SERMON VIII.

DIFFICULTY OF REALIZING SACRED PRIVILEGES.

PSALM CXviii. 24.

"This is the Day which the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it."

It is always very difficult to realize any great joy or great sorrow. We cannot realize it by wishing to do so. What brings joys and sorrows of this world home to us, is their circumstances and accompaniments. When a friend dies, we cannot believe him taken from us at first;-we cannot believe ourselves to be in any new place when we are just come to it. When we are told a thing, we assent to it, we do not doubt it, but we do not feel it to be true, we do not understand it as a fact which must take up a position or station in our thoughts, and must be acted from and acted towards, must be dealt with as existing: that is, we do not realize it. This seems partly the reason why, when Almighty God reveals Himself in Scripture to this man or that, he, on the other hand, asks for some sign whereby he shall know that God has

spoken. Doubtless sinful infirmity sometimes mixed itself up in such questions, as in the case of Zacharias, who being a Priest in the Temple, the very dwelling-place of the Living God, where, if any where, Angels were present, where, if any where, God would speak, ought to have needed nothing whereby to realize to himself God's power, God's superintending eye, God's faithfulness towards the house of Israel and its priests. Under the same feeling, though blamelessly, Gideon asked for the miracle upon the fleece. He could not bring himself to believe that he was to be what God's Angel had declared. What? he, the least of his father's house, and his family poor in Manasseh, how could he understand that he was to be the great champion of Israel against the Midianites? Not that he doubted it, for God had said it; but he could not feel, think, speak, act as if it were true. If he attempted to do so, it was in an unreal way, and he spoke and acted unnaturally and on a theory, on a view of things which he had mastered one minute and which was gone the next. The special favour of God towards him, according to the words, "The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour1!" seemed like a dream, and confused him. So he said, "If now so it be, certain consequences flow from it; if God is with me, it is the God of miracles who is with me, who can change the creature as He will;

may He then vouchsafe to do so! that I may have the full impression on my soul, heart, and mind, of what my reason receives; that I may be familiarized to this strange and overpowering Providence, that I should be raised above my brethren, and made God's minister to them for good." And therefore he asked, first, that the fleece might be wet, then that it might be dry; not as evidence whereon to build his faith, but as a manifestation impressing his imagination and heart.

In somewhat the same way we are told of Jacob also; "when he saw the waggons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived1." Jacob, to be sure, did doubt what his sons reported from distrust of them; yet the mere sight of the waggons did not serve to prove their veracity near so much as to quiet his perplexed imagination, and to reconcile it to the sudden news. That news was more startling than the reporters were untrustworthy.

And thus we Christians, though born in our very infancy into the kingdom of God, and chosen above all other men to be heirs of heaven and witnesses to the world, and though knowing and believing this truth entirely, yet have very great difficulty and pass many years in learning it. Not any one, of course, fully understands it ;-doubtless; but we have not even a fair, practical hold of it. And here we are, even

1 Gen. xlv. 27.

on this great Day, this Day of days, on which Christ arose from the dead, here are we, on this very Day, as infants, lying helpless and senseless on the ground, without eyes to see or heart to comprehend who we

are.

Surely so it is: and it cannot be denied that we have much to do, very much, before we rise to the understanding of our new nature and its privileges, and learn to rejoice and be glad in the Day which the Lord hath made; "the eyes of our understanding being enlightened, that we may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the Saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places'. Such high words as these are, alas scarcely more than mere words when spoken to us; at best, we but believe them, we do not in any good measure realize them.

Now this insensibility or want of apprehension rises in great measure, it is scarcely necessary to say, from our exceeding frailness and sinfulness. Our old nature is continually exerting itself against the new; "the flesh lusteth against the spirit 2." Its desire is towards this world. This world is its food; its eyes apprehend this world. Because it is what it

1 Eph. i. 18-20.

2 Gal. v. 17.

is, it allies itself to this world. The world and the flesh form a compact with each other; the one asks, and the other supplies. Therefore, in proportion as it seduces us into the world's company, of course, in an equal degree, it blunts our perception of that world which we do not see; it prevents our realizing it. And thus one special cause of our difficulty in realizing our election into the kingdom of heaven is our evil nature, which familiarizes us with this world, Satan's kingdom, and weighs on us and pulls us down when we would lift up our hearts, lift them up unto the Lord. This is certain: yet, besides this, there are certainly other reasons too which make it difficult for us to apprehend our state, and cause us to do so but gradually; and which are not our fault, but which arise out of our position and circumstances.

We are almost born into the fulness of Christian blessings, long before we have reason. We could not apprehend them at all, and that without our own fault, when we were baptized; for we were infants. As, then, we acquire reason itself but gradually, so we acquire the knowledge of what we are but gradually also; and as it is no fault in us, but a blessing to us, that we were baptized so early, so, from the nature of the case, and not from any fault of ours, do we but slowly enter into the privileges of our baptism. So it is as regards all our knowledge of ourselves and of our position in the world; we but gradually gain it. At first children do not know that they are responsible beings; but by degrees they