The New Life

I will cause you to walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments and do them. — EZEKIEL, xxxvi. 27.

HE Divine Being has established a variety of laws — some of a physical, others of a moral nature. And it is as impossible to violate with impunity a moral as a physical law; although the consequences in the former case may be more remote, and the suffering may not follow so closely on the heels of the sin. Solomon asks “Can a man take fire into his bosom and not be burned?” “Can he touch pitch and not be defiled?” You at once answer no. He who drops a red hot coal into his bosom shall certainly be burned; he who falls into the water shall certainly be drowned; and if any man were mad enough to pitch himself over a lofty bartizan, he lights not on the ground as bird or angel with expanded wings — he shall certainly be dashed to pieces. Not only so, but a passive, like the active violation of nature’s laws is followed by suffering. Let a man resist her demand for sleep — let him turn a deaf ear to the calls of hunger — let him deny his body the rest and refreshment that nature requires, arid he must die. Now, no less certainly shall he suffer who neglects or violates those moral laws which have also been established by a fixed decree.

It may seem a strange, and even foolish thing to assert, but it is not the less true, that it is safer to touch fire than sin — safer in a sense to quaff a cup of poison than taste the cup of devils. He, certainly, stands a better chance of escape who violates a physical than moral law. This is difficult to be believed. And why? Just because, in the breach of moral, judgment does not, as in the breach of physical laws, follow speedily on the transgression, nor succeed it as the peal thunders on the flash. Yet it is not more strange than true; and true, for this plain, satisfactory, and unanswerable reason, that the God who instituted the laws which govern the physical world, may modify, may change, may even altogether repeal them. He has already, and not seldom done so. Iron is heavier than water; yet did not the iron axe float like a cork at the prophet’s bidding? Did not the unstable sea stand up in walls of solid crystal, till the host passed over? Did naked foot, bathed in morning dew, ever feel the green sward cooler, than those three Hebrews the floor of the burning furnace, when they trod at once beneath their feet a tyrant’s power and the red hot coals of fire? Fire may not burn. Water may not drown. He who gave these elements their laws may alter them as he sees meet; but that moral law which is a transcript of his own mind and will, is, and must be unchangeable as himself. Be sure, therefore, that you cannot sin with impunity. Be sure that your sin will find you out. Be sure that what you sow you shall reap. Be sure, that although the cloud is long of gathering, it shall sooner or later explode. Be sure that sin and sorrow are linked together by an adamantine chain — durable and eternal as that which binds the creature to the throne of God. When, there fore, Satan, the flesh, or the world solicit, remember, that if your weakness yields, you are more certain to suffer, than you would be to burn the finger which you thrust into the flames. Sin is the fire that a man cannot take into his bosom, and not be burned.

Is it urged, by way of objection, that God’s people are exempted from suffering — commit sin, and yet escape the penalty? True. But their exemption from future punishment forms no exception to the rule. In their case, indeed, the debtor escapes, but then the creditor is paid. The sufferings from which they are exempted were endured by their substitute, and their sins were punished in a dying Saviour. “He bore, our griefs, and carried our sorrows. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.”

Entertaining these views, we ought not to be suspected of lowering the dignity or losing sight of the claims of the Jaw in our faith in a crucified Redeemer. That holy law was not interred in Jesus’ sepulchre, nor left behind with the grave clothes in his tomb. While we no longer look for life from the law, nor any longer hope to be saved by the law, yet we hold with the Apostle — hold as strongly as any can do — that “the law is holy; and the commandment holy, just, and good,” and that these moral laws which were enshrined in the ark of Moses, and most awfully illustrated on the cross of Christ, have lost none of their authority. They continue to this day as imperative as those which regulate the flow and ebb of tides, control the procession of seasons, or steer the planets through the realms of space. Obedience to the moral law has indeed ceased to be the condition of salvation; and it is well it is so. Otherwise who had been, who could be saved? “If thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquity, 0 Lord, who shall stand?” “Enter not into judgment with thy servant, for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.” “Who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap.” The law is not now the gate of life; yet it has not ceased, and never shall cease, to be the rule of life. We preach, indeed, a free and a full salvation. Glorying in that lofty theme, we say that the greatest lawbreaker may be saved; the foulest sinner washed white as snow; the basest of the base, the vilest of the vile, exalted to a throne in heaven; and that as no obedience rendered to the law since the fall of Adam can £, open heaven to man, so since the death of Christ no disobedience can shut its gates against him. We hold it with Paul, to be “a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom 1 am chief.” Blessed be God, the law, so stern-like in a sinner’s eyes, no longer carries the keys of heaven. Purchased by his blood, they are in the custody of him who is very pitiful and of great mercy, and who — never turning a deaf ear to the cry of distress — cheers the expiring hours of guilt, and said even to a thief, “To-day thou shalt be with me in paradise.”

“Do we then make void the law through faith?” as Paul asks. Some have done so. Wild and wicked fanatics have arisen to trouble the church, and bring a gospel of grace into open contempt. They have daringly asserted that it has set them free from the obligation of these holy commandments, and granted to believers a plenary indulgence to commit all manner of iniquity. The saint, they have said, may fall into the foulest sins, and remain as pure as the kernel within a nut which has rolled into the foulness of a gutter. From such licentious and immoral principles, from doctrines not less calculated to dissolve society than to dishonour the church of Christ, child of God! shrink with holy abhorrence; this your language, “My soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united.”

I know that the Apostle says, “We are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held;” but are we delivered that we may sin? Assuredly not. On the contrary, we are set free that we may serve God; serve him better, holier, as Paul also says, “in the newness of the spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.” Addressing us not with the voice of Sinai’s thunders, but in the melting and yet mightier tones of a Redeemer’s love, the Gospel lays this injunction upon all, “Be careful to maintain good works.” Good works, these, although not always the believer’s attainment, will always be his aim. Committing to his heart, arid enshrining there those tables which, in honour of their excellence, Moses deposited in the tabernacle’s holiest shrine, he will say, “0 how I love thy law, 0 Lord;” and he will pray that God would fulfil to him this gracious promise of the text — “I will cause them to walk in my statutes, and they shall keep my judgments and do them.”

In now addressing ourselves to the subject of that new life which the believer lives in obedience to the law of God, I remark —

I. It is a willing obedience.

Many movements take place in the universe independent of any will but that of God. The sap ascends the tree, the planets revolve round the sun, the moon waxes and wanes in her quarters, the stars rise and set in the heavens, the tides flow and ebb upon the shore, and Nature walks in God’s statutes, keeping his judgments, and doing them, moved to obedience by no will but his. So soon, however, as, leaving inanimate matter, we ascend into the regions where mind and matter, or even blind instinct and matter are united, we discover a beautiful and benevolent law, by virtue of which God at once secures the happiness and provides for the welfare of his creatures. He so orders it that their will is in perfect harmony with their work; their inclinations with their interests; and their instincts with the functions which they are called on to perform. The bee constructs its cell, the bird weaves her nest, the eagle among the crags above teaches her brood to fly, and in cairn or cave below, the fox suckles her young. These are all labours of love — labours to which they bring a willing heart. Thus their happiness lies in their work. And to ascend even into heaven, is not this the secret of its felicity? As the imperial law of gravity extends its influence to the most distant stars, so that that which rounds a tear-drop gives its shape to every sun, I cannot doubt that this law of divine benignity reaches the highest and holiest existences. The will and work of angels are in perfect harmony; therefore an angel’s duty is an angel’s delight.

Observe, also, how, when God changes the condition of his creatures, he accommodates their will to the change. Take, for example, that insect to which I have elsewhere alluded. It comes from the egg a creeping worm; it is bred in corruption; it crawls on the ground; and with voracious appetite it lives on the coarsest fare. In time it undergoes a wonderful metamorphosis. The wriggling caterpillar becomes a winged and painted butterfly; and at this change, with its old skin it divests itself of old habits and instincts. Now, the insect has a will as well as wings to fly. And with its bed the bosom of a flower, its food the honied nectar, its home the sunny air, and new instincts animating its frame, its will plays in harmony with its work. The change within corresponds to the change without. It spurns the ground; and, as you may gather from its merry, mazy dance, the creature is happy, and delights in the new duties which it is called to perform. Even so it is in that change which grace works in sinners. The nature of the redeemed is so accommodated to the state of redemption, their wishes are so fitted to their wants, their hopes to their prospects, their aspirations to their honours, and their will to their work, that they would be less content to return to polluted pleasures than this beautiful creature to be stripped of its silken wings, and condemned to pass its days amid the old foul garbage, — its former food. With such a will and nature as believers now possess, their old life would be misery — would be hell. Would not the reclaimed prodigal, rather than leave his father’s table and bosom for the society of harlots and the husks of swine troughs, embrace death itself and go to his grave? Even so God’s people would rather not be at all, than be what once they were. Hence, on the one hand, their unhappiness in sin; hence, on the other hand, their enjoyment in God’s service; hence David’s ardent longing for the place of ordinances; hence the beauty of a Sabbath scene, and the sweet music of Sabbath bells, and the answer of their hearts to the welcome sound, “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go unto the house of the Lord.”

Are you unconverted? Let this teach you what most you need. To men who are strangers to the happiness of piety, and have their will set contrary to the law of God, religion seems, and cannot but seem, a very sad, demure, miserable thing. Oh! it appears a weary thing to be singing psalms! — they would sing songs rather; a dull book the Bible — a most uninteresting task to be poring over these pages — they would prefer a novel or a newspaper. Rather than sit at the communion table, they would be guests where the board groans with luxuries, bowls flow with wine, peals of laughter follow the bright flashes of wit, arid thoughtless joy dances away the hours. Earth’s short Sabbaths seem long, and are weary; and it is a mystery which they cannot fathom, how, when they go to heaven, (and, who is not hoping one day to get there?) they are to pass an endless Sabbath of psalms, and songs, and such listless services.

No wonder, if this is your state, that piety wears no charms to win you. Without the clean heart and the right spirit, your attempts to obey the law cannot fail to be as unpleasant as they are unprofitable. It is hard to row against the tide, hard to go against the wind, hard to swim against the stream, but harder still, under no impulse but the lash of a guilty conscience, and the terrors of a coming judgment, to attempt conformity to the will of God. And admitting your conformity to be much greater than it is, what possible value can it have in the eyes of God. If even we would rather do the work ourselves than have it done for us by a sullen, sulky servant — what pleasure can God have in your slavish service? I would not be served by a slave, I would not have a slave stand behind my chair, I would not have a slave breathe the same air, live in the same home with me; nor will Jesus Christ. His arguments are not whips — his reasons are not blows — his servants do not walk and work in clanking fetters. He is the beloved sovereign of a people who, free and devoted to his interests, are ready to die for his person and crown.

A master he is, who measures the value of service not so much by the work done, as by the willingness to do it. Even they serve that wait. Then, as the Apostle says, “Let there be first a willing mind, and it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not.”

In short, the union between the Saviour and the believer, like the marriage of Isaac and Rebecca, stand on a cordial assent. “Peradventure,” said Eleazer to his master, “peradventure the woman will not be willing to follow me.” “Then,” said Abraham, “if the woman be not willing to follow thee, thou shalt be clear from this my oath.” On this condition his servant set off to woo and win a wife for Isaac. He arrives at Haran; he is introduced to Laban, and the scene that follows excites in us these two wishes.

First, Would to God, that those who hold a higher commission, being stewards of the mysteries of the Gospel, were as intent on the duties of their office, as was this steward on his. Laban presses his hospitality upon the hungry man; the savoury meat appeals to his appetite; he has had a long journey, and it is reasonable surely that he take some rest, get the dust of the road washed from his feet, and refresh exhausted nature before he enters upon business! No — Pattern of fidelity! He says — “I will not eat until I have told mine errand.” And would to God, also, that he who dealt with Rebecca’s heart, would persuade you to accept a better offer with its tokens of better love, that you might give us, as ambassadors for Christ in his love suit, that maiden’s ready answer. Isaac had sent a far way for her. She saw his messenger He stood in her presence, covered with the dust, and em browned with the sun of the desert. She saw Isaac’s love in these sparkling gems — the golden tokens of his affection. Her heart was won. Fair and lovely pattern of faith! Whom she had not seen she loved; she walked by faith, not by sight; and paying a last visit to a mother’s grave, forgetting “her father’s house and her own people,” the companions of her youth, and the sweet home of her early days, she turned round to her brother, and to his question — “Wilt thou go with this man?” with maiden modesty, but masculine firmness* she replied, “I will go.”

II. This is a progressive obedience.

To “walk” implies progress in grace. Walking is an art, and one not acquired in a moment or a day; for the power to walk is not ours, in the same sense as the power to breathe. We are born with the one power, but born without the other. Like every other habit, indeed, walking becomes so easy by use, that we are unconscious of any effort; yet step into the nursery, and you see that this art, acquired by labour, is the reward of continuous, conquering perseverance. In fact, our erect attitude and progressive motion over the ground — simple and easy as they seem — are achieved by means of most delicate and dexterous balancing. The marble statue cannot stand erect without foreign support; and you have no sooner raised a dead man, and set him up on his feet, than he falls at yours, a heap of loathsome mortality.

In beauty or splendour, the figure of my text may yield to other images expressive of a believer’s progress — such as that of a seed dropped into the soil, where striking down a delicate fibre, and sending up a green and tender shoot, it first rises into a seedling, which the finger of an infant could crush, but which, after a hundred summers have come and gone, grows into a robust and lofty tree, that, with its roots moored in the rock, lifts a proud head on high, and laughs at storms. Or, such as that furnished by the growth of day, from the first faint streak of dawn, or the face of morn — blushing as it were, to look on the crimes of earth — to the moment when the sun rises to bathe mountains, plain, and sea, in one full flood of golden light. In so far, however, as the setting forth of a very prominent and important feature of a believer’s progress is concerned, the figure of my text yields the palm to none, nay, is perhaps superior to any. Other images convey the idea of progress, but this, of progress achieved by exertion — progress, the triumph of an intelligent mind, and the reward of a determined will. To explain this special point, let me borrow an illustration from our Lord, when he took a little child, and, presenting the blushing boy to the wondering assembly, said, masters of Israel, doctors of the temple, priests of the altar, chiefs of the Sanhedrim, behold this pattern; “whosoever would enter the kingdom of heaven must be as this little child.”

In this image God’s people find comfort and encouragement.

Does the infant who is learning to walk abandon the attempt, or yield to despair, because its first efforts are feeble, and come far short of success? If not, why then should we despond, because in attempting to walk in God’s ways we often stumble, and not seldom fall? We — many of us at least — are but babes in Christ; and he no more gives up hope of his people because they fall, than the mother her fond hope and confidence that this infant who is now creeping across the floor, shall one day stand erect in the beauty of its form, balanced on firm feet, and with free and perfect command of all its limbs. Every man was once a babe. Samson himself — the mighty Nazarite who burst asunder new-spun ropes like flax touched with fire — who with more than a giant’s strength wrenched away the gates from Gaza’s port, and, heaving them on his back, climbed the steep acclivity — was once a feeble suckling, a wailing infant, barely able to hold its head erect — a tottering child, hesitating to venture from a mother’s knee. The believer takes a law of God, and tries to walk in it — he endeavours to resist a temptation to which he has often yielded — he fixes his eye on Jesus, and, fired with a holy ambition, attempts to follow him. He fails. Repeated attempts attended by repeated failures cast him into despondency. He lies where he fell. He gives himself up to dark and distressing doubts. Taking advantage of his failure, Satan insinuates that he has never been converted — that

- isUf**^1 his religious impressions are a delusion — that his fair profession has been a vile hypocrisy. But why should we despond? In such distressing circumstances let our children become our teachers. God ordains strength out of the mouth of babes. The lesson of the nursery is invaluable. Learning there that walking is a progressive and not a sudden attainment, I get heart to say with David, “Why art thou cast down, my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me?” That to my soul; and this to the devil, when he stands brandishing a sword over me, and I am lying with my back to the ground, but my eyes on heaven, “Rejoice not against me, 0 mine enemy, though I fall I shall arise.”

This image stimulates to exertion, as well as comforts under failure.

In attempting to walk, the child falls; and blood stains its brow, tears fill its eye. Does it lie there just to weep? By no means. If not by speech, yet by signs that go to a mother’s heart, it prays — for it can pray before it speaks. Looking through these tears, and stretching out its little arms, the infant implores her help. Nor in vain. She flies to raise it; and when she has stanched the bleeding wound, and kissed away the tears, and soothed it in her gentle bosom, and it has there sobbed out its grief, what then, and next? Recovering from the alarm, soon forgetting its wounds, it seeks the floor again. Perhaps it has been taught some caution — perhaps it has learned to cling more to a mother’s hand — perhaps it ventures less rashly from her side; yet, moved by an indomitable will, see how it returns to the attempt, tries it again and again, until after many falls and many blows, it earns the reward of perseverance. Now, with bright health on its cheek, grace in every motion, and beauty in all its attitudes, laughing in its joy, and luxuriating in the exercise of its new-born powers, it runs “without wearying, and walks without fainting.”

Teachers of our children! here let us be their scholars, and take a lesson from the nursery. Why do we make so little progress in grace? Why at this time of day, when some of us are bowed, wrinkled, wearing the snows of many winters on our head, are we so unable to walk in God’s statutes — to keep his judgments and do them? It is not because our education has been neglected. It is not because any child has in a mother one so fond, so kind, so quick to help, so able to raise the fallen and guide the tottering step, as we have in Him who suffered for us more than mother’s birth’s pangs, and feels for us more than a mother’s love. What child in earth’s happiest home enjoys a believer’s advantages? “Happy art thou, 0 Israel! who is like unto thee, 0 people saved by the Lord? The eternal God is thy refuge, and beneath the everlasting arms.” Why, then, is the progress of the church so slow, compared with the progress of the nursery? Why has child after child in our families learned to walk, while the best of us are still but creeping, tottering, stumbling, on the path to heaven?

There are mysteries in grace; but there is no mystery here. The reason is plain. Every hour of the day the infant is on its knees or feet; it falls, but it is to rise; it fails, but it is to begin again; its very happiness and business lie in the acquisition of this power, and the smile which lights up its beautiful face, and its proudlike air when it can stand alone, or cross the floor to throw itself laughing into a mother’s arms, shew that its heart and happiness are in this work. We say to God’s people, Go, by God’s grace, “go and do like wise.” Take more pains, be more diligent, give more prayer to learn this holy art. Let the perseverance of the nursery be imitated by the church. Let our knees be as much employed in prayer, and our powers and hours in attempting a holy life, as those of infancy in learning to walk. Oh, if we would give the same “diligence to make our calling and election sure” — the same diligence to “work out our salvation,” I am certain that we should be holier — much holier than we are. Our life would rise into a happy illustration of these sublime and resplendent emblems — “Ye are the light of the world:” “The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day:” “They shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

III. This willing and progressive obedience is the sign and seal of salvation.

Am I a child of God? How am I to know that I am? These are anxious questions with believers; and yet they are questions that admit of a very simple answer. We have not, nor can we expect to have, such a testimony to our sonship as the Saviour received when he went up from the bed of Jordan, and the form as of a dove descended from heaven on a head, still wet with the waters of baptism. By the descent of the dove as by the voice of the thunder, his Father said — “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And yet God’s people enjoy that very same testimony. The descent of the Spirit is still the evidence of sonship; — its sign not a dove perched upon their heads, but the brooding dove nestled within their hearts. By his Spirit God creates them “anew in Jesus Christ unto good works;” and by these — by the fruits of a holy life, by the joys of the Holy Ghost, by the advancing stages and ascending steps of a holy progress — his spirit witnesses with their spirits that- they are sons of God. A witness this, as uncertain, and therefore as satisfactory as the voice of the skies, or the approving verdict of final judgment.

The fruit is now, as it shall be hereafter, the test of the tree. And since there is no such thing as faith without works, without these, your profession is a lie, your faith is dead, your hope is a delusion. It is a delusion and a snare, like the phosphoric light, the product of putrefaction, which to the terror of superstitious peasants, and the destruction of unwary travellers, gleams and burns at night, above the eddying pool in whose dark depths life has been lost, and a body, evolving gases capable of spontaneous combustion, is going

2 A to decay. Now as the fruit is the test of the tree, obedience is the test of love; hear our Lord — “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me.” Do not mistake us. We do not mean to say that any man keeps these commandments perfectly. Alas! the history of the church, and each man’s own personal experience, prove to our shame and sor row, that God’s people may, and do fall into sin; and, but for the restraining and constraining grace of God, would fall into the deepest, grossest sin. Noah drunk, -^ Abraham equivocating, David an adulterer, Solomon a fool, Hezekiah a backslider, Peter vehemently swearing “I do not know the man,” these teach us to walk softly, humbly, prayerfully, circumspectly! Oh, never leave God’s side, nor let go the strong hand of grace. Cling to Christ; hang on his arm, as if the storm of Galilee were beating about your head, and every footstep were planted upon a swelling wave.

I do not say that saints will not fall into sin, but I do say that, even when they are so unhappy and unfaithful, there will be an unmistakeable difference between them and the ungodly. Judas sinned, and went and hanged himself; Peter sinned, and went out and wept. The sins of saints are the occasion of saintly sorrows. God sees them at the fountain weeping and washing away their guilt in the blood of Jesus; and, a sense of their sins bringing them to the Saviour, to Jesus himself they go with the confession of Peter — Lord, I know that I have sinned, I know that I am a great sinner; yet “thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee.”

There is one test — nor any more sure in the laboratory of the chemist — by which to distinguish the godly from the ungodly, when both have fallen even into the self same sin. It is well worth knowing. It is very simple, and yet a most sure, I would say, an infallible criterion. It is one which a child may comprehend, and “the wayfaring man, though a fool,” may apply. I pray you to apply it, not to your neighbours’ case, but to your own — nor reject it because it is humble, and plain, and simple, and vulgar, if you will. It is the test by which you may know a sheep from a swine, when both have fallen into the same slough, and are, in fact, so bemired, that neither by coat nor colour can the one be distinguished from the other. How then distinguish them? Nothing more easy! The unclean animal, in circumstances agreeable to its nature, wallows in the mire; but the sheep — type of the godly — fills the air with its bleatings, nor ceases its struggles to get out.