Thoughtful moments

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Contents

PAGE PSEPACE.

I. — THOTJaHTS ON THE LOBD'S PbATEB .... 1

II.— THOTJaHTS ON THE PeESONAL AND SOOUL POSITION AND QUALmOATIONS OP THE FlEST PeOFAGATOBS OP

Preface

Of the following papers, the first in order was taken in hand in consequence of a request I received. The others may be said to represent the entirely spontaneous movements of my own thoughts.

To write on the great subject of the opening paper is a thing I should never have undertaken, had not a friend of good experience in literature been pleased to consider me capable of treating it usefully. I have not presumed to attempt an " Explanation," a title actually suggested, but have ventured merely to offer some " Thoughts," on the Lord's Prayer. It has not been my plan to present a digest of the many excellent things that others have written thereon, and therefore such comments and criticisms only have been consulted in the course of my examination as appeared most likely to help me to a good understanding of the very words and phrases found in the text. And in considering the petitions that our Divine Master teaches us so

THOUGHTFUL MOMENTS.

Vlll continually to use, I have endeavoured to regard them with constant reference to the requirements of the present day.

In company with the paper I have been speaking of, go some others which but for the * present occasion would most likely never have passed out of the writer's hands. They were undertaken, almost wholly, in search of personal satisfaction on various important points, at different periods of my life. And as each was intended to be complete in itself, a leading thought or two can hardly have escaped restatement occasionally. This is the only defect for which I have any right to crave indulgence, though too many others, it is to be feared, may be found requiring it. I wish however to guard myself against being thought too fond of criticising, instead of befittingly accepting, the mode in which certain matters are very frequently treated by the appointed ministers of our holy religion. But I must state that my object has been generally to examine and not to teach. In these inquiries therefore the numerous and most important points on which all Christians must be agreed are not so much touched on as a few incidental ones on which the sincerest believers may be allowed to differ. I have felt

IX that the former may, as a general rule, be well left to the able ministrations of our admirable clergy. Would that anything I could do might in the least degree avail to strengthen their hands in their arduous and faithful labours !

But it is perfectly notorious that there are matters in which some disagreement exists, amongst those even who hold sacred office in our Church — questions too on which not priests and deacons exclusively, but those also of highest ecclesiastical rank, hold divergent opinions amongst themselves. From some or other then of the clerical order, a layman not quite dead to all that passes around him must by necessity be so unhappy as to differ; and now, if ever, he must be allowed, whether learned or unlearned, to exercise to the full his right of private judgment. This is what I have been doing to the best of my ability, though neither my position nor attainments are such as of themselves to invest my conclusions with any weight. But a man may be unpossessed of any great scholarship and yet be competent to use for himself the fruits stored up for all the world by those who are known as eminently learned ; and it may not be presumptuous in such a person to compare, one with another, the several results, too often conflicting, arrived at by men of erudition very far above his own. In fact, a well-intentioned, thoughtful layman seems to me in these days to be very much in the position of an honest juryman who has to give his verdict in some matter of difficulty — of disputed handwriting perhaps, or doubtful cause of death — when expert differs from expert, and the evidence of one learned physician directly controverts that of another. The situation is felt to be perplexing. But the good juryman, without pretending to be skilful or scientific himself, must examine the statements of those who are. And if he patiently exercises what common sense he may be endowed with, and takes a broad and practical view of the whole case before him, and does not suffer the aninms of one side or the other to affect his discernment, he will often, with the direction and help given by the presiding Judge, come to a satisfactory and useful decision.

When a man whose sincere desire it is to regulate his practice according to God's will, is in perplexity about any disputed points connected wdth Divine Kevelation, and finds his peace of mind threatened, let him, if he has time and opportunity, sit down to a diligent

XI search throughout the New Testament, for what is written therein on the subject of his doubts ; availing himself of the aid of the best critical works and concordances he can find for the elucidation of the text. Thus doing, let him look for that help which St. James, making no distinction between clerical and lay, tells us may be secured by any man who seeks it in the right way.

Most of the following papers are records of examinations thus attempted by the writer. But there are many persons whose necessary engagements in life forbid the working out of such things for themselves. Therefore, in no spirit of positiveness, and with every desire of being corrected where wrong, I have taken the opportunity which the circumstances first mentioned seemed to present, of offering the details of my own humble inquiries ; thinking that, as in water face answereth to face, so perchance by their means the heart of some other plain and truth-seeking man may answer to my heart.

THOUGHTFUL MOMENTS.

I. Thoughts On The Lord's Prayer

" After this manner^ therefore, pray ye," said the Lord Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount when on the point of teaching his followers that Divine Form of words known throughout Christendom as The Lord's Prayer; that is, the Prayer of which Our Lord Himself was the framer — the Prayer formally delivered to us by our Lord. " When ye pray, say. Our Father," &c., was his injunction on presenting the same form with slight verbal alterations when some of his disciples, remembering how John the Baptist and other Jewish teachers were accustomed to put words of devotion into the mouths of their followers, had asked Our Lord to teach them also to pray. And the differing circumstances indicated in Matthew vL and Luke xi., would lead us to conclude that there must have been two distinct occasions on which, as a tran» scendent gift of never-ceasing worth, this Prayer was committed to the disciples' keeping. It. may be noted also, that Our Lord's preliminary directions whith

% THE LORD S PRAYER.

served to introduce this Prayer, present, if not two several precepts, at least two modifications of the same. Thus, the injunction recorded by St. Luke, actually pointing out to us the very words which Christ's disciples are to say, fully authorises our frequent use of the Lord's Prayer itself; whilst the more general character of the other, which forms our opening quotation from St. Matthew, seems to forbid us to consider ourselves restricted to the unvaried employment of one set of phrases, how high soever their origin, provided our prayers agree in spirit with the Lord's Prayer; provided they follow essentially the Divine Model graciously furnished by Him to the Church.

It being thus our privilege to possess this most emphatically sound form of words, delivered to us by the Lord Himself, it is certainly our duty to ponder in our hearts its various clauses, in order both that by God's help we may learn to frame our own prayers in accordance with his will, and that when we actually use the Lord's Prayer it may not in our case be a vain repetition, but that we may then be found to pray not with the mouth only, but with the luiderstanding also.

First in order, and importance too, come the opening words, " Our Father."

The genealogy we find transcribed by St. Luke has a very remarkable ending. The ancestry of Him whom St." Paul calls "the second Man, the Lord from Heaven," is traced up through many human generations to the earthly father of mankind, and yet one. step

THB lord's prater. S

beyond this; the last two entries in the list being in these words : " the son of Adam, which was the son of God." And thus, though none can now pretend to have sprung from the royal house of David which figures in this genealogy, we can all, as the children of Adam, claim a greater than David, even God, for our Father. And thus, too, the Gospel teaches us how to answer questions which might suggest themselves to all men when they think seriously of coming before God. How — in what character — shall we regard Him, and ourselves in relation to Him ? Are we his slaves only ? Is the Almighty that inexorable Being whose projects of vengeance against us can be turned away by nothing but the mental gloom and the self-inflicted tortures of his creatures ? Such questions may seem offensive in this day, but they do not express a wholly unnatural feeling, for it is one which has very largely prevailed at all times among mankind. For whatever modem reasoners may say to the contrary, men have had more or less universally, ever since the Fall, an internal conviction of sin, a feeling that they have often incurred the displeasure of their Creator and Judge. *' Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips ! " were the words of even the Prophet Isaiah when the glory of the Lord was manifested before him. **Who is able to stand before this Holy Lord God?" said the men of Bethshemesh; a question mentally asked by persons of serious thought, not only in their days and circumstances but at all times. The prophets of Baal *^cut themselves with knives and

b2 lancets till the blood gushed out upon them." Ancient idolaters made their children to pass through the fire to Moloch^ and modem idolaters devise many ingenious means of torturing themselves. But we need say no more of such practices of the heathen when we reflect that in branches of the Christian Church there have never been wanting persons who spend their lives in miserable but voluntary seclusion, and who think they expiate guilt by inflicting castigation on their own debilitated bodies. And has it not been the experience of all people, from the most ancient times to this day, that when any communication is supposed to be made from the other world, any apparition of a spirit to pass before the face, fear and trembling will come, causing all the bones to shake and the hair of the flesh to stand up ? Even of notorious unbelievers, how many have been known to give way to feelings of terror at the apparent approach of death, terror hardly to be accounted for by anything but a feeling of appalling nearness to an unseen world, where they expect to meet an avenging Judge and not a Father. Why should all this be so ? or rather why should it not be so, since every one with a conscience has an irrepressible conviction that the Eternal God, the Lord of the spirits of all flesh, cannot bear iniquity ? We can all say how true to nature is the description of the uneasy shame of the first man, who had no sooner known himself to be an offender than he felt an impulse to escape from the presence of God ; and of Peter, who cried out to Jesus, *' Depart from me, for I am a sinful

THB lord's prayer. 5

man, O Lord ! " True it is that before the Christian era there were a few poets and philosophers, and that in more modem times there have been even poor untutored savages, found to acknowledge that in some sense we are all the offspring of God. But this can go but for little when we consider the characters ascribed by them to the Rulers of the unseen world. Who could compare the Indian's " Great Father," or any of the Divinities of heathen mythology — " Gods many and Lords many" — ^with the One God the Father whose nature and attributes are revealed in the person of his Son ? We must always come back to the truth that it is the Gospel alone which has placed man in his real relationship to the true God.

StiQ, the question may very naturally occur to us, have all men a right to call God their Father ? For do we not read in Scripture that Our Saviour used the awful words to some impenitent Jews, "Ye are of your father the Devil ? " It is indeed true that the Saviour said so, but if we would know in what sense we must look to other Scriptures ; and there is one, the comforting parable of the Prodigal Son, which may assist us in answering the question a little more folly and satisfactorily. An ungrateful child had left his father's house, liberating himself for ever as he supposed from his father's authority and interference. Neither when wasting his substance in riotous living, nor at the time when he first joined himself to a citizen of a strange country to feed swine, could he have been inclined in any way to acknowledge his father. The relationship of father and son had practically ceased altogether between them. At these periods it might be said of him that the lusts of his father, the Devil, he was doing. But there is nothing in the parable to lead us to conclude that he was ever once forgotten at home. On the contrary, the return even of this abandoned prodigal was desired and waited for ; for whilst he was on his journey back, and yet a long way off, his watching father saw him, ran to meet him, fell on his neck and kissed him. Although as a son he had been dead, the relationship was at once restored; and thus this wonderful parable leaves us without a doubt of God*s readiness to receive as his children all those lost ones who are willing to return to Him.

Supposing then that all men may, if they will, call themselves sons of God, it must be admitted that some, many indeed, have become *^ rebellious children ; *' yet they are not, even as such, denied readmission to their Father's house : whilst those who have been truly *' baptised into Christ," born again " of water and of the Spirit," who have received and retained in a more particular sense ^' the adoption of sons," having in- • deed become " sons together with Christ, joint heirs with Him," have a pecculiar right to enter the divine presence saying, " Abba, Father ! " On the fertBe theme of this loving relationship but few words can be said here. But there is one thing that we must not leave without notice.

God, true, great, supreme in all things, is so in his character of a Father. And thus we must judge of

Him more according to what human fathers ought to be, than according to what they always are. For though as a general rule parents love and cherish their offspring, yet all of them are imperfect, many careless, and some unnatural. Cruelties like those of Manasseh and others who sacrificed their own sons, are happily exceptions, yet there are many persons who are sadly deficient in their duties with respect to their children. Still, few fathers will deliberately for bread give their son a stone, for an egg a scorpion, or for a fish a serpent. And children have usually a more or less well-grounded confidence that their parents are acting for their pifesent benefit and attending to their future advancement. Even the pain given by the chastenings or rebukes of a venerated father very seldom cause any diminution of affection on the part of the corrected child. Let us now hear how the inspired writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews puts the case. "We have had fathers after the flesh which chastened us after their own pleasure, but He for our profit" Then, when we are corrected — " and what son is he, whom his father chasteneth not ?" — let us never faint, but believe that some great advantage is to be gained if we will but be ready to take it; but let us not be surprised if' we are made to feel the correction. Many a person in trouble says, " I could well have borne the blow that has fallen on such or such a friend, and others might not find my burden or trial so very intolerable ; but there are circumstances which do render it to me peculiarly grievous and overwhelming." And, no

8 THB lord's prayer.

doubt^ such a saying may be perfectly true ; but if we are smitten on the tenderest part, why should we wonder or lose our trust? If a parent or tutor thought to chastise, what respect would a child feel fDr him, when he only inflicted what could be borne without discomfort or annoyance ? Such is, however, a way in which parents and masters do sometimes entirely lose the esteem and reverence of the young. On the other hand some are needlessly severe. It is our comfort to ^ know that Our Heavenly Father can make no mistake, on one side or the other. Christ, who tells his disciples that in this world they must have tribulation, says also to them, "The Father himself loveth you.'" They must be prepared to take some part in their Lord's sufierings, and they must rejoice in believing that after they have overcome they shall be called to " sit down with Him on his throne, even as He also overcame and is set down with his Father on his throne."

It seemed necessary to say more here of the troubles than the enjoyments of life, because naturally we are not disposed to receive affliction as a proof of the paternal favour of God. But we may well also rejoice in the belief that He is most ready to bestow as many of the blessings of this life as may be for His children's benefit. " No good thing wUl He withhold from them who walk uprightly." But He is the best judge of what is really good for them. "He knoweth what things we have need of." And if He is a Father, let us honour Him, and let us thank Him for his goodness. The little objects in themselves utterly worthless, offered

THE lord's FBAYSB. 9

sometimes by a child's affection and respect, are by no means considered valueless by a loving parent. God is too high to be benefited by ns, yet He condescends to ask for our hearts, and to accept our praises as His glory/

A few words must be added with regard to the manner of our addresses to Him, of our prayers to God. When, and why, does a child ask his parent for bread, for a fish, for an egg ? When, and because, he is hungry, and feels a desire for these things. To apply this to ourselves— and it must be remembered it is Our Saviour's own illustration— our prayer to God should be the reverent expression of our wants when we actually feel them. Abraham's faithful servant prayed at the well when the critical moment was come which should decide between the good success or the mortifying failure of his expedition. Nehemiah prayed when the anxiously-looked-for occasion presented itself which should decide whether the cherished wish of his heart might be carried into effect with the King's consent and aid, or whether he should continue as the servant of a heathen prince in the land of the captivity of his people. The Church made prayer unto God without ceasing, when it saw that without his immediate help the services and life of the great Apostle Peter would be put an end to at once. And when does a child thank his father, but when he has received from his hands

10 THE lord's PRAYBR.

something that he wished for, or something that he feels he shall like, or when his father makes him some promise that gratifies him. If these are apt illustratrations, we may go on to ask if it is prayer y to force ourselves to kneel down at certain times and orally or mentally get through a set round of so-called devotions, our hearts being really upon other things whilst our half«satisfied conscience is appeased tolerably by the performance of the prescribed routine ? All this may in some sort be a sincere act of worship, because it is a kind of acknowledgment of the Supreme Being ; but, as a thing to be got over, a duty to be got through, is it a much less superstitious act than that of devout Romanists telling their beads? The real time for prayer, is when we feel an earnest desire that God should give us something, or aid us in some way; and for praise, when we find that He has favoured us with some great benefit. But yet there is no reason why we should not like Daniel have some fixed times, when practicable, to kneel before God ; but then let us think a little first, or at all events collect our thoughts as we are bending our knees, for we may always find something to ask, or to thank God for.* God is not to be mocked, and it can scarcely be prayer to pretend to ask for things we really do not care in the least about.

Another thing we should not omit to notice is, that these opening words teach us to love one another.

• A verse or two of Scripture, thonghtfully read, will generally present a topic for prayer. Or the model before us, the Lord's Prayer, would always suggest subjects.

THE lord's prates. 11

We may be many members with different oflSces, yet all one body, all belonging to one family, all of the same parentage, all taught to call upon God as *' Our Father."

And as a closing consideration on these two words, it must be remarked how forcibly they remind us that our state is still one of childhood. Let us then be followers of God as dear children. In our relationship to Him let us imitate them in their dependence on their father for everything they want, in their trustfulness and unbounded confidence, and in their sense of their own very limited knowledge and strength. Thus will the preface of our earliest prayer lead us to look upwards to God with humility, confidence and love.

We now go on to note that we must all address Him as " Our Father which art in Heaven." We must consider at what an infinite height of glory he is above us, and well weigh our words when we approach Him. And we must endeavour to realise the certainty that there is such a place or a state as Heaven, a locality or condition differing completely from anything we see, or have, or know here — something ** far better." It can hardly be right then to talk about having it, or anything like it, in this life, where so many things seem to go wrong. Our Lord speaks of mansions in His Father's House which He goes — goes from this world — to prepare for his disciples.* And St. Paul

* It is true that Our Lord said, '* He that believeth on me hath eternal life." But the word ** hath " in this place may probably signify very strongly contrasts ^' eternal things '* with ** things that are seen and temporal," and talks of our earthly house being dissolved before we can enter into possession of the heavenly, of our being unclothed* before we can be clothed upon. We may enjoy the peace of God in this world, and much happiness of body, soul and spirit ; but we cannot get out of the annoying, though not really hurtful, reach of the mischief that is so rife here. Though in some sense always rejoicing, we are liable to be very sorrowful too, and to groan being burdened. It is thus even with those who have the first fruits of the Spirit. It is a comfort therefore to be reminded that there is a heaven where all is right, where our Eternal Father is ; and that there will be a state of perfect happiness for Christ's disciples hereafter, either in the renovated world, or some other place of heavenly glory and beauty prepared for them in their immortal and spiritual bodies ;t for I think it is a poor comfort to be told, as we are sometimes^ that we may enjoy heaven now.

"is sare of/' ''is entitled to," " is the character that shall enjqj eternal life/' that *'hath the germ of it/' hath within him the seed which shall spring up in its season, and give fmit unto life everlasting.

* That is, those who should not he remaining alive at the coming of the Lord.

t The idea, however, of a never-ending happiness for man hereafter in a renovated condition of this globe would seem to be negatived by the certainty that is apparently established by modem discoveries and experiments, that the planets of our system will all, after some period of time, at pi^psent quite incalculable, inevitably fall into the sun. Heaven must then be removed from this material sphere to some region unseen and eternal. Enough for us to know that the redeemed shall be with their Lord.

We may now, however, cherish the ennobling thought that Our Pather is in heaven. I mean it may be a proper and gratifying exercise of self-respect to consider our own high origin. Is it not from God that we have received the breath of life ? Being made in the likeness of God, shall we not be planted in the likeness of Christ's resurrection ? Let us avoid then all that might tarnish the glory of our celestial relationship. Let us remember whilst on the way to our heavenly home to treat all Our Father's sons as brethren, as high-bom firiends, entitled together with ourselves to the honours of the heavenly citizenship.

** Hallowed be thy Name." — It is obvious that all God's children must be jealous for the honour of his sacred Name, and that any desecration of this should be regarded with horror by them. What good son is there who wiU not rejoice when his father is honoured, and feel uneasy when his character is made light of, misunderstood, or maliciously slandered ? Yet we all require to take prayerful heed lest we make Kght of heaven, of the Throne of God, and of Him that sitteth thereon. And may we not venture to say that we should, each of ujs, be very careful not to do anything unseemly, anything that might bring merited dishonour on our own body which is the Temple of God, and thus induce in some measure irreverence towards Him who dwelleth therein?

But to enter fuUy into the spirit of this petition, it may be as well to consider what is meant by the " Name of God." In old times the name was often a short description of the character or office of a person. Thus Eve* was '' Life," as " the mother of all living " ; and it is unnecessary to mention many examples in point of descriptive names of persons and places, which . must occur to all readers of the Old Testament. We may suppose, then, that God's Names in Scripture would go far to reveal His attributes, that they would bear great reference to the character under which it was His wiU to be known from time to time. It would be wrong to assert that by means of His Names alone He revealed his divine power and Godhead; but with other methods employed for that purpose we have nothing now to do — an examination of them would be out of place here. And space and time may not permit us to refer to every Name by which God was known of old. But our inquiry would be very incomplete without some examination of the way in which God's character was more and more distinctly declared by means of the various Names under which He was spoken of as the sacred history developed itself.