Review and Herald, Vol. 17, No. 10.
THE HAND OF GOD TO BE ACKNOWLEDGED BY THE DAILY CIRCUMSTANCES OF LIFEPage 1
THE HAND OF GOD TO BE ACKNOWLEDGED BY THE DAILY CIRCUMSTANCES OF LIFE.
By Hannah More
If we would indeed love God, let us "acquaint ourselves with him." The word of inspiration has assured us that there is no other way to "be at peace." As we cannot love an unknown God, so neither can we know him, or even approach toward that knowledge, but on the terms which he himself holds out to us; neither will he save us but in the method which he has himself prescribed. His very perfections the just objects of our adoration, all stand in the way of creatures so guilty. His justice is the flaming sword which excludes us from the Paradise we have forfeited. His purity is so opposed to our corruptions, his omnipotence to our infirmity, his wisdom to our folly, that had we not to plead the great propitiation, those very attributes which are now our trust would be our terror. The most opposite images of human conception, the widest extremes of human language are used for the purpose of showing what God is to us, in our natural state, and what he is under the Christian dispensation. The "consuming fire" is transformed into essential love. But as we cannot find out the Almighty to perfection, so we cannot love him with that pure flame which animates glorified spirits. But there is a preliminary acquaintance with him, an initial love of him for which he has furnished us with means by his works, by his word, and by his Spirit. Even in this weak and barren soil some germs will shoot, some blossoms will open, of that celestial plant, which, watered by the dews of heaven, and ripened by the sun of righteousness, will, in a more genial clime, expand into the fullness of perfection, and bear immortal fruits in the Paradise of God. A person of a cold, phlegmatic temper, who laments that he wants that fervor in his love of the supreme Being which is apparent in more ardent characters, may take comfort if he find the same indifference respecting his worldly attachments. But if his affections are intense towards the perishable things of earth, while they are dead to such a state, it does not prove that he is destitute of passions, but only that they are not directed to the proper object. If however he love God with that measure of feeling with which God has endowed him, he will not be punished or rewarded because the stock is greater or smaller than that of some other of his fellow creatures. In those intervals when our sense of divine things is weak and low, we must not give way to distrust, but warm our hearts with the recollection of our best moments. Our motives to love and gratitude are not now diminished, but our spiritual frame is lower, our natural spirits are weaker. Where there is languor there will be discouragements. But we must not desist. "Faint yet pursuing," must be the Christian's motto. There is more merit (if ever we dare apply so arrogant a word to our worthless efforts) in persevering under depression and discomfort than in the happiest flow of devotion, when the tide of health and spirits runs high. Where there is less gratification there is more disinterestedness. We ought to consider it as a cheering evidence, that our love may be equally pure though it is not equally fervent, when we persist in serving our heavenly Father with the same constancy, though it may please him to withdraw from us the same consolations. Perseverance may bring us to the very dispositions the absence of which we are lamenting.—"O tarry thou the Lord's leisure, be strong and he shall comfort thy heart." We are too ready to imagine that we are religious because we know something of religion. We appropriate to ourselves the pious sentiments we read, and we talk as if the thoughts of other men's heads were really the feelings of our own hearts. But piety has not its seat in the memory, but in the affections, for which however the memory is an excellent purveyor, though a bad substitute. Instead of an undue elation of heart when we peruse some of the Psalmist's beautiful effusions, we should feel a deep self-abasement at the reflection, that however our case may sometimes resemble his, yet how inexplicable to our hearts are the ardent expressions of his repentance, the overflowing of his gratitude, the depth of his submission, the entireness of his self-dedication, the fervor of his love. But he who indeed can once say with him, "Thou art my portion," will, like him, surrender himself unreservedly to his service. It is important that we never suffer our faith, any more than our love, to be depressed or elevated, by mistaking for its own operations the ramblings of a busy imagination. The steady principle of faith must not look for its character to the vagaries of a mutable and fantastic fancy—La folle de la Maison, as she has been well denominated. Faith which has once fixed her foot on the immutable rock of ages, fastened her firm eye on the cross, and stretched out her triumphant hand to seize the promised crown, will not suffer her stability to depend on this ever shifting faculty; she will not be driven to despair by the blackest shades of its pencil, nor be betrayed into a careless security, by its most flattering and vivid colors. One cause of the fluctuations of our faith is, that we are too ready to judge the Almighty by our own low standard. We judge him not by his own declarations of what he is, and what he will do, but by our own feelings and practices. We ourselves are too little disposed to forgive those who have offended us. We therefore conclude that God cannot pardon our offences. We suspect him to be implacable because we are apt to be so, and we are unwilling to believe that he can pass by injuries because we find it so hard to do it. When we forgive it is grudgingly and superficially; we therefore infer that God cannot forgive freely and fully. We make a hypocritical distinction between forgiving and forgetting injuries. God clears away the score when he grants the pardon. He does not only say, "thy sins and thy iniquities will I forgive, but 'I will remember no more.'" We are disposed to urge the smallness of our offences, as a plea for their forgiveness; whereas God, to exhibit the boundlessness of his own mercy, has taught us to allege a plea directly contrary, "Lord pardon mine iniquity for it is great." To natural reason this argument of David is most extraordinary. But while he felt that the greatness of his own iniquity left him no resource but in the mercy of his God, he felt that God's mercy was greater even than his own sin. What a large, what a magnificent idea does it give us of the divine power and goodness, that the believer, instead of pleading the smallness of his own offences as a motive for pardon, pleads only the abundance of the divine compassion? We are told that it is the duty of the Christian to "seek God." We assent to the truth of the proposition. Yet it would be less irksome to corrupt nature in pursuit of this knowledge, to go a pilgrimage to distant lands, than to seek him within our own hearts. Our own heart is the true terra incognita; a land more foreign and unknown to us than the regions of the polar circle. Yet that heart is the place in which an acquaintance with God must be sought. It is there we must worship him, if we would worship him in spirit and in truth. But alas! the heart is not the home of a worldly man, it is scarcely the home of a Christian. If business and pleasure are the natural element of the generality; a dreary vacuity, sloth, and insensibility, too often worse than both, disincline, disqualify too many Christians for the pursuit. I have observed, and I think I have heard others observe, that a common beggar had rather screen himself under the wall of a churchyard, if overtaken by a shower of rain, though the church doors stand invitingly open, than take shelter within it while divine service is performing. It is a less annoyance to him to be drenched with the storm, than to enjoy the convenience of a shelter and a seat if he must enjoy them at the heavy price of listening to the sermon. While we condemn the beggar, let us look into our own hearts;74happy if we cannot there detect somewhat of the same indolence, indisposedness, and distaste to serious things! Happy if we do not find that we prefer not only our pleasures and enjoyments, but, I had almost said, our very pains and vexations, and inconveniences, to communing with our Maker! Happy if we had not rather be absorbed in our petty cares, and little disturbances, provided we can contrive to make them the means of occupying our thoughts, filling up our minds, and drawing them away from that devout intercourse, which demands the liviest exercise of our rational powers, the highest elevation of our spiritual affections! Is it not to be apprehended that the dread of being driven to this sacred intercourse is one grand cause of that activity and restlessness which sets the world in perpetual motion? Though we are ready to express a general sense of our confidence in Almighty goodness, yet what definite meaning do we annex to the expression? What practical evidences have we to produce that we really do trust him? Does this trust deliver us from worldly anxiety? Does it exonerate us from the same perturbation of spirits which those endure who make no such profession? Does it relieve the mind from doubt and distrust? Does it tranquilize the troubled heart? Does it regulate its disorders and compose its fluctuations? Does it soothe us under irritation? Does it support us under trials? Does it fortify us against temptations? Does it lead us to repose a full confidence in that being whom we profess to trust? Does it produce in us “that work of righteousness which is peace;” that effect of righteousness which is “quietness and assurance forever?” Do we commit ourselves and our concerns to God in word, or in reality? Does this implicit reliance simplify our desires? Does it induce us to credit the testimony of his word and the promises of his gospel? Do we not even entertain some secret suspicions of his faithfulness and truth in our hearts, when we persuade others and try to persuade ourselves that we unreservedly trust in him? In the preceding chapter we endeavored to illustrate our want of love to God by our not being as forward to vindicate the divine conduct as to justify that of an acquaintance. The same illustration may express our reluctance to trust in God. If a tried friend engage to do us a kindness, though he may not think it necessary to explain the particular manner in which he intends to do it, we repose on his word. Assured of the result, we are neither very inquisitive about the mode nor the detail. But do we treat our Almighty Friend with the same liberal confidence? Are we not murmuring because we cannot see all the process of his administration, and follow his movements step by step? Do we wait the development of his plan, in full assurance that the issue will be ultimately good? Do we trust that he is as abundantly willing as able to do more for us than we can ask or think, if by our suspicions we do not offend him, if by our infidelity we do not provoke him? In short, do we not think ourselves utterly undone, when we have only but Providence to trust to? We are perhaps ready enough to acknowledge God in our mercies, nay, we confess him in the ordinary enjoyments of life. In some of these common mercies, as in a bright day, a refreshing shower, delightful scenery, a kind of sensitive pleasure, an hilarity of spirits, a sort of animal enjoyment, though of a refined nature, mixes itself with our devotional feelings, and though we confess and adore the bountiful Giver, we do it with a little mixture of self-complacency, and of human gratification, which he pardons and accepts. But we must look for him in scenes less animating, we must acknowledge him on occasions less exhilarating, less sensibly gratifying. It is not only in his promises that God manifests his mercy. His threatenings are proofs of the same compassionate love. He threatens, not to punish, but by the warning, to snatch from the punishment. We may also trace marks of his hand not only in the awful visitations of life, not only in the severer dispensation of his providence, but in vexations so trivial that we should hesitate to suspect that they are providential appointments, did we not know that our daily life is made up of unimportant circumstances, rather than of great events. As they are however of sufficient importance to exercise the Christian tempers and affections, we may trace the hand of our heavenly Father in those daily little disappointments, and hourly vexations which occur even in the most prosperous state, and which are inseparable from the condition of humanity. We must trace that same beneficent hand, secretly at work for our purification, our correction, our weaning from life, in the imperfections and disagreeableness of those who may be about us, in the perverseness of those with whom we transact business, and in those interruptions which break in on our favorite engagements. We are perhaps too much addicted to our innocent delights, or we are too fond of our leisure, of our learned, even of our religious leisure. But while we say it is good for us to be here, the divine vision is withdrawn, and we are compelled to come down from the mount. Or, perhaps we do not improve our retirement to the purposes for which it was granted, and to which we had resolved to devote it, and our time is broken in upon to make us more sensible of its value. Or we feel a complacency in our leisure, a pride in our books; perhaps we feel proud of the good things we are intending to say, or meditating to write, or preparing to do. A check is necessary, yet it is given in a way almost imperceptible. The hand that gives it is unseen, is unsuspected, yet it is the same gracious hand which directs the more important events of life. An important application, a disqualifying, though not severe indisposition, a family avocation, a letter important to the writer, but unseasonable to us, breaks in on our projected privacy; calls us to a sacrifice of our inclination, to a renunciation of our own will. These incessant trials of temper, if well improved may be more salutary to the mind than the finest passage we had intended to read, or the sublimest sentiment we had fancied we should write. Instead then of going in search of great mortifications, as a certain class of pious writers recommend, let us cheerfully bear, and diligently improve these inferior trials which God prepares for us. Submission to a cross which he inflicts, to a disappointment which he sends, to a contradiction of our self-love, which he appoints, is a far better exercise than great penances of our own choosing. Perpetual conquests over impatience, ill temper and self-will indicate a better spirit than any self-imposed mortifications. We may traverse oceans, and scale mountains on uncommanded pilgrimages without pleasing God; we may please him without any other exertion than crossing our own will. Perhaps you had been busying your imagination with some projected scheme, not only lawful, but laudable. The design was radically good, but the supposed value of your own agency, might too much interfere, might a little taint the purity of your best intentions. The motives were so fixed that it was difficult to separate them. Sudden sickness obstructed the design. You naturally lament the failure, not perceiving that, however good the work might be for others, the sickness was better for yourself. An act of charity was in your intention, but God saw that your soul required the exercise of a more difficult virtue; that humility and resignation, that the patience, acquiescence, and contrition of a sick bed were more necessary for you. He accepts the undiluted work as far as it was designed for his glory, but he calls his servant to other duties which were more salutary for him, and of which the Master was the better judge. He sets aside his work and orders him to wait; the more difficult part of his task. As far as your motive was pure you will receive the reward of your unperformed charity, though not the gratification of the performance. If it was not pure you are rescued from the danger attending a right action performed on a worldly principle. You may be the better Christian, though one good deed is subtracted from your catalogue. By a life of activity and usefulness, you had perhaps attracted the public esteem. An animal activity had partly stimulated your exertions. The love of reputation begins to mix itself with your better motives. You do not, it is presumed, act entirely or chiefly for human applause, but you are too sensible to it. It is a delicious poison which begins to infuse itself into your purest cup. You acknowledge indeed the sublimity of higher motives, but do you ever feel that, separated from this accompaniment of self, they would be too abstracted, too speculative, and might become too little productive both of activity and sensible gratification? You begin to feel the human incentive necessary, and your spirits would flag if it were withdrawn. This sensibility to praise would gradually tarnish the purity of your best actions. He who sees your heart as well as your works, mercifully snatches you from the perils of prosperity. Malice is awakened. Your most meritorious actions are ascribed to the most corrupt motives. You are attacked just where your character is least vulnerable. The enemies whom your success raised up, are raised up by God, less to punish than to save you. We are far from meaning that he can ever be the Author of evil; he does not excite or approve the calumny, but he uses your calumniators as instruments of your purification. Your fame was too dear to you. It is a costly sacrifice, but God requires it. It must be offered up. You would gladly compound for any, for every other offering, but this is the offering he chooses; and while he graciously continues to employ you for his glory, he thus teaches you to renounce your own. He sends this trial as a test by which you are to try yourself. He thus instructs you not to abandon your Christian exertions, but to elevate the principle which inspired them, to defecate it from all impure admixtures. By thus stripping the most engaging employments of this dangerous delight, by infusing some drops of salutary bitterness into your sweetest draught by some of these ill-tasted but wholesome mercies, he graciously compels us to return to himself. By taking away the stays by which we are perpetually propping up our frail delights, they fall to the ground. We are, as it were, driven back to him, who condescends to receive us after we have tried everything else, and after everything else has failed us, and though he knows we should not have returned to him if everything else had not failed us. He makes us feel our weakness that we may have recourse to his strength, he makes us sensible of our hitherto unperceived sins, that we may take refuge in his everlasting compassion.—Hannah More. The answer to this question entirely depends on what you are. If you are a sinner seeking salvation,75“believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” If you have just been brought to believe on his name, then profess him in baptism, unite yourself with his people, commemorate his love at his own table, and walk in all the ordinances and commandments of the Lord blameless. If you are a baptized believer in union with his church, then he would have you consecrate yourself to his service. Visit his sick ones, relieve his poor, circulate his truth, teach his babes, comfort his sorrowful ones, strengthen his weak ones, bear your testimony for him whenever an opportunity offers. Be much with him in private, read and meditate on his word, aim to honor him in everything, always and everywhere, carry your religion with you wherever you go, carry your religion into everything, be thorough out and out. “Whether therefore, ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” Make Christ and his glory the great object and end of your life, so that you may be able to say with Paul, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain;”—so that it may be said of you, “None of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself; for whether we live we live unto the Lord, and whether we die, we die unto the Lord; whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.” Let every purpose you form, every work in which you engage, and every pleasure you enjoy, say, “I AM THE LORD’S.” Live for the Lord, work for the Lord, suffer for the Lord. Make his precepts your rule, his honor your aim, and to please him the end of every action of your life. “For ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit which are God’s.” 1 Cor. vi, 20. HOW CAN MAN BE JUST WITH GOD?
“How should man be just with God?” Job ix, 2. He is cited to appear before God’s bar. He is charged with numerous crimes. The charges are clearly proved. He cannot, he dare not deny one of them. The law says, “The soul that sinneth it shall die.” Justice is there to pronounce the sentence of God’s law. The case is clear. The sinner’s doom appears to be certain. How can he escape? How is it possible for him to be acquitted, to be justified? The Son of God appears; he takes the sinner’s nature, holds the sinner’s place and undertakes to obtain the sinner’s freedom. He does what the sinner ought to have done, he suffers what the sinner deserves to suffer. His divine nature imparts an infinite merit to, and stamps an infinite dignity upon all he does. The Father agrees to the substitution, accepts his vacarious obedience and sacrifice, and engages to place it to the account of all and each one who believes on his name. Jesus now, turning to the sinner says, “I have done what you neglected to do; I have suffered what you deserved to suffer. I make over my obedience to you; I transfer my merits to your account. Believe this and be happy; trust me and you are safe.” The sinner receives the word, believes the testimony, pleads the life and death of Jesus before God and he is justified. The blood of Jesus is an atonement for all his sins. The resurrection of Jesus is a receipt given by the great Creditor,—a proof that sin is put away, that justice is satisfied, that peace with God is made, and that death is conquered. Simple faith in Jesus entitles us to the whole work of Jesus, and so man becomes just with God. Thus we are justified by faith in Jesus, and being justified by faith we have peace with God, and we joy in God. “Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Rom. iii, 24. The happy man was born in the city of Regeneration, in the parish of repentance unto life, was educated at the school of obedience, and now lives on the plains of perseverance. He works at the trade of diligence; and notwithstanding he has a large estate in the country of Christian Contentment, he sometimes does jobs of self-denial. He wears the plain garment of humility, and has a better suit to put on when he goes to court, called, the “robe of Christ’s righteousness.” He breakfasts every morning on spiritual prayer, and sups every evening on the same. He has meat to eat that the world knows not of, and his drink is “the sincere milk of the word.” Thus happy he lives, and happy he dies. To attain this life, pray fervently, believe firmly, work abundantly, wait patiently, live holily, die daily; watch your heart, guard your senses, redeem time, love Christ, and long for glory. Change of Meanings of Words in The Common Version.
THE common English version was first issued in 1611. About two hundred and fifty years have since elapsed, and the English language has undergone great changes. Many words are not now ordinarily understood in the sense in which they were used, when this version was made. Out of hundreds of examples, we select the following: CONVERSATION, used eighteen times in this version, in no one of these cases signifies the talking of persons with each other, in which sense it is now generally understood. PREVENT, used seventeen times, in no case signifies to hinder, or obstruct, as we now understand and use the word. Every passage in which such a word occurs, is misunderstood by the ordinary reader. These two examples alone comprise thirty-five passages of divine Revelation so misunderstood. Paul is made to say, ‐OUR CONVERSATION IS IN HEAVEN,‐ when the original asserts, our citizenship is in heaven. As the version now stands, David declares to God ‐MY PRAYER SHALL PREVENT THEE.‐ ‐I PREVENTED THE DAWNING OF THE MORNING.‐ On the other hand, how simple and appropriate is the meaning of the original:‐ My prayer shall come before thee. I anticipated the dawning of the morning. CARRIAGE. The meaning of this word has so completely changed since the version was made. It once signified the thing carried. It now means a vehicle of conveyance. PASSION. The word formerly meant suffering. Now we use it in an entirely different sense. LIST, LISTED. These words once signified wishing: now they are used in a variety of other senses, but not in this. TALE once meant number. It now means a story or narration. ALL TO. This phrase formerly meant entirely or completely. It is now generally read and understood as two separate words, each in its ordinary acceptation. DAMNATION. The word once meant simply condemnation, in such passages, as ‐He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself,‐ 1 Cor. xi, 29. Common readers now apply it to the eternal condemnation of the wicked. QUICK, QUICKEN. These words were formerly common in the English language in the sense of living, made alive. They are generally used to express the idea of haste, and not of life.‐American Bible Union. Obsolete Words in the Common Version.
MANY words used in our common version, have gone out of use, and their meaning is unknown to the ordinary reader. WIST occurs thirteen times in the sacred volume. WOT and WOTTETH occur eleven times. These two examples comprise twenty-four cases, in which the meaning of the holy oracles is not understood by the most of those who read them. Every one, however, is familiar with the word know, which expresses the meaning of the original. Which is easier to be understood,— “WE DO YOU TO WIT,” as in the common version, or “we make known to you,” as in the revision. DAYSMAN was once in common use. We now employ the terms judge, or umpire, or arbiter, to express the meaning. TROW was once a common word, but has gone out of use. I think is the proper term, whose meaning is clear to all readers. KINE is not now generally understood. We employ the terms cattle, and cows, to express the meaning. LEASING was once used, where we now use lying and falshood. EARING was an old Saxon word signifying plowing. It has become entirely obsolete. SOD and SODDEN formerly expressed the idea of boiling. SEETHE, SEETHING signified likewise to boil. They are no longer used. These words, SOD and SEETHE, occur nineteen times in the version, and, of course, prevent or obscure the meaning of nineteen passages of Scripture to the commmon reader. Take, for instance, the brief passage: How few readers understand what Jacob was doing! No one, however, would be left a moment in doubt, if the phrase was translated, Jacob was boiling pottage. ESCHEW is very rarely used. Shun, or avoid would be far more readily understood. WENCH is a term not now applied in ordinary language to a servant maid. BRUIT is understood by very few. The term rumor, or report is far more intelligible.—American Bible Union. HUMAN merit exposes you to danger, surrounds you with difficulties, and places you at an infinite distance from God. Divine grace makes you safe, surrounds you with mercies, and places you in the very bosom of deity. Bless God for free grace. WE never can ascribe too much to grace, nor too little to self. A FOREIGN journal gives in these few words the truest and best criticism upon Mr. Parker’s ministry in relation to reforms: In three modes he seriously hindered reform in America: 1. He shook man’s faith in prayer, which alone can keep the heart of the reformer cheerful, sweet, and strong. 2. He shook man’s faith in the Bible, from which all modern reforms have rolled. 3. He weakened man’s sense of sin, furnishing men with a ready-made apology for the crimes against which he fought, drugging the conscience with opiates of his theology, while he struck at it with the goad of his ethics. While he spoke one sharp word against a special sin, he spoke ten against the possibility of any sin. His theology kills the air, so that the reform cannot live there. And we are to remember that he never forgot that he was a preacher—a preacher of a religion which he expected would supplant the Christianity of the New Testament. He ever kept his mark in view, and whatever he might transfix on the way, the arrow was aimed at Bible Christianity. When we see, then, that fundamental error permeated and poisoned all his work, notwithstanding the courage and even sublime fury of his assault on mighty sins, we are forced to regard his career, on the whole, as a backward eddy in the great on-sweeping current of human reform. THE CLEARING OF THE CLOUDS.
By Dr. Bushnell
THERE is nothing in what has befallen, or befalls you, my friends, which justifies impatience or peevishness. God is inscrutable, but not wrong. Remember, if the cloud is over you, there is a bright light always on the other side; also, that the time is coming, either in this world or the next, when that cloud will be swept away, and the fullness of God's light and wisdom poured around you. Everything which has befallen you—whatever sorrow your heart bleeds with, whatever pain you suffer—nothing is wanting but to see the light that actually exists waiting to be revealed, and you will be satisfied. If your life is dark, then walk by faith, and God is pledged to keep you as safe as if you could understand everything. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. These things, however, I can say with no propriety to many. No such comfort or hopes belong to you that are living without God. You have nothing to expect from the revelations of the future. The cloud that you complain of will indeed be cleared away, and you will see that, in all your afflictions, severities and losses, God was dealing with you righteously and kindly. You will be satisfied with God and all that he has done for you; but alas! you will not be satisfied with yourself. That is more difficult—forever impossible! Ah! I can conceive no pang more dreadful than to see, as you will, the cloud lifted from every dealing of God that you thought to be harsh or unrighteous, and to feel that, as he is justified, you yourself are forever condemned. You can no more accuse your birth, your capacity, your education, your health, your friends, your enemies, your temptations. You still had opportunities, convictions, calls of grace, and calls of blessing. You are judged according to that you had, not according to that you had not. Your mouth is eternally shut, and God is eternally clear.—Dr. Bushnell.