The Bible and the Believer
In the spring of 1817, there used to meet together in a large saloon at Geneva, from twenty to thirty students. Some of them were ardent and accomplished young men, and all of them were aspirants to the Christian ministry. But at that time little faith was found in Geneva. The city of Calvin and Beza was under the spell of Voltaire and Rousseau, and in the christened Paganism of its Theological Academy, “St Plato and St Seneca” had supplanted St Paul and St Peter. These young men assembled every alternate evening, and took their places at a long table,, on which lay the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, with many versions, German, French, and English. In this little college, the professor wras a retired naval officer from Britain. He was a grave and thoughtful man. He had
The Bible and the Belieuer. gained his ascendancy over his scholars, by the interest which he manifested in their future ministry. They had no idea that the pastorate was such a responsible and weighty office; but as he spoke so seriously about the thousands of souls of which they were soon to have oversight, the solemnity of the stranger solemnised themselves. They were now searching the Scriptures daily, on purpose to ascertain the truth of God: and as unheard-of doctrines, such as human corruption, the incarnation, justification by the righteousness of another, one by one came forth from the open volume, great was the astonishment of these youthful “Bereans.” Of course, many difficulties were felt, and not a few objections and cavils were started: but it was only by comparing scripture with scripture, that Mr Haldane explained or defended its statements. to There it stands written with the finger of God,” was the end of the matter; nor was there any question on which texts did not occur instant and apposite to this “living concordance.” As the result, almost every one of these students became a distinguished evangelist; and in the persons of men like Gonthier and Rieu and Merle d’Aubignd, many dark places in France, Belgium, and Switzerland were penetrated by the light of the gospel; nor is it saying too much to affirm, that, through the Evangelical Society in which it ended, the whole of Frenchspeaking Europe is destined to feel the effects of that season’s earnest Bible-searching.*
The Bible is the book out of which every reformation of doctrine has issued, and every revival of religion. And whether we are called to be the instructors of others, or are only desiring security and precision to our own system, we cannot do better than resort at once to the oracle. Or, as is still more likely, if any one of us has notions indefinite or undecided on some important article, he cannot do better than study that portion of Scripture in which it is especially treated. Is it the person of Christ on which you long for clearer light? Do you want to know whether He is Divine, and whether without idolatry you may give Him not only love and gratitude, but adoration and worship? Then read the books of St John. Is it the great atonement on which you desire to be more fully informed? Do you wish to know the exact function which the great High Priest discharges, — whether His “finished” work be an exclusive and exhaustive expiation for sins, or a sacrifice requiring constant repetitions, and originating a new sacerdotal order? Then read the Epistle to the Hebrews. Or is it on the doctrine of justification that you covet more precise and
* See “The Lives of Robert and James Alexander Hal- ■dane,” chap, xviii.
thorough instruction? Do you seek to knowwhere God would have you rest your hope of heaven? whether it is your faith, or your feelings, or your improving self, that He would have you trust, — or His own dear Son the Saviour? Then read the Epistles to the Romans and Galatians. Whatever be the point on which you would know the mind of God, you will find some portion of His Word which gives forth the Divine deliverance; and when that portion is illustrated and confirmed by appropriate parallels, your faith will stand not in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God.
However, to regard the Book as a mere oracle giving forth responses on doctrinal questions, is a cold theory of Scripture. The poet * tells how he “shot an arrow into the air,” and owing to the swiftness of its flight he lost it. In like manner, he adds,
“I breathed a song into the air;
It fell to earth, I knew not where.
Long, long afterward in an oak
I I found the arrow still unbroke:
And the song, from beginning to end* I found again in the heart of a friend.”
Such recoveries and recognitions of one’s thoughts are always pleasant. You had forgotten the saying; but months afterward some one tells you how to him it had proved such a word
* Longfellow.
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in season. You have no remembrance of having ever met this prosperous merchant; but he asks, “Do you not recollect the advice you gave a young man, who brought you a letter of introduction from such a friend twenty years ago? — advice which I followed, and here I am.” Nor does anything delight you more, than to find that you are so loved by another that he acts on your wishes, and you constantly see carried out in his silent proceedings, requests or suggestions of your own. If the most delicate token of affection, this is also the most decisive. It proves that you live in the heart of your friend; and that, seen or not seen, you are truly dear to him.
God’s bow is never bent at a venture. He never loses sight of His arrows. No word of His ever misses its mark, but each accomplishes its purpose. And yet it is not the less a joy to Him when that word finds a welcome, and of all men he is to the Most High the dearest, in whose affections God’s words are hidden the most deeply, and in whose conduct they most conspicuously reappear.
Perhaps, it will be brought still nearer to our apprehension if we recall the saying of the Saviour, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in His love.”* In the heart of Immanuel were hidden all the desires and commandments of the Father; and to carry them into effect, was the labour of love which gave unity and grandeur to His entire incarnate history. And it was this which drew towards Him the perpetual complacency of His heavenly Father. On the one side, the obedience of His beloved Son was an incense ever ascending through the sin-laden atmosphere of earth; and, on the other side, the Father’s recognition of that obedience was a blessing constantly returning, — dispelling in some degree the miasma of the curse, and opening through our murky air streaks of that sapphire which formed the firmament of an untainted Paradise. And just as it was by keeping the Father’s commandments that the Son abode in the Father’s love, so it is by keeping the Saviour’s commandments that He tells us we shall abide in the Saviour’s love. Nay, if Christ’s word abide in us, we shall come to such a blessed unison, — oar will shall be in such harmony with His, and such a delight shall it be to Him to show His love to His disciple, that “we shall ask what we will, and it shall be done unto us.”
The Saviour desires our love. He desires to live in our grateful affection. And just as whatever we do in remembrance of Him, helps to en-
* John xv. 7, 10.
dear Him to us, so the more richly that His word dwells in us, the dearer are we to Himself.
Wherever such a word is acted out, the soul is at once made happier and stronger. It is instantly brought nearer to that Divine Friend whose promise is thus trusted, or whose wishes are thus fulfilled: and, as an inevitable consequence, it receives an augmentation of spiritual vigour, and is better able to believe the next true saying, or to do the next right thing.
A little girl, ten years of age, who had long been nursing a sick sister, and whose mother was in feeble health, was getting quite worn out. One morning as she trudged along to procure medicine, — as she thought how hard it was to be always waiting on the invalid when other children were at play: and then, when she thought how likely it was that her sister would die, — betwixt weariness and grief she began to’ weep bitterly. But a sudden thought crossed her mind. Her tears were dried, and her step grew light and nimble. After she returned, noticing how cheerfully she went about her work, and how briskly and easily she did it, her mother asked the reason. It turned out that the verse had come into her memory, “I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness has afflicted me.” Day and night thenceforward she never wearied in her attendance on the invalid. Her cheerful countenance did more good than any medicine. And ere long she had her reward, for her sister recovered.*
Mr Simeon, of Cambridge, was at one time an object of much contempt for Christ’s sake and the gospel. And though usually he bore up bravely, it was very trying to know that nobody liked to be seen in his company: and one day as he walked along with his little Testament in his hand, he prayed that God would send him some cordial in His Word. Opening the book his eye alighted on the text, u They found a man of Cyrene, Simon (or Simeon) by name; him they compelled to bear Jesus’ cross.” “And when I read that,” he tells us, “I exclaimed, ‘Lord, lay it on me: lay it on me; I will gladly bear the cross for Thy sake.’ And I henceforth bound persecution as a wreath of glory round my brow.”f
In the Tower of London you have read the verse inscribed by one of the bloody Mary’s prisoners, “He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.” And you remember how it is related of the Noncomformist, Mr Lawrence, of Baschurch, that when some one reminded him that he had eleven good arguments against giving up his living, and asked him how he meant to maintain his wife and ten children,
* “The Holy Scriptures” (Tract Society Anecdotes) — where many interesting facts are collected, f Simeon’s Life, p. 676.
he answered, “They must all live on the sixth of Matthew, ‘Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? but seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.’” And countless instances might be quoted where, to every range of intellect, from the little child up to the learned philosopher, and in all emergencies, from a matter of daily routine up to a question of life or death, the all-fitting and all-foreseeing Word of Christ has been the antidote of temptation, the incentive to duty, the joy in tribulation. On its nail fastened in a sure place thousands have suspended their earthly future as well as their eternal all, and they have not been confounded. With its sword turning either way they have put to flight armies of doubts and fears, and whole legions of Satanic suggestions. Times without number on the guilty conscience of the troubled spirit has a healing leaf descended, fresh from the Tree of Life, and charmed into the evenings ecstasy the morning’s anguish. None of that Word shall return to the Great Speaker “void;” for according to their various faith or susceptibility, absorbed into the soul of disciples, it will outlive the most enduring of tablets, and outshine the most brilliant of transcripts; and although every Bible should perish, the whole of Christ’s sayings might be recovered from His living epistles. They might all be collected again in the hearts of Christ’s friends.
All flesh is grass, and the grave is fast filling with great authors. Once they are there, praise cannot flatter them, affection cannot cheer them. And, except that small number whose “works do follow them,” they may either be ignorant of the influence which they are exerting in the land of the living, or they would rather that they did not know. But the Author of the Bible lives. The Saviour, whose sayings it perpetuates, lives. The Holy Spirit, who taught the men of God to write it, lives. It is a joy to the Lord Jesus when any saying of His finds a frank believer or a cheerful doer. It is a gladness to the Spirit of Grace when those pure loving words of His refine a coarse nature, or persuade a stubborn will, or heal a broken heart. It is a delight to the Most High when His own truth credited leads any soul to regard Him trustfully and loyally, and to cry to Him, Abba, — our Father who art in heaven. The Author of the Bible is not like one who publishes a great book, and so far as he is concerned its influence is posthumous: but He is rather like one who sends a letter into your dwelling and awaits its result. He is rather like one who has indited a volume with an eye expressly to your benefit, and who finds his joy fulfilled and his. purpose answered when you begin to bend to its reasonings, to mould
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your life on its maxims, to fill your soul with its inspiring motives. Under God’s eye read God’s own Book, and pray for that Comforter’s teaching who can make the literal Scripture a living message and a transforming power. Then, — when your principles and rules of action are derived from this celestial source, you will understand how a man by becoming truly scriptural becomes “a temple of the Holy Ghost.” And, if you cannot say it yourself, when Christ’s Word dwells in you richly, you will understand how another could say it, “I live, yet not I: Christ liveth in me.” Believing God’s truth and receiving God’s Spirit, as long as the Lord lives you need never want a friend, nor as long as He has a cause in the world, need you ever want a pursuit.
As we said in the last chapter, it is the darkness which makes the lantern so welcome. And it is the darkness of the sick-room or the house of mourning in which this “Night-lamp “* emits such a soft and heavenly radiance. You will find it so. Fond as you are of books, there is only one that you will value at last: with your head on the pillow you will hardly care to be told that a new volume of the Great History is published, or a marvellous epic out-peering all its predecessors.” No; read me the twenty-third Psalm.
* The appropiate name of a very edifying narrative of a sister’s last days, by Dr John Macfarlane.
Let me hear the fourteenth of John.” When your strength sinks yet lower, — when your interest in all under the sun has faded away, and ebbing life affords not even a parting tear, — it will for a moment rally the worn faculties, to hear the whisper, “My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.” aYea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” And when all is over, when to orphan children and desolate kindred the world is grown a great sepulchre, and the most tender friends are vain comforters; when letters of condolence lie unopened, and words of compassion fall like hailstones on the heart, — the first thing which sends a warm ray into the gloom, and brings to the eye tears that are not bitter, is when Jesus himself breaks the silence, and you hear, “I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”” What are these who are arrayed in white robes, and whence came they? These are they who came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither
The Bible and the Believer.
thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of water: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”
By the confession of the world’s own poet, “Christianity is the religion of the sorrowful.” * Nothing can be truer. Christ is indeed the mourner’s Friend. Christ’s Word is the “Afflicted Man’s Companion.” And if any humane spirit would like to mitigate the distresses of his brethren; if you would fain be a son of consolation to the sons of sorrow, the kindest thing you can do is to conduct them to this source of perennial comfort. The world is full of sufferers: and if you do not meet them in the streets, city missionaries and others will soon direct you to their dwellings. There, or in the public hospital, you will find them, bed-rid, consumptive, palsy-stricken, blind, wasting away in direful diseases; and what can you do for them? What can philosophy do? What can mere human philanthropy do? The one would discourse on the pain-conquering power of a resolute will, or would expatiate on the lot of mortality: — as if writhing anguish could be mesmerised by stoic saws, or a fever could be cured by fatalism. And the other, wiser and
‘x” Moore in “The Epicurean.”
The Bible cuid the Believer. 33
kinder, would seek for the tossing sufferer better attendance, or purer air, or a less uneasy couch; but it is a short limit to which when humanity has gone, it can go no further. The best skill cannot cure old age; the rarest cordial cannot tempt the sickly palate; the purest air, the softest couch, the kindest nursing cannot conjure into health those that are doomed to die. But in His mercy God has provided an assuagement for such misery, — an effectual antidote to the worst ingredient in the cup of woe. Visiting your poor neighbour, you will probably find that antidote already in the house, but its value is still unknown. It is your privilege to be the ministering angel, and to point out to the dying Hagar the hidden well. Putting into the words as much of Christ’s own tenderness and kindness as you can, you read or repeat some appropriate passage; and, just as the scanty strength can bear it, you add here a little and there a little, and renew your visits till, in an arrested ear and opening heart, God crowns your love and answers your prayers. And those only who have seen it can tell the difference between the sick-chamber where there is no hope, and one lit up with immortality — between the dull endurance or the rebellious resistance of the stricken transgressor, and the patient cheerfulness and prophetic joy of a Lazarus, whose sorry couch is spread in glory’s vestibule. So that
The Bible and the Believer,
next to his highest service who preoccupies with scriptural principle a healthful youthful neighbour, and who thus secures for society a Christian citizen, as well as for heaven a meet inheritor, — is his visit of mercy who carries to the abodes of wretchedness the tidings of great joy, and who, with the help of the Holy Spirit reveals the secret which makes the worst pain tolerable, and the sorest affliction joyful, — which beguiles with songs the longest night, and teaches the man of sorrow alway to triumph through Jesus Christ.