SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES
We are certain it is one of the oracles of God. They testify of Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. They only can make us wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus (II. Tim. iii. 15). We can never know them too well, because they contain the wisdom of God—a depth unfathomable. In the discharge of this precept remember the word of our Lord, how He said, “Let him who readeth understand.” Understand clearly, so as to distinguish between things that differ, and to reconcile seeming contradictions; understand experimentally, without which the most distinct knowledge will avail us nothing; understand practically, lest we be found forgetful hearers, and not doers of the Word.—Gospel Magazine for Jan. 1774.
THE INDWELLING OF GOD BY LOVE.
The first epistle of John dwells chiefly on love, viewed in its comprehensive character as love to God and man. Here we must not separate what God hath joined together. Our Lord was delighted with the answer of the scribe who had recognised love to be the sum and substance of the law; and Jesus has taught us that the second Commandment—though necessarily second, as it rests on, and is born of the first—is yet equal to the first. The beloved disciple emphasises love to our brethren. He presents it as the evidence of regeneration, of our having passed from death unto life; and not merely as the evidence and symptom of our condition, but as the condition itself. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light. God is light, because God is love. If we walk in love, we walk in God and in light.—An Saphir.
THE SPIRIT OF ADOPTION.
O thou child of God! come and share of the children’s bread. Hast thou win to lisp after the language of Jesus, and to call God your Father? Is that language become somewhat familiar to you, Father, Father? At least you are helped to it sometimes; and as no man can call Jesus Lord, but by the Holy Ghost; so no man can call God, Father, but by the Spirit of adoption, under the influence whereof, when you speak to God and say Father, Father, it is not in a rash and precipitant manner as thousands will say, “Our Father which art in Heaven,” and know not what they say but take His Name in vain. But you, believer, when you call God, Father, it is with reverence you speak it; it is with some holy filial fear you speak it out; it is with some holy boldness upon the ground of the blood of Christ alone: and it is with humble blushing, as unworthy to be put among the children; you can scarce speak such language but in the manner the returning prodigal did, saying, “Father, I have sinned.” Well, hast thou win to call Christ’s Father, thine, or would you fain be at it? Is this the privilege you value above all things, and esteem above all enjoyments in the world, to have the Father with you; even to have the gracious presence of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and fellowship with the Father and the Son? Christ then is saying to you, however black and vile in your own eyes, “Rise up, My love, My fair one, and come away.”—Ralph Erskine.