NONE LIKE CHRIST
By Octavius Winslow, 1866
"How is your beloved better than others?"
Song of Solomon 5:9
The power of contrast is acknowledged by all. The
poet studies it in the construction of his epic; the artist in
the coloring of his picture; the logician in the arrangement of his
argument; the lover of nature as his eye roves over the outspread
landscape– all are conscious of the presence and power of this principle.
The object of contrast is not to create the ideal, or to foster the
fictitious; but to confirm the existence, and heighten the power and
impression of the true. It is thus that the beautiful becomes more
attractive, the grand more sublime, the good more excellent, and the object
which awoke our admiration and inspired our regard, enthrones itself more
firmly and supremely upon the soul.
The Word of God is replete with contrasts. In no volume
is the effect more striking. How constantly, by an easy and graceful
antithesis, the Holy Spirit places in contrast the vanity of idols, and the
existence of God; the insignificance of man, and the greatness of Jehovah;
the evanescence of things temporal, and the permanence of things eternal;
the deformity of sin, and the beauty of holiness; the objects and
attractions of earth, and the scenes and allurements of heaven; our
waywardness and unworthiness, with God's mercy and love. With what power,
beauty, and reality are the great things of God's word thus brought out!
In presenting to you, my reader, the Lord Jesus Christ,
as worthy of your undivided affection, supreme confidence, and unreserved
service, infinitely distancing and eclipsing all other beings and all other
objects brought in competition with him, we purpose adopting this principle;
assured that the result must be, with the accompanying blessing of the Holy
Spirit, the supreme enthronement of Christ in your admiration, trust, and
love, as the "chief among ten thousand, and the one altogether lovely one."
Happy shall we be if the conviction of the truth is deepened in your soul,
NONE LIKE CHRIST!
Nor could we engage your thoughts upon a subject more
suitable to the new and solemn period of time upon which we have entered.
You are about to add another deathless chapter to the momentous volume of
your personal history. As yet its lines are untraced, its events unrecorded.
What that history may be, you have no vision to guide your knowledge; nor,
if you are wise and trusting, do you wish to know– calm and fixed in the
assurance that it is all prearranged in the covenant that is "ordered in all
things, and sure," and that, impenetrable as is the veil that conceals it
from your eye, God will permit nothing to transpire but what he has shaped
and tinted with just that form and hue that will the most perfectly
harmonize and blend, and will the most surely promote, your greatest
well-being with his highest glory.
"What is your beloved more than another beloved?" It is
clear, from this interrogation, addressed to the Church of Christ, that
other and rival beings, other and competing objects, were brought into
comparison with Christ, asking, if not a superior, yet an equal share of
homage and regard; and the Church is challenged to a vindication of the
higher and superior attractions claimed for her beloved Lord. "What is your
beloved more than another beloved?"
It is a humiliating fact, that there exists no object,
the most trivial and contemptible, which the unrenewed mind will not place
in competition with, and choose in preference to, and delight in to the
exclusion of the Lord Jesus Christ! Take a brief and summary view of these
claimants to man's regard– these rivals of Christ– and see how far they are
worthy of a moment's consideration, when brought in contrast with the
incarnate Son of God. Before we proceed, however, to particularize, let us
premise that this is no new phase or development of our depraved humanity.
Our world has ever been a Christ-rejecting world. From the moment the
angels' song broke in music upon the plains of Bethlehem, the prediction of
the Christ-exalting prophet, Isaiah, commenced its sad fulfillment– "he is
despised and rejected of men."
With some individuals, SELF is the rival– self in
some of its many forms. Self-righteousness, self-seeking, self-indulgence,
self-worship is the acknowledged and enthroned god– the "beloved" object of
the unrenewed mind's supreme affection and worship.
With others, the WORLD is preferred to Christ– its
acquisitions, opinions, and pleasures. O treacherous world what myriads have
you drawn within your insatiable vortex, "drowning men's souls in
perdition!" Reader, are you preferring its gayeties, its riches, its honors,
its religion to Christ? Pause on the threshold of this solemn period of
time, and ask– "What, should I die this year, will the world I have chosen
in preference to the Savior do for me when eternity stares me in the face?"
Others place the CREATURE in competition with
Christ; the creature and not the Savior is their "beloved." But what a
fearful crime are they chargeable with, "who worship and serve the creature
more (or rather) than the Creator, who is blessed forever." The creature is
the defaced, the spoiled image of God. To prefer this marred and ruined
temple to the glorious Being who constructed it, is to place yourself upon a
level with the idolatrous Persian, who in his blindness worships the sun as
the image of the Deity.
But what superior excellence and attraction has an
earthly beloved, that you should choose, love, and adore it in preference to
the Heavenly One, who, as human, is "fairer than the children of men," and
who, as divine, is "God over all, blessed for evermore"? God will not hold
him guiltless who loves, worships, and serves the creature rather than the
Creator. Thus, there is nothing earthly, base, and contemptible which the
natural man will not place above God, and prefer to Christ. His estate, his
rank, his talents, his reputation, his very person, is "made to sit in the
temple of God, showing itself that it is God," receiving the incense of
adoration and worship, which alone belongs to Jehovah.
Reader, whatever earthly object reigns supreme in your
mind and affections, dethrones and supplants the Lord Jesus. It may be your
daily calling, or some pleasure of memory, or some object of taste– music,
sculpture, painting, literature, science– whatever the master-passion of
your soul, the supreme, all-engrossing object of your life, it is your
Christ, your Savior, your beloved, your all; and with this, your only
portion and preparation, you are, in a little while, to confront the bar of
God "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
But we approach yet closer our subject, and proceed to
unfold the preeminent place Christ occupies in the universe of life, beauty,
and love– in the world of nature and of grace– showing that there is not,
amid this vast assemblage of magnificent objects and glorious beings, one
like Christ.
"None like Christ!" How familiar is this sentiment to the
family of God. Sometimes it is the expression of gladsome joy, at others,
breathed in sadness and in grief. When some beam of holy rapture has lighted
up the soul, and the preciousness of the Savior is felt, then the tongue
exclaims, "None like Christ!"– there is no joy like that which Jesus
inspires! Or, when some scheme of human happiness is blighted, some
cherished friendship chilled, some idol-god smitten from its shrine, some
earthly spring dried, turning from the scene, spirit-wounded,
heart-saddened, and disappointed, the soul has fled anew to Christ, its true
attraction and rest, and with a depth of emotion and an emphasis of
expression, the inspiration only of such a feeling, the believer has
exclaimed– "Lord, there is none like yourself! I learn your transcendent
worth, I experience your matchless love, I behold your unrivaled beauty, I
feel your inimitable tenderness, gentleness, and sympathy in this hour when
my spirit is overwhelmed within me, and my earthly treasures float a
scattered wreck upon the surging waters through which I come to you!"
But follow us, dear reader, while, in a, few particulars,
we attempt to justify the preeminence of the Savior, and establish your
believing soul in the truth that "there is none like Christ!"
I. No GLORY like His.
We begin with the statement, that there is no glory like Christ's
glory. The universe is full of glory, because it is full of God. But God
designed that his Son should occupy a place among created intelligences
equal to himself touching his divinity, and inferior to himself only as
touching his humanity; and both, mysteriously combined, constituting him
"the head of all principalities and powers;" and, "that all men should honor
the Son, even as they honor the Father," of whose glory Christ is the
effulgence, and of whose substance Christ is the exact impress. The deep
gloom of earth was never illumined with such a light as when the Son of God
descended from heaven; and the brightness of heaven never shone forth with
such a luster as when he returned back from earth, invested with the sinless
robe of our nature– the divine prophet– the atoning priest– the triumphant
king. Marvel not that all the hierarchies of heaven bend low before that
central throne on which sits the glorified Redeemer, and that at his feet
the elders cast their crowns. Surely, it is the wonder and the glory and
hallelujah of heaven, that divinity could stoop so low, and not be less
divine; and that humanity could rise so high, and not be less human. Oh!
there is no glory like Christ's glory.
Reader, can you, with the exulting Evangelist, exclaim–
"We have seen his glory, the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full
of grace and truth." Judge of the sacred vision by its hallowed effects– "We
all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are
changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the spirit
of the Lord." This transforming, sanctifying influence of Christ's
surpassing glory is real and palpable. One beam darting into your heart will
pale the glory of the world, the glory of the creature, and the glory of
self. And when this divine sun has risen resplendent on your soul– a child
of darkness though you are– a worm of earth hiding in your obscurity and
gloom– you may emerge from your cloistered solitude and woe, bask in its
warmth, sun yourself in its effulgence, and exult that, as a pardoned
sinner, a justified believer, an adopted child, all this glory of Christ's
is yours– your robe of righteousness and your diadem of beauty– constituting
you a king and a priest unto God.
Oh! rest not, beloved reader, until this divine light has
come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. Then, and not until then,
will you arise and shine in the beauty of holiness, a child of the light,
shedding its luster all around you; and henceforth, whatever be the leadings
of your Savior, or the dealings of your God, the way along which he conducts
you, checkered, winding, lonely, will be that of the "just, which is as the
shining light which shines more and more unto the perfect day."
II. No BEAUTY like His.
Another observation naturally results from this– there is
no beauty like Christ's beauty. We might expect that such divine glory, if
ever it tabernacled on earth– the world's resplendent Shekinah– would be
enshrined in a temple in all respects worthy of its dignity. We therefore
find language like this– "When he comes into the world he says, sacrifice
and offering you do not desire, but a body have you prepared me." It was a
body prepared by the Holy Spirit, of real, yet sinless flesh, in which the
Son of God was to dwell. Hence we find the inspired artist, in portraying
Christ's beauty as man, represents him as "fairer than the children of men–
grace is poured into your lips." Himself the source and author of all
beauty, his own beauty eclipses all. We love to trace the creations of his
beauty, in the varied and endless forms of loveliness which still linger,
adorning and enriching this fallen world. Those bright constellations–
Christ created them; those burning suns– Christ kindled them; those
snow-wreathed Alps, those cloud-capped hills– Christ raised them; those
verdant valleys– Christ spread them; that blushing rose, that graceful lily,
that exquisite fern, that curious sea-flower tossed upon the shore, that
wayside violet that screens the dew-drop from the sun, that winding stream,
that leafy grove– Christ formed and penciled it all– Christ clad that
magnificent landscape with its robe of living green; scented the air with
its fragrance; and hollowed out the depth of that expanding ocean dimpled
with beauty by the gentle breeze, or dreadful in its grandeur when trod by
the giant storm. Truly, "he has made everything beautiful in his time." Oh!
I delight to see the incarnate God, who died to save, scattering from the
opulence of his own boundless resources all this jewelry, making man's
sinful home so rich, so lovely, so attractive.
But his own beauty, who can describe it? His person so
lovely, his nature so holy, his heart so fond, his spirit so gentle, his
look so winning, his voice so soothing. His whole character, life, and
demeanor so inlaid and resplendent with every human, spiritual, and divine
perfection– truly, it was no imaginative picture, and it was no mere
oriental imagery with which the Church, in her just and lofty conception,
described him as the "Chief among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely
one."
But Christ's beauty is shared with all those who have
union with him. Washed in his blood, robed with his righteousness, and
adorned with his graces, each believer is lovely, through his loveliness put
upon him. And there is more of wonder, because there is more of God, there
is more of beauty, because there is more of Christ, in that poor sinner who
clings in penitence, faith, and love to the cross, looking up to God as a
pardoned child, and pulsating with a life derived from the indwelling
spirit, than in all this vast creation, enameled and sparkling with endless
forms of loveliness.
Reader, has Christ's beauty caught your eye, and
penetrated your soul, transforming you– reflecting his image in your
Christ-like principles, your Christ-like spirit, your Christ-like walk, your
whole Christ-like life? Then, dim and imperfect as is the copy, before long
it will be complete, when you "shall see the King in his beauty," and join
the faultless throng who encircle the throne of God and the Lamb. Oh! then,
be it your employment to contemplate, study, and reflect the beauty of
Christ, for there is no beauty like his!
"It is a finished portrait!" exclaimed an accomplished
infidel, as the character of Christ was delineated to his view. It is a
finished portrait– examine it, transfer it to yourself, and beware how you
allow a creature's beauty– a being of human loveliness and love– to veil or
shade a scintillation of Christ's surpassing beauty from your eye.
III. No LOVE like His.
There is no love like the love of Christ. The association
of contrast will aid us here. God, who is love, is the author of all human
affection. Love is the creation of Deity, the descendant of heaven, the
reflection of God; and he whose soul is the most replete with divine love is
the most like God. Paralyzed though our humanity is by the fall, tainted as
it is by sin, the human heart is still the home of love in some of its
loftiest and purest forms. It is impossible to behold its creations without
the profoundest reverence. Who can stand, for instance, in the presence of a
mother's love and not be awed by its dignity, won by its power, and melted
by its tenderness?
But there is a love which equals, a love which excels, a
love which surpasses it– it is the love of Christ! Institute your contrast.
Select from among the different relations of life, the nearest and dearest;
choose from those relations the deepest, purest, truest love that ever
warmed the human breast, prompting to generous and noble deeds, to tender
and touching expressions, to costly and precious sacrifices; and place it
side by side with the divine love that chose you, the love that ransomed
you, the love that called you, the love that soothes you, the love whose
eyelid never closes, whose accents never change, whose warmth never chills,
whose hand is never withdrawn– "the love of Christ which passes knowledge"
and it is the very antithesis of selfishness. The love of Christ stands out
in the 'history of the love', as the divinest, the holiest, the strongest of
all love– unequaled, unparalleled, unsurpassed. Oh! there is no love like
Christ's love! Trace its features.
1.
The love of Christ
is a REVEALING love. It uplifts the veil from the heart of God,
and shows how that heart loves me. I would have known nothing of the love of
my Father in heaven, but for the love of my Savior on earth. And that
penitent, believing soul that feels the softest, gentlest pulse of Christ's
love throbbing in his breast, knows more of the heart of God, sees more of
the glory of God, and understands more of the character of God, than were
earth and sky and sea to collect all their wonders and lay them at his feet.
2. The love of Christ is a CONDESCENDING love.
No other love ever stooped like Christ's love. Go to Bethlehem and behold
its lowliness, and as you return, pause awhile at Gethsemane, and gaze upon
its sorrow, then pursue your way to Calvary, and learn, in the ignominy, in
the curse, in the gloom, in the desertion, in the tortures, in the crimson
tide of that cross– how low Christ's love has stooped. And still it stoops!
It bends to all your circumstances. You can be conscious of the becloudings
of no guilt it will not cancel, of the pressure of no sin it will not
lighten, of the chafings of no cross it will not heal, of the depths of no
sorrow it will not reach, of the dreary loneliness of no path it will not
illumine and cheer. Oh! is there a home on earth where the love of Christ
most loves to dwell, where you will oftener find, yes, always meet it? It is
the heart-broken, contrite, and humbled for sin!
3. The love of Christ is a SELF-SACRIFICING love.
"Christ has loved us, and has given himself for us, an offering and a
sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor." What a laborious life, what a
suffering death was his, and all was but the out-paying, outpouring of his
love. Every precept of the broken law he obeyed, every penalty of an
exacting justice he endured. The path that conducted him from Bethlehem to
Calvary wound its lonesome way through scenes of humiliation and insult, of
trial and privation, the storm growing darker and darker, the thunder waxing
louder and louder, and the lightning gleaming brighter and brighter, until
its pivotal horrors gathered round the cross and crushed the Son of God! O
marvelous love of Christ! what more could you do than you have done? To what
lower depth of ignominy could you stoop? What darker sorrow could you
endure? Where did another cross ever impale such a victim, or illustrate
such love?
4. Nor is there any love so FORGIVING as Christ's love.
Forgiveness of injury is an essential element of true affection. We cannot
see how love can exist at the same moment and in the same breast with an
unbending, unrelenting, unforgiving spirit. Real love is so unique and lofty
a passion, so Godlike and divine in its nature and properties, we can not
conceive of it but in alliance with every ennobling, elevating, and worthy
sentiment. Selfishness, malignity, revenge, uncharitableness, and all evil
speaking, are passions of our fallen and depraved humanity, so hateful and
degrading, it would seem impossible that they should exist for an instant in
the same atmosphere with true affection.
But a yet loftier form, a more sublime embodiment of love
is presented to us in the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. God cannot
love– we speak reverently– and not forgive. Those whom God loves, God
pardons. That God regards every individual of the fallen race with a feeling
of benevolence, is unquestionable; "for he makes his sun to rise on the evil
and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust;" but those to
whom the love of God extends his everlasting, his special, and his redeeming
love– the gracious, the full, the eternal forgiveness of all sin likewise
extends. God could not love a being and give that being over into the hands
of a stern, avenging justice. Divine love will never lose the lowest and
unworthiest object of its affections.
If, my reader, you feel conscious that you love God,
though your affection be but as a smoldering ember, as a glimmering spark,
be sure of this, that God first loved you; and loving, he has pardoned you;
and pardoning, he will preserve you to his heavenly kingdom, that you may
behold his glory, and enjoy his presence forever.
We repeat the remark, there is no love so forgiving as
Christ's love. A human love may for an instant hesitate and falter; it may
dwell upon the wrong inflicted, the injury done, the wound still bleeding;
may, in its very muteness, speak in tones of inexpressible sadness, of
confidence betrayed, of feelings lacerated, of friendship sported with, and
the heart may find it difficult to take back the wrong-doer– the offender
forgiven and the offense forgotten– to its embrace. But not so Jesus; he has
canceled, obliterated, erased every shadow of a shade of his people's sins,
and they shall come no more into remembrance. "Then Peter came to him, and
said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?
until seven times? Jesus said unto him– I say not unto you until seven
times; but until seventy times seven."
Contrast this love, my reader– the forgiving disciple,
the forgiving Savior– and then exclaim– "Who is a God like you, who pardons
iniquity, and passes by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He
retains not his anger forever, because he delights in mercy."
There is no love, too, so gentle, so patient, so
enduring, as Christ's love. Again and again you have questioned it, wounded
it, forsaken it; again and again you have returned to it with tears,
confession, and humiliation, and have found it as unchilled and unchanged as
his nature. It has borne with your doubts, has been silent beneath your
murmurings, has veiled your infirmities, and has planted itself a thousand
times over between you and your unseen and implacable foe. It has never
declined with your fickleness, nor frozen with your coldness, nor upbraided
you for your backslidings, but all the day long, tracking your wandering,
winding way, it has hovered around you with a presence that has encircled
you within its divine, all-enshrouding, and invincible shield. Truly, there
is no love like Christ's!
Nor is there any love that so chimes with human grief as
his. Born in sorrow, schooled in adversity, baptized in suffering,
acquainted with grief in its every shape, it is just the love for which our
sorrows pant. There is but one heart in this vast universe that can meet
your case, O child of affliction! it is the divine, yet human heart of
Christ. All other love and sympathy, the most intense and feeling, touches
but the surface of our grief. Its trembling hand often irritates the wound
it seeks to heal; or, perhaps, from the very intensity of its sympathy,
catches the contagion of our grief, and sinks at our side helpless,
hopeless, and despairing. Then it is the love of Christ approaches, touches
us, and we are healed; speaks to us, and all is peace. "O unexampled love!
Love nowhere to be found, less than divine."
How much of sacred meaning is contained in the prayer
breathed by Paul on behalf of the Thessalonian saints– "The Lord direct your
hearts into the love of God." The image is expressive. You have often,
doubtless, trodden in pensive thought the sands which belt some expanded
ocean, when the tide has ebbed, and have marked the undulating surface of
reef and shallow that has traced and disfigured it. You have revisited the
spot when that tide has rolled back in its majesty and fullness, and lo! not
a vestige of the former scene appeared; every shallow is filled, every line
of blemish is erased, and the blue waves toss their jocund heads as
gracefully and musically as ever.
Such is the love of Christ! When this divine ocean
recedes from your soul, you are filled with dismay at the spectacle that
appears is one of emptiness, barrenness, and deformity. The love of Christ
in the soul depressed, all is depressed. That ebbing tide has borne upon its
receding wave the heart's last throb of gladness, and the soul's last gleam
of hope, and nothing meets the eye but spiritual aridness and sin. Alarmed
at the sad picture, you are roused to prayer, and you cry– "Restore unto me
the joys of your salvation!" Your petition is accepted, and the response is
heard, "I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies," and once more Christ's
love flows back in gentle wavelets upon your soul, veiling every infirmity,
and nothing but the sweetest melody breathes from your heaving bosom.
IV. No SAVIOR like Him.
There is no Savior like Christ. Sin is inventive; itself
the greatest invention of all. It is Satan's infernal machine for destroying
precious souls by the million! In nothing is his ingenuity and power more
put forth than in constructing expedients of salvation other than the
atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. But Jesus is the one and only
Savior of men; "neither is there salvation in any other; for there is no
other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." It is the
glory of Christ's salvation that it is perfectly adapted to every condition
of our fallen and helpless humanity. Christianity is the only religion that
fully recognizes the natural and utter depravity of our nature, and our
consequent impotence to save ourselves. Jesus, therefore, is the Savior of
sinners. He has undertaken to save us just as we are. He finds us a ruin,
and recreates us; he finds us fallen, and raises us up; he finds us guilty,
and he cleanses us; he finds us condemned, and he justifies us– all our
salvation is in him. All the merit God requires, all the help man needs, all
the grace and strength our salvation demands, dwells in infinite fullness in
Christ.
My reader, your everlasting future of happiness or of woe
depends upon your acceptance of Christ as your Savior! Compared with this,
your vital union with the Lord Jesus– churches are nothing, sacraments are
nothing, religious duties are nothing, rites and ceremonies are nothing–
because Christ must be all in the momentous matter of your everlasting
well-being. Nothing saves you but faith in Christ, and, possessing that
faith, nothing shall condemn you. You may adopt the soundest creed, may join
the most apostolic communion, and may observe the most rigid austerities,
and yet not be a Christian. United by faith to Christ, you may be saved in
any Church; separated from Christ, you can be saved in no Church; "for other
foundation can no man lay than what is laid, which is Jesus Christ." What a
Savior, then, is Christ!
That there should be to us lost sinners any Savior, is
marvelous; but that there should be provided for us such a Savior as Christ
is, so divine and human, so atoning and gracious, so able and willing,
distances all thought, and is above all praise. None will he reject, who
come to him. Oh! it is impossible to exaggerate this statement. All thought
droops, all words fail in their attempt to show what a Savior Christ is to
poor lost sinners. He saves to the uttermost. He saves from the lowest depth
of ruin, from the loftiest height of guilt, from the farthest limit of sin,
from the utmost verge of the yawning precipice, from the very mouth of hell!
"Where sin has abounded, grace does much more abound."
If, abjuring all human merit, bewailing and deploring all
sin, you accept as a free-grace bestowment, the salvation Christ wrought in
his soul's travail on the cross, you shall be saved. If you stay away from
Christ, your best righteousness will not preserve you from the eternal pains
of hell. If you humbly and believingly come to Christ, your worst sins will
not exclude you from the everlasting joys and blessedness of heaven. But it
is of the utmost moment that you clearly recognize the only character and
the sole ground on which Christ will save you. He will only save you "as a
sinner", and on the ground of his finished work, his infinite merit, atoning
blood, and righteousness. You must stand where the tax-collector stood; must
kneel where the "woman who was a sinner" knelt; must feel with Saul of
Tarsus, that you are the "chief of sinners," must look and appeal to him
with the true penitence and simple faith of the dying malefactor, and you
shall be saved!
Cling Closer to Him! Believer in Jesus! cling closer
and closer to the Savior, for there is none like unto him! Let the life you
live be a daily coming up out of self, into Christ. Place no limit to your
transactions with Jesus. As yet you have but touched the edge of his
ocean-fullness, you have but tasted that he is gracious, you have but crept
beneath the hem of his ample robe. Oh! let this year be one of advance; your
motto, "forward." The truth each day's history will but confirm you in is,
"There is none like Christ." The more you trust to, and the more you draw
from him, the deeper and sweeter will be your conviction and experience of
this. It is a truth he intends you shall experimentally learn. He will have
you prize, and love, and serve him above and beyond all others.
The process by which you reach this high and holy
attainment may be trying, the path rugged and toilsome, the ascent steep and
difficult; it may cost you many a severe pang, many a deep sigh, many a
lonely tear, many a sad wrench; nevertheless, a clearer realization of this
truth, "none like Christ, none so near, none so powerful, none so precious,"
will more than recompense for all. Christ, in the sufficiency of his love
and grace, will come and fill the blank, and soothe the pain, and dry the
tear, and you shall look up, and with more than a seraph's rapture exclaim–
"Whom have I in heaven but you? and there is none upon earth that I desire
beside you."
V. No TEACHER like Him.
There is no teacher like Christ. Upon this point we can
venture but a single remark. The Anointed of God, it is his office to reveal
to us the great things of the Gospel. We are truly and savingly taught only
as we are taught by him. Thankful for human teachers, we yet must exclaim–
"Who teaches like Christ?" With immediate access to our minds, and a quick
avenue to our hearts, by one text, by one trial, and by one circumstance of
our history, he can, in a moment, bring us into the experience of the
deepest and most spiritual truth. Who teaches with the authority, or with
the skill, or with the patience and gentleness of Christ? Become his
student, beloved reader, enter as a disciple his school, and the Holy
Spirit, whose office it is to glorify Christ, will lead you into all truth.
Oh! that this may be a year of deeper, more spiritual teaching! Oh! that we
may know more of our own nothingness and insufficiency, and more of Christ's
fullness, loveliness, and love! Lord that which I know not, teach me, for
who teaches to profit like yourself?
VI. No FRIEND like Him.
There is no Friend like Christ. Beloved, it is possible
that having many friends, you need yet one. God has, perhaps, endowed you
with a nature keenly susceptible, your heart expanding to the warm and
genial influence of true friendship. There is in your breast the responsive
power of love, yet yearning for its object. Or, perhaps, the cold blast of
sorrow has swept over the garden of your confiding affections, and the
finest feelings of your nature, torn from the support to which they clung,
lie broken, wounded, and bleeding. You yearn for a friend, in the wisdom of
whose counsel, in the depth of whose affection, in the delicacy of whose
sympathy, in the patience of whose endurance you can implicitly and ever
rely; and from whose presence nothing for a moment separates. That friend is
Christ! "I call you not servants, but friends," is his gracious avowal of
the relation. "He is a friend that sticks closer than a brother."
There is not a friend on earth who loves you with his
affection, who compassionates you with his sympathy, or is so powerful, so
faithful, so near to you as Christ. Human friends do, indeed, divide our
cares and double our joys; but Jesus does more. He takes all our cares upon
himself, absorbs all our sorrows in himself, and makes all his joy our own.
Let this be a year of closer friendship with Christ! Confide in his love,
avail yourself of his power, and abase yourself worthy of so precious a
friend. Beware, in your dealings with him, of distrust, of shyness, of
cooled affection. Place in him your unquestioning confidence, and give him
your undivided heart. Let not the sad memories of past fickleness and
failure fling their dark shadows on the future, but enter upon that future
surrendering yourself afresh to Christ as your best Friend.
Oh! there is none like him. Leave him for a while, though
you may, for others, you return to him again with a yet deeper conviction of
his superiority, exclaiming– "I find no friend like Christ. No love soothes
me, no smile gladdens me, no voice cheers me, no arm supports me as his!"
You are entering upon a year which must be one of human
infirmity, toil, and trial. Remember your chief, your best, your only Friend
took upon him all your human infirmities, is identified with all your
desires, and is acquainted with all your lonely sorrows. Now that he is
elevated to the loftiest reach of purity, to the highest degree of dignity
and glory, and that that heart, once the abode of overshadowing grief, is
all sunshine now, but fits him all the more exquisitely as the all-powerful,
all-helpful, all-loving, all-tender, ever-present Friend and companion of
your homeward path to God.
O Christ! you ever have been, you are, and you shall ever
be my Friend! In adversity, I will hide beneath your sheltering wing; in
sorrow, I will nestle within your loving bosom; in weakness, I will entwine
around your upholding arm; in need, I will repair to your boundless
resources; in sickness, in languor, and in suffering, I will enfold around
me your all-divine, all-human, all-pervading, all-soothing sympathy–
"And when I die,
Receive me, I'll cry,
For, Lord, you have loved me,
I can not tell why."
VII. No SERVICE like His.
And what service can be placed in competition with the
service of Christ? The profession of Christian discipleship involves a
service. The Christian life must needs have scope for the unfolding of its
powers, and a field for the employment of its energies. But for the activity
of Christianity our religion would become paralyzed and be dwarfed. It is a
wise and merciful arrangement of its Author, that for the vital forces– the
muscle and nerve and life of our Christianity– there should be provided a
sphere ample and appropriate for their full development and play.
The graces implanted in the soul– graces instinct with
all the energy and power of the divine, before whose invincible might the
fiercest assaults of the foe have been repelled, and the armies of the
aliens put to flight– would become shriveled and collapsed, a moral atrophy
seizing the whole soul, but for the service which summons them to action.
Christ's kingdom supplies the appropriate and commanding sphere. The field
of your exertion may be extended or circumscribed, just as God appoints. It
may be the vast amphitheater encircled by a great crowd of witnesses, gazing
intently and anxiously upon your wrestling with sin and your battle with
error; or, it may be some shaded nook, secluded from every eye, unaided and
uncheered by human sympathy. Perhaps the sacred enclosure of home, or the
night-watches of a sick-room, or the self-denying task of instructing a
crude and sluggish class in the simple elements of the Gospel– yet is it
Christ's service which engages you, and as such, it is perfect freedom and
exquisite delight.
And truly there is no service to be compared with it– so
ennobling, so satisfying, so joy-inspiring– or that brings with it so much
of present and rich reward. Servant of Christ! keep good heart! Listen to
your Master's feet behind you, upholding and cheering you on. He will soon
come and pay you your full wages– will wipe the sweat of toil from your
brow, and wreathe it with an amaranthine crown of glory, honor, and
immortality. Then comes the welcome and reward– "Well done, good and
faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord."
With such a service, and such a recompense, who, with but
a spark of the love of Christ in his heart, will not exclaim– "Here, Lord,
am I, what will you have me to do?" I have but one life– you have bought it
with your life-blood– may it be yours– yours wholly, forever yours."
Christian reader, be up and doing– why do you stand all
the day idle? Go, work in your Lord's vineyard. With a significance more
profound, and with an earnestness more intense than that with which the
words were uttered by the Mohammedan chief, pointing his sword to earth and
then up to heaven, would we say to you– "Here is the place of labor; there
is the place of rest."
'Tis not for man to trifle; life is brief,
And sin is here;
Our age is but the falling of a leaf,
A dropping tear.
We have no time to sport away the hours;
All must be earnest in a world like ours.
Not many lives, but only one have we;
One, only one–
How sacred should that one life ever be–
That narrow span!
Day after day filled up with blessed toil,
Hour after hour still bringing in new spoil."
There is no friend like Christ! The
truth upon which we have been endeavoring to concentrate your thoughts, and
with which we would yet a few moments longer detain you, is one of great
practical influence. It chimes with every event, circumstance, and situation
of your life. Let your faith deal with it as a divine verity, as a practical
reality, that in whatever position God places you, he intends, by his
dealings in providence, and by his teaching in grace, to bring you into the
deeper experience of this the most precious of all experimental and
practical truths– "No one can meet my case like Christ."
Whatever, through this year, your position may be– and I
will hypothetically place it– let faith reason thus– "I am in great
adversity; why should I resort to the help of man, he may fail me– there is
none like Christ. I am in profound grief, my heart is melted within me; why
should I repair to the soothing of human sympathy, it may disappoint me–
there is none like Christ. I am in a great strait; insurmountable
difficulties, inextricable perplexities weave their network around my path,
and I am at my wit's end; why should I betake myself to human counsel– it
may mislead me– there is none like Christ. My future looks dark and
lowering– disease undermining my health– my energies failing, and the
duties, responsibilities, and labors for which I have taxed my utmost
powers, all lie untouched and neglected, yet why should I despond– there is
none like Christ. My temporal circumstances are narrowing, resources fail
me, poverty, with its humiliating attendants, stares me in the face, yet why
should I yield to unbelief– there is none lice Christ. My corruptions are
strong, my temptations irresistible, my sins many, my doubts and fears weigh
me down to the dust, yet why should I despair– there is none like Christ. I
am approaching the solemn hour of death, heart and flesh are failing me, and
the veil of eternity is slowly rising to my view, yet why should I fear, and
tremble, and shrink back, I have committed my soul to my Savior, and– there
is none like Christ."
And, oh! what a mercy that you have never found one that
could for a moment take his place; that, separated, perhaps exiled from all
others, you are enclosed to Christ alone, nor wish another being to share
your confidence or divide your affection with him. It is possible that you
have made the experiment. You have traveled the circle of creation's good,
have sipped at many springs, have gathered many flowers, have sought repose
in many an embowered spot, but all have failed. You have returned to your
true rest, exclaiming– "None like Christ. I find no love so soothing as his,
no friendship so true, so gentle as his, no communion like communion with
him. Christ is my all and in all."
Does the world challenge– "What is your beloved
more than another beloved?" Your answer is at hand– "My beloved bore my
sins, opened in his heart a fountain in which I am washed whiter than snow.
My beloved sustains my burdens, counsels my perplexities, heals my wounds,
dries my tears, supplies my needs, bears with my infirmities, upholds my
steps, and cheers my pathway to the tomb. My beloved will be with me in the
valley of the shadow of death, and with his presence I shall fear no evil.
My beloved has gone to prepare a place for me in the many-mansioned house of
my Father, and will come again and receive me to himself, that where he is,
I may be also. My beloved will walk with me in the gold-paved streets of the
new Jerusalem, will lead me to fountains of living waters, and will wipe
every tear from my eyes. This is my beloved, and this is my Friend!"
Therefore Stand Firm.
And yet have we need of
constant vigilance, lest we should not always and in everything give Christ
the preeminence. The rival interests, and the antagonistic forces of the
world and the flesh are in perpetual play. These demand that, with the
prophet, we should "stand continually upon the watchtower in the daytime,
and be set in our wards whole nights." Should you discover any encroachment
of your worldly calling upon the claims Christ has to your time and service,
any rival affections to the claims he has to your whole heart, any secret
demur to the claims he has to your unreserved obedience; should you, in a
word, detect the undue ascendency or influence of any one being or object
whose presence and power tends to shade the beauty, lessen the attractions,
weaken the supremacy, or share the throne of Christ in your soul– that being
and that object must be relinquished at once and forever!
Oh! what competitor can stand side by side with Christ?
No minister, or pastor, or church, or friend, or companion, can bear a
moment's comparison with Jesus. Not one who can assist you, defend you,
provide for you, or bear with you as Jesus, who when the snow-flakes of
wintry adversity fall thick and fast, and its cold blast moans drearily
around you, will not leave yet side, who will be first to enter the house of
woe, across whose threshold the loved remains have just been borne, to speak
words of comfort to your bereaved heart; who will sustain you in languor,
bend over you in sickness, and when the last look, before the eye is fixed
and glazed, and the last breath, before the lips are mute and immovable in
death, shall come, will be with you, viewless and noiseless to the attendant
watchers, sustaining your spirit in the parting hour, then bearing it in his
own warm bosom to the home eternally made ready. Then cling and adhere to
Christ, and in all things give him the preeminence.
"Enthrone the precious Savior in your heart,
Let all your homage unto him be paid;
Allow no idol to usurp in part
The glory due to him who all things made.
In thought, word, deed, your life to him be given,
You shall be blessed on earth, and saved in heaven."
Be Faithful to His Word.
There is yet another
caution I would venture to give in reference to some of the social and
popular movements of the day, the tendency of which, without due vigilance
on the part of the sincere and earnest friends of true religion, may be
adverse to its best interests, fatally injurious to the individuals
contemplated by these movements, and subversive of the supremacy of Christ
and his truth. We hail with gratitude and hope all efforts to advance
"social science" and intellectual improvement, provided those endeavors are
sustained and sanctified by Christian principle. I am thoroughly convinced
that true national advancement can only be successfully secured by the power
of a living Christianity. All other modes of elevating the masses utterly
fail of reaching them. It is impossible to close the eye to the fact that,
after all the exertions of our literary and scientific institutions, our
libraries, reading-rooms, and lectures, there teems outside and far beyond
our efforts, a vast outlying population of living beings, dwelling in
ignorance and neglect, each one of whom might give utterance to the
exclamation– "No man has cared for my soul!"
By what agency are we to compass and by what means are we
to instruct them? We at once answer, by the feet of the city and the rural
missionary, and by the sole instrument of Christ's Gospel. But widely
different from this is the object promoted by "social science" and its
kindred associations. And what is the result? We are advancing in secular
knowledge and science, but, at the same time, we are equally advancing in
worldliness, luxury, and indulgence; in extravagance of dress, and modes of
life that, in numerous cases, far overtop reasonable and legitimate income.
The consequences must be serious! The history of nations is luminous in the
testimony it bears to the fact that high perfection in art and science, in
intellectual improvement, luxury, and indulgence, apart from the
conservative influence of Christianity, has ever been the culminating point
that has marked their decadence and dissolution. We have passed through one
phase of our national history, and "hero-worship" is nearly giving place to
the worship of "social science," secular knowledge, and intellectual
advancement. I can not look but with the most painful apprehension and alarm
upon the unchristianized condition toward which we are as a nation fast
drifting. Compromise at home, and neutrality abroad, is gradually blotting
Christianity from our national escutcheon. It seriously behooves the
ministers of the Gospel, our devout statesmen and senators, to be fully
awake. If we are to retain the position God has given us in the scale of
nations, or to rise to a yet loftier altitude of moral greatness and power,
it will not be by the means of social science, worldly knowledge, wealth,
luxury, and refinement– but by the influence of a living, vitalizing
Christianity alone!
The Bible and its religion must be paramount; Christ and
his Gospel must have the preeminence. Reason and learning must stand at the
bar of Revelation, reverence its precepts, adopt its principles, and obey
its voice. The moment that finds this nation glorying in her strength, in
her wisdom, in her wealth, in her prowess, in her social progress, and in
her high civilization, will date the beginning of her decline, and
foreshadow the certainty of her downfall as a great, religious people; and
her last history, like that of Greece and Rome, will be written in mourning,
lamentation, and woe. Let the apostles and promoters of social science and
of secular knowledge solemnly beware how, in the advancement of their
objects, they ignore our Bible and abjure our God!
Be Spiritually Minded.
It is an important
practical deduction from the subject of these pages, that if true godliness
is anything to us, it surely must be everything. There is no principle God
has more closely and universally calculated in the universe than 'harmony'.
And it is this nice adjustment, this perfect balance, and exquisite
symmetry, everywhere pervading his works, which proves the mind that planned
and the power that executed to be one and the same– divine.
Now it is this same harmony, as exhibited in true
godliness, which illustrates its beauty and augments its power. How much is
true religion shorn of its strength by the lack of more spiritual-mindedness
in its professors! The worldly amusements to which many addict themselves–
the opera, the card-playing, the ball, the gay party, the novel-reading, the
luxurious living, the extravagant customs in which multitudes of religious
professors, church members and communicants indulge, are sad blots
upon their avowed Christianity, and effectual hindrances to the advancement
of religion in their own souls and in the world. Oh! that with us vital
religion– the pure, simple, self-denying, unearthly religion of Christ–
might be paramount; its holy influence permeating our whole being, and
giving form and tint and direction to all our engagements and conduct.
Difficulties we shall, indeed, have to overcome in the
world, and, perhaps, opposing influences in our own homes; nevertheless, if
Christ sees that our hearts are set upon ruling our lives by his divine
precept, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness," he will aid
our holy strivings and give his grace that, in our principles, our spirit,
and our conduct, yes, in all things and everywhere, Christ may have the
preeminence.
My reader, what is your "beloved"? If it is not
Christ, what is it? The world? the creature? wealth? self? Are these the
objects you place in competition with the Redeemer, and prefer to a
religious life, a happy death, and a glorious eternity? Oh! what will they
avail you when Christ, the Savior you have slighted, despised, and
neglected, cites you to his judgment bar? Without the experience of a real
conversion, of the new birth, of a saving interest in Jesus, should you die
this year, you are forever lost! Pause, solemnly pause, upon the threshold
of a new period of your probation, and ask the Holy Spirit to enthrone the
Savior upon your loving, believing heart, that henceforth Christ may be the
first, Christ the chief, Christ preeminent; so that for you to live or die
may truly and emphatically be CHRIST; and then Christ and you will be
together through eternity!
There is None like Him.
Such is the truth,
child of God, your heavenly Father has given you to learn through this
coming year– None like Christ! Could he bring you into the experience of a
truth more needful, more sanctifying, or more precious? Impossible! Strive
after a closer walk, a more childlike transfer of every care, anxiety, and
need to your heavenly Father, and his beloved Son, your elder brother. "He
cares for you." Do not overlook today, in your anxious thoughts about the
morrow. Travel not out of the present into the future. The grace that
supports, the love that comforts, the resources that supply today's need,
will, with tomorrow's demand, be ready at your hand. Do justice to the
solemn present, and live with the same calm reliance upon God, and looking
to Jesus, as if there but one second of time intervening between you and
your heavenly home. Make the prayer your own of one of the earliest
missionaries of the Cross to Ireland– "May the strength of God pilot me this
day, the power of God preserve me, the wisdom of God instruct me, the eye of
God view me, the ear of God hear me, the hand of God protect me, the way of
God direct me, the shield of God defend me. Christ be with me, Christ before
me, Christ after me, Christ in me, Christ under me, Christ over me, Christ
at my right, Christ at my left, Christ at this side, Christ at that side,
Christ in the heart of each person whom I speak to, Christ in the mouth of
each person who speaks to me, Christ in each eye which sees me, Christ in
each ear which hears me. Salvation is the Lord's, salvation is Christ's. May
your salvation, O Lord! be always with us." (Patrick's prayer on his going
to preach before the King of Ireland)
Imitating the spirit, and adopting the petitions of this
remarkable prayer, your daily, happy, and holy experience and testimony will
be– "None but Christ, none like Christ."
"I'll not leave Jesus– never, never!
Ah! what can more precious be?
Rest, and joy, and light are ever
In his hand to give to me.
All things that can satisfy,
Having Jesus, these have I."
Love has bound me fast to him,
I am his, and he is mine;
Daily I for pardon ask him,
Answers he with peace divine.
On that rock my trust is laid,
And I rest beneath its shade.
Without Jesus, earth would weary,
Seem almost like hell to me;
But if Jesus I have near me,
Earth is almost heaven to me.
Am I hungry? He does give
Bread on which my soul does live.
Oh! how light upon my shoulder
Lies my cross, now grown so small.
For the Lord is my upholder,
Fits it to me, softens all.
Neither shall it always stay–
Patience! it will pass away!"