The Vine
“Unity in diversity” is a principle by which the entire creation is pervaded; and, as the Former of the universe is the Father of our spirits, He has adapted the one to the other; and whilst the variety is a source of immediate and universal enjoyment, the oneness which underlies that variety is to the more thoughtful minds at once the germ of poetry and the root of natural religion.
However distinct, and at first sight dissimilar, the objects may appear, a closer inspection always reveals a latent identity. They are the filling-up of one great plan; they bear the stamp of the self-same Intelligence. And this ultimate identity running through the multiform creation forces on our minds the conviction that the Creator is one,
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whilst it reveals His varied benevolence and His boundless resources. As in the experiment where the philosopher sowed seeds which grew up green letters,* the materials with which the Eternal writes His name may vary; but the style of the hand-writing is evermore the same. And whether in illuminated characters He paints it on the field, or in starry alphabet bids it flame from the fjice of the firmament; whether He works it in the curious mosaic of a shell, or in Hebrew letters inscribes it on tables of stone, Devotion recognises its Heavenly Father’s Hand and adores the matchless autograph.
The same principle in the creation, with the corresponding propensity in our own minds, accounts for the force which all feel in analogical reasoning, and the delight which most persons derive from metaphorical language.
Deep in our nature there exists a tendency to seek amongst all interesting objects points of resemblance; and when some intuition keener than our own reveeils that resemblance, we bow to its truth or acclaim to its beauty. For instance, when human life is compared to * Dr. Beattie.
the course of a river, — cradled in the mossfringed fountain, tripping gaily through its free and babbling infancy, swelling into proud and impetuous youth, burdened with the great ships in its sober and utilitarian manhood, and then merging in the ocean of eternity, — who is there that does not sec the resemblance, and in seeing it find his mind richer by at least one bright thought? There may be little resemblance betwixt a clouded sky and the human countenance; and yet, when that sky opens and lets through the sunshine, we say that it is smiling, and when that dull countenance opens and lets out the soul we say that it is shining; and in the metaphor we feel that we have given a new animation to the sun, a new glory to “the human face divine.”
This tendency to metaphor, and the universal delight in parables, comparisons, and figures of speech, are no mere freaks of man’s fancy. They have their foundation in the mind and method of Deity, whose thoughts are all in harmony, and whose works and ways are all connected with one another, so that what we call the imagination of the poet, if his reading be correct, is really the logic of Omniscience. And -without expatiating farther on the subject at present, we may here recall the fact that already the universe contains one masterpiece of Infinite Wisdom, in whom all the diversities coexist and make up one matchless unity. In Christ, at once very God and very man, the Father of Eternity, and yet for a season the tenant of the tomb; in Christ, with His glorified materialism and prai-material divinity, our Brother, and yet the Son of the Highest, the Root and yet the Offspring of David, we have the substance of all shadows, the conciliation of all opposites, the acme of every excellence, the pinnacle of every perfection, the glorious and ultimate Unity in whom centre and coexist the whole of Creation’s boundless diversities. Like creatures flying through the night, we touch what feels at first a separate leaf or a solitary plant, but it proves to be the outmost twig of a great tree. Traced down a little way, the little twig joins another, and both together spring from a branch, which followed out is found with its twin branch to issue from a goodly bough, till at last all branchinprs and bifurcations conduct you back to the ultimate unity in the common trunk and central stem. So, every object in Nature, and every incident in Providence, however isolated it may appear for a moment, is found to have relations which link it to some other, and these again have a connexion which leads back to something deeper and still more intimate; till at last in the Alpha and Omega, the tree of Life Himself, you reach the source of all variety and the centre of each divergence, the counterpart to every Hebrew type and the key to Nature’s mighty emblem.
If these views arc correct, — if the Person of Immanuel is that adorable Unity which within itself includes and harmonises all diversities of goodness and beauty, we see that there is a foundation in the nature of things for the typical instruction so abundant in Scripture, and we perceive with what significance it was that Jesus said of Himself, “I am the true Vine.” In applying the types or expounding the symbols of Holy Writ, we may fall into errors of detail, but we are still secure in the general principle. And if we study them rightly, they will confer a double benefit.
Like Jacob-, when his pillow of rock became the first step in a staircase which ascemled to God and the angels, they will make the stones of the field the starting-point of holy meditations, and will fill the landscapes of earth with light from Heaven.
Yere you going early in the year to the banks of the Rhine, you would see the people on every slope busied about some important plant. To your nearer view it looks little better than a wooden peg, a dead and sapless pin. But return in September, and you will find that the wintry peg has shot into a pillar of verdure, and from purple bunches is pouring fatness and frngrance on the soil. The shout of the vintage and the brimniing vat explain the labours of the spring.
On the hills of Palestine the Heavenly Husbandman planted a goodly vine. But at first it had no form nor comeliness, and promised little. It was a root out of a dry ground, and few expected that it would come to anything. And v»dien its heavenly origin was hinted, in a rage the men of Nazareth cast it over their vineyard- wall, and soon afterwards the men of Jerusalem took the tender Plant, and having bruised and trampled it under their indignant feet, they hoped that they had destroyed it for ever. But the Heavenly Husbandman did not lose sight of it. He planted it again. This time, however, He concealed it from view. He so contrived, that though the branches were seen, the vine-stock should no longer be visible. Grafts might be joined to it and fruit might be gathered, but the stem itself was hidden.
A few weeks passed on, and a warm rain fell. A sweet and springy odour filled the air. It was the budding of the invisible Vine. It was the tender grape appearing. There were thousands of blossoms; and from year to year thereafter there was many a glorious vintage. And though rude days have followed; though the passengers have plucked it, and the persecutor has often torn the branches and burnt them in the fire, the Lord of Hosts will ere long return and visit this His Vine. He will cast out the heathen and plant it. He will prepare room before it, and cause it to take deep root, and fill the earth. The hills of the Millennium will be covered with its shade, and the boughs thereof will be like the goodly cedars.
This earth was the land of the curse — it was the world of sin, death, and sorrow, — when God sent His Son. He freighted the Mediator’s person with life, righteousness, peace of conscience, and every mercy that a sinner needs. “As the Father hath life in Himself, so did He give to the Son to have life in Himself,” and thus furnished with an abundance of life, He sent the Only-Begotten into the world. But the world hated Him. It saw nothing attractive in Him. It rejected the Saviour. It slew Him. But God raised Him again, and withdrew Him out of niorta;! sight. Though now hidden from our view, He remains what He was during the days of His visible Incarnation. He is still the Saviour. He is still the sole repository of heavenly blessings for our guilty and necessitous race. Though invisible, He is the great Vine -stock in which all merit and spiritual vitality reside. It is from His fulness that salvation is derived, and only from the grace that is in Him that we can get anything gracious. Though Himself unseen. His members are visible. Believers are the brandies of this wondrous Vine. At Pentecost they were freshest and fairest. They are, perhaps, equally numerous, but more sparse and straggling now. But to see the goodly Vine in its glory, we must wait till the present winter is past, and the summer of the earth is come; till for pardon and peace willing millions resort to Immanuel, and the rejected Koot has become the Plant of Renown. Those whom- Christ originally addressed were fond of parables, and there was no instruction v.’hich they more enjoyed than that which was conveyed in emblems and figures. But perhaps your mind has no turn for metaphor. You are rather confused than assisted by it. You have difficulty in following an allegory where people are compared to the branches of a Vine; and when Christ speaks of a man being a branch “in Himself,” and of “abiding in Himself,”* you do not clearly apprehend it. But with a little consideration you will easily make out the main idea. Christ compares Himself to a Vine, and when you remember what a glad and lifesome tree it is, — the tree through which vegetative * See John, xv. 1-10. e2 vigour pours the fastest and most freely, and the tree with which the most refreshful and exulting associations were connected; and when you farther recollect that it was to bring abundance of life and felicity that Jesus came into the world, you can see how naturally in this “Tree of Life” Jesus found the emblem of Himself. But this detached and independent vine-sapling which I hold in my hand, — how is it to be made partaker of the life and fatness of the living vine? By creating the closest connexion possible. You engraft it. You take this leafless rod, and you insert it in the quick vine-stock, and speedily the graft has taken. Fibre by fibre, and- vein by vein the sapling clings and coheres, till the life of the tree is the life of this adopted branch, and the graft buds and blossoms and matures its clusters from the flowing juices of the vine. And Jesus “has life in Himself.” He is now a man of joys. He knows that the Father loves Him, and having completed the work given Him to do. He rests again in the Father’s bosom, secure in the Father’s complacency, and most blessed for evermore. But here is a dead and sapless soul, here is a spirit to which holy joy is a stranger, and to which God is still unknown as a reconciled God and a loving Father. How is this dead and dreary soul to be made partaker of Christ’s life and joy? By creating the closest possible connexion. That sapless twig lives when united to the Vine. That sinner lives when united to the Saviour. But what is the closest possible connexion between the sinner and the Saviour? It is such a connexion as joins soul to soul. It
is such a connexion as joins the feeble and finite soul of the sinner to the holy and Divine soul of the Saviour. It is such a union as confidence and love, congeniality and dependence, create. It is confidence, — for Jesus died that He might bring us unto God, and when a soul is persuaded that Jesus is able to save to the uttermost and resigns itself entirely to Him as a sufficient Saviour, — the soul which thus clings to Christ for salvation is by God regarded as one with Christ. A soul which trusts in the Surety will never come into condemnation, for the Surety would thereby be condemned; and a soul which cleaves to the Lord Jesus for pardon is justified alrciady, for it is now part of that Substitute who was justified long ago. And this union is love. You speak of souls that are knit together when they are affectionately attached to one another; and Christ and the Christian are joined by an intense, mutually-pervading, and death-surviving love. Accordingly, He Himself calls this union a “continuance in His love.” And it is congeniality. When tastes are identical, when persons love the same things and hate the same things, when desires move in concert, when the one treasures up the other’s words and tries to anticipate the other’s wishes, you say that hearts in such harmony are one spirit. And it is one spirit which fills Christ and the Christian — Christ’s ‘.’words abide in him” (ver. 7). There is many an endeared saying of his Lord hidden in his fondest memory. And these sayings of Christ do not merely alight on him like rain on the vineyard, but live and abide in him like vital sap in the Vine. And these loved sayings and abiding words come out in new obedience (ver. 10), “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love.” And it is dependence. Where parties are united in any way to one anotlici’, one of whom is greatly superior in strength, or wisdom, or skill, it becomes natural and inevitable. for the inferior to depend on the strength, or wisdom, or skill of that other. Now the believer finds himself so weak, and ignorant, and sinful, that he is compelled to look to his Lord, in whom all these resources abound. Without Christ he can do nothing. But he has learned to lean on Him, who of God is made to him wisdom, righteousness, and sanctification. Without Christ he cannot pacify an offended God; without Christ he cannot escape the curse of a broken law; without Christ he can do nothing to deliver himself from hell, nor secure his persevering progress to heaven; without Christ he cannot subdue a single sin nor overcome a single temptation. He discovers that it needs an Almighty power to sanctify. “It needs the same power to enlighten his understanding as gave sight to blind Bartimeus; it needs the same power to quiet his conscience as said to the tempest, Peace, be still; it needs the same power to soften his hard and stony heart as melted rivers from the rock; the same power to convert his carnal affections into spiritual as changed the water into wine; the same to subdue his rcbelliouiS passions as expelled the devils from the man possessed; and the same power to make him pure of heart and fit for glorj as made the leper clean.”* And for all holj obedience, he verifies the saying of Jesus, “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in me.”
Wherever a soul believes in Jesus, loves Him, is made one spirit with Him, and depends on Him for wisdom, strength, and righteousness, that soul is united to Jesus. That soul is in the Saviour, even as the branch is in the Vine; that soul is dear to God. It is accepted in the Beloved, and becomes an object of the Father’s solicitude and care. And it will experience the benefits of this union. It will be fruitful; it will be purified; it will bo powerful in prayer; for if union to Jesus be salvation, — productiveness, sanctification, and prevalency in prayer, are effects of this union which He Himself has specified. f
* Clarkson’s Sermons, folio, p. 482.
t John, XV. 5, 2, 7.
1. The living branch is fruitful. Tho chemist who can analyse the fruit of the vine finds many ingredients there. Of these no single one, nor any two together, would form the juice of the grape; but the combination of all yields the polished and delicious berry, which every one knows so well. In different climates, and even in diifcrent seasons, the proportion and blending of these constituents may vary, but that is not a good cluster where any is wanting. The fruit of the true Vine has also been analysed, and in the best specimens the nine following ingredients are found (Gal. v. 22): —
LOVii:, GENTLENESS,
JOY, GOODNESS,
PEACE, FAITH,
LONG-SUFFEPvING, MEEKNESS,
TEMPERANCE.
In poor samples there is a deficiency of one or other of these elements. A dry and diminutive sort is lacking in peace and joy. A tart kind, wliicli sets the teeth on edge, owes its austerity to its scanty infusion of gentleness, goodness, and meekness. There is a watery, deliquescent sort, which for the want
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of long-siifFering is not easily preserved; and there is a flat variety, which having no body of faith or temperance, answers few useful purposes. Love is the essential principle which is in no case entirely absent; and by the glistening fulness and rich aroma which its plentiful presence creates, you can recognise the freshest and most generous clusters; whilst the predominance of some other element gives to each its distinguishing flavour, and marks the growth of Eshcol, Sibmah, or Lebanon.
(1.) Wherever there is union to Christ there is love. This, as we have said, is the essential principle. Whatever else there be, if there be not love, it profits nothing, it proves nothing. Love to God and our neighbour is the essence of piety. It is the body, the basis, the staple clement; and if the great commandment, and the next greatest be absent, whatever else there be, there is not Christianity. Reader, have you got it? To Christ’s question, “Lovcst thou me?” is it your answer, “Lord, thou knowcst all things, thou knowest that I love thee?” Then, if you love Jesus, you will love Him whose express image Jesus is. To God in Christ, your soul will bo attached in gratitude, submission, and complacency. You will not wish Him less lioh, less righteous, less true. Awed by His glorious majesty, and melted by His ineffiible mercy, all that is dust and ashes in you will be humbled, and all that is devout and filial will be kindled into grateful adoration. If nothingness and sin bid you be silent, the sight of your Great Representative gone back to the bosom of His Father, inspires you with a joyful assurance and a humble confidence Godward; and, boldest where you are most abased, beneath the Cross you learn to cry, Abba, Father. You love Him who first loved you, and “feeling it sweet to be accepted of God on any grounds, to be accepted in hir, own beloved Son, you feel is sweeter fjir.“* (2.) And joy. The essence of love is attachment. Joy is the happiness of love. It is love exulting. It is love aware of its own felicity, and rioting in riches which it has no fear of exhausting. It is love taking V view of its treasure, and surrendering itself to bliss without foreboding.” God’s promises :ippear so strong, so solid, so substantial, more * Nevins’ Remains, p. 27. P
SO than the rocks and everlasting hills; and His perfections, what shall I say of them? When I think of one, I wish to dwell upon it for ever; bat another, and another equally glorious, claims a share of admiration; and when I begin to praise, I wish never to cease, but to find it the commencement of that song which will never end. Very often have I felt as if I could that moment throw oiF the body, without first going to bid them farewell that are at homo in my house. Let who will be rich, or admired,, or prosperous, it is enough for rne that there is such a God as Jehovah, such a Saviour as Jesus, and that they are infinitely and unchangeably glorious and happy!“* And in a similar frame another felt, “Were the universe destroyed, and I the only being in it besides God, He is fully adequate to my complete happiness; and had I been in an African wood, surrounded by venomous serpents, and devouring beasts, and savage men, in such a frame I should be the subject of perfect peace and exalted joy.” f (3.) Peace. If joy be love exulting, peace
* Payson’s Life, chap, 19. t Memoirs of Rev. S. Pearce. is love reposing. It is love on the green pastures, it is love beside the still waters. It is that great calm which comes over the conscience, when it sees the atonement sulTicient and the Saviour willing. It is unclouded azure in a lake of glass; it is the soul which Christ has pacified, spread out in serenity and simple faith, and the Lord God, merciful and gracious, smiling over it.
(4.) Long-suffering. This is love enduring. K the trial come direct from God, it is enough. It is correction. It is his Heavenly Father’s hand, and with Luther the disciple cries, “Strike, Lord, strike. But, oh! do not forsake me.” If the trial come from Christian brethren, till it be seven-fold seventy times repeated, love to Jesus demands forgiveness. If it come from worldly men, it is the occasion for that magnanimity which recompenses evil with good. And in every case, it is an opportunity for following a Saviour whom sufferings made perfect. That Saviour never loved the Father more intensely, than when His Father’s face was hid, and when the bitter cup proclaimed His justice terrible, and His truth severe. One apostle denied Him, and o2 EMBLEMS FKOM EDEN.
all the disciples forsook Ilim; but Jesus prayed for Peter, whilst Peter was cursing, and His love followed the rest, even when they were running away. Jerusalem killed Him; but in foresight of the guilty deed, it was over Jerusalem that Jesus wept; and when the deed was done, in publishing pardon and the peace of God, it was at Jerusalem that evangelists were directed to begin.
(5.) Gentleness, or affectionateness.* This is love in society. It is love holding intercourse with those around it. It is that cordiality of aspect, and that soul of speech, which assure us that kind and earnest hearts may still be met with here below. It is that quiet influence which, like perfumed flame from an alabaster lamp, fills many a home with light and warmth and fragrance all together. It is the carpet, soft and deep, which, whilst it diffuses a look of ample comfort, deadens many a creaking sound. It is the curtain which from many a beloved form, wards off at once the summer’s glow, and the winter’s wind. It is the pillow on which sickness lays its head and forgets half its misery, and to wliicli death comes in a balmier dream. It is considerateness. It is tenderness of feeling. It is warmth of affection. It is promptitude of sympathy. It is love in all its depth, and all its delicacy. It is every melting thing included in that matchless grace, “the gentleness of Christ.”*
(6.) Goodness or beneficence. Love in action, love with its hand at the plough, love with the burden on its back. It is love carrying medicine to the sick, and food to the famished. It is love reading the Bible to the blind, and explaining the Gospel to the felon in his cell. It is love at the Sunday class, or in the Ragged-school. It is love at the hoveldoor, or sailing far away in the missionary ship. But whatever task it undertakes, it is still the same, — Love following His footsteps, “who went about continually doing good.”
(7.) Faith. Vriiether it means trust in God, or fidelity to principle and duty. Faith is love in the battle-field. It is constancy following hard after God, v.hen the world drags downward, and the flesh cries, ‘• Halt.” It is zeal holding fast sound words when fer- * 2 Cor. X. 1. f2 vour is costly and sound words are obnoxious. It is firmness marching through fire and through water to the post where duty calls and the captain waits. It is Elijah before Ahab. It is Stephen before the Sanhedrim. It is Luther at Worms. It is the martyr in the flames. Nay, it is a greater than all. — it is Jesus in the desert.* It is Jesus in Gethsemane. It is Jesus on the cross. And it is whosoever pursuing the path, or finishing the work which God has given him, like the great Forerunner, does not fear to die.
(8.) Meekness is love at school, — love at the Saviour’s school. It is Christian lowlihood. It is the disciple learning to know himself; learning to fear, and distrust, and abhor himself. It is the disciple practising the sweet but self-emptying lesson of putting on the Lord Jesus, and finding all his righteousness in that righteous Other. It is the disciple learning the defects of his own character, and taking hints from hostile as well as friendly monitors. It is the disciple praying and watching for the improvement of his talents, the mellowing of his temper, and the * Matt. iv. l-ll.
amelioration of his character. It is the loving Christian at the Saviour’s feet, learning of Him who is meek and lowly, and finding rest for his own soul.
(9.) Temperance, — Love in the gymnasium, love enduring hardness, love seeking to become healthful and athletic, love striving for the mastery in all things, and bringing the body under. It is superiority to sensual delights, and it is the power of applying resolutely to irksome duties for the Master’s sake. It is self-denial and self-control. Fearful lest it should subside to gross carnality, or waste away into shadowy and hectic sentiment, temperance is love alert and timeously astir; sometimes rising before day for prayer, sometimes spending that day on tasks which laziness or daintiness declines. It is love with girt loins, and dusty feet, and hands which work makes horny. It is love with the empty scrip but the glowing cheek, — love subsisting on pulse and water, but grown so healthful and so hardy, that it “beareth all things, believeth all things, hoiXJth all things, endureth all things.”
Header, if you abide in Jesus, — if His
56 EilBLEMS FROM EDEN.
words abide in you, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful. Graces such as these will be in you, and abound. Is it so? The great vine-principle, the main element of the Christian character, holy love, does it abound in you? And blending with it, tinging it and deriving sweetness from it, can you detect froin time to time joy in God, peace of conscience, patience in suffering, and forgiveness of injury, affectionateness, beneficence, trust in God, and trustworthiness in your place and calling, a lowly willingness to learn and a readiness to take up the cross and deny yourself? When Christians live close to Christ His mind is transfused into theirs. “Purity and love shine forth in their character: meekness and truth guide their footsteps. Nay, in the experience of some, so great has been the change, that the very expression of their countenance has altered. Thus was it with Moses and Stephen. These blessed saints were full of God; Christ was in them of a truth; and his likeness was thus by them peculiarly reflected. Nor is it wonderful that such should sometimes be the case with believers j for, when He thus fills their hearts with His presence, when His peace dwells there; when the calm joy which He felt, when rejoicing in spirit, reigns there; there must needs be gentleness in their manners, and heavenliness in their talk, and meekness in their eye, and angelic serenity and conscious elevation in their whole countenance.”* 2. Every fruitful branch is purged. “The husbandman purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit.” It is the propensity of even fruitful branches to wanton into excessive foliage. But besides spoiling the appearance of the vine, the sap spent on the leaves is stolen from the grapes, and the excessive shade keeps out the sun. The husbandman prunes these shoots and suckers away, and while he makes the branch more sightly, he lets the noon-beams freely in, and makes the clusters richer. So is it with the sincerest Christians, In prosperous weather, when all goes well with them, they are apt to flaunt out in worldliness, and luxury, and pride. They grow selfish. They study their own ease. They seek great things for themselves. And the Hus-
* “Thoughts on Union to Christ,” by Sosthenes. Edin. 1838, p. 213. bandman, watchful and considerate, consulting His own glory and the fruitfulness of the Vine, — the Husbandman comes, and with the pruning-shears of some afflictive providence, lops the deforming shoots away.
“Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy Him for ever.” This was the thought which conveyed reproof and new” quickening to a most amiable Christian,* after her greatest bereavement. “I felt that for the last twelve years I had misunderstood the great object for which I was made; that, if not my chief, a very high end with me had been to bo happy in my husband and make him happy in me. But now I felt that the highest happiness of a rational mind ought to arise, from answering the purpose for which God made it; and therefore that I ought to be happy in glorifying God, and not in enjoying myself.” And it is to this result that every trial with which God visits His people is tending. It is to shut them up to His service as their chief end, and to Himself as their chiefest joy. It is not to hurt but to heal the tree that the husbandman handles the pruning-hook. In * Mrs. Susan Huntington.
deep dejection of spirit, ]Mr. Cecil was pacing to and fro in the Botanic Garden at Oxford, when lie observed a fine specimen of the pomegranate almost cut through the stem. On asking the gardener the reason, he got an answer which explained the wounds of his own bleeding spirit. “Sir, this tree used to shoot so strong, that it bore nothing but leaves. I was, therefore, obliged to cut it in this manner, and when it was almost cut through, then it began to bear plenty of fruit.” Ye suffering members of Christ, be thankful for every sorrow which weakens a lust or strengthens a grace. Though it should be a cut to the heart, be thankful for every sin and idol shorn away. Be thankful for whatever makes your conscience more tender, your thoughts more spiritual, and your character more consistent. Be thankful that it was the pruning-knife and not the weeding-hook which you felt: for if you suffer in Christ, you suffer with Him; and if with Him you suffer, with Him you shall also reign.
3. A third consequence of abiding in Jesus is prevalency in prayer. “If ye abide in me, and ray words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.*’ One reason is that Christ’s mind and the Father’s agree, and Christ’s mind is in the constant Christian. His will is merged in Christ’s ‘will; and instead of the petulant and unreasonable requests which worldly or divided hearts are apt to urge, a holy solicitude for God’s glory predominates in his prayers. The first petition which his jMaster taught him covers and qualifies all the rest; and whatsoever he may ask he will not revoke the primary behest, “Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name.” The believer who abides in Jesus obtains answers to his prayers, because his sanctified will is apt to desire things according to the will of God. But more than this, abiding in Jesus is nearness to God. The man who knows not how to use the Mediator’s name, may pray from a sense of duty, or under the urgency of present distress. But if mere duty compel him, there is no comfort nor enlargement in the formal exercise; or if distress constrain him, coming as a stranger, there is no confidence in his approach, and he has no security that God has heard him. He stands in the empty vestibule, and without obtaining a glance of the Sovereign, at last leaves his petition, uncertain whether it shall ever reach its destination. The sinner who comes in the name of Jesus is ushered at once to the Throne of Grace, and obtains the propitious ear of an all-sufficient God. And the sinner who abides in Jesus, who habituallj comes in the Intercessor’s name, finds in prayer not only entrance to the palace of the King, but access to that Father whom Christ has taught him to regard with the affectionate security and tender reverence of a child. Prayer is his daily visit to his Heavenly Father’s dwelling — the hallowed chamber whose door the name of Jesus opens — the sweet and endeared closet where day by day he has told his griefs and fears, and wants and sins, and from which he has oft departed rich in daily grace and radiant in his Heavenly Father’s smile.
Reader, beloved and longed-for, have you understood these things? Do you not allow that your own soul is naturally fruitless and lifeless? Do you not confess that you have no more right to immortality, and no more power for holiness, than the severed sapling 62 EMBLE^rS FROM EDEX.
has power to blossom and bear fruit so long as it abides alone? But do you equally perceive that Jesus is the true Vine? Are you persuaded that there is so much life in Him, that if you could only share His life you would live also? so much merit in Him, that if it could only be made your own you would be righteous also? so much holy energy in Him, that could it only be imparted to you, you too would have a spiritual mind, and would delight in doing the will of God? Do you perceive that Christ Jesus is the great Kepository of justifying Righteousness and sanctifying grace? Do you distinctly realise these two things — that you yourself are empty, and that in the Lord Jesus all fulness dwells?
But how is the empty scion to profit by the teeming Vine? How is a connexion to be created betwixt the Mediator’s fulness and your own vacuity? How is it that Christ and you shall become so truly one that His beauty shall be on you and His spirit within you? We have already said that it is by believing Him, loving Him, copying from Him, and depending on Him. A shorter answer is His own. It is by letting Christ’s word enter and abide. The disciples were made genuine, “clean,” — they got the real Vine-nature from the moment when they admitted Christ’s words into willing hearts. And you too will be clean, the graft will strike, from the moment when you credit the word of Jesus. Should you credit that saying of Jesus, “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life;” or should you comply with that other saying of Jesus, “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;” should you abandon yourself to all the blessedness of believing what the True Witness says; should you suffer your weary soul this day to sink into the arms of that Saviour who rejoices to pardon and is mighty to save — the first entrance of such a word, and the first response of such a faith, would be the date of your better life and the commencement of your union to Christ.
—The graft has taken. At first the juncture may be very slight, a single thread or fibre; and it is not till you try to part them that you find that they are knit together — that their life is one — and that the force which plucks away the graft must also wound the Vine. And your faith may yet be no more than a single filament. It may be only one point of attachment by which you have got joined to the Lord Jesus. It may be only one solitary sentence — one isolated invitation or promise of which you have got undoubting hold. But hold it fast. If it be the word of Jesus cling to it. There is life in it, and, held fast, it will be life to you. One promise of Jesus credited, one invitation of Jesus accepted, is enough to make such union betwixt Himself and you, that the violence which sunders, if death to you, would be a bleeding heart to Him. Hold fast the faithful saying then, and as you cling to it you will draw closer and closer to the living Vine. The surface of quick contact will enlarge, and as thread by thread, and vein by vein it widens, as word by word and line by line the sayings of Jesus get hidden in your heart, the tokens of vitality will become to yourself and others joyfully distinct. And though you may fear to-day that you have no interest in Christ — think no more of that 5 think of what He says. Believe Him stedfastly; and as sure as He came into the world to save sinners, He will save you. Cleave to His assurances in all their breadth, and though you may feel yourself little better than a reprobate at present, you will be a trophy of redeeming grace in the ages to come. And though you see no fruits of the Spirit yet, let Christ’s word abide in you, and you will see them anon. And though you dread lest the faint hold you have got may end in a falling away, hold on till the feeble contact of this moment grow into a complete coalescence, and in joyful assurance of oneness with a sin-pardoning and sanctifying Saviour, you will be able to exclaim, “I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
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