It has been much the fashion, of late, to extol and set forth the peculiar advantages of our day and generation. It has been advanced, that the spirit of inquiry is generally diffused, that objects of utility engross attention, that the industrial classes are advancing in the scale of social improvement, and, in fact, that the world is decidedly and steadily marching onward to a pitch of civilization never yet attained in the former ages of its history.
There are those who seek to counteract this movement, and set up old-fashioned prejudices as a sort of breakwater against them. Men of one idea, which, if threatened with destruction, have no other to replace it with. There are, again others who are seeking to combine the old and new together. Men of a past age, who were fast when the world was slow, now find themselves out of breath in the efforts to keep pace with the present. And again, there are others who are going with the stream, and think they are progressing, because they are going fast, and that they are making good speed, because they are rushing onwards.
That we live in exciting times no one can for a moment doubt; that we live in eventful times will be readily granted, and that there is a fast spirit abroad, and a hurry and excitement in everything is apparent; but we need the word of caution not to allow the times, nor the events either, to be so uppermost in our thoughts as to displace the due consideration of our own conduct in them. A man in a house which was on fire, would be well occupied in seeking his own safety and getting out of it. A man on a plain, threatened with inundation, would do well to make for rising ground. To be occupied with the progress of the flames or the rapid increase of the waters, to the neglect of his own safety, would be surely suicidal. However circumstances may change and the pursuits of any age be more or less stirring, yet man as man in his nature, remains the same. Antecedent to the Deluge the wickedness of man was great in the earth; so great as to call for Divine interference in judgment. The building of the Tower of Babel was another manifestation of what man would dare to do, and other events in sacred as well as profane history, bear witness to the unchangeable energy of man in evil. Circumstances might moderate or excite; but the nature was there to be acted upon and was affected by them.
In the history of this country, different- epochs gave rise to different phases in the development of character, national and individual. When long journeys were performed on horseback, over dangerous and ill-conditioned roads, and internal communications were but little enjoyed; when traveling from London to Chester occupied a week, and the man who courageously ventured upon it, did well to set his house in order before undertaking it, such times, contrasted with our present accelerated means of intercourse, so that the opposite extremes of the United Kingdom can be approached in few hours, and a network of railways embraces the whole country, and the magnetic wire conveys instantaneous intelligence, we need not wonder if such different associations give rise to development of character in man, or rather the manifestation of it, somewhat novel in its aspect though one in its nature; nor are these modern innovations in locomotion to be regarded as having arisen from attention to that science alone: far from it. They owe their development to the increase of knowledge in every department of science, elementary and practical. The application to purposes of utility is the phase of our day, and we do but cursorily allude to it, as being part of a grand chain of circumstances upon which man's mind has been first brought to bear, in order to their manifestation, and which, being manifested, bear back again upon man's mind, and bring out what is in him, giving birth to ideas with galvanic rapidity, which again are as speedily called forth into action.
Everywhere the world is in motion. That command from God to Adam and his race " to replenish the earth and subdue it," seems as if at this epoch only to be comprehended. We live in a busy and active era, not evil because it is active and busy, but because of the end of its activities, the exaltation of man, the " Go to now" spirit of the associated masses at Babel, and the daring impiety which is a growing characteristic. Sober men of the world are not indifferent or unmoved spectators of what is passing around them. Dismal forebodings occupy many minds; others indulge cheering anticipations. " We shall see what all this will come to by and bye," is the ominous language of some; "We shall see what man is capable of," the exulting conclusion of others.
Now the child of God, in the midst of it all, is encompassed by snares on every hand. The Bible is his book emphatically, yet has become of common appeal to others, who have not the token of brotherhood or family marks. Modern Christianity has taken its form from modern characteristics. The age has features of its own, and would fashion a religion of its own. Revelation leaves no field for invention; its authenticity invulnerable, the ingenuity of man is occupied in its perversion. God deals in His Word with men as they are. Man would begin with men as they ought to be. Hypocrisy was the first-born of sin. Man's fallen nature, ignorant of God's remedy, seeks refuge in disguise. The Grace of God apprehended, brings the sinner into His presence about the very sins thus discovered. Where everything is to be gained by confession, concealment is wanton folly. In communion, where the basis of all intercourse is founded on the fact of necessity and the acknowledged need of everything, the best recommendation to obtain grace to meet it, it follows, as an obvious truism, that our greatest wisdom is to seek whatever would encourage confidence in the God of all Grace, and whatever would convince of the absolute necessity of dependence upon this Grace.
Confidence in God, known as the God of all Grace, " who spared not. His only Son," to forgive all our sins, and confidence in God as the God of all Grace, to sustain and help us to struggle against sin.
Sin is itself absolutely evil; but that evil is known only by the judgment of it upon Christ's person. God's Holy abhorrence of it brought fully before us in the fact, that when Christ was, through grace, numbered amongst the transgressors, he could not escape until he had paid the utmost farthing. Though the fact of his having paid it, proved by His resurrection, is the assurance to the believer that he will never be called in question about it.
" I am the Resurrection and the Life;" " This is life eternal to know God and Jesus Christ, whom he has sent."
Now it is just because the Believer has' this Divine life, is a partaker of the Divine nature, has his life hid with Christ in God, that he is called upon to put off concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt, according to the deceitful lusts, and that ye put on the new man, which, after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness. As He that hath called you is Holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation and Godliness.
There is present happiness in practical holiness; " Wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness." There is positive misery in a sinful course; "There is a way which seemeth right in a man's eyes, but the end thereof is bitter as death."
To help to the one, if God permit, and warn off the other, is the object of the Writer in considering the various temptations to which we are by nature exposed; and the very positive provocation of our nature in the novel and exciting circumstances of our day and generation. And as we have before remarked, the truest wisdom is to seek whatever would encourage confidence in the God of all Grace, and whatever would convince of the absolute necessity of dependence upon that Grace.
The power of Jehovah was made known to Israel in their redemption out of Egypt. Their necessities in the Wilderness gave occasion for the display of his resources, to supply them. In relationship with the Holy Lord God, and with the revelation of His will, as to the conduct which became His people, they learned themselves in the light of it.
What they should do was laid down for them; what they did is on record. " These things are written for our learning" (1 Cor. 10:11).
They were not redeemed because they knew God, but that they might know Him. We are not redeemed because we are what we ought to be, but to become so. As with them, so with us. We have the standard of conduct. "He left us an example, that we should follow in His steps." In "the Light of His Life," we learn the darkness of our own. Beholding what is spiritual, we detect what is carnal; but it is because we are redeemed.
Nothing answers for us before God but what Christ is; "as He is so are we in this world." "Our life is hid with 'Christ in God." We have (because we believe in Him) passed from Death unto Life. We have waded through the Red Sea, and are out of Egypt in the Wilderness, to learn, as Israel of old, what resources we have in Christ, and what need we have of Him. " That which is flesh, is flesh," and remains so. Saints were sinners; as sinners, were led by the Spirit of God to rely on the work of the Lord Jesus for them, and became saints. Their seed remaineth in them. God planted it. It is eternal life to know Him and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. Yet because saints, they enter into conflict. "Then came Amalek and fought against Israel in Rephidim."
Moses, for the people, found out his weakness. " As long as his hands were held up, Israel prevailed." Aaron and Hur sustained them, even as the Intercession of the High Priest and His kingly power, support his feeble saints.
Doctrinally, we apprehend it; in conflict we forget it. Our hearts grow much discouraged because of the way. Things that happen to us in the way divert us from it. Circumstances arise to make manifest what is in ourselves, and when we see it at home, we are taken by surprise. We could condemn the act in another, judge the sin in the action, and so far it is right; but to judge ourselves as having the seed of that sin in us, and to use the occasion of its manifestation in another, for the bewailing our own liability to it, is a moral safeguard against falling into it, and puts the soul right before the God of all Grace in pleading with Him, on behalf of any who have gone astray. " Ye have not rather mourned," was the apostolic rebuke to the Church at Corinth. " Rivers of waters ran down mine eyes because they kept not Thy law," (is the language of David).
The science of Chemistry resolves itself into very few, simple, and primary elements. However compounded or mixed, yet the analysis separates it into comparatively few divisions. And much the same may be advanced of "Temptations." However diversified in their aspect, or different in development, affected by climate, or colored by circumstances, yet they too are resolved into primary elements; and the triple classification of Scripture, "the world, the flesh, and the devil, embraces them all."