Images de page
PDF
ePub

old red dragon. This is sentiment. This is language becoming the occasion. Let us improve it in revering and cherishing the memory of those who con scientiously acted, and suffered in this noble cause. We are too little sensible of our obligation to these excellent men. They laboured, and we have entered into their labours. And how did they labour? Well done, said the Saviour, as he received them into the joy of their Lord, good and faithful servant, thou hast laboured and hast not fainted.

"Nothing offends me more than attempts to lower the reputation of any of these heralds and heroes of salvation. When a fine character comes before me, says a great man, I never take it to pieces. The reformers exerted themselves under many disadvantages, and were only men-but they were men of God, they were men of another world, they were men of faith, and of charity, and self-denial, and invincible fortitude. Placed in their circumstances, would you have done what they achieved? Would you have borne what they endured? unto all long-suffering with joyfulness.' If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? and if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan!'-Why, the sneer of a neighbour, the laugh of a fool, the frown of a relation, the loss of a customer, this, this is sufficient to induce some of you to conceal your principles, or turn aside from the way of righteousness.—But they resisted unto blood, striving against sin. They loved not their lives unto the death

'Patriots have toiled, and in their country's cause

Bled nobly; and their deeds, as they deserve,
Receive proud recompense. We give in charge
Their names to the sweet lyre. The historic muse,
Proud of the treasure, marches with it down
To latest times: and Sculpture, in her turn,
Gives bond in stone and ever-during brass
To guard them, and immortalize her trust:
But fairer wreaths are due, though never paid,
To those who, posted at the shrine of Truth,
Have fallen in her defence. A patriot's blood,
Well spent in such a strife, may earn indeed,
And for a time ensure to his loved land,

The sweets of liberty and equal laws;

But martyrs struggle for a brighter prize,

And win it with more pain. Their blood is shed

In confirmation of the noblest claim

Our claim to feed upon immortal truth,

To walk with God, to be divinely free,

To soar, and to anticipate the skies.

Yet few remember them. They lived unknown
Till Persecution dragg'd them into fame,
And chased them up to heaven. Their ashes flew
-No marble tells us whither. With their names
No bard embalms and sanctifies his song:
And History, so warm on meaner themes,

Is cold on this. She execrates indeed

The tyranny that doomed them to the fire,

But gives the glorious sufferers little praise--""

FROM THE REV. W. JAY'S TERCENTENARY SUMON

PRISONERS OF HOPE

REV. D. WILSON, A.M.

ST. MARY'S, ISLINGTON, NOVEMBER 22, 1835.

"Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope."-ZECHARIAH, ix. 12.

THIS chapter contains an interesting prophecy, combining the promise of temporal and spiritual blessings. It foretels the judgments which were coming upon the enemies of Israel, and the dangers and distresses which would be directed against them. It also looks forward to the dispensation of the Gospel, anticipates the spiritual reign of Messiah, and that heavenly protection, and refuge, and support, which would be granted by it.

The gentleness and lowliness of Messiah's character we find described in the ninth verse: 66 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem behold, the King cometh unto thee; he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass." The peaceful nature, and the wide extension of his dominion, are next described : "And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle-bow shall be cut off: and he shall speak peace unto the heathen; and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth." The deliverance which he should grant to mankind from the thraldom and dominion of sin follows: "As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water." And then comes the exhortation of my text, evidently alluding to the same subject, and forming a part of the same spiritual and evangelical address. The prophet turns to captive Israel, and in them to the whole race of mankind, who are to owe their redemption to the same Saviour, the same Messiah, and cries, "Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope." This, dear brethren, is the language I would desire to employ in addressing you this morning. Prisoners you all are; prisoners of hope we also are, while life, and health, and Gospel privileges are granted. And I come to offer to each of you a full, and complete, and sufficient refuge, into which you are invited to turn. Let us first, then, in dependence on divine assistance, consider the image under which we are here addressed, and then, secondly, the admonition which is given to us.

Observe, first, THE IMAGE UNDER WHICH WE ARE HERE ADDRESSED: "Prisoners of hope." The prophet could hardly have adopted an expression more expressive or more appropriate. Man, in more senses than one, is a prisoner: all things around him are calculated to remind him that he is not free, that he is not his own master, that he dwells not in the land of perfect

liberty or complete freedom. This earthly body is, in one sense, his prison. The immaterial soul is confined in this narrow cell: weakness, languor, infirmity, debility, all remind him that he is not free, that he is in a state of confinement. The spirit feels its imprisonment, and "groans," as the Apostle says, “being burthened;" it longs to be at liberty, and seeks to soar upward; it hopes, with the Psalmist, "O that I had wings like a dove, that I might flee away and be at rest." But this clay tabernacle detains it: it is clogged with a feeble decaying body, possessed only of limited powers and limited strength. Like a bird which is swift in the wing, confined in a cage, it pines, and pines in vain, to recover its liberty.

But man is also in another sense a prisoner-he is the prisoner of sin. These earthly bodies which we carry about with us, are not merely confined and limited in their powers, they are also defiled, and corrupt, and sinful, in their propensities. "God," says the Apostle, " hath concluded," (or in other words hath "shut up")" all under sin." "He that committeth sin is the servant❞—is the slave, that is, is the captive-" of sin." Thus we are said to have "our understandings darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in us." "Man," says the Apostle, "has a law in his members, bringing him into captivity to the law of sin which is in his members." Sin drags him down to earth with a constraining force. Man will often, indeed, talk of his freedom and his liberty, and cry, "Our lips are our own: who is lord over us?" But is he therefore really free? A free man, and yet the slave of lust, the slave of his appetites, the slave of his passions! Is his understanding free? Are his affections free? Is his conscience free? Are his hands free? Are his powers of body and mind at liberty to walk in the path of God's command, with a perfect heart? No, brethren; sin is holding dominion over him: sin is chaining down the soul to earth; sin is exercising a mighty, and powerful, and prevailing influence over his heart. The whole race of man (what an affecting, what a touching thought!) the whole race of mankind, formed after the image of God, endued with heavenly powers and spiritual capacities, yet all are under sin; all are condemned; all are under the sentence of divine wrath; all bound by the fetters of corruption, fetters which they can never break, fetters which they can never be free from, until a divine heavenly power bursts the chain and sets the prisoners free.

And then, once more, we are also prisoners, as being the captives of Satan. Satan acts the part of a jailor, to guard the prison, and prevent the prisoner from breaking loose. Thus he is called by our Lord, "the strong man armed," and elsewhere," the prince of the power of the air." Thus man is said to be taken captive by him at his will. Satan is represented as entangling him in his snare, as catching him in his net, as blinding his eyes, and hardening his heart, and preventing one ray of light from entering his soul; and thus holding him in the bondage of corruption. True it is that Satan gilds the chain, and deludes the man with vain appearances of liberty. The worldling boasts that he is his own master, and professes to pity the servant of God, who is debarred and confined from pleasures which he enjoys. But, brethren the reverse of this is really the case: the man of this world is really the prisoner, the slave, the deluded victim. The Christian, he is the man that has escaped the snare of the fowler, and is now free from the snare.

But the prophet speaks to us in my text, further, as "prisoners of hope."

Prisoners still; in confinement still; but with the prospect of release and encouragement. Such was the case with Israel's captives. Prisoners they had long been, confined for seventy years in Babylon, and banished from their own land. But they were prisoners of hope. "There is hope in thine end," saith the Lord," that thy children shall come again to their own border." Many of these captives, at the command of the king of Babylon, had already been permitted to burst their chain and return to Jerusalem, while others were preparing to imitate their example, and rebuild and reinhabit the waste places. Such, in a spiritual sense, is the state of all to whom life is continued, and the day of grace is prolonged. They are prisoners indeed-but they are prisoners of hope. For remember, beloved brethren, there are those who are prisoners without hope; there are those who are prisoners of despair. The fallen angels, who kept not their first estate, and are reserved in everlasting chains unto darkness for the judgment of the great day, they, like ourselves, are prisoners; "spirits," as the Apostle says, "in prison:" but they are prisoners, not of hope, but of despair. No message of mercy comes to them; no assurance of deliverance is vouchsafed to them; no strong hold is pointed out to them into which to turn. The impenitent sinner, likewise, he who has resisted the calls of mercy, who has passed into the eternal world unsaved and unsanctified, ceases, in like manner, to be a prisoner of hope, and becomes a prisoner of despair. The dark portals of death transfer him from the land of hope to the land of unutterable darkness, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

But in this life we are all prisoners of hope. "The grave," says Hezekiah, "cannot praise thee; death cannot celebrate thee: they that go down to the grave cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day." But more especially where the sound of the Gospel comes, where the news of the Saviour is proclaimed, all who hear the message are particularly and pre-eminently the prisoners of hope. We are commissioned, brethren, to proclaim to you a Saviour who is the hope of all the ends of the earth. We have been expressly sent to proclaim liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison to them who are bound. Delightful is the announcement which we bring to every son and daughter of Adam. There is not an individual, brethren, who walks this earth-much less is there an individual who is in this house of God this morning, who is not in this sense a prisoner of hope. Be his sin never so great, be his transgression never so heinous; yet let him not yield to despair. Long, it may be, he has been the prisoner of sin, the prisoner of Satan, the prisoner of his own corrupt appetites and passions: yet still may hope enter, still may the voice of mercy gain admission. Know, brethren, that Christ is exalted as a prince and a Saviour: know, sinner, for thy comfort, whoever and wherever thou art, that a door of hope is provided, that a fountain for sin is opened, and that Christ is standing at the door and knocking. Yes, the day of grace has not yet passed; the door of hope is not yet closed; you are not yet a prisoner of despair, if only you employ the present moment to seek and return to your God.

But then, further than this, those who by divine grace have been brought back to God, who have been delivered from the power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son, such are, in a still more distinct and peculiar manner, the prisoners of hope Fettered indeed, they still are with a

feeble body and corrupt heart. Free they are not, while carrying about with them the body of this death; but they are cheered, and stimulated, and animated, by hope. The Gospel of a crucified Saviour has brought to them hope: a ray of hope, and light, and peace, and joy, has gleamed in, burst through, as it were, the very gratings of their prison-that hope which is as an anchor to the soul both sure and steadfast. Wherever a penitent sinner has been brought to a sense of sin, has been led to fly to Christ, has obtained an interest in himthere is a prisoner of hope. Every promise of Scripture brings him hope; every view of the power, and love, and grace, of Christ communicates hope: every providential mercy of his God enkindles hope he hopes even unto death. Languor and disease, sorrow and trouble, infirmity and sickness, cannot weaken and destroy his hope: nay, the approach of old age, and death itself, only tends to brighten, and enlarge, and elevate, his hope. The hour of dissolution, that solemn moment, which transfers the impenitent sinner from the prison of hope to the prison of despair, becomes to him the messenger of peace and of joy, and of comfort, bringing to him on its wings, a hope full of immortality, opening to him the prison door, and introducing him to the glorious liberty of the children of God.

But, secondly, what is THE ADMONITION which is given in my text to such? "Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope." The language is evidently that of earnest solicitation. Imminent peril is threatened. The flying captives who have thus escaped their prison, are in danger of being seized and retaken by the enemy; and here is an impregnable fortress opened into which they are invited to turn.

We can have no hesitation in applying this language to Christ: "The Lord," says the prophet Micah, "The Lord is God, a strong hold in the day of trouble." "A man," says Isaiah, speaking of Christ, "A man shall be a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest." "Thou," says David, "thou art my hiding-place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance." Whatever the dangers which threaten these prisoners of hope, in Christ a sure and effectual protection is found. Does the prisoner of hope fear and exceedingly dread the righteous anger of God? Is he alarmed at that storm of just retribution which hovers over his head? Here is a refuge, here is a strong hold-Christ the advocate with the Father. Sin has been pardoned and justice satisfied by his atonement; mercy and love are extended to the culprit for his sake. Yea, the very oath of Jehovah himself is granted, that they might have strong consolation who have fled to this refuge. Does the sinner dread the requirements of a broken law? Christ has fulfilled its demands and complied with its every requirement; and here is a full and complete righteousness prepared for him. Or again, does he dread the assaults of Satan? "When his enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him." Satan himself has been vanquished by Christ. No weapon formed against him who is the disciple of Christ shall prosper. This strong hold is safe, is impregnable from their attacks. Or does he again dread the sorrows, and troubles, and afflictions of life? Here again he is permitted to cast his burden upon the Lord: he is privileged to believe that all things shall work together for his good. Yea he can even rejoice in the Lord, and be glad in the God of his salvation amid

« PrécédentContinuer »