Charles Henry Mackintosh

“ Did we but enter with a more artless faith into the truth that there is a real Man at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens—One whose sympathy is perfect, whose love is fathomless, whose power is omnipotent, whose wisdom is infinite, whose resources are exhaustless, whose riches are unsearchable, whose ear is open to our every breathing, whose hand is open to our every need, whose heart is full of unspeakable love and tenderness towards us—how much more happy and elevated we should be, and how much more independent of creature streams, through what channel soever they may flow! ”

“ Thank God, "we have found Him" who is to be our satisfying portion forever! We shall spend eternity dwelling upon the divine perfections of the Lord Jesus. Our eyes shall never be averted from Him when once we have seen Him as He is.
May the Spirit of God work mightily in us, to strengthen us "in the inner man"! May He enable us to feed upon that perfect Meat-offering, the memorial of which has been fed upon by God Himself! This is our holy and happy privilege. May we realize it yet more fully! ”

“ Wit, humor, vivacity of spirit and temper—all these may become the source and centre of defilement. Each one has something to guard against—something to keep him ever upon the watch-tower. How happy it is that we have a Father's heart to come to and count on with respect to all such things! We have the precious privilege of coming, at all times, into the presence of unrebuking, unupbraiding love, there to tell out all, and obtain grace to help in all, and full victory over all. ”

“ There is nothing the heart can crave which we have not in Jesus. Does it long for genuine sympathy? Where can it find it, save in Him who could mingle His tears with those of the bereaved sisters of Bethany? Does it desire the enjoyment of sincere affection? It can only find it in that heart which told forth its love in drops of blood. Does it seek the protection of real power? It has but to look to Him who made the world. Does it feel the need of unerring wisdom to guide? ”

“ Faith is as sure that the memorial of the twelve tribes of Israel is before the eye of Israel's God, as it is that the twelve loaves were laid on the golden table every Sabbath day. But who can convince the skeptic or the infidel of this? who can secure credence for such a truth from those who are governed, in all things, by reason or sense, and know nothing of what it is to hope against hope? Faith finds divine certainties and eternal realities in the midst of a scene where reason and sense can find nothing. ”

“ Question the eternal Sonship of Christ, question His deity, question His unspotted humanity, and you have opened the floodgate for a desolating tide of deadly error to rush in. Let no one imagine, for a moment, that this is a mere matter to be discussed by learned theologians—a curious question—a recondite mystery—a point about which we may lawfully differ. No; it is a vital, fundamental truth, to be held in the power of the Holy Ghost, and maintained at the expense of all beside—yea, to be confessed under all circumstances, whatever may be the consequences. ”

“ We shall now consider the disease of leprosy, as developed in a person, in a garment, or in a house.
Looking at this disease in a physical point of view, nothing can possibly be more loathsome; and being, so far as man is concerned, totally incurable, it furnishes a most vivid and appalling picture of sin—sin in one's nature, sin in his circumstances, sin in an assembly. What a lesson for the soul in the fact that such a vile and humiliating disease should be used as a type of moral evil, whether in a member of God's assembly, in the circumstances of any member, or in the assembly itself! ”

“ Let us, then, exercise a spirit of self-judgment—a spirit of watchfulness over our habits, our ways, and our associations; and when we, by grace, discover aught that tends, in the smallest, degree to unfit us for the elevated exercises of the sanctuary, let us put it away from us, cost what it may. Let us not suffer ourselves to be the slaves of a habit. Communion with God should be dearer to our hearts than all beside; and just in proportion as we prize that communion, shall we watch and pray against any thing that would rob us of it—every thing that would excite, ruffle, or unhinge. ”

“ Our heavenly Father causes His sun to shine upon the evil and on the good; and sendeth rain upon the just and upon the unjust. The same sunbeams that gladden the heart of some devoted servant of Christ are poured upon the path of some ungodly sinner; and the self-same shower that falls upon the tillage of a true believer, enriches also the furrows of some blaspheming infidel. ”

“ There is the sacrifice of praise to God, and the sacrifice of benevolence to man. There is a double stream continually going forth from the believer who is living in the realization of his priestly place—a stream of grateful praise ascending to the throne of God, and a stream of active benevolence flowing forth to a needy world. The spiritual priest stands with one hand lifted up to God in the presentation of the incense of grateful praise, and the other opened wide to minister, in genuine beneficence, to every form of human need. ”

“ Wherever we see our fallen nature, at whatever stage [219] of its history we contemplate it—whether in its conception, at its birth, or at any point along its whole career, from the womb to the coffin, it wears the double stamp of infirmity and defilement. This is sometimes forgotten amid the glitter and glare, the pomp and fashion, the wealth and splendor, of human life. The mind of man is fruitful in devices to cover his humiliation. In various ways he seeks to ornament and gild, and put on an appearance of strength and glory, but it is all vain. ”

“ In those who bear the name of Jesus, we know, too well, alas! how leaven shows itself in all its properties and effects. There has been but one untainted sheaf of human fruit—but one perfectly unleavened meat-offering; and, blessed be God, that one is ours—ours to feed upon in the sanctuary of the divine presence, in fellowship with God. No exercise can be more truly edifying and refreshing for the renewed mind than to dwell upon the unleavened perfectness of Christ's humanity—to contemplate the life and ministry of One who was absolutely and essentially unleavened. ”

“ The time, however, is rapidly approaching when the strange fire will be quenched forever—when the throne of God shall no longer be insulted by clouds of impure incense ascending from unpurged worshipers—when all that is spurious shall be abolished, and the whole universe shall be as one vast and magnificent temple, in which the one true God—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—shall be worshiped throughout the everlasting ages. ”

“ The language of the peace-offering is, "It is meet that we should make merry and be glad,"—"Let us eat and be merry." Such is the precious grace of God! No doubt we have reason to be glad, as being the partakers of such grace; but when we can hear the blessed God saying, "Let us eat and be merry," it should call forth from our hearts a continual stream of praise and thanksgiving. God's joy in the salvation of sinners, and His joy in the communion of saints, may well elicit the admiration of men and angels throughout eternity. ”

“ Thus, in the ever-blessed Lord Jesus, we find One who has come down to the full measure of our necessities as sinners by nature, and trespassers in act. We find in Him the perfect answer to all the cravings of a guilty conscience, and to all the claims of Infinite Holiness, in reference to all our sins and all our trespasses; so that the believer can stand, with an uncondemning conscience and emancipated heart, in the full light of that holiness which is too pure to behold iniquity or look upon sin. ”

“ How prone are we to run unsent! How prone to act in the mere energy of the flesh! How much of that which looks like ministry is only the restless and unhallowed activity of a nature which has never been measured and judged in the divine presence! Truly, we need to contemplate more closely our divine "meat-offering"—to understand more fully the meaning of the "fine flour anointed with oil." ”

“ Our prayers, praises, and thanksgiving, all pass through His hands before they reach the throne of God. What a wonderful mercy this is, when we think of our confused and mixed services! So much that is of the flesh mingles with that which is of the Spirit. But the blessed Lord knows how to divide and separate between them. That which is of the flesh must be rejected, and consumed as wood, hay, and stubble, while that which is of the Spirit is precious, preserved, and presented to God in the value and sweet savor of His own perfect sacrifice. ”

“ If I look from the third chapter of Genesis down to the close of Revelation, I find the blood of Christ put forward as the alone ground of righteousness. We get pardon, peace, life, righteousness—all by the blood, and nothing but the blood. The entire book of Leviticus, and particularly the chapter upon which we have just been meditating, is a commentary upon the doctrine of the blood. It seems strange to have to insist upon a fact so obvious to every dispassionate, teachable student of holy Scripture; yet so it is. Our minds are prone to slip away from the plain testimony of the Word. ”

“ They are not the gleanings of Canaan, but the glories of heaven—the glories of Christ. The Church is not merely blessed by Christ, but with and in Christ. The bride of Christ will not be sent forth to gather up, as a stranger, the sheaves and clusters in the corners of Israel's fields and from the branches of Israel's vines. No; she tastes of higher blessings, richer joys, nobler dignities, than aught that Israel ever knew. She is not to glean as a stranger on earth, but to enjoy her own wealthy and happy home in heaven, to which she belongs. ”

“ How could we stand in God's presence, where all is perfection, if we were not as clean as He would have us to be? We must be clean enough for the eye of Infinite Holiness. But, blessed be God, all who believe in Jesus, and rest on His finished sacrifice, are forgiven and justified; they have eternal life, righteousness, and peace. The first cry for mercy of the guilty sinner is answered by the blood of the Sacrifice. ”

“ The fat burnt upon the altar is the apt expression of the divine appreciation of the preciousness of Christ's Person, no matter what place He might, in perfect grace, take on our behalf or in our stead. He was made sin for us, and the sin-offering is the divinely appointed shadow of Him in this respect; but inasmuch as it was the Lord Jesus Christ—God's Elect, His Holy One—His pure, His spotless, His eternal Son that was made sin, therefore the fat of the sin-offering was burnt upon the altar, as a proper material for that fire which was the impressive exhibition of divine holiness. ”

“ He has only to be seen as he enters this world, a poor helpless creature, or as he passes away from it, to take his place with the clod of the valley, in order to have a most convincing proof of the hollowness of all his pride, the vanity of all his glory. Those whose path through this world has been brightened by what man calls glory, have entered in nakedness and helplessness, and retreated amid disease and death. ”

“ Our sins brought Christ to the cross, but He brings us to God. And if He brings us to God, it is in His own acceptableness, as risen from the dead, having put away our sins, according to the perfectness of His own work. He bore away our sins far from the sanctuary of God, in order that He might bring us nigh, even into the holiest of all, in full confidence of heart, having the conscience purged by His precious blood from every stain of sin. ”

“ With Him who is the Antitype of that living bird, with blood-stained feathers, ascending into the open heavens. Precious, glorious, soul-satisfying object! A risen, ascended, triumphant, glorified Christ, who has passed into the heavens, bearing in His sacred Person the marks of an accomplished atonement. It is with Him we have to do: we are shut up to Him. He is God's exclusive object; He is the centre of heaven's joy, the theme of angels' song. We want none of earth's glory, none of nature's attractions. ”

“ Man may imagine that he can work out a righteousness of his own, he may vainly boast of the dignity of human nature, he may put on a lofty air and assume a haughty bearing as he moves across the stage of life; but if he would just retire for a few moments and ponder over the short section of our book which now lies open before us, his pride, pomp, dignity, and righteousness would speedily vanish, and instead thereof, he might find the solid basis of all true dignity, as well as the ground of divine righteousness, in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. ”

“ God has made such ample provision in the atonement of Christ, not only for the salvation of those that believe, but also for the aspect of His grace toward those that reject the gospel, that there is no excuse. It is not because a man cannot, but because he will not believe that he "shall be punished with everlasting destruction." Never was there a more fatal mistake than for a man to ensconce himself behind God's decrees, while deliberately and intelligently refusing God's grace ”

“ From the lofty cedar which crowns the sides of Lebanon, down to the lowly hyssop—the wide extremes and all that lies between—nature in all its departments is brought under the power of the cross; so that the believer sees in the death of Christ the end of all his guilt, the end of all earth's glory, and the end of the whole system of nature—the entire old creation. ”

“ If I am occupied with any thing in, of, or about myself, it is plain I have not entered into the full spiritual application of Leviticus xiii. 12, 13—I have not come to the Lamb of God "just as I am." It is when the leper is covered from head to foot that he is on the true ground. It is there and there alone that grace can meet him. "Then the priest shall consider; and, behold, if the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague: it is all turned white: he is clean." Precious truth! "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." ”