations. Many take up with religion in these days because of the secular good they expect will accrue from their profession of it, if the Lord come not, they think it vain. Men say this Secondly: When they see the truly religious in poverty and affliction. Asaph saw this and he said "I have washed my hands in vain." Men say this Thirdly: When they have taken up religion from selfish motives. A man who takes up with religion for the sake of good will get no good out of it: they will get disappointment and damnation, for " he that seeketh his life shall lose it." No truly religious man has said religion is vain, he feels it to be its own reward-the highest reward. For in truth, it is the only service on earth that will not prove vain. Whatever other labour fails the success of this is insured, insured by the word of God, the constitution of mind, and the arrangements of the universe. "Therefore be ye steadfast, immovable, always abounding," &c. HOMILETICAL BREVIARIES. No. CCCCXVI. The Divine Distribution of the Earth Amongst Men. "I HAVE MADE THE EARTH, THE MAN AND THE BEAST THAT ARE UPON THE GROUND, BY MY GREAT POWER AND BY MY OUTSTRETCHEd arm, and HAVE GIVEN IT UNTO WHOM IT SEEMED MEET UNTO ME." Jer. xxvii. 5. A message is here sent by God to many Kings informing them that He had given away all their land into the hands of another King. The subject is God's distribution of various portions of the earth amongst men. The various acres of the world do not fall into the hands of those who possess them as a matter of right, or as the result of their industry or conquest, but as God's gifts. The land which He now took from some kings He gave to one of the corruptest of men and most tyrannical of kings, Nebuchadnezzar. The passage implies two facts concerning this distribution of the earth by God. I. In it He EXERCISES AN ABSOLUTE RIGHT. He does not give what does not belong to Him, it is His, His by creation. "I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground." "The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof." The earth with all its minerals, fruits, productions, and countless tenants, is His; nay, the whole universe is His. He is the One original and absolute Proprietor of all things that exist. All matter is His, and all souls are His. If He gives a thousand acres to one man and denies a yard to another, it is not for us to complain. He has a right to do it. The passage implies concerning this Divine distribution of the earth, II. In it He ACTS ACCORDING TO HIS OWN free choice ALONE. "And have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto Me." He gives it not on the ground of merit to any man, for now He gave it to Nebuchadnezzar, one of the worst of men. Indeed the worst of men have always had the largest portion of the earth. The only principle in the distribution is His own sovereignty. All He does "seemeth meet" to Him. What "seemeth meet" to a Being of Infinite wisdom and goodness must be the wisest and the most benevolent. To us indeed it does not seem "meet" that some of the worst men should own the largest portions of the earth: but 66 Here let us hush "Even so to Him it "seemeth meet," and this should satisfy us. CONCLUSION: The subject teaches us how we should hold that portion of the earth we possess, however small or great it may be. We should hold it (1). With profound humility. What we possess is a gift not a right. We are the temporary trustees, not the proprietors. He who holds the most should be the most humble, for he has the most to account for. We should hold it (2). With practical thanksgiving. What we possess is God's free unmerited gift, and supreme gratitude to Him should rule us in our appropriation of it. This indeed is all the rent that the Supreme Landlord requires from us, thanksgiving and praise. We should hold it (3). With a solemn sense of our responsibility. We must give an account of the use not only of every acre, but of every yard. It is given to us not for our own gratification and self-aggrandisement, but for the good of the race and the glory of God. The time will come when the Great Proprietor will summon all His tenants in order to know what use they have made of His earthly gifts. We should hold it (4). With a conscious dependence on His will. We are all tenants at will. We know not the moment when He shall see fit to eject us from His land. No. CCCCXVII. Death in the absence of Men but in the Presence of God. "AND DIE IN THE MOUNT WHITHER THOU GOEST UP."-Deut. xxii. 50. Here is death I. In the ABSENCE OF MEN. Moses ascends a solitary mountain, leaving every friend and companion behind him; not a single man by his side. Is not this a type of every man's death? Is not every death-bed a profound solitude? "Je mourrai seul,' I shall die alone; these were the words of the great Pascal: and they are true of every man. We may live with others, but we must die by ourselves. Millions may have gone before us, and millions may follow after; but each one of us must gird himself for that tremendous journey alone, not Moses, more lonely on the peak of Nebo; not of all those weeping ones that stand around our couch, can one, even if he would, take a single step of that journey with us."-Trench. Death is a solemn assertion of our individuality. By it, for a time at any rate, we cut ourselves off from our nearest and dearest relations, friends and companions, however numerous, ford the cold stream alone, and stand before our Maker alone. Man may associate, and become so identified with others, as to be shaped in his thoughts and speech and character almost by others. But he cannot be amalgamated. His individuality remains intact, and must assert itself at death. Here is death II. In the PRESENCE OF GOD. Though no man stands by him in his dying moments, God is by his side. He Himself buried Moses' body in the land of Moab. He goes with His people into the great unknown. "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me." The great Father will never leave or forsake His children.* No. CCCCXVIII. The Calmness of Christ. ARISE, LET US GO HENCE."-John xiv. 31. "Go hence" whither? To the horrors of Gethsemane, to the tortures of hostile tribunals, to the insults of infuriated mobs, to the agonies of the Cross. Considering his whither what a spirit of sublime calmness breathes in these words! The moral calmness of Christ appears everywhere in His history; it breathes in His answers to insulting and malignant men, in His sublime silence before His hostile judges, in His unperturbed bearing amidst infuriated mobs. It is indeed the story of His life. His calmness suggests I. HIS CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE RECTITUDE OF HIS CHARACTER AND PROCEEDURE. Had He been guilty of any moral impropriety, of any wrong against God or man, conscience would have disturbed Him, for remorse creates inner storms. Or, had He any misgivings as to the rectitude of His proceedure in endeavouring to work out the moral restoration of mankind, He might have been disturbed. His calmness, inasmuch as it was not stoicism, or indifference, or the lack *For further remarks on the death of Moses see Homilist, Vol. II., p. 265, also Vol. X., p. 638. of sensibility or passion-for Christ was exquisitely sensitive and emotional-shows that He had a profound sense of the rectitude of His proceedure. His calmness suggests II. A SUBLIME SENSE OF SUPERIORITY. Well He knew the ignorance and depravity, the feebleness and wretchedness of those who were dealing out to Him their scoffings and insults on every hand, and He rose above all, He felt His superiority. Their stormy insults woke no ripple upon the deep translucent lake of His great nature. His calmness suggests III. AN INWARD ASSURANCE OF HIS ULTIMATE SUCCESS. He had an end to accomplish, and had laid His plans by which to reach it. All the opposition which He met with had entered into His calculations before He commenced this sublime enterprise. He set His face as a flint and would not fail or be discouraged. He knew that He would 66 see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied." He set at defiance all opposition. Though "the heathen raged and the people imagined a vain thing," He laughed them to scorn. His calmness suggests IV. THE HARMONY OF ALL HIS IMPULses and powers. Because in our depraved natures, there are two elements warring against one another, the law of the flesh and the law of the spirit-we are constantly being disturbed, right wars with policy, conscience with impulse, and we are subject to constant tempests, and we get like the troubled sea. Not BO with Him. All the elements of His soul moved as serenely and harmoniously as move the planets. He was at One with Himself as well as with His God and the universe. His calmness suggests V. HIS CLAIM TO OUR IMITATION. Had He been subject to disturbances of passion, had He been irritated with the conduct of His contemporaries, had He been thrown into a tumult of indignation by the conduct of His enemies, or of fear at the prospect of His awful sufferings and death, He would have failed as an example to us, for we feel that moral calmness is what we all God enable us to imitate Christ in this calmness. To be calm amidst the surges of human passion, calm in the prospect of death, what a blessing! A lady once asked Mr. Wesley, "Supposing that you knew that you were to die at 12 o'clock to-morrow night, how would you spend the intervening time?" How, Madam ?" replied he, "why, just as I intend to spend it now, I should preach this evening at Gloucester: and again, at five o'clock to-morrow morning. After that I should ride to Tewkesbury, preach in the afternoon, and meet the societies in the evening. I should then repair to friend Martin's house, who expects to entertain me: converse and pray with the family as usual, retire to my room at ten o'clock, commend myself to my Heavenly Father, lie down to rest and wake up in glory." want. 66 |