Life Is the Main Matter

“A corpse may be laid in state, and sumpticously adorned, but there is no life within.* Adornments are out of place in the chamber of death; they do but make the scene the more ghastly. We have heard of a dead prince who was placed upon a throne, dressed in imperial purple, crowned, and sceptred! How pitiful the spectacle! The courtiers mustered to so wretched a travesty of state must have loathed the pageantry.

So is it when a man’s religion is a dead profession; its ostentatious zeal and ceremonious display are the grim trappings which make the death appear more manifest. When, like Jehu, a man cries, “Come with me, and see my zeal for the Lord,” his false heart betrays itself. The more he decorates his godliness the more does the hypocrite’s spiritual death appear. It is not possible to supply the lack of the divine life. There is an essential difference between a dead child at its best and a living child at its worst, and it needs no Solomon to see it. Unless the Spirit of God shall give life, sustain life, and perfect life, none of us can ever dwell with the living God. This is the point to look to: the vestments and trappings are a secondary business.