V. RESURRECTION HYMN. All hail the power of Jesu's Name! Let Angels prostrate fall; Bring forth the royal diadem, To crown Him LORD of all. Let high-born Seraphs tune the lyre, Before His face who tunes their choir, And crown Him LORD of All. Crown Him, ye morning stars of light, Who fix'd this floating ball; Now hail the Strength of Israel's might, And crown Him LORD of all. Crown Him, ye martyrs of your God, Who from His altar call; Extol the stem of Jesse's Rod, And crown Him LORD of all. Ye seed of Israel's chosen race, Ye ransom'd of the fall, Hail Him who saves you by His grace, And crown Him LORD of all. Hail Him, ye heirs of David's line, Whom David LORD did call, The God Incarnate, Man Divine, And crown Him LORD of all. Sinners! whose love can ne'er forget Go-spread your trophies at His feet Let every tribe and every tongue That bound creation's call, Now shout in universal song, THE CROWNED LORD OF ALL. VI. FAITH AND WORKS EQUALLY NECESSARY. It is hard to say who do Christianity most disservice; the Solifidians, who assert that works are nothing before God; or the Pharisees, who maintain that certain religious ceremonies and external duties of morality are the very soul of religion. O thou true believer, bear thy testimony against both their errors; and equally contend for the tree and the fruit, the faith of St. Paul and the works of St. James; remembering that if even the gates of hell prevail against thee, it shall be by making thee overvalue faith and despise good works, or overrate works and slight precious faith. As it is absurd to suppose, that speculating upon a medicine, instead of taking it, can conduce to the recovery of our bodily health; so it is unreasonable to fancy that bare speculations upon the doctrines of the Gospel can be productive of saving health; cordial believing having no less necessary a reference to truth than real drinking to a potion. Hence appears the necessity of clearly distinguishing between saving faith and Antinomian fancy; between the faith by which a man affectionately believes with an humbled heart unto righteousness, and its counterfeit, by which a man idly believes with a conceited mind to practical Antinomianism. A professor of the faith without genuine obedience, and a pretender to obedience without genuine faith, equally miss their aim; while a friend to faith and works put in their proper place, a possessor of the faith which works by love, hits the Gospel mark, and so runs as to obtain the prize. See that sculler upon yonder river. The unwearied diligence and watchful skill with which he plies his two oars point out to us the work and wisdom of an experienced Divine. What an even gentle spring does the mutual effort of his oars give to his boat! Observe him; his right hand never rests, but when the stream carries him too much to the left; he slacks not his left hand, unless he is gone too much to the right: nor has he sooner recovered a just medium, than he uses both oars again with mutual harmony. Suppose that for a constancy he employed but one, no matter which, what would be the consequence? He would only move in a circle, and if neither wind nor tide carried him along, after an hard day's work he would find himself in the very spot where he began his idle toil. This illustration needs very little explaining: I shall just observe that the Antinomian is like a sculler who uses only his right-hand oar; and the Pharisee like him who plies only the oar in his left hand. One makes an endless bustle about grace and faith, the other about charity and works; but both, after all, find themselves exactly in the same case,-with this single difference, that one has turned from truth to the right, and the other to the left. Not so the judicious, unbiassed Preacher, who will safely enter the haven of eternal rest, for which he and his hearers are bound. He makes an equal use of the doctrine of faith and that of works. If at any time he insists most upon faith, it is only when the stream carries his congregation upon the pharisaic shallows on the left hand: and if he lay a preponderating stress upon works, it is only when he sees unwary souls sucked into the Antinomian whirlpool on the right hand. His skill consists in so avoiding one danger as not to run upon the other. Truth is great, and love powerful: if you fight under their glorious banners, though the arrows of contempt and the brands of calumny will fly thick around you, you shall not be dangerously wounded. Only take the shield of faith, with this motto, "By grace I am saved through faith;" and quench with it the fiery darts of self-conceited legalists. Put on the breast-plate of righteousness, with this inscription; "Faith works by righteous love," the mother of good works this piece of celestial armour will keep off the heaviest strokes of self-humbled Gospellers. And, animated by the Captain of your salvation, through the opposite forces of those adversaries urge your evangelically legal way, till you exchange "the sword of the Spirit" for a "golden harp," and your daily cross for a heavenly crown. VII. A HIGH PURPOSE THE SOUL'S SALVATION. With these examples before us, it behoves us to ask ourselves, Have we a purpose? Elijah and Luther may be marks too high for us. Do not let us affect knight-errantry, couch the lance at windmills to prove our valour, or mistake sauciness for sanctity, and impudence for inspiration. It is not probable that our mission is to beard unfaithful royalties, or to pull down the edifices which are festooned with the associations of centuries. But in the sphere of each of us—in the marts of commerce, in the looms of labourwhile the sun is climbing hotly up the sky, and the race of human pursuits and competitions is going vigorously on, there is work enough for the sincere and honest workman. The sphere for personal improvement was never so large. To brace the body for service or for suffering--to bring it into subjection to the control of the master-faculty-to acquaint the mind with all wisdom-to hoard, with miser's care, every fragment of beneficial knowledgeto twine the beautiful around the true, as the acanthus leaf around the Corinthian pillar-to quell the sinward propensities of the nature-to evolve the soul into the completeness of its moral manhood-to have the passions in harness, and firmly curb them-"to bear the image of the heavenly"-to strive after "that mind which was also in Christ Jesus"- here is a piece of labour wide enough for the most resolute will. The sphere of beneficent activity was never so large. To infuse the leaven of purity into the disordered masses-to thaw the death-frost from the heart of the misanthrope-to make the treacherous one faithful to duty--to open the world's dim eye to the majesty of conscience-to gather and instruct the orphans bereft of a father's blessing and of a mother's prayer-to care for the outcast and abandoned, who have drunk in iniquity with their mother's milk, whom the priest and the Levite have alike passed by, and who have been forced in the hot-bed of poverty into premature luxuriance of evil,-here is labour, which may employ a man's life-time, and his whole soul. Young men, are you working? Have you gone forth into the harvest field bearing precious seed? Alas! perhaps some of you are yet resting in the conventional, that painted charnel which has tombed many a manhood; grasping eagerly your own social advantages; gyved by a dishonest expediency; not doing a good lest it should be evil spoken of, nor daring a faith lest the scoffer should frown. With two worlds to work in-the world of the heart, with its many-phased and wondrous life, and the world around, with its problems waiting for solution, and its contradictions panting for the harmonizer-you are perhaps enchained. in the Island of Calypso, thralled by its blandishments, emasculated by its enervating air. Oh for some strong-armed Mentor to thrust you over the cliff, and strain with you among the buffeting waves! Brothers, let us be men. Let us bravely fling off our chains. If we cannot be commanding, let us at least be sincere. Let our earnestness amend our incapacity. Let ours not be a life of puerile inanities, or obsequious Mammon-worship. Let us look through the pliant neutral in his hollowness, and the churlish miser in his greed, and let us go and do otherwise than they. Let us not be ingrates while Heaven is generous, idlers while earth is active, slumberers while eternity is near. Let us have a purpose, and let that purpose be one. Without a central principle all will be in disorder. Ithaca is misgoverned, Penelope beset by clamorous suitors, Telemachus in peril, all because Ulysses is away. Let the Ulysses of the soul return, let the governing principle exert its legitimate authority, and the harpy-suitors of appetite and sense shall be slain the heart, married to the truth, shall retain its fidelity to its bridal-vow, and the eldest-born, a purpose of valour and of wisdom, shall carve its highway to renown, and achieve its deeds of glory. Aim at this singleness of eye. Abhor a life of self-contradictions, as a grievous wrong done to an immortal nature. And thus, having a purpose — one purpose--a worthy purpose-you cannot toil in vain. Work in the inner-it will tell upon the outer world. Purify your own heart-you will have a reformative power on the neighbourhood. Shrine the truth within-it will attract many pilgrims. Kindle the vestal fire-it will ray out a life-giving light. Have the mastery over your own spirit-you will go far to be a world-subduer. Oh, if there be one here who would uplift himself or advance his fellows, who would do his brother "a good which shall live after him", or enrol himself among the benefactors of mankind, to him we say, Cast out of thyself all that loveth and maketh a lie-hate every false way-set a worthy object before thee-work at it with both hands, an open heart, an earnest will, and a firm faith, and then go on— "Onward, while a wrong remains |