Slike strani
PDF
ePub

advantage dear. The price which the rich man pays for his wealth is the temptation to be selfish. They have paid in spirituals for what they have gained in temporals. Now, if you are crying for a share in that wealth, and a participation in that power, you must be content to run the risk of becoming as hard, and selfish, and overbearing, as the man whom you denounce. Blame their sins, if you will, or despise their advan tages; but do not think that you can covet their advantages and keep clear of their temptations. God is on the side of the poor, and the persecuted, and the mourners, a light in darkness, and a life in death, But the poverty, and the persecution, and the dark. ness, are the condition on which they feel God's presence. They must not expect to have the enjoyment of wealth and the spiritual blessings annexed to pov erty at the same time. If you will be rich, you must be content to pay the price of falling into temptation, and a snare, and many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in perdition; and if that price be too high to pay, then you must be content with the quiet valleys of existence, where alone it is well with us; kept out of the inheritance, but having instead God for your portion, your all-sufficient and everlasting po tion-peace, and quietness, and rest with Christ.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

II.

[Preached January 6, 1850.]

THE STAR IN THE EAST.

MATT. ii. 1, 2. "Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him."

OUR subject is the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. The King of the Jews has become the Sovereign of the world; a fact, one would think, which must cause a secret complacency in the heart of all Jews. For that which is most deeply working in modern life and thought is the Mind of Christ. His name has passed over our institutions, and much more has His Spirit penetrated into our social and domestic existence. In other words, a Hebrew mind is now, and has been for centuries, ruling Europe.

But the Gospel which He proclaimed was not lim ited to the Hebrews; it was a Gospel for the nations. By the death of Christ, God had struck his death. blow at the root of the hereditary principle. "We be the seed of Abraham," was the proud pretension of the Israelite; and he was told that spiritual dignity rests not upon spiritual descent, but upon spiritual

character. New tribes were adopted into the Christian union; and it became clear that there was no distinction of race in the spiritual family. The Jew ish rite of circumcision, a symbol of exclusiveness, cutting off one nation from all others, was exchanged for Baptism, the symbol of universality, proclaiming the nearness of all to God, His Paternity over the human race, and the Sonship of all who chose to claim their privileges.

This was a Gospel for the world; and nation after nation accepted it. Churches were formed; the Kingdom which is the domain of Love grew; the Roman empire crumbled into fragments; but every fragment was found pregnant with life. It broke not as some ancient temple might break, its broken pieces lying in lifeless ruin, overgrown with weeds rather as one of those mysterious animals break, of which if you rend them asunder, every separate portion forms itself into a new and complete existence. Rome gave way; but every portion became a Christian kingdom, alive with the mind of Christ, and developing the Christian idea after its own peculiar nature.

The portion of Scripture selected for the text and for the Gospel of the day has an important bearing on this great Epiphany. The "wise men" belonged to a creed of very hoary and venerable antiquity; a system, too, which had in it the elements of strong vitality. For seven centuries after, the Mahometan sword scarcely availed to extirpate it, indeed, could not. They whom the Mahometans called fire-worshippers clung to their creed with vigor and tenacity indestructible, in spite of all his efforts.

Here, then, in this act of homage to the Messiah,

were the representatives of the highest then existing influences of the world, doing homage to the Lord of a mightier influence, and reverently bending before the dawn of the Star of a new and brighter Day. It was the first distinct turning of the Gentile mind to Christ the first instinctive craving after a something higher than Gentilism could ever satisfy.

In this light our thoughts arrange themselves thus: I. The expectation of the Gentiles.

II. The Manifestation or Epiphany.

I. The expectation: "Where is He that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen His star in the east, and are come to worship Him."

Observe, 1. The craving for Eternal Life. The "wise men" were "Magians," that is, Persian priests. The name, however, was extended to all the eastern philosophers who professed that religion, or even that philosophy. The Magians were chiefly distinguished by being worshippers of the stars, or students of astronomy.

Now, astronomy is a science which arises from man's need of religion: other sciences spring out of wants bounded by this life. For instance, anatomy presupposes disease. There would be no prying into our animal frame, no anatomy, were there not a malady to stimulate the inquiry. Navigation arises from the necessity of traversing the seas to appropriate the produce of other countries. Charts, and maps, and soundings, are made, because of a felt earthly want. But in astronomy the first impulse of mankind came not from the craving of the intellect, but from the necessities of the soul.

If you search down into the constitution of your being till you come to the lowest deep of all, underlying all other wants you will find a craving for what is infinite; a something that desires perfection; a wish that nothing but the thought of that which is eternal can satisfy. To the untutored mind nowhere was that want so called into consciousness, perhaps, as beneath the mighty skies of the East. Serene and beautiful are the nights in Persia, and many a wise man in earlier days, full of deep thoughts, went out into the fields, like Isaac, to meditate at eventide. God has so made us that the very act of looking up produces in us perceptions of the sublime. And then those skies in their calm depths mirroring that which is boundless in space and illimitable in time, with a silence profound as death and a motion gliding on forever, as if symbolizing eternity of life, no wonder if men associated with them their highest thoughts, and conceived them to be the home of Deity. No wonder if an Eternal Destiny seemed to sit enthroned there. No wonder if they seemed to have in their mystic motion an invisi ble sympathy with human life and its mysterious destinies. No wonder if he who best could read their laws was reckoned best able to interpret the duties of this life, and all that connects man with that which is invisi ble. No wonder if in those devout days of young thought, science was only another name for religion, and the Priest of the great temple of the universe was also the Priest in the temple made with hands. Astronomy was the religion of the world's youth.

The Magians were led by the star to Christ; their astronomy was the very pathway to their Saviour. Upon this I make one or two remarks.

« PrejšnjaNaprej »