familiar friends. It is not in days of fierce persecution only that this hostility to the truth is to be seen; it exists where personal violence is unknown, and it arises from the natural enmity of the heart to true religion. And will not such hostility be felt by the object of it? The want also of religious society and of the public means of grace, a privation to which sickness may in some measure reduce even the members of a Christian community, must not unfrequently be regarded as a matter of great discomfort. The light of the Sabbath returns, but there returns not with it the wonted cheerfulness of the Sabbath: the voice of general prayer and thanksgiving is in the house of the Lord, but it is unheard in the chamber of sickness; and perhaps none but the sufferer can tell how painful it is to be shut out from that service, which is so calculated to animate the soul and to banish the cares and anxieties of human life. The Psalmist was not without his grief in reference to this subject, and he expresses himself in terms which prove how deeply he felt it. He describes himself as panting after God, like the hart after the water brooks, and represents his soul as cast down and disquieted within him: My soul thirsteth after Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; to see Thy power and Thy glory as I have seen them in the sanctuary. My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.↑ And if such be the feeling which arises from the inability to partake of the public ordinances of religion, how much more painful must be the conscious want of that divine presence, without which religious worship seems itself to be unblest! Under the agitation of mind, arising from this cause, the holy Psalmist cried out, Save me, O Lord, for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying, my throat is dried, mine eyes fail, while I wait for my God.‡ And this it was which extorted from the Saviour of the world the bitter cry, My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? This hiding of the divine countenance exasperated beyond measure the other sufferings of the Redeemer, and drew forth an appeal, which indicates intense and inexpressible agony. * Psalm lxiii. 1, 2. + Psalm lxxxiv. 2. Neither is it only from a view of his own case that the pious mind is thus sensibly affected. Such a person is deeply concerned for the honour of Christ and the welfare of his fellow-creatures. Did the Psalmist say, Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because men keep not Thy law? * Did he grieve at the dishonour which was thus cast upon the Almighty, and at the folly and wickedness of those who were guilty of it? and can this sensation be entirely discarded by him who lives in the better light, and partakes in the fuller blessings of the gospel dispensation? Is there any faithful servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, who, on reflecting upon the mercies of redemption, and the means by which it was procured for us, can observe with unconcern the general disregard of it? Have we any right sense of the value of the soul, any real belief that those who die in their sins shall perish for ever; and is there nothing to affect us in the sight of multitudes rushing blindly and wilfully to destruction? No man would behold without emotion a fellow-creature hastening to temporal death, because every man knows the value of temporal life; and can those who are convinced of the awful nature of eter*Psalm cxix. 136. nal death, do otherwise than lament the fatuity which drives men to everlasting ruin? And the case sometimes comes home to the feelings with peculiar force. A worldly parent sees nothing to deplore in the wickedness of his children, but the personal discomfort which may follow it here. A religious parent regards his children as immortal beings, and the pain which he experiences, on observing them negligent of religion, is not simply for their present but far more for their future welfare; and often when another man would see nothing to disapprove, his anxiety. will be awakened, and his tears will testify his sorrow. The apostles would remind us, that those who watch for souls, the ministers of reconciliation, have, in addition to other motives of concern, some sources of affliction, which belong especially to them. What is the great object of their ministry? to win souls to Christ: and often are they doomed to see no effect of their labours! How painful must it be to them to find the sacred message itself esteemed so little worthy of regard, that the slightest argument of inconvenience will be deemed reason sufficient to treat it with utter inattention! It was chiefly as a Christian minister that the apostle felt, when he told, with weeping, of those who were enemies of the cross of Christ.* It was in this character that he watched and prayed for his congregations; that he lamented the blindness of some and the defection of others; and with emotions of tenderness and concern, such as became his high character and exalted office, ceased not day and night to warn them with tears. Thus it is that the servant of God, from the very circumstances of his situation, is often doomed to prosecute his religious duties, and to work out his salvation in much sorrow; but he does not for this intermit his labours; he still sows he still bears precious seed, although he goeth forth and weepeth. The anxieties of his state destroy not his spiritual energies; they rather bring him more frequently to the throne of grace; they teach him more experimentally the necessity of a living faith; they excite him to look more earnestly at the things unseen; and, relying upon the goodness and the truth of God, to hope even as against hope. It is with a special view to such persons, to whatever class they may belong, that the encouragement of the text has been left upon record, They shall reap in joy; they shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing *Phil. iii. 18. + Acts xx. 31. |