W. K. Tweedie

“ CONSISTENCY. The world-side of our religion should therefore be watched with the utmost care; and, amid our daily doings in the market-place, it should often be our thought, I am a Christian, and cannot act upon the world’s unholy maxims. I am a Christian, and must love my neighbour as myself; I must do to others as I wish others to do to me. I am a Christian, and can smile no connivance upon that which nailed my Redeemer to a tree. No matter though the transgression be small; a small sin ruined the world. No matter though it be common; so is eternal ruin. ”

“ Whatever course we may take in this life, whatever occupation we may follow, whatever profession we may choose, this divine light is needful to us all. We need God’s word, as a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, to show us how to walk. We need it in the daily affairs of life; we need it in the field, in the workshop, and in the marts of business. We need the heavenly light to guide us in childhood, in youth, in manhood, in old age. We need it whether in poverty or in riches, in prosperity or adversity. ”

“ For once, however, the hoary-headed patriarch tells the monarch the truth, and indirectly reminds him, Thou, too, must die. There was another king, the King of Terrors, mightier than Pharaoh, and slowly approaching to lay him in the dust.
And perhaps there is nothing in all the history or the life of man which shows more clearly the effects of sin, or the ruin of the fall, than his wilful ignorance, or at least his want of feeling, on the great subject of his mortality. Of no truth is it possible for man to be more convinced than this—I must die. ”

“ They make haste to abandon the narrow path as soon as they dare, and plunge into sin as if they were determined to show how boldly they can trample upon all that is sacred or constraining. How many a parent’s heart is at this moment aching, or how many have gone down in sorrow to the grave, lamenting the iniquity of those whom they had tried to train, or for whom they had watched and prayed! Ten thousand mothers have had Monica’s trials, without living to share her joy, and the homes which should have been like temples of religion, have become the abodes of woe. ”

“ When religion comes to a worldly man to rob him of his gross or material joys, he fears that he is about to lose his all—because he knows no joy but what is earthly; and the very ways of God appear repulsive and irksome; not a few would imitate him who cried, “Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?” or, “hast thou come to torment us before the time?” But what can yield joy, if not the favour of God? What can spread sunshine through the soul, if not the sense of sin forgiven? What can impart true nobility, if not restoration to the image of God? What can give peace, if not the Prince of Peace? ”

“ And our next topic is—Religion in our Homes. If it be planted in the heart by the Spirit of holiness, it will soon spread outward and cover the life with its beauty. Like the widening circles on a pool whose smoothness a pebble has disturbed, the wave of truth flowing from the heart, first touches those among whom we constantly move; and in no sphere can the genuine power of godliness on the one hand, or spurious pretences on the other, be more easily or promptly discovered. A man is in God’s eye just what he is in the bosom of his family. ”

“ It is simply impossible that any object whose root is in the dust can gladden the soul of man, apart from the God who made it.
Has God, then, left us without joy? When we became idolaters, did he leave us to our idols, to tears, and woe? Nay, there is blessedness even here below; and the knowledge, the fear, the love, and favour of God, is its fountain-head. In reconciliation to Him—in His image restored—in growing holiness—in greater and yet greater love and likeness to the Saviour of the soul—the man of God, the man who is truly rational, finds the streams of his joy. ”

“ WITNESSES. In every sphere, we repeat, God has had his witnesses, testifying to the power of his grace, it may be in sackcloth, as regards men, but yet in the sunshine of God’s favour. And who shall tell what unthinking men forego, by neglecting to do as these believers did—to make the religion of Jesus their guide, and Jesus himself their Alpha and their Omega! He is the rock that is higher than we. He is a sun and shield. He is life to the dead, and wisdom to the unwise. It is by His might that we conquer, and by His righteousness that we are saved. ”

“ DEATH. To urge conversion while we are not converted—to commend the love of Christ when we do not feel it—to preach repentance which we do not practise, and faith which we do not hold—to tell of a Saviour whom we know only by rumour—of a Spirit whom we habitually grieve—of a heaven to which we are not going, and an immortality which is to be only one of woe to us;—to what can all that lead but self-deception of the direst kind—to searedness of conscience—to hearts hardened, and salvation rendered hopeless? Of all dangers, those of an irreligious minister must rank among the greatest. ”

“ How rarely is the guidance of the Holy One sought! How little is his will consulted! How limited is the influence which eternal things are allowed to exert in the choice on either side! And who will marvel, then, if not a few make shipwreck of the faith and a good conscience, just at the threshold of their marriage-chamber? Who will wonder to see so many hearts broken, so many wives worse than widowed, so many children worse than orphans, the promise of godliness given in youth all blighted—the book, the house, the day of God, deserted? ”

“ Or, how blind the world to its own best interests, when the truth is kept cold and shivering, apart from the soul and the heart! How would the woes of a groaning world be soothed—how would our biting and devouring of each other cease—how would swords be beat into ploughshares, and spears into pruning-hooks, were truth enthroned in the heart, and suffered to control the life! A single sentence of that truth, honestly believed and obeyed, would soon revolutionize a world; and should not every Christian therefore be busy, earnest, and solemn, in spreading the truth ”

“ His is only the comb rifled of the honey; his is the dream without the reality; his the corruption and the death of sin, without the pleasures which flow from God into the soul.—Is the land of his fathers a source of joy to the returning exile? Is the breath of spring a source of gladness to man’s fevered brow? Is the face of nature a source of pleasure to him who has long been immured amid the damps of a dungeon? Far more than all these together, is a sense of God’s favour to the soul which has returned from its wanderings, to seek its blessedness again on the bosom of its God. ”

“ It is truth in the heart guiding to Him who is the truth itself, which alone can yield the troubled conscience peace.
And, to name no more: There is a youth removed from the watchful guardianship of his father’s home. The crowded city has become his busy abode, and its endless temptations must now be encountered. He must hear the grossness of the licentious, and endure the scoff of the godless. He must brave the assaults of those who have grown hardened in guilt. He must resist those who have trampled upon conscience, and forgotten that there is either a death before them, or a God to meet. ”

“ OUR LIGHT. They who have thus surrendered their souls to the guidance of God in his Word, have felt, in their own experience, how blessed it is to have Him for their light; they never yet were in a position for which the only wise God has not made provision; the lamp of life is always trimmed by the very hand which lit it.
—One is persecuted for righteousness’ sake; the man who hates the truth appears anxious to “chase him up to heaven.” But even then, the ear of faith can hear Him whom the world hated yet more, pronouncing a blessing over all who suffer in the paths of godliness. ”

“ THE FRUIT. And the same thing happens in regard to the coming eternity. Godliness is the germ, of which eternal glory is the majestic result. Grace is the bud, of which heaven is the ample fruitage. Like the darkling savage, we may be unable to comprehend the process by which the one passes into the other. But our ability is not the measure of God’s. The one does pass into the other; grace does pass into glory; and he is wise, he only is wise, who makes it his business on earth to tend that germ, or screen it from all that would crush or destroy it. ”

“ From the sun in the firmament down to the meanest reptile that crawls, all have been adored. The foulest human passions have been exalted to the rank of divinities, and worshipped in gorgeous temples with costly parade. Even after God has dwelt on earth as “God with us,” we find men in millions clinging to every god but Him—not merely the dead, but fragments of their bones, are adored, as possessing power to bless. Now, were the lamp of life admitted into the heart, it would instantly dispel such debasing delusions from minds of every class. ”

“ We are prepared to resist and to triumph only when we have on the whole armour of God. If we try to realize a Saviour’s love, we have a sure defence; but whatever would withdraw us from that holy influence, whether it be the deceitful heart within, or an ensnaring world without, is just like the smoke from the abyss—it is loaded with darkness and death to the soul. ”

“ You would: then will you calmly sink to rise no more for ever, as regards the soul? Would you repel the attack of a robber were he to invade the midnight silence of your home? You would: then with equal earnestness, but in almighty strength, repel the invader—the man that would be the assassin of your soul. Would you refuse to let the oppressor plant his foot on the happy island of your home? You would hasten, I believe, to sweep him from our borders. Then, with equal heroism, defend the freedom which the Son of God bestows—freedom from the bondage of sin, from its pollution and its curse. ”

“ Without that, surrounded as we are in the workshop with clouds of enemies, we shall be like the willow wand before the blast, and driven of the wind and tossed; but with the grace of God in the soul, we may be strong in the Lord and the power of his might; we may beat back our assailants—some have won them to their cause. No power but truth, we repeat, will ever make us steadfast. ”

“ We have no right to laden ourselves with a multitude of cares such as shall overlay, or supplant, or endanger the truth of God in the heart. Every moment may be one of high-toned integrity between man and man; every transaction may be presided over by purest equity: in the market-place, a merchant prince might blush to be even suspected of the mean, the fraudulent, or the deceptive. But what if these moments and these transactions, so pure in appearance, be so numerous or so engrossing, as to prevent attention to the high concerns of eternity and the soul? ”

“ Now, in these remarks, we have just been enforcing a trite, but profound maxim, “What is a man profited, though he could gain the whole world, if he lose his own soul?” Surely men buy gold at too high a price, when their immortal spirits are given in exchange for it. Success in such a case is a terrible disaster, and far better a mercantile crash than eternal ruin. To give ourselves up to the devoted pursuit of the world, and to secure what we pursue, while God and heaven are forsaken, is a calamity to be deplored through all eternity. ”

“ Even the death of Christ, solitary as it stands in its moral grandeur, among the events of the universe, was only a means—the end was God’s glory in man’s holiness. To bring a clean thing out of an unclean; to transmute enmity against God into love to him, or wounds and bruises and noisome sores into the beauty of holiness—behold the grand result aimed at alike in the life and the death of the Son of God. ”

“ Monarch as he was, and compassed about with all the cares of a kingdom, David made the Word of God a lamp to his path. He could picture no greater self-deception than to suppose that man can find a better guide in difficulty than God—a better Counsellor in doubt—a better Defence in danger. He could not even invent a more flagrant kind of folly than to set aside the wisdom of God, and prefer the wisdom of man; to adopt some human device for remedying man’s ills, for soothing man’s sorrows or lifting him from his degradation, while we despise the sovereign specific of the eternal God. ”

“ Some, indeed, die like the beasts that perish, without either fear or joy. Conscience is dead before the body. It occasions no alarm; and such men pass into the presence of the Judge perhaps denying his very existence. But not so all. When conscience is aroused from its long stupor by the nearness of death, how eager do some appear for the joy which religion promises! how gladly would they now grasp at what they have practically despised, perhaps for threescore years and ten! VOLTAIRE. There is one who has spent a lifetime in denying the truth as it is in Jesus. ”

“ Countless as are the opportunities which that wise and Christian physician may enjoy for warning the careless, for cheering the despairing, or pointing the dying to the Life, he is not the friend, but the heartless enemy of man, who neglects to embrace them, and tell of Him who is both our righteousness and our strength. If no words of reprobation be too strong for him who sees a fellow-creature writhing in agony without assisting him when he has the power, what shall we say of the unfeeling, the inhuman being, who lets a fellow-sinner perish in his guilt for ever, unheeded and unwarned? ”

“ AND FOLLY,
ONE. It should be written on the conscience as with a pen of iron upon a rock, that the man who expects true success in violating the eternal principles of right and wrong, is not merely wicked, but foolish. The man who expects to prosper by “glossy fraud,” has already inflicted a sore degradation on his moral nature. Even though he may be lifted up by wealth to sit among princes, he is, in the eyes of God, a degraded and an outcast creature. THE WOE
OF THE
WICKED. He has sold his soul for what must soon be wrung from his grasp. ”