Edwin Paxton Hood

“ XV. Let this covenant continue, when I am in sickness, or in health, or in any other circumstance; for Thou hast overcome the world, fulfilled the law, finished justifying righteousness, and hast swallowed up death, in victory, and all power, in heaven and earth, is in Thy hand. For the sake of Thy most precious blood, and perfect righteousness, note this covenant, with Thine own blood, in the court of the memorials of forgiving mercy: attach unto it Thy name, in which I believe; and here I, this day, set my unworthy name unto it, with my mortal hand. Amen.—Christmas Evans. ”

“ THE TRINITY.
“The Father is so intimately near the Son and Spirit, that no finite or created natures or unions can give a just resemblance of it. We talk of the union of the sun and his beams, of a tree and its branches: but these are but poor images and faint shadows of this mystery, though they are some of the best that I know. The union of the soul and the body is, in my esteem, still farther from the point, because their natures are so widely different. In vain we search through all the creation to find a complete similitude of the Creator. ”

“ Though as man, and Mediator I am inferior to the Father; yet my nature is no more inferior to His, than the nature of the Prince of Wales is inferior to the nature of the King of England. You see me clothed in humanity; but, in my original state, I thought it not robbery to be equal with God. I was in the beginning with God, and possessed the same eternity of being. Like Him, I am almighty, omniscient, and immutable; infinite in holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. All these attributes, with every other possible perfection, belong to me, in the same sense as they belong to the Father. ”

“ It is ungracious work to bring into the rivalry of comparison or contrast two singers who have so sacredly served the Church. Yet we will dare to say it here, in the hymns of Watts there is that peculiar accent, that note of pain, that majesty and melody of the deep minor chord—that sounding of a deeper experience—that ineffable something which testifies to a capacity of agony, as well as to the assurance of ecstasy which is the true poet’s prerogative and power. ”

“ Ever since the fall in Eden, man is born to die. He lives to die. He eats, and drinks, sleeps, and wakes, to die. Death, like a dark steel-clad warrior, stands ever before us; and his gigantic shadow comes continually between us, and happiness. But Christ hath ‘abolished death, and brought life, and immortality to light through the gospel.’ He was born in Bethlehem, that He might die on Calvary. He was made under the law, that He might bear the direst penalty of the law. He lived thirty-three years, sinless, among sinners, that He might offer Himself a sin-offering for sinners upon the cross. ”

“ Suppose a torch enclosed in a cell of earth, in the midst of ten thousand thousand torches that shine at large in a spacious amphitheatre. While it is enclosed, its beams strike only on the walls of its own cell, and it has no communion with those without. But let this cell fall down at once, and the torch that moment has full communion with all those ten thousands; it shines as freely as they do, and receives and gives assistance to all of them, and joins to add glory to that illustrious place. ”

“ As Thou didst prosper Bunyan, Vavasor Powell, Howell Harris, Rowlands, and Whitfield, O do Thou prosper me. Whatsoever things are opposed to my prosperity, remove them out of the way. Work in me everything approved of God for the attainment of this. Give me a heart “sick of love” to Thyself, and to the souls of men. Grant that I may experience the power of Thy Word before I deliver it, as Moses felt the power of his own rod, before he saw it on the land and waters of Egypt. Grant this, for the sake of Thine infinitely precious blood, O Jesus, my hope, and my all in all. ”

“ Since the great affliction with which it pleased Almighty God to visit me by the death of a most valuable and only son, I found myself happiest in almost an entire retreat from the world, and being of a sudden called into a place where I remembered to have seen the utmost of its hurry and vanity exerted, terrified my imagination to the last degree, and I shed tears every time I was alone at the thought of what I expected to encounter ”

“ Lo, the King is your brother, and for you has He stained His robe with blood! The robe alone can clothe your naked souls, and shield them in the day of burning. Awake! awake! put on the Lord Jesus Christ! The covenant of Sinai cannot save you from wrath. Descent from Abraham cannot entitle you to the kingdom of heaven. “Ye must be born again,” “born not of the flesh, nor of the will of men, but of God.” You must have a new heart, and become a new creation in Jesus Christ. ”

“ But whoever undertakes the noble work, let him bring with him a soul devoted to piety, an exalted genius, and withal a studious application; for David’s harp abhors a profane finger and disdains to answer to an unskilful or a careless touch. A meaner pen may imitate at a distance; but a complete translation or a just paraphrase demands a rich treasury of diction, an exalted fancy, a quick taste of devout passion, together with judgment, strict and severe, to retrench every luxuriant line, and to maintain a religious sovereignty over the whole work. ”

“ There was no other Saviour—no other being in the universe willing to undertake the work; or, if any willing to undertake, none able to accomplish it. The salvation of one human soul would have been too mighty an achievement for Gabriel—for all the angels in heaven. Had not “the only-begotten of the Father” become our Surety, we must have lain for ever under the wrath of God, amid “weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth.” None but the Lion of the tribe of Judah could break the seals of that mysterious book. None but “God manifest in the flesh” could deliver us from the second death. ”

“ Am I renewed in all the powers of my nature, and made meet to enter into that unseen world, where there shall be no more of these revolutions of days and years, but one eternal day fills up all the space with Divine pleasure, or one eternal night with long and deplorable distress and darkness? ”

“ We cannot “serve the living God” without this preparatory purification of conscience. If our guilt is uncancelled—if the love of sin is not dethroned—the service of the knee, and the lip is nothing but hypocrisy. “If we regard iniquity in our hearts, the Lord will not hear us.” Cherishing what He hates, all our offerings are an abomination to Him; and we can no more stand in His holy presence than the dry stubble can stand before a flaming fire. He who has an evil conscience flees from the face of God, as did Adam in the garden. ”

“ When you are in danger of life, I believe my sister is afraid to let me know the worst, for fear of affecting me too much. But as I feel old age daily advancing on myself, I am endeavouring to be ready for my removal hence; and though it gives a shock to nature when what has been long dear to one is taken away, yet reason and religion should teach us to expect it in these scenes of mortality and a dying world. Blessed be God for our immortal hopes, through the blood of Jesus, who has taken away the sting of death! What could such dying creatures do without the comforts of the Gospel? ”

“ It is the place of skulls, where Death holds his carnival in companionship with worms, and hell laughs in the face of heaven. Dark storms are gathering there—convolving clouds, charged with no common wrath. Terrors set themselves in battle-array before the Son of God; and tempests burst upon Him which might sweep all mankind in a moment to eternal ruin. Hark! hear ye not the subterranean thunder? Feel ye not the tremor of the mountain? It is the shock of Satan’s artillery, playing upon the Captain of our Salvation. ”

“ He was a student, a real and a hard student, and the speculations of his intellect whenever he betook himself to verse, presented themselves to his mind suffused in the glowing but ineffable lights of eternity; he seemed to be fond of revolving eternal truths. We hope not to be misunderstood if we speak of him as a mystic. Although in his prose writings so little of the mystic appears, in his hymns he is perpetually moving amidst the adumbrations of uncreated mind. What an illustration of this is in that extraordinary hymn,
Lord we are blind, we mortals blind. ”

“ Christ is everywhere in the Scriptures spoken of as a Blessing; and whether we contemplate His advent, His ministry, His miracles, His agony, His crucifixion, His interment, His resurrection, or His ascension, we may truly say, ‘All His paths drop fatness.’ All His travels were on the road of mercy; and trees are growing up in His footsteps, whose fruit is delicious food, and ‘whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.’ He walketh upon the south winds, causing propitious gales to blow upon the wilderness till songs of joy awake in the solitary place, and the desert blossoms as the rose. ”

“ It has been my frequent prayer, and it will be my joy, to see your temper suited to your work, and to hear that you employ your studies and your style for the support of truth and godliness in the spirit of the Gospel, that is, in the spirit of meekness and love. And I conclude with a hearty request to Heaven that your wit may be all sanctified, that you may minister holy things with honour and purity and great success, and you may become as eminent and public an example of piety, meekness, heavenly-mindedness, and love to all the saints, as your own soul wishes and desires. ”

“ Three thousand men, that morning full of ignorance, and corruption, and guilt—idolaters, sensualists, blasphemers, persecutors—before night were perfectly transformed—the lions converted into lambs—the hard heart melted, the dead conscience quickened, and the whole man become a new creature in Christ Jesus! They thirsted, they found the ‘Spiritual rock,’ tasted its living waters, and suddenly leaped into new life, like Lazarus from the inanition of the grave! ”

“ Go, dress up all the virtues of human nature in all the beauties of your oratory, and declaim aloud on the praise of social virtue and the amiable qualities of goodness, till your hearts or lungs ache, among the looser herds of mankind, and you will ever find, as your heathen fathers have done before you, that the wild appetites and passions of men are too violent to be restrained by such mild and silken language. ”

“ This is always most noble when the mind of a preacher rises to the highest truths in the Christian scheme. A great deal of our preaching, in the present day, well deserves the name of pretty: how many men, whose volumes of sermons are upon our shelves, both in England, and America, seem as if their preachers had been students in the natural history of religion, gathering shells, pretty rose-tinted shells, or leaves, and insects for a theological museum! ”

“ And why may not the human soul and body of our glorified Saviour be thus furnished with such an amazing extent of knowledge and power, and yet not be truly infinite? Let us dwell a little longer upon these delightful contemplations. If a soul had but a full knowledge and command of all the atoms of one solid foot of matter, which according to modern philosophy is infinitely divisible, what strange and astonishing influences would it have over this world of ours? ”

“ Christ’s own Divine nature, which was co-eternal with the Father before the world was, and which, in the fulness of time, seized on humanity—sinless, and immaculate humanity—and offered it, body, and soul, as a sacrifice for human sins. The eternal Spirit was at once the priest that offered the victim, and the altar that sanctified the offering. Without His agency, there could have been no atonement. The offering of mere humanity, however spotless, aside from the merit derived from its connection with Divinity, could not have been a sacrifice of sweet-smelling savour unto God. ”

“ These are glories too Divine and dazzling for the weak eye of our understanding, too bright for the eye of angels, those morning stars; and they, and we, must fall down together, alike overwhelmed with them, and alike confounded. These are flights that tire souls of the strongest wing, and finite minds faint in the infinite pursuit; these are depths where our tallest thoughts sink and drown; we are lost in this ocean of being and blessedness that has no limit on either side, no surface, no bottom, no shore. ”

“ Oh what rapture there shall be among the saints, when those frail vessels, from which they escaped with such a struggle, as they foundered in the gulf of death, shall come floating in, with the spring-tide of the resurrection, to the harbour of immortality! How glorious the reunion, when the seeds of affliction, and death are left behind in the tomb! Jacob no longer lame, nor Moses slow of speech, nor Lazarus covered with sores, nor Paul troubled with a thorn in the flesh! ”

“ Yes, my honoured friend, you will, I hope, cheerfully endure a little longer continuance in life amidst all its infirmities from an assurance that, while God is pleased to maintain the exercise of your reason, it is hardly possible you should live in vain to the world or yourself. Every day and every trial is brightening your crown, and rendering you still more and more meet for an inheritance among the saints in light. Every word which you drop from the pulpit has now surely its peculiar weight. ”

“ And the feathered tribes are coming, the turtle-dove, the pigeon, the swallow, the sparrow, the robin, and the wren; while the croaking raven, and the fierce-eyed eagle, scenting the water from afar, mingle with them round the rock.
“Brethren, this is but a faint emblem of the joy of the Church, in drinking the waters that descend from Calvary, the streams that gladden the city of our God. Go back to the day of Pentecost for an instance. Oh what a revolution of thought, and feeling, and character! What a change of countenance, and conscience, and heart! ”

“ There are Christians still who delight in this doubtful method of expressing and setting forth the holiest affections. Watts in all his religious works had at all times the ardent and fervent words of a poetic and imaginative nature, but he considerably pruned both thought and speech as the years passed in study and seclusion brought a riper wisdom; he did not repress the ardours of the heart, but he gave to their expression a chastened and colder form; he was not satisfied indeed by light without love, but he clothed that love with a more sacred reticence. ”

“ When I yield to pensive reflections, under a sense of sin, and when I see the tops of dark mountains of disease, and trouble at the terrors of the grave, I see in the Bible Infinite Goodness, fairer than the Shekinah of old, looking at me, out of eternity; it is like the smile of the Eternal King, from His throne of mercy. ”

“ The magnificent scenery seems to create a pensive awe upon the spirit. Often the pedestrian, passing along a piece of unsuggestive road, suddenly finds that the stupendous mountains have sloped down, to valleys of the wildest, and most picturesque beauty, valley opening into valley, in some instances; in others, as in the vale of Glamorgan, stretching along, for many miles, in plenteous fruitfulness, and beauty, illuminated by some river like the Tivy, the Towy, or the Llugg, some of these rivers sparkling, and flashing with the glittering gleisiad, as an old Welsh song sings it ”

“ One dread convulsion more, one cry of desperate agony, and Jesus dies—an arrow has entered into His heart. Now leap the lions, roaring, upon their prey; and the bulls of Bashan are bellowing; and the dogs of perdition are barking; and the unicorns toss their horns on high; and the devil, dancing with exultant joy, clanks his iron chains, and thrusts up his fettered hands in defiance towards the face of Jehovah!
“Go a little farther upon the mountain, and you come to ‘a new tomb hewn out of the rock.’ There lies a dead body. It is the body of Jesus. ”

“ See them, the redeemed of the Lord, flocking as returning doves upon the wing, “to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God; and to the spirits of just men made perfect; and to an innumerable company of angels; and to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant; and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.”
Oh, join the joyful multitude! the year of jubilee is come. The veil is rent asunder. The way into the holiest is laid open. The blood of Jesus is on the mercy-seat. The Lamb newly slain is in the midst of the throne. ”

“ There is none like it flowing in human veins. It was the blood of a man, but of a man who knew no iniquity; the blood of a sinless humanity, in which dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; the blood of the second Adam, who is the Lord from Heaven, and a quickening Spirit upon earth. It pressed through every pore of His body in the garden; and gushed from His head, His hands, His feet, and His side, upon the cross. ”

“ What a language, then, is this for a competent orator to play upon,—a man with an imaginative mind, and a fervid and fiery soul! Then is brought into play that element of Welsh preaching, without knowing and apprehending which there would be no possibility of understanding the secret of its great power; it is the “hwyl.” When the Welsh preacher speaks in his best mood, and with great unction, the highest compliment that can be paid him, the loftiest commendation that can be given, is, that he had the “hwyl.” ”

“ Consider, in the first place, the great importance, to a preacher, of a blameless life. You must, like Timothy, ‘flee youthful lusts,’ as you would escape from beasts of prey; for there are kinds of beasts, living in the wilderness of man’s corruption, that will charm, by means of their beauteous colours, those that walk among their haunts; there is no safety but by keeping from them, and adhering to such as live by faith, and watch, and pray. It will be well for you, while you travel through the coppice of youth, to keep from all appearance of evil. ”

“ It is the explosion of the magazine of vengeance. Lo, the earth is quaking, the rocks are rending, the graves are opening, the dead are rising, and all nature stands aghast at the conflict of Divine mercy with the powers of darkness. ”

“ The reformation includes not only the abrogation of the old, but also the introduction of the new. It gives us a new Mediator, a new covenant of grace, a new way of salvation, a new heart of flesh, a new heaven and a new earth. It has established a new union, by a new medium, between God, and man. “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” “Forasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same.” ”

“ The seasons when these blessings are vouchsafed to the churches of Wales are to be noticed: it is generally at a time when the cause of religion is at a low ebb, all gone to slumber; this happy spirit of enjoyment in religion, like the angel of the pillar of fire, appears when there is distress, and everything at the worst; its approach to the congregation is like the glory of God returning to the temple of old; it creates a stir among the brethren; they have a new prayer, and a new spirit given them to worship God ”

“ Jesus commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. And when he saw Jesus he cried out, and fell down before him, and with a loud voice said, ‘What have I to do with thee, Jesus, Thou Son of God most high? I beseech Thee, torment me not.’
“Here is the devil’s confession of faith. The devils believe and tremble, while men make a mock of sin, and sport on the brink of eternal ruin. To many of the human race, Christ appears as a root out of dry ground. They see in Him neither form nor comeliness, and there is no beauty in Him that they should desire Him. ”

“ The voice which shook Sinai is shaking Calvary. Heaven and hell are in conflict, and earth trembles at the shock of battle. The Prince of Life expires, and the sun puts on his robes of mourning. Gabriel! descend from heaven, and explain to us the wondrous emblem! As set the sun at noon on Golgotha, making preternatural night throughout the land of Palestine, so shall the empire of sin, and death be darkened, and their light shall be quenched at meridian. As the Sun of Righteousness, rising from the night of the grave on the third morning, brings life, and immortality to light ”

“ Omniscience looks at me, also, like a Divine Eye, out of every chapter, verse, doctrine, and ordinance of the Gospel, and searches me through and through. The attempt at concealment from it is utterly vain. To this Eye, darkness is as the light. ”

“ All things in time are changeful; all things in eternity are immutable. If you pass from time to eternity, without faith in Christ, without love in God, an enemy to prayer, an enemy to holiness, “impurged and unforgiven,” so you must ever remain. Now is the season of that blessed change, for which myriads shall sing everlasting anthems of praise. “To-day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” To-day the office is open: if you have any business with the Governor, make no delay. Now He has time to talk with the woman of Samaria by the well, and the penitent thief upon the cross. ”

“ The joy of seafaring men delivered from shipwreck; the joy of a man delivered from a burning house; the joy of not being found guilty at a criminal bar; the joy of receiving pardon to a condemned malefactor; the joy of freedom to a prisoner of war, is nothing in comparison to the joy of him who is delivered from going down to the pit of eternal destruction. For it is a joy unspeakable and full of glory. ”

“ He is ever in His office, receiving all who come, and blotting out, with His own blood, the handwriting which is against them.
But some have a despairing conscience. They think that their crimes are too great to be forgiven. The registry of guilt, and the decree of death, hide from their eyes the mercy of God, and the merit of Christ. Their sins rise like mountains between them, and heaven. But let them look away to Calvary. If their sins are a thousand times more numerous than their tears, the blood of Jesus is ten thousand times more powerful than their sins. ”

“ The service of the living God must flow from a new principle of life in the soul. The Divine word must be the rule of our actions. The Divine will must be consulted and obeyed. We must remember that God is holy, and jealous of His honour. The consideration that He is everywhere, and sees everything, and will bring every work into judgment, must fill us with reverence and godly fear. An ardent love for His law, and His character must supplant the love of sin, and prompt to a cheerful and impartial obedience. ”