A Peculiar Sign of the Times

THE SUFFRAGIST MOVEMENT.

THE unpromising signs of the times are neither few nor small. Some of them have a special relation to the Church, while others have a special relation to the State. Of the latter class, there is one which seems peculiarly to belong to the present day, and to be entirely unprecedented in the history of our nation. It is that which is known as the Suffragist movement—a systematic crusade on the part of women with a view to obtain votes and Parliamentary power. If the movement had confined itself to the ordinary quiet and peaceful methods adopted in politics, its activities might call for no very special remark in a religious magazine such as this. But there has now arisen a band of what are known as militant Suffragists, who have deliberately adopted violent methods in carrying on their agitation. They imagine that by these means they will compel the legislature to grant their wishes, and they seem determined to stick at almost nothing of an outrageous kind if they suppose they can thereby make any progress towards the accomplishment of their object. They have already made attacks of a physical kind on the persons of statesmen; they have smashed shop windows; they have attempted to set fire to places of public gathering; and they are, at the present moment, attacking letter boxes by the insertion of inflammable stuff, with a view to destroy the public correspondence of the country. Not content with these mischievous proceedings, they have also taken to injuring telegraphic wires, so as to interrupt communication and irritate the minds of public men. One sincerely hopes that if there is a spark of commonsense left in the country, such methods will produce an entirely opposite effect from what is desired by the promoters, and will make the success of the movement impossible. We say this, not in the interests of any merely political idea, but of order, decency and good government. Some general reflections may be added.

1. It is clearly suggested in God’s Word that the land is in a low condition when women are the rulers (Isaiah iii. 12). It may be a sign that the men who govern a country are failing to fulfil

the high ideal of what rulers should be, when women are beginning to aim at obtaining the position. Many people, who see a defect, are far from equally possessing the right knowledge or power to remedy that defect. So we may judge in the present case. The female uprising may point to something wrong in high places, though the attempt made to rectify it proceeds itself on lines that are wrong.

1. It is plain, however, that the present movement aims at more than is proper to women as such. It is not merely a question of voting for members of Parliament—many would be quite willing to give unmarried women and widows who are householders the vote—but it is a question of getting into Parliament, and representing and governing the nation. This ambition is a moving influence in the matter, and it is bolstered up by the spurious doctrine of woman’s equality with man. The Bible provides us with no such doctrine as this; its teaching is definitely to the effect that the woman is “the weaker vessel,” and that her place is “subjection,” not government (1 Cor. xiv. 34; Eph. v. 22; 1 Peter iii. 5, 7). Possibly individual cases may be found here and there, where the woman has been more highly endowed than the man, and has occupied a place of higher responsibility than many of the opposite sex have ever reached. It may be argued, for example, that there was a Deborah who acted as Judge in ancient Israel, and a Victoria who was Queen of Great Britain in modern times. These, however, were manifestly exceptions, and the exceptions only prove the rule. Besides, it is perfectly clear that neither Deborah nor Victoria attained the position of ruler on any principle of woman’s natural equality. There were special circumstances in each case that led to the position—the former, her outstanding wisdom and intimacy with Heaven; the latter, her natural birth. Queen Victoria’s power was also limited by the action of a constitutional government, composed of men, so that she was ruler only in a secondary sense, as all our Sovereigns are. These cases, then, are not precedents for filling our Houses of Parliament with female legislators.

2. The un-Christian character of the methods employed proclaims the movement a thoroughly bad one. These women seem to pay not the smallest attention to the plainest injunctions of the New Testament. Certain soldiers came at one time to John the Baptist for advice, manifestly in view of certain grievances which they thought they had, and among other things, John said in reply, “Do violence to no man” (Luke iii. 14). They were not to use violent methods in pressing their case upon the attention of their superiors. The Lord Jesus said, “Resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matt. v. 39). The inspired Apostle Paul thus instructs Titus, a minister of the gospel: “Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work, to speak evil of no man, to be no

brawlers, but gentle, showing all meekness to all men” (Titus iii. 1, 2). Many more passages might be quoted, but these are sufficient to show that the conduct of the militant Suffragists is entirely contrary to the express teaching of Christ and His divinely-commissioned servants. Such an agitation is therefore clearly not of God but of Satan, and no blessing can attend it.

1. A further reflection we desire to make is that this movement has given striking proof of the essential depravity of the human heart as fallen. Here is a band of women—a number of them are highly educated—possessed of all the culture that Universities can supply, while all of them, it is charitable to assume, have had something in the form of a Christian upbringing in a Christian country; and yet, because they do not get their own way without demur in the comparatively small matter of securing a vote for a member of Parliament, they violate all the rules of Christian propriety and behave like a herd of wild beasts. The wickedness of the human heart, when irritated and aroused, proves its existence and its power, and casts all restraints to the four winds. Modern theology has no place for original sin in its system, but the present movement, with its violent methods, is a call to our advanced divines to retrace their steps and to bring back the doctrine of original sin and human depravity to its former place in their creeds. Creed revision is required, not forward, but backward to the Confession of Faith and the Holy Scriptures.

One or two points in conclusion. These female agitators have assuredly proved one thing to a marked demonstration, namely, their own incapacity to occupy the position that they are striving to attain. Can such persons, who are quite incapable of personal self-control, be proper candidates for ruling a great nation? Though we cannot regard them as fair samples of their sex—we believe the general womanhood of the nation is quite against their methods and ambitions—yet they have gone far to prove the dictum that women in general are not constitutionally adapted or designed for the province of civil government. They are at liberty to wield a beneficent influence in the home and private spheres. On the moral aspect of this agitation, we observe an ominous warning given as to the degrees of bitterness, strife, and violence to which people may go, for whom civilization has done its best, if the Most High leaves them to their own evil instincts and to the subtle promptings of “the god of this world.” Nothing but the grace of God, which bringeth salvation by Jesus Christ, can prove an effectual preservative from unrighteousness, and ensure a settled walk in the ways of truth and peace. This grace leads people to study and obey the directions of God’s Word in all things pertaining to Church and State, both as to methods of attainment, and the objects to be attained. It is a Popish principle that the end justifies the means, but the divine rule is that “if a man strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully” (2 Tim. ii. 5). The application to the present case is obvious.

A Sermon.

BY THE REV. NEIL CAMERON, ST. JUDE’S, GLASGOW.

“In the year of this jubilee ye shall return every man unto his possession.”
—LEVITICUS xxv. 13.

IN the first five books of the Bible we have a perfect code of laws to regulate the conduct of the people both as regards their civil and ecclesiastical duties. Some of these laws are morally binding on all to the end of time; others were typical and, consequently, vanished away at the appearance of their antitypes. This was true of many of their civil laws as well as of the most of their ecclesiastical ones. The moral law contained in the ten commandments was not destined to pass away, as will appear to any unprejudiced mind. It lays down man’s duty towards God and his fellow. These duties can never cease. But there are other laws which have long ago ceased to be binding, as this of the jubilee has, because their significance was to have its fulfilment in Christ’s spiritual kingdom. In reading this part of the word of God, it is very helpful to the proper understanding of it, to keep this fact before one’s mind. We have in this chapter enactments of Sabbaths which were to be observed by the people.

The weekly Sabbath began in Eden. We are told, in Gen. ii. 2, 3, that God rested on the seventh day from all His works which He created and made. It can be proved that He commanded man to rest on this day, and to spend it in the fellowship and worship of his Creator. In Exod. xvi. 22, the Sabbath day’s rest is introduced in a manner that cannot be explained otherwise. We read there—”That on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man; and the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. And he said unto them, this is that which the Lord hath said, to-morrow is the rest of the Holy Sabbath unto the Lord: bake that which ye will bake to-day, and see the that ye will see the; and that which remaineth over lay up for you, to be kept until the morning. And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade; and it did not stink, neither was there any worm therein. And Moses said, eat that to-day; for to-day is a Sabbath unto the Lord: to-day ye shall not find it in the field.” This happened before the law was given on Mount Sinai. It was then proclaimed as the fourth commandment of the moral law, and it shall continue in force till the end of time. It had to be observed over and above the other Sabbaths commanded in this chapter.

At the end of six years there was to be observed the Sabbath of the land, which was to continue during the whole of the seventh year. Again, at the end of seven times seven years, or forty-nine

years, there were to be two years of rest, the fiftieth year being the jubilee.

In order that the weekly Sabbath would be kept, God gave double the usual amount of bread on the sixth day, and none on the seventh. The Lord gave three signs to the people that He would have the seventh day kept as a holy Sabbath to Him. (1) He gave twice as much bread on the sixth day; (2) He caused that it did neither stink nor breed worms, although, when kept other nights, it did both; and (3) there came none of it down for the morning of the seventh day. He has given many tokens of His favour since to such as sanctify the weekly Sabbath, and many tokens of His displeasure to such as profane it. The Lord can, and will provide now as well as then, ample provision for man’s needs on the other days of the week. He is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. He also promised that on the sixth year the earth would bring forth fruits sufficient for the seventh year, and till the fruits of the eighth were ripe. On the forty-eighth year He promised abundance for three years—that is, till the fruits of the eighth were ready the year after the jubilee. We lose much by the atheism of our hearts, inasmuch as we do not acknowledge God’s providence either when favourable or adverse to us. He says—”Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”

There are many opinions held by divines concerning the law of the seventh year Sabbath; but all who know how to work the earth properly are aware of the fact that the earth needs rest, as otherwise it will lose its vigour if it should be ploughed every year. From this fact we learn that God not only created man, and the beast of burden, in such a way as that, without the rest He has commanded, they become useless, but that He has also created the earth under the same law. “In wisdom thou hast made all thy works.”

In our text there are three things which we will endeavour, as the Lord will enable us, to consider at this time.

I. The condition of them to whom the jubilee brought relief;

II. The foundation upon which this relief was based; and

III. The nature of the relief itself.

I.—We are to consider the condition of those to whom the year of jubilee gave relief. This law was a very merciful one. It made provision for the man that lost his possessions, whether through adverse providences or folly, to come into possession of them again. A foolish father might squander his inheritance and bring himself and his family to penury, but this law provided that all should be restored again. Adam deprived himself and all his posterity, through sin, of all he possessed. Let us consider some of the possessions which Adam had and which he lost.

(1) Man lost God by the fall—”Our iniquities have separated between us and our God.” This is the greatest loss that any rational creature can sustain. All the other losses of man are like a drop

of the bucket in comparison with this one. The Apostle Paul, writing to the Ephesians, reminded them of their sad condition before the gospel came to them. “At that time,” he says, “ye were without Christ . . . having no hope, and without God in the world.” We see also that, when sinners are convinced of their lost condition, this becomes their paramount misery. “In those days and at that time, saith the Lord, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, going and weeping: they shall go and seek the Lord their God.” This is true of every sinner who realises the nature of his lost condition. He feels now the loss of God, as his own God, swallowing up all his other losses, and it becomes the gall and wormwood that he drinks in anguish of spirit. There are no words in the Bible to be compared with the cry—”My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” It makes one’s heart faint even to think of being forsaken of God in eternity. This is verily the wages of sin; and it must be, should a sinner die without being reconciled to God, that he shall lose God and all the blessings of His fellowship for ever and ever. So great was this loss in the sight of God that He sent His Son into the world to seek and to save that which was lost. This loss is real and of such a nature that none can trifle with it at last. Many do not consider it now as being any loss at all, so they go on carelessly dancing, singing vain songs, and they laugh scornfully at any serious thoughts; but they will certainly change their mind as regards this vital matter either in time or in eternity. The poor little lassie, who came all the way from the west of the island of Skye to Inverness, bare-headed and bare-footed, asking the question of every person that met her on that very long journey—”Can you tell me where I can find the Lord God to whom the issues from death belong?”—felt keenly her need of Him. So will every one that will be saved of the human race seek Him while He may be found.

(2) Man lost the image of God. This image consisted in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. We are told in God’s word “that man is born like a wild ass’ colt.” Before man fell, the light that shone in his understanding is seen by the fact that on first sight he knew the nature of every creature which the Creator brought to him, and gave each of them its proper name. Man now is lower in spiritual knowledge than the ox or ass—as it is written, “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.” Yea, we are told that we have so completely lost our knowledge of divine things, that “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” We hear, in the word of God, the cry of them who realised the truth of this—”Give me understanding, that I may know thy testimonies. Give me understanding, and I shall live.” These petitions show how every one that is taught of the Holy Spirit

feels that spiritual knowledge is life, and that spiritual ignorance is death to the soul. So our Lord prayed—”And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” Why do awakened sinners read their Bibles much and often, travel long distances to hear the gospel preached, and consider that they are well paid for all their pains if they get to understand even a little? Is it not because they realise that “it is not good that the soul be without knowledge?” One who deeply felt the ignorance, or darkness of the carnal mind, expresses it in these words—”Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man. I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the holy.” The word of God, and the experience of His people, agree perfectly as regards the painful fact that man has lost this part of the image of his Creator.

Man lost also his righteousness. When God created man he loved the Lord his God with all his heart, soul, strength, and mind, and he loved also his neighbour as himself. All his thoughts, words, and actions were perfectly conformed to the law of God. He stood before his Creator in perfect innocence, and without fear. Instantly man sinned, guilt fell on his conscience, and fear of punishment revealed itself. His righteousness was gone, and he fled to hide himself from God among the trees of the garden. The character given of the children of men in God’s word is—”There is none righteous, no, not one.” This is proved by man’s conduct in the world. Our thoughts concerning God are unrighteous. We consider Him austere, and hate Him without a cause. We daily break His commandments, that are holy and just and good, in our thoughts, words, and actions. The desperate wickedness of the human heart reveals itself in the conduct of some more than others; but the hearts of all men are alike evil in their imaginations every day. Nothing can change this terrible bias of the heart but the grace of God.

Among men in the world unrighteousness reigns supreme. Man defrauds his neighbour, and excuses himself because he does it in the name of what men call business. They tell lies, deceive, and exact more than is right, and never lose an hour’s sleep on account of these sins. Others slander, backbite, hate, envy, and harbour malicious thoughts against their neighbour, and justify themselves in doing so. Yea, men have done all these things who would be mortally offended if one doubted their piety. But these sins prove how unjust man has become, and the fact that man’s conscience does not condemn him for them manifests it. This is not rendering to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s, nor to God the things that are God’s.

The Lord convinces all His children of this woeful depravity of their hearts and spirits. One of them cried—”Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” This cry comes often from every one of the Lord’s people, but you will

not find it among the unregenerate. The Lord’s people smite their own breast and thigh for their sins against heaven and in God’s sight; others smite their neighbour for sins that are not nearly so heinous in the sight of the Lord as their own. This was the way of the Pharisees in Christ’s day; they said that John the Baptist had a devil, and that the Lord Jesus was a wine-bibber; a friend of publicans and sinners. But the poor publican that went up to the temple to pray “stood afar off, smote upon his breast and cried, God be merciful to me a sinner.” This is the way the penitent cry unto the Lord, and it is their cry that He hears.

Man lost also his holiness. He was perfectly holy in his heart when God created him; but sin polluted man’s heart. It is out of the heart the things that defile the man proceed, as it is written—”But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, thefts, false witness, blasphemies; these are the things which defile a man.” Instead of love to God’s law, which is the image of God Himself, there sprang up enmity to Him. We, by nature, love idols, and after them we go. “If any man love the world, or the things that are in the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” The impurity of our affections is the fuel that sets fire to our vile lusts. These lusts degrade man, and bring him lower than the beasts. Many deny the fact that all mankind fell in Adam; but even the heathen observed that human nature was corrupt. If men were conscious of the abominable lusts of the heart, it would cause them to feel their need of a clean heart. An adulterous thought is a committing of that sin in the sight of God, as our Lord Jesus taught—”But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in her heart.” O how abhorrent in the sight of a holy God are the thoughts of the hearts of young men and women even in the house of God! If men were made conscious of this abomination, they would cry before the Lord, “Unclean! unclean!”

We have the cry of them that were quickened to feel and know a little of their defilement in the word of God. David cried—”Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” Paul cried also—”O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Natural men do not cry thus, for they are dead in sin, and consequently they do not realise it. But the Lord’s people have the same cry now, and often pray with the same words. The loss of a holy nature is a terrible loss—”For, it is written, without holiness no one shall see the Lord.”

(3) We are not now in the family of God as we are born into the world, but in Satan’s family. Christ told the Jews that they were of their father the devil, and that they did his works. It was not so at the beginning. You will have noticed that, in the

genealogy Luke gives, he records the father of each one till he arrives at Adam, and he says that—”Adam was the son of God.” We are told in Genesis that, after Adam fell by sin, he begat a son in his own likeness; that son was Cain, the murderer of his brother. We are all by nature in Satan’s family, “walking according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.” If the Israelite who lost his family needed a jubilee to restore him to that privilege again, so do we need the gospel of the grace of God to restore us into His family by the spirit of adoption.

Poor Ruth felt her heart alienated from the people of Moab, and united to God and His people when she said—”Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.” This was a sure proof of the grace of adoption in her case, and this will be the best mark of it to the end of time. As others felt it—”For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquettings, and abominable idolatries;” as if they had said, “It is more than enough of our precious time spent in the house and family of Satan.”

(4) Paradise, or the garden of Eden, was a type of heaven. Adam was driven out of it when he sinned. This was done to convince him and his posterity that sin closed them out of heaven. So that man lost heaven by sin, and opened the gates of death, in its threefold aspect, to himself. This fact was very forcibly impressed on our first parents when the flaming sword of justice was placed at the gate to debar them from entering to the tree of life. None could enter heaven of the human race, were it not that the second Adam, who is the Lord from heaven, met this awakened sword, and opened a way by His own blood into heaven. He entered the holiest of all, and thereby obtained eternal redemption for all the people given Him by the Father. It is only through His blood that we have boldness to enter into the holiest of all, which is heaven. The vain dreams of men that they will go to heaven by their own merits, will certainly have an awful awakening at last.

(5) We have also lost our freedom, and have become slaves to Satan, the world, and the flesh. No slave was more bound than we are to our own lusts, as we are by nature. A slave differed from a hired servant, inasmuch as being sold, he received no wages. He could never earn one penny wherewith to regain his freedom, but continued a slave till the day of his death. This is a very true picture of our condition spiritually. Justice demands of us to pay that we owe; but we can pay nothing, although our

debt is set forth by the sum of ten hundred talents. A kinsman in Israel might repurchase his poor brother’s freedom, and put him again into possession of all he lost. No brother can restore to us what we have lost spiritually but Jesus Christ. If we will be restored to freedom it will be by Him. He has restored that which He had not taken away, and consequently it is written—”If the Son therefore make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

II.—Let us now consider the foundation upon which the blessings of the jubilee was based. The trumpet was to be sounded immediately the high priest came forth from the holiest of all on the great day of atonement.

This great day of atonement had to be observed once a year, by God’s authority, under the Old Testament dispensation from Moses till Christ died on Calvary’s cross. This covered about fifteen hundred years. In the eye of God there was but one great day of atonement. This was the day on which His own Son poured out His soul unto death to make an atonement for the sins of all the true Israel of God. This was done once, and never to be repeated. “He by one offering perfected for ever all them that are sanctified.” Christ by His one offering did magnify the law and make it honourable, and did also satisfy divine justice for all the elect. The merit of His obedience and death procured for His people all that they had lost. He made up, as their surety, the covenant of works, and also procured for them all the blessings of the covenant of grace. These great blessings are freely offered in the gospel to men who are lost themselves, and who lost all they had in the first Adam. The year of the jubilee was a very vivid type of the blessings offered to sinners in the gospel. The proclamation of the gospel is based on the atonement made by our Lord Jesus Christ. It offers freely to every one who hears it an immediate deliverance from sin and all its consequences, as well as an inheritance which is undefiled and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for every one who believes it.

We shall notice briefly a few of the striking resemblances between the jubilee and the gospel. (1) The trumpet of the jubilee was not blown till the high priest had offered the sin-offering on the great day of atonement. On that day once a year he went into the holiest of all, and sprinkled the blood seven times on the mercy-seat and before it, and interceded for the people that their sins should be forgiven. This was a real type of Christ’s atonement and intercession. He entered into heaven itself by His own blood having obtained eternal redemption for us. The blood of calves and of bulls could not take away sin; but “the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” The call of the gospel rests upon the satisfaction made to God’s justice by the blood of Christ. As it is written: “Save him from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom.” “I have found a ransom,” is the voice of justice on the day of the sinner’s justification by faith in Christ. (2) We further notice that, on the day of atonement, all

the people were to afflict their souls for their sins while the high priest was in the holiest of all, and the soul that did not do so was cut off from the congregation of Israel. This sets forth the urgent need of repentance in order to forgiveness; and that repentance has a direct connection with the blood and intercession of our Great High Priest. “Him hath God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins.” (3) The gospel preached on the day of Pentecost was the true spiritual antitype of the trumpet of the jubilee. Peter declared that day that the marvellous effects which followed the doctrines set forth were the direct operations of the Spirit of promise given by the Father to Christ as a reward for His sufferings. The Holy Ghost that day convinced three thousand men of their lost condition, wrought true evangelical repentance in their hearts, and saving faith in Christ. (4) Such as preach a gospel without the atonement as its foundation (which is no gospel) deceive themselves and their hearers, and will bring all who will trust in their false doctrines to certain and unremediable ruin. There is much pernicious talk in our day about love, mercy, and goodness in God which, these dreamers declare, to be inconsistent with any need for an atonement for sin on the part of God. But God is just as well as merciful, and justice required death as the wages of sin. “Without shedding of blood is no remission.” His justice required an atonement; His love, mercy, and goodness provided a Lamb for a burnt offering. (5) The trumpet of jubilee was blown first in Jerusalem, and then throughout all the land of Canaan. The gospel was preached first at Jerusalem, and from thence to the ends of the earth. All who lost their possession were the objects of the merciful enactment of the jubilee; those who lost all their possession by the fall are the objects of the free offer of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (6) The law of the jubilee was decreed and declared by God; the gospel is also good news from the Lord to a perishing and lost world. It has His authority, and is a declaration of the eternal purpose that, whosoever would hear and obey it, should have eternal life. It requires nothing of the recipients but an acquiescence in its terms as God’s remedy for poor, needy, and lost men. “The poor has the gospel preached unto them.”

III.—The nature of the relief conferred on the year of the jubilee. There would be in Israel only a few who lost their possession, and these only looked forward with expectation to the year of the jubilee. When the year came and the trumpet was blown, the larger number paid no attention to it. They had not lost their possession, and they would not as much as lift their heads when the sound of the trumpet was heard. So there are very many in gospel lands, who are not conscious of having lost their souls and their all in Adam, and consequently the preaching of the gospel is foolishness to them. This shows the need of the teaching of the

Spirit of truth, for He alone can convince men of their sinful and lost condition. The Word of God declares man’s lost condition by nature; but, if the Holy Ghost will not awaken, and enlighten men, our thoughts will be—”We are rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing;” while we are poor, and miserable, and wretched, and blind, and naked. But let us beware; for the slave who refused to go free when he heard the trumpet, and said, “I love my master, and his service, I will not go out free,” was brought to the door post of his master’s house, and had his ear bored with an awl. That man was bound, by the decree of God, to serve his master for ever. Should he live to the next jubilee, it could bring no relief to him. So gospel hearers are in great danger when they refuse the call of the gospel, and say in their hearts, “I love the service of sin and Satan, and will not leave them yet,” that God may decree that they shall be the slaves of sin and Satan for ever.

Others as soon as they heard the trumpet (and you may be sure that the trumpet gave no uncertain sound) immediately threw down the implements with which they laboured in their bondage, and began to bend their steps toward their lost possession. If you were standing at their old home, you would see the father coming from the north, the mother from the south, the son from the west, and the daughter from the east, to take possession of all they had lost. If their masters should ask, “Where are you going, or who authorised you to leave my service?” they could answer: “I have the authority of God’s word for leaving you and your service, to take possession again of all that I have lost.” What beaming faces, from real joy of heart, you would see as one after another came back to their former habitation! How loudly they would praise God for the trumpet of the jubilee! One would say to the other: “It was the most joyful sound that my ears ever heard.”

The joyful sound of the gospel, in the ears of a man who is convinced of his guilty and lost condition under the curse of the law of God, brings him a spiritual relief greater than the jubilee brought to Israelites. We are told that God brings them by His word and Spirit out of the lands from the east, and from the west, from the north, and from the south. There is joy in heaven as one after another of them turn to God by repentance, and there is joy also in the true Church on earth. Each one receives back all that was lost in Adam.

He receives forgiveness of sins through the blood of Christ. God justifies him by imputing to him the obedience and death of His own Son, and bestows faith on him to embrace Jesus Christ as his righteousness. His person is accepted as he stands in that righteousness before God, and He enters into a covenant with him to be a God unto him. God and the lost sinner are reconciled, and the peace made between them by the blood of Christ is everlasting in its nature. So, the poor sinner has the greatest part of his loss made up, and made sure for ever. All the other parts of his lost possession will assuredly be restored to him.

God puts His Spirit within him, and gives him a new heart and a new spirit. He is created anew in Christ Jesus. The image of God is restored on the soul, which, as we said before, consists in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. The knowledge that he now has of God (though it is yet very imperfect) is more than that which Adam had before he fell. He knows Him to be a sin-pardoning God, and that His love, pity, and mercy were so great that He gave His only begotten Son to die for His enemies. Christ, in that great and wonderful prayer, said:—”And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” He has to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ; but this part of the image of God is imprinted indelibly by the Holy Ghost on his soul. This knowledge cannot be lost again.

Righteousness is also imprinted on the soul. The man now is in full agreement with God’s law. Formerly he considered it too exacting. Now he says from the bottom of his heart: “The law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” He has changed his mind entirely about the law, and instead of finding fault with it, he smites his own breast because he cannot fulfil its holy claims. The will to fulfil both tables of the law, is always present with him. He delights in the law of God after the inward man. Is this not a fulfilment of the promise:—”I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God; and they shall be my people?” This makes the man truthful, honest, faithful, sober, and trustful towards his neighbour. It will make him contrite in spirit towards God, and all that belongs to Him in this world. He does not act so in order to merit eternal life by his obedience, he is entirely indebted to Christ’s obedience and death for that; but he does it because he has been already saved, and because the grace that is planted in his heart moves him powerfully thereto. Formerly, he walked according to the carnal inclination of his own depraved will; now he takes the word of God as his rule of faith and practice.

True holiness is a part of the image of God. Man lost it entirely in the Fall. His affections fell to the dunghills of this world, and instead of love to God there sprang up enmity: “They hated me without a cause.” In regeneration the affections are raised “to the things that are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.” It is this renewed heart that hates the thoughts of vanity, and that loves the law of God. The law becomes sweeter to it than honey, and more precious than gold. The law here means the word of God—both law and gospel. But corruption remains in the heart still; and therefore the cry is heard: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” None ever cried so in truth, but such as were changed inwardly by grace. Notwithstanding that both holiness and corruption strive for the mastery in the heart, we are told that that which is born of God sinneth not. Sometimes, the

corrupt nature gets the upper hand so much that no trace of grace can be discerned; but grace in the heart will overcome all opposition at last. David had a sad experience of this, and so had many of the children of God. Grace in the heart is like Gad: “Gad, a troop shall overcome him; but he shall overcome at the last.” Thus, the image of God, which man lost when he fell by sin, and which consisted in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, is restored in regeneration. It is not yet perfectly restored, but it will be so on the soul at death. Justification is an act, and is perfected in an instant of time; but sanctification is the work of God’s Spirit, and is progressive.

All those that are justified are also born of the Spirit, and as the righteousness of Christ is the foundation upon which justification rests, so the new creation made within by the Holy Ghost is the foundation of sanctification. The Spirit of truth dwells in this renewed part as the Spirit of adoption. He gives the renewed sinner the disposition of a son, whereby he claims God as his Father. This disposition of sons and daughters manifests itself in love to the Lord’s people, His cause, house, and name in this world. David, although he was the King of Israel, would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than dwell in the tents of iniquity. This adoption, by the Holy Ghost, brings the soul home to God’s house and family. As it is written:—”Ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.” They are “no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.” They are in God’s family as they are born of water and of the Spirit, and the Spirit dwells in their hearts as the Spirit of adoption. They are in the kingdom of grace in this world, and the kingdom of glory is their’s by the absolute promise of Christ: “I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”

Man receives his freedom from the slavery of sin, Satan, and the world that lies in the wicked one. He becomes free from the slavery of sin, as it is written: “For sin shall have no dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” Sin is still in him, and seeks to regain the old mastery over him; but grace reigns through righteousness in him unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord. He is now the free man of Christ, as it is written: “If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” He is free from the curse of the law; he is free from the dominion of sin; and he is free from being the slave of the god of this world, the spirit that rules in the children of disobedience. It was by the gospel that he obtained this freedom; not by any power or wisdom of his own.

The jubilee was God’s plan to restore to men their lost possession in this world. It was entirely for men who lost their all. So is the gospel. It is God’s mercy and goodness to sinful men, who have lost all they possessed spiritually by sin. The call of the gospel is like the blowing of the trumpet of the jubilee. Every one who hears it, has the authority of God to turn to Him by Jesus Christ in order to receive all and more than man lost by the Fall. All is free in the offer of it, and the promise is sure to every one who will come. Christ says: “All that the Father giveth me, shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”