Selected from: The Free Church Pulpit, Vol. 1 (New York: Robert Carter, 1848), 433–446. Preached before the Free Synod of Angus and Mearns on October 22, 1844, and published at the request of the Synod.
For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted.”
—Isaiah 60:12
Familiar though the Jews must have been with the prophetic intimations of the wide extension and universal prevalence of the church of God, we cannot wonder that they should have regarded the fulfillment of these announcements as improbable, and have occasionally listened to them with a feeling approaching to incredulity. If even now, after all that has taken place in the preservation and increase of the church, we sometimes feel it difficult to believe that all opposition to the cause of truth shall yet be crushed, and that all nations will yield a hearty and harmonious homage to the Saviour, it would surely have betokened no ordinary strength of faith, and no ordinary enlargement of mind in a Jew, to have contemplated, with steadfast hope, the realization of such prospects as were opened up to him in the present chapter. Shut up as the church of God had hitherto been within the narrow confines of Judea, and shackled as its worship was by national peculiarities, its extension to all lands must have been an idea which nothing less than a divine assurance could have enabled him to entertain. So little also must this have seemed accordant with the state, both political and religious, to which the nation had been now reduced, that they could not fail to be astonished at the glowing descriptions of Isaiah; and when they listened to such predictions as these, “the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister unto thee:…thy gates shall be open continually…that men may bring unto thee the wealth of the Gentiles, and that their kings may be brought,” (v. 10-11)—predictions that foreshowed an exaltation which their nation had not reached, even under the reigns of David and Solomon, we cannot wonder that there should have been awakened in their minds the anxious inquiry, “How can these things be?” As if anticipating this reception to his announcement, Isaiah meets the question by setting forth in our text the appropriate answer, “For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted.”
This assertion of divine judgments, as the means by which the church’s triumph should be achieved, was not made to the exclusion of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, as another, and indeed, as the chief agency in bringing about this consummation. Not only do the Old Testament scriptures abound with promises of the effusion of the Holy Ghost, but even in the chapter before us, his work, if not specifically mentioned, is evidently implied, as the fountain of those means by which the coming glories of the church shall be realized. For in the opening verses, it is declared that the reflection from the church of that “glory of the LORD,” with which we know that it is the work of the Holy Spirit to irradiate her, will penetrate the “darkness that covers the earth,” and attract the Gentiles toward her. But the Old Testament dispensation was not distinguished as the dispensation of the Spirit. The promises of his plentiful effusion, like the other promises of the church’s glory, were to be fulfilled under the New Testament economy. The Jews had, during the past history of their church, been familiar with God’s interposition on their behalf by judgment, rather than by grace; and therefore, when the prophet’s object is to confirm in their minds the hope of enlargement, he selects, of the two agencies by which this is to be effected, that one on which, from past experience, they would be likely the more easily to depend. Had he specified the other, their doubts would have been but little removed, for the employment of the means would have seemed to them as improbable as the end. We, on the other hand, who live under the dispensation of the Spirit, and know what changes he has already wrought, are more accustomed to refer the inbringing of millennial glory to his agency on the hearts of men, than to divine judgments on ungodly nations. And yet, whilst there is no doubt that the former is the more pleasing object of contemplation, there is just on this account a danger of indulging in it too exclusively, and thus of shutting ourselves out from the instruction and warning which God designed that we should receive from his so fully unfolding the prospect of the other. It is only when we regard the promises of his Spirit, in combination with the denunciations of his wrath, and thus give earnest heed to both departments of that word of prophecy, which God gave to be to his church as “a light shining in a dark place” (2 Pet. 1:19), that we can expect to have an accurate view either of the church’s future destiny, or of her present duty.
The text presents to our notice two topics, first, The Duty of nations; and secondly, The Punishment by which the neglect of this duty will be avenged. The consideration of these may be subservient to the appreciation of our position and responsibilities as a church of Christ.
I. Let us, first, consider what is here pointed out to be the duty of nations.
The duty of nations is to serve the church. This is not simply, as some are guilty of carelessly interpreting this verse, to serve Christ. It is undoubtedly true that nations are bound to serve Christ, that this duty is frequently inculcated in Holy Scriptures, and that to serve Christ may, on account of the close union between him and his church, be substantially the same thing as to serve the church. But you will observe that it is the church which is addressed throughout this chapter, and to which, consequently, in this verse also, the prophet’s discourse is directed. And it is under the form, at least, of serving her, that the duty of nations is represented—“the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee.” The standing which nations are appointed to occupy in relation to the church is herein indicated. And one mode at least, in which they must discharge themselves of their duty to Christ, is specified to be, serving his church.
But what is the precise duty which is here devolved upon nations? What is it for them to serve the church? In answer to this, I remark,
1st. That the expression does not imply the supremacy of the church over the state. It is very plain that it cannot denote the subjection of nations to the church in things temporal. No control or power in these things is assigned to the church. Scripture represents her authority as exercised only in spiritual matters. And for a testimony to her of her Master’s will on this point, our Saviour put from him the request that he would arbitrate in a civil question, by the remark, “Who made me a judge and a divider over you?” (Luke 12:14). It is equally plain that the text does not ascribe to the church a dominion over the state in things spiritual. She is forbidden to dictate to the consciences of men. “Not for that,” says the Apostle in 2 Corinthians 1:24, “we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy.” She has no power to control either the faith or the conduct of men in spiritual things. She and they are equally placed under the authority of God’s Word, and both are directly addressed by it. Nations are bound to listen to its voice, and are freed from all obstructions, either in hearing or obeying its messages. When walking most closely by the Word, they are the most certain to serve the church. The church, again, that is most truly the church of Christ, and knows the best her own privileges, will be the most careful in acknowledging the liberty of the nations.
2nd. If the expression does not ascribe to the church any control over the state, it still more clearly forbids the idea that the state may exercise control over the church. This indeed, if it were at all permitted, would be to reverse the statement of the text, and to make out the line of duty to be, not that nations should serve the church, but that the church should serve the nations of the earth. Whatever subjection the church, both collectively and in her individual members, may give the state in civil things, she is not only free from this subjection in spiritual matters, that is, in all those things in which she is a church—in all those matters in which her being as a church consists—but is warranted to expect and to claim the service of the state. Not only will the fulfillment of the prediction in the text “make an end of the Erastian controversy,”1George Gillespie, Aaron’s Rod Blossoming the mere announcement should have prevented its rise.
3rd. In order to the discharge of the duty here specified, it is evidently implied that nations must ascertain which is the church of Christ—must know her as distinguished from all other societies and all false churches. It is scarcely necessary to remark what has indeed been already taken for granted, and what is plainly implied throughout the whole chapter, that nations are here spoken of as nations acting in their collective capacity, and discharging this duty in the same way in which they perform any other national act. If the church is here spoken of as a society, it is plain that nations are also spoken of as societies, and not with reference merely to the separate individuals of whom they are composed. If God knows how to destroy nations without destroying the individuals of whom they consist, it is plain that he has provided a way in which, not the separate individuals merely, but the collective body may both ascertain and obey his will. Accordingly, it is not enough that they serve what they understand or declare to be the church of Christ. They may have adopted it and declared it to be the church, not because its principles are most closely in unison with the will of Christ, or because it will best abide the test of the Word of God, but because its character is most in accordance with their own will, and its principles seem most consistent with their own safety. If they proceed upon this principle, they cannot fail to mistake, or it may be, deliberately to reject the church of God; for it is just because its principles are repugnant to the world and are not in accordance with carnal wisdom or human policy, that it is marked out as the church that is preeminently and exclusively entitled to the service of the nations. Unless they surrender themselves to the guidance of the Scriptures, and judge of the church by the pattern exhibited there, they may be most sedulous and reverential in doing homage to what they look on as the church, but all the while, they may be merely doing homage to a human institution, a state-created society, and not serving nor acknowledging that which God has stamped with the characteristics of his church, and those who, in God’s eyes, are truly and exclusively his people.
4th. Having ascertained which is the true church of Christ, in what way are nations to follow up this by serving her? The chapter before us, descriptive as it is of the church’s most prosperous state, informs us by what acts and services this duty is to be discharged.
(1) They are to acknowledge and recognize her as the church of Christ; they are to forbear persecution and reproach; they are no longer to decry her as a mere human society, or to claim her as a creature of the state, but to admit her character and standing as the bride of the Lord. “The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee; and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet; and they shall call thee, The city of the LORD, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel” (v. 14).
(2) Next, it is more especially pointed out, and more frequently insisted on that the service of nations is to consist in ministering to her of their wealth, and furnishing or endowing her with pecuniary means for the work and service of the Lord. For what else can be meant by such expressions as these: “The abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, and the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee.…all they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense;…All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together unto thee; the rams of Nebaioth shall minister unto thee:…Thou shalt also suck the milk of the Gentiles, and shalt suck the breast of kings:…For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver” (Isa. 60:5-7, 16-17).
(3) Still further, it follows from all this that nations are bound to serve the church by affording her every facility for the work of Christ, and by carefully avoiding to place any obstruction in the way, either of her promoting her own purity, or extending the knowledge of the gospel. This indeed is not so distinctly stated as the particulars already mentioned, unless we consider it to be implied in the promise, “I will make thine officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness” (v. 17)—probably because the prophecy refers to the time when the work of extending the gospel church shall be completed, when there will be no need of this special part of service, as well as no fear of its being lacking if it be required. But at present, while there is scope for its being rendered, it is most important to be remarked that those who really honour the church of Christ, and intelligently and willingly contribute of their substance to her service, are sure heartily to lend all their assistance in furtherance of the work to which she is ordained; and that nations really intent on serving her will be in a state of such entire subjection to the Word of God, and so animated by his Spirit that all their laws and all their power will be consecrated to the cause of Christ, so as not to traverse but to harmonise with and help forward every scriptural effort and aim of the church.
Such is the service which it is the duty of nations to render to the church. And it cannot escape observation how very different a view is thus given us of the position of the church from that which prevails in the world. How frequently has the idea been propounded, and how commonly is it applauded for its justice and felicity, that the Church is the handmaid of the state—the moral police—the most effective servant of the nation! Kings and parliaments are spoken of as doing some great thing when they bestow on her any notice or countenance; and to acknowledge her services is, on their part, performing an act of wondrous condescension! Ah, how different is the light which Scripture casts on her relation to the nations of the earth! She is the superior; they are the servants and the subjects. Whatever their splendour and greatness may be, she is presented to us as irradiated with a much higher glory, and in reality occupying a more elevated place. Their appropriate and most honourable attitude is not that of looking down upon her with commendation and complacency, but that of looking up to her with profoundest reverence, of bowing themselves down at the soles of her feet (v. 14). Their duty to her is not the bestowing of alms on a beggar, or the payment of wages to a servant, or the recompensing of benefits to a friend, but the rendering of tribute to whom tribute is due. On their “serving” her, their destiny is suspended, and it is only by doing her homage that they can purchase their preservation. This leads us to notice,
II. Secondly, the punishment by which the neglect of this duty shall be avenged
“The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those kingdoms shall be utterly wasted” (v. 12).
The whole chapter evidently points to a period still future, and consequently, this prediction still waits for its fulfillment. But because the principles of the divine administration are unchangeable, and characterize his operations equally on a smaller as on a larger scale; and because, accordingly, those principles which will distinguish his dealings towards the church then, can be none other than what have regulated all his dealings towards her in the past, we may gather from her history many impressive evidences of the certainty with which we may count upon this threatening being executed, and many solemnizing illustrations of the manner in which we may expect that the judgment will be inflicted. Of the certainty with which the predicted vengeance will finally fall on the church’s enemies, we have the plainest evidence, not only in his rebuking kings for her sake, but in the literal fulfillment of the threat, the utter wasting of the kingdoms that slighted or oppressed her. Egypt, for instance, long had within its borders the tribes of Jacob—the whole church of God that then was; but instead of serving, it oppressed them and refused to let them go, and, as is expressly stated, in punishment of that proud nation’s treatment of his heritage, God visited every dwelling of its people with death, and overwhelmed its king, and princes, and armies with the waters of the Red sea. Babylon was first the invader and then the master of Judah, and, though in this, it was the specially-appointed rod of the Almighty’s anger, and only inflicted the destined chastisement on his disobedient people, yet his displeasure was awakened by its neglect of their welfare, and it too was utterly wasted. “I am very sore displeased,” it is said (Zech. 1:15), “with the heathen that are at ease: for I was but a little displeased”—that is, with the Jews—“and they helped forward the affliction.” Tyre had exulted over the disgrace and captivity of Judah; and therefore, though it was the “crowning city” of the earth; “whose antiquity had been of ancient days…whose merchants were princes, and her traffickers the honourable of the earth” (Isa. 23:7–9), it was, in God’s stern vindication of his people’s prerogatives, made a spoil to the nations (Ezek. 26:2–3). Coming still further down, we find, even in the New Testament times, the same principle imprinted on the divine procedure. The Jews rejected Jesus and refused to redeem the time of their probation, by acknowledging his disciples as now the church of God, and yielding to it the appropriate homage; and in consequence thereof, they were themselves rejected, and their nation and their city desolated. Rome, too, persecuted instead of serving the church; and therefore, though she had been deemed proof against destruction and decay; though her poets had predicted that her empire would be eternal; and even to the eye of inspiration, she had appeared to be “strong exceedingly,” yet she was shivered into fragments, and all her glory leveled with the dust. And not to particularize more or later instances, what has been the fate of Ephesus, and Sardis, and Thyatira, and Corinth—places which, though figuring less conspicuously on the page of history, yet all had a day of merciful visitation; all had the gospel of Christ preached, and the church of the living God erected in them? They, too, are set forth as ensamples of divine vengeance, and on their desolation may be seen, indelibly written by the finger of Providence, the emphatic declaration, “The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those kingdoms shall be utterly wasted.”
What God has wrought in these several and isolated cases, he will yet accomplish on a scale of more appalling magnificence, when all the earth shall be the scene of vengeance, and many nations shall, at one moment, have the cup of trembling put into their hands. In those, as specimens of his power, and as illustrations of the surpassing love which he bears his church, he forewarns us that in order to consummating her glory and accomplishing his gracious purposes towards her, he will not forbear to overturn every obstacle. The gospel of the kingdom will first “be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come” (Matt. 24:14)—the end of their probation; the end at once of affliction to those by whom it is received, and of long-suffering to those by whom it is rejected. By their treatment of his gospel, by their conduct towards his church, is he to test them and fix their destiny. Nor, observe, is it needful, in order to a nation’s entailing on itself heaven’s desolating curse, that it engage in actual persecution of the church. It may be—nay, it very probably will be—the case, that such will at that time be the vigour and spirituality of the church in every land, that no other alternative will be possible to any nation than either assailing it with open hostility, or rendering it devoted service, that they who are not attracted by its heavenly lustre, will not be able to repress their bitter enmity. But however that may be, it is not necessary to suppose that it must be, in order to the universal application of the test presented in our text. For not the persecution of the church alone, the mere refusal to serve her, will suffice to bring a nation within the strictly defined range of heaven’s doom. And who is there that does not see exemplified how far short a nation may come of the crime of national persecution, and yet incur the guilt which the text denounces? To neglect to forward the interests of the church of God, to create obstructions, or even to refuse countenance to her exertions for saving souls—this is for a nation to expose itself to vengeance. It may endow error; it may give special facilities for its propagation and perpetuity; it may cast down the bulwarks of the Sabbath’s sacredness, and authorize its profanation; it may, in many nameless ways, smile on vice and diffuse the taint of irreligious feeling throughout all departments of its service; and in doing these things, it takes its place in the ranks of the enemies of God, and occupies the very ground over which his wrath impends. For God does not know neutrality to his cause among nations any more than among individuals. “He that is not with me is against me” (Matt. 12:30). He demands an undivided allegiance, and spurns all attempted compromise. The kingdom which he has set up must possess the whole earth. It will brook no compeer. The kingdoms that will not become one with it, it will consume and break in pieces.
We know then that the church’s millennium will not be brought about simply by the peaceful operation of the Spirit in the hearts of men, but will be ushered in amidst “distress of nations with perplexity” (Luke 21:25). On the manner in which divine vengeance will be executed, as has been already remarked, considerable light is shed from God’s dealings in the past, but we may be well content to leave it to his unerring Providence. Enough be it for us to know that, as on former occasions, he has not wanted, so still he has ample resources in store for the accomplishment of all his purposes. Of this we may be thoroughly assured that the church will prove to every land, as has been well said, “either the spring of its mercies, or the cause of its destruction.” “The remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles in the midst of many people as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep: who, if he go through, both treadeth down, and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver” (Mic. 4:8). Not, indeed, as if, in order to the destruction of her enemies, the church were to lift the sword, and mingle in the battle. Such is not her warfare; nor is the battlefield the place that she will occupy. Nor will she be needed there. “Great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of her” (Isa. 12:6). Nations, ignorant of the power or the reality of God’s presence with his church, have often considered merely her outward state, and, contrasting her apparent strength with their own, have concluded that they would easily destroy her, and that, in assailing her, they could incur no danger. How often has it been thought and even boastfully proclaimed that she must yield without a serious struggle, as much of her principles and profession as the powers of this world demand! This same imagination will, we know from the sure word of prophecy, instigate them in those final assaults which will end in their destruction. They will say, “I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, having neither bars nor gates, to take a spoil, and to take a prey” (Ezek. 38:11–12). Deceived by such imaginations, they will be ripened for their ruin and led to their predicted punishment. For God, in order to confirm his people’s confidence, has given intimation of the very means of their enemies’ destruction, and revealed to us that they shall fall like the hosts of Midian by one another’s hands, or be overthrown like Egypt by direct and immediate, though not equally miraculous, interpositions of the Almighty arm. “I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord GOD: every man’s hand shall be against his brother. And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire and brimstone. Thus will I magnify myself and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the LORD” (Ezek. 38:21–23). The hour of their most confident exultation will be the prelude of their final overthrow, and of the church’s complete deliverance.
If such, then, be the prospects of the nations—if not one of them can escape destruction save on the condition here specified—how entirely ought we even to forget the sure and glorious destiny that awaits the church, in the anxiety with which we ought to be filled, faithfully to discharge the duty which, as the church of Christ, we owe to the benighted and sinful nations of the earth? For how shall they be enlightened to know where safety is to be found, save through our instrumentality? The church is God’s ordained and chosen means for the conversion of souls; for the salvation of the world. From her must go forth the power that will subdue, and the knowledge that will illumine, and the peace that will adorn the farthest outskirts of disordered humanity. Oh! we do well to send them Bibles and ministers, to ply them with gospel offers and opportunities. For how can they believe without hearing, and how can they hear without a preacher? But it is a very solemn thought that all these means and ordinances may only ripen them for vengeance, may be only the preaching of the gospel “for a witness”—a witness to the righteousness of their condemnation; a witness to their having had the offer of Christ and rejected him; to their having had gospel opportunities, and misimproved them. The preaching of the gospel is not always a “savour of life unto life;” it is often “a savour of death unto death” (2 Cor. 2:16). It is only the Spirit who can give the Word a saving efficacy. It is in vain, therefore, for us to send Bibles and ministers for the salvation of souls, unless the Spirit be sent along with them. And how can we send the Spirit? Have we power to command his operations? Yes, God has given this power to men. Prayer is the means, the only means of bringing down the Spirit. What need then, what urgent, instant need, that we pray for the outpouring of the Spirit on every land of gospel privilege on earth? We leave our duty but half-performed if we do not follow missionaries and Bibles with prayer—unceasing, earnest prayer. God may, indeed, in his sovereign grace, send forth the Spirit in converting efficacy, irrespective of our prayerlessness, and he may make the Bibles and the missionaries that have been sent forth by prayerless men, “the savour of life unto life;” but besides that this does not alter the obligation under which he has laid us; it is an expectation which we are not warranted to entertain. For whilst he promises that the Spirit shall be outpoured in more abundant measure than the church has yet experienced, he adds, “yet for this will I be enquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them” (Ezek. 36:37). What strong encouragement to prayer for the Spirit do such promises contain! How indispensable the necessity for it which they teach! And how urgently should we feel impelled by this necessity, inasmuch especially as we see the day approaching, when the storm of divine fury, long restrained, shall be let loose, and when the end shall be.
Still further, having before our eyes the solemn denunciation of the text, let us learn the duty, which, as the church of Christ, we own to our own nation.
It is unnecessary for me to prove that, as a nation, we have committed the very sin here denounced, or to remind you that it has been committed with special bearing on ourselves as a church of Christ, in our relation to the state. But it is not simply to its dealings with us—to its assertion of a right to occupy the throne in Zion on which the Redeemer sits, and its refusal to continue ministering to us of its wealth, save on the condition of our no longer being the church of Christ, but being professedly and practically “the creature of the state”—it is not to this alone, heinous though it be, that the commission of this sin has been confined. I need not point out how the claim to control, and the refusal to serve the church has, with sad consistency, been preceded and accompanied by ministering of the nation’s wealth to both popish and pagan idolatry; by giving new facilities to Socinian2The Socinians referred to themselves as “brethren” and became known by the latter half of the 17th century as “Unitarians”. They rejected the doctrine of the Trinity. error; by indifference to the cry of oppressed believers in foreign lands; by legalizing vice; by sanctioning larger inroads on the Sabbath’s rest; and by putting in operation various forces to traverse the church’s path and to impede her efforts. Who does not see that we have, by many infallible tokens, entailed on ourselves the vengeance of the Lord; and that our sins, committed as they have been, after ages of unexampled privilege and unspeakable mercy, cry loudly to the avenger of his heritage? It is neither honesty to deny, nor is it charity to conceal our exposure to national ruin; and as little is it the part, either of wisdom or of faith, to doubt that God has even now many channels open by which judgment may be rushing in upon us. If even the eye of secular philosophy is discovering indications of national instability and decay, how much more may those, who are enlightened from above to know the true causes of the rise and fall of kingdoms, be afraid to say that our mountain stands strong (Psalm 30:7)? But the time of God’s recompense to our nation for the controversy of Zion, however near it may be, has not yet come. God’s longsuffering still waits, as it did in the days of Noah, while the ark was a-preparing. And the time of longsuffering is a time of probation—a time during which repentance may avail, and has availed, as in the case of Nineveh, to avert impending judgment; a time, therefore, during which we ought solemnly and busily to ply the means and motives to repentance. And surely we do not arrogate to ourselves any preeminence, or ascribe to our position an undue importance, when we feel that on us as a church of Christ, there lies a peculiar responsibility to arouse our fellow countrymen to a sense of danger, and to strive after the spiritual renovation of the land.
In order aright to acquit ourselves of this responsibility, it is essential that we correctly understand, and that we keep constantly in view the object for which we are to labour. Now we need not conceal, and as little ought we to forget, that that at which we are bound ultimately to aim is that the nation should, in the fullest and highest sense of the expression, serve the church. In looking forward to this, we are seeking not the aggrandizement of the church, but the safety of the nation. For this, we know, will be the characteristic of nations in millennial times; and less than this, as our text assures us, will not save them from premillennial judgments, or afford them a passport to the millennial state. And let it not be supposed that we may struggle for it on the arena of earthly politics, or expect it as the result of human policy. We are to aim at it no otherwise than as the natural and necessary result of a spiritual awakening and reformation among all classes of the people. Whatever may have been the case in other countries and at other times, the regeneration of the individuals of whom the nation is composed, and that alone, can be expected to better our national condition; to impart a Christ-ward tendency to our national acts; to enable the national mind to perceive the spiritual standing and claims of the church; and to produce a real consecration of national power and glory to the interests of the Redeemer’s kingdom. In every view, then, the conversion of souls is the primary and immediate object with which, as a church of the Redeemer, we have to do. In striving to effect this, let us consider what labours the necessities of the case demand, and what means and expectations the divine Word warrants; and when we do consider that the destinies of this land are, in a sense, in our hands, that its safety depends on us, more than upon the skill of statesmen and the might of armies, what manner of men should this make us in all holy activity! What fresh energy should it inspire into all that we undertake, whether as ministers or as private Christians! Let it animate us to untiring labour, for what amount and vigour of labour is too great a sacrifice to make for the end in view, or is more than sufficient to overcome the far-extending mass of ungodly men, and to break the hardened heart that is in each of them? Let us become more earnest and abundant in prayer, till we see the Spirit poured out as floods on the dry ground, for on the issue of our prayers are suspended interests greater than life and death. Let us cultivate in ourselves, as individuals and as a church, greater purity and a higher spirituality, that we may indeed be living epistles of Christ, “known and read of all men” (2 Cor. 3:2). Let us strive after clearer and nearer views of the Saviour’s glory, that the light of the Lord being indeed risen upon us (Isa. 60:1), we may reflect it with such brilliancy that the Gentiles may come to our light, and kings to the brightness of our rising.
For our own sakes individually, as well as for the sake of the nation, we ought not to forget that the course of safety is the service of God. This not only is true with reference to the final salvation of the soul, but is also generally realized in the arrangements of divine Providence on earth. The troubles of the righteous are not ordinarily so numerous or so sharp as those of the ungodly. Whilst unmortified passions and unholy lives entail upon the wicked agony, and shame, and poverty, godliness has the promises of the life that now is as well as of that which is to come (1 Tim. 4:8). Even seasons of persecution, when the wicked triumph, and the blood of the righteous is poured out like water, cannot be allowed to furnish an exception to this rule. For, besides that believers partake in an abundant recompence in spiritual consolation, the persecution of the church is invariably followed up by judgments on the persecutors. “The rod of the wicked shall not rest on the lot of the righteous; lest the righteous” be thereby induced to “put forth their hands unto iniquity” (Ps. 125:3). The chastisement of God’s people is never so severe as the punishment of their enemies. The bondage under which the Israelites groaned in Egypt was bitter, but the punishment which overtook their oppressors was death. The early Christians suffered much at the hands of the Jews, but not so much as the Jews themselves suffered in the desolation of their city. The fiery trials which yet await the church, and of which perhaps the shadow now rests upon her, will be followed up by the tremendous judgments which the text predicts. The church will survive the former, but the wicked will be destroyed by the latter. How vain, then, as well as sinful, for men to think, as we have seen so many do, to save their lives, or protect their earthly interests by abandoning the afflicted church, and resigning the persecuted profession, and the offensive principles. In doing so, they most certainly incur the very loss which they dread; they take their places without the ark, amongst those over whom God’s vengeance will speedily sweep with overwhelming fury. They may not become agents in persecuting the people of God; they may join a communion as near in principle to that which they have left, as temporal safety will permit, or the world will tolerate; but they have crossed the line which separates those who are not ashamed of Christ and his words (Luke 9:26), and who are losing their lives for his sake and the gospel’s, from those who are hastening the nation’s doom; and judgment will find them among its victims. “Whosoever will save his life shall lose it” (Matt. 16:25), in the most strict and literal sense, when God “cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity:” when “the earth…shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain” (Isa. 26:21). Let us then be instructed that stedfastness in faith, and continuance in holiness are the means of safety. We know not what God may have in store for our guilty land, whether a time of favour, or a season of judgment. But whilst we ought to resign this in patience to the disposal of the divine sovereignty, and to be ready to say, “Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight” (Matt. 11:26), we should not forget that if, on the one hand, our land is saved, this will be only through the intercession and labours of God’s stedfast people; and that, on the other hand, his judgments, if they do come, will be discriminating—that just as the Israelites were passed over by the angel of death, and as the believers did not perish in Jerusalem’s calamity, so, though there be only three righteous men in the land, they will save their own lives by their righteousness (Ezek. 14:20).
How urgently then does the alternative of impending ruin, as well as the hope of national preservation, call on us to labour efficiently, and to pray earnestly while yet it is day. The time may come when the voice of intercession will be hushed by the stern command, “Pray not for this people for their good” (Jer. 14:11), when the exertions of Christian zeal will be arrested by the solemn message, “Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast” (Isa. 26:20); when there will be presented to the church the dreary spectacle of the nation shut up in hopeless impenitence to its inevitable doom. How melancholy will be the contemplation, if the guilt of this impenitence is wholly chargeable upon the nation! But how agonizing the reflection, if it be chargeable equally upon the nation and the church!
Footnotes
- 1George Gillespie, Aaron’s Rod Blossoming ↩︎
- 2The Socinians referred to themselves as “brethren” and became known by the latter half of the 17th century as “Unitarians”. They rejected the doctrine of the Trinity. ↩︎
