July 30

"Therefore I love your commandments above gold; yes, above fine gold. Therefore I esteem all your precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way." Psalm 119:127, 128.

To the true believer there is glory, harmony, and excellence in spiritual truth. Every part to Him is precious—no portion undervalued. In whatever form it presents itself, whether doctrinal or preceptive—with whatever tone it speaks, whether it rebukes or comforts, admonishes or cheers, he welcomes it as God's own eternal truth, more precious to him than gold, yes, than much fine gold. In His eye it is a perfect system; dismember it of any one part, and you mar its beauty. It is a sovereign panacea; take out of it any single ingredient, and you impair its efficacy. He must have it with no doctrine dissevered, with no precept diluted, with no institution perverted. He can consent to no compromise; he has bought the truth, and the truth he cannot sell. Not only does he feel bound to watch it with a jealous and vigilant eye, because it is God's own truth, but he loves it for its perfect adaptation to his own case. It has disclosed to him his sinfulness, and has revealed to him a "fountain open for sin." It has led him in his ruin, helplessness, poverty, and condemnation, to the cross, and there introduced him to a Savior all-sufficient and willing to repair that ruin, assist that helplessness, enrich that poverty, and remove that condemnation. Is it any marvel that to such an individual God's revealed truth should be precious? that he should guard it vigilantly, and love it ardently?

This leads us to revert to the close and important yet much forgotten connection which exists between a clear, spiritual perception of God's truth, and a holy, humble, and close walk with God. The two can never be separated. A distant and careless walk not only veils the mind to the glory of the truth, but hardens the heart to the power of the truth. The world in the heart, guilt upon the conscience, and unmortified sin in the life, have a fearful and certain tendency to petrify the moral sensibilities, and render powerless the sword of the Spirit. Let not such a professor of Christ wonder that appeals the most thrilling, truths the most solemn, and motives the most persuasive, all, all are disarmed of their force in his case. Let him not be amazed that, with an enlightened judgment, and a scriptural creed, and a spotless orthodoxy, he knows nothing of the holy spiritual actings of the life of God in the soul; and that he does but hang a lifeless, sapless, withered branch upon the vine, ready to be removed at the husbandman's bidding.

Let him not be astonished that there is no close and fervid fellowship with the Father and His dear Son Christ Jesus—that his prayers are cold and formal, the habitual frame of his mind earthly and sensual—and that all taste and desire for the "communion of saints," and for a spiritual searching ministry, should have become extinct in his soul—this is no marvel. The greater wonder would be if it were otherwise; that if, while living in a state of distance from God—the ordinances neglected, and sin unmortified—the Father and the Son should yet draw near and manifest themselves, and so make known that secret which peculiarly belongs to those that fear Him. But oh, to have Christ in the heart!—this, this is the truth of God experienced. Call you it enthusiasm? Blessed enthusiasm!—we exult in it, we glory in it. Let the formalist, let the man of notional religion, let the mere professor, call it what he may, deride it as he will; we admire the grace, and adore the love, and extol the power, which has formed "Christ within us the hope of glory." Reader, be satisfied with nothing short of this.