O Reader! had you in your mind We arrived at the little inn, and were content to put up with poor lodgings, that we might be the better able to explore Scafell* and the noble scenery about us. We retired to rest early after a day of happiness, and were to rise the next morning to enjoy a Sabbath among the mountains. ness. But we were not to rest that night. We had hardly shut our eyes, when a party in a lower room, who had been dining together, began to shout, sing, rattle their glasses, or probably mugs, thump the table, and so on. As the night slowly wore away, the din became louder and louder, the sounds more senseless, and the tones of quarrelling and abuse more frequent, till it was plain enough that the revel had ended in drunkenThis was a sad shock to the peaceful and happy feelings which we had brought with us the evening before :-and this was the Sabbath morning; the morning of God's day of holy rest!—and the scene of its profanation was that beautiful country which we had travelled so far to visit; a scene that seemed fit in no common degree to lead men to meditate in thankfulness upon the goodness and power of their great Creatora land for harmony, and not for strife! When the morning came, we arose unrefreshed, and obtained leave to occupy a room in an untenanted house hard by, where we spent the remainder of the day. But our happier feelings were restored, when we entered the rustic chapel, and found that a considerable congregation had assembled from the scattered houses and hamlets about. I remember being particularly pleased with the serious and devout looks of two young men, who were plainly of a higher situation in life than the rest of the flock. Their countenances were manly and open, and their seriousness was evidently natural; not put on for the occasion, but proceeding from a deep feeling of reverence for the day and the place. I observed too, that after the service they both went from the chapel to the school, there to instruct the children of their neighbours in the will of God, as revealed to us by his blessed Son. What a difference between these young men-if they were what I believe them to have been-and the noisy and profane * A mountain in the neighbourhood. drunkards of the night before! We shall know in the next world how disgusting vice is, as well as how sinful and ruinous, we shall know how hateful it is to all who have been restored after the image of God, as well as to all those happy beings who have never lost it. We shall know too, how lovely virtue is! how unalterably right it is, how it raises and betters the heart and nature of him who practises it, and fits him for enjoyments of the purest and highest kinds. They who have any thing of goodness in themselves, must love goodness in others; and to love goodness in others, we must have something, some little at least, of goodness in ourselves. Without holiness no man shall see the Lord; indeed we could not see God, if it were possible for us to be received into heaven unholy: we could not know Him; we could not love Him and honour Him. But they who shall enter there with purified hearts, having lived and died in faith, they shall see Christ, their blessed Lord, as he is, and being made like Him, shall find their joy for ever and ever in the happy consciousness of their perfect security and bliss. "They shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads."* GOOD WORKS NECESSARY, BUT NOT MERITORIOUS. Hosea, Chap. x, v. 12-Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy. The meaning of the words is this: Do and practise the works of righteousness, of piety to God, and of justice and charity towards man, and you shall certainly receive an abundant reward, suitable to the infinite mercy and goodness of God that bestows it. On this text I shall make two observations. Observ. 1.-We must not expect to reap in mercy, unless we sow in righteousness: that is, we must not hope for the gracious reward which God has promised, without the practice of those works of righteousness which God has commanded. It would be as absurd for a man to expect that God's mercy should save him without works of righteousness, as for the husbandman to look for a harvest without ever ploughing and sowing his ground. The same thing St. Paul teaches us under the same notion of sowing and reaping. Be not deceived, God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh * Rev. xxii, 4. reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.* Which great truth the Scripture delivers in proper terms, when it tells us (as it often does) that God will render to or reward every man according to his works.-Without holiness no man shall see the Lord,† says the divine author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Without a holy life here, no man ought to expect or hope for a happy fe hereafter. Observ. 2. When we have sown in righteousness, that is done righteous works, we must not plead any merit of our own in having so done, but must look for the reward of our righteousness only from the free grace and mercy of God. Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy. The reward of the righteous man is every where in Scripture pronounced to be a reward of grace and mercy. God showeth mercy unto thousands of them that love him and keep his commandments; and the words of David are perfectly correct, though they seem strange; Unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy, for thou renderest unto every man according to his work. That God rendereth to every man, that is, every righteous man, according to his work, is an act of his mercy. Nehemiah reckons up many great and noble works that he had done for the honour and service of God; but that you may see he boasted not in all this, that he had no conceit of any merit in himself, mark how humbly, towards the end of the chapter, he supplicates for mercy; to be mercifully, not rewarded but spared, that is, not punished. Remember me, O my God, concerning this also, and spare me according to the greatness of thy mercy.§ He counts it greatness of mercy to be spared by God, after all his great good works. In like manner St. Paul, after he had mentioned the frequent acts of charity that Onesiphorus had exercised towards him, prays that God would reward him in this style. The Lord grant unto him, that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day.|| There are two reasons suggested in the text itself, that utterly destroy all conceit of the merit of our righteousness. 1. By our righteousness we give nothing to God; he reaps no advantage from it to himself. If we sow in righteousness we sow to ourselves, and the harvest of this righteousness we ourselves reap. Sow to yourselves; reap ye. My goodness saith the Psalmist, extends not to thee, but to the saints that * Gal. vi. 7, 8. † Heb. xii. 14. Ps. lxii. 12. § Ch. xiii. 22. || 2 Tim. i. 13. are in the earth.* As if he had said, I may and will do good to thy saints, but I can do no good to thee, for I receive all the good I have, or do, from thee. Indeed if we are wicked, we hurt not God but ourselves; and if we are righteous, the benefit is to ourselves, and not to Him. Whatsoever we crawling worms do here on earth, God sits still upon the circle of the heavens, the same perfect, unchangeable, and blessed and happy God for ever and ever. Only he is pleased out of his infinite condescension, to look down from heaven upon those little things which we do here out of a hearty desire to glorify Him; and in his abundant mercy, he will plentifully reward them. We may challenge all who lay such stress upon merit, to answer St. Paul's question; Who hath first given to Him and it shall be recompensed to him again? 2. The other reason against all merit of our good works, suggested by the text, in this: there is no just proportion between our works of righteousness and the reward of them. Our good works are but a few seeds; but the reward is a harvest. He that sows in righteousness, shall reap and receive his reward, not according to the small proportion of the seeds of righteousness that he hath sown, but according to the measure of the divine Mercy and Goodness, which useth superabundantly to remunerate man's slender performances. As in a good and plentiful year, the harvest or crop that is reaped, vastly exceeds the seed sown, every grain yielding many more; so and much more it is here. What poor slender seeds of righteousness do we sow! But O, the vast crop and harvest of glory that shall, through the mercy of God, spring and rise out of those seeds! It shall be so great, that when we come to reap it, we ourselves shall stand amazed at it. He, therefore, who hath sown the seeds of righteousness most plentifully, must look for his harvest of glory only from the mercy of God. He that is richest in good works, must sue for heaven in the quality of a poor worthless creature, that needs infinite mercy to bring him thither: mercy to pardon his sins done before his good works, mercy to forgive the sins and defects in his works; mercy to advance his works, (which, though supposed never so perfect, are yet finite and temporary) to the possibility of an infinite and endless reward. He must confess with St. Paul, that eternal life is the gift of God through Jesus Christ; that it is the rich pur * Ps. xvi. 2. chase of Christ's most precious blood, by which alone a covenant of eternal life was established upon the gracious condition of faith working by love; that it was the grace of the Divine Spirit, promised in the same covenant, that prevented* him, and co-operated† with him, and continually assisted and followed him in all his good works: and consequently, that though his crown of glory be a crown of righteousness, that is of God's righteousness, whereby he is obliged to make good his own covenant; yet that it is a crown of mercy too, because that covenant itself was a covenant of infinite grace and mercy. BISHOP BULL. LEONARD AND GERTRUDE.-PART 2. To understand the following extract, you must know that Arner had engaged Leonard to rebuild the wall of the Churchyard at Bonnal. Hummel the Bailiff, who felt sure that Gertrude had told Arner all about his goings on, was filled with fear for himself, and rage against Leonard and his wife, whom he resolved to ruin. He laid many snares for them; one of which was to bribe Leonard's man to advise his master to build the wall of Schwendi stone, which would look well for a time, but was too soft to last. The following cottage scene begins with Leonard's return from the castle. DOMESTIC HAPPINESS. LEONARD, who had gone up to the castle early in the morning, was now come back again. Gertrude had been very busy getting her Saturday's work done, against her husband's return. She had combed the children's heads, made them tidy, mended their clothes, cleaned up the little room, and, whilst she was at work, had taught the children a song. You must sing it for your dear father," said she; and the children were glad to learn any thing to please their father, when he came home. Whilst they were working, and without any trouble or loss of time, they sang it after her till they knew it. When their father came home, she and the children sang : Jesus came to bring us peace, * Went before. † Worked with him. |