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| Chapter IX.—“That Those Grievously Sin Who Despise or Neglect God’s Gracious Calling.”
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Chapter IX.—“That Those Grievously Sin Who Despise or Neglect God’s Gracious Calling.”
I could adduce ten thousand Scriptures of which not
“one tittle shall pass away,”957
without being fulfilled; for
the mouth of the Lord the Holy Spirit hath spoken these things. “Do
not any longer,” he says, “my son, despise the chastening of
the Lord, nor faint when thou
art rebuked of Him.”958
O surpassing love for man! Not as a
teacher speaking to his pupils, not as a master to his domestics,
nor as God to men, but as a father, does the Lord gently admonish
his children. Thus Moses confesses that “he was filled with
quaking and terror”959
while he listened to God speaking concerning the
Word. And art not thou afraid as thou hearest the voice of the Divine
Word? Art not thou distressed? Do you not fear, and hasten to learn of
Him,—that is, to salvation,—dreading wrath, loving grace,
eagerly striving after the hope set before us, that you may shun the
judgment threatened? Come, come, O my young people! For if you become
not again as little children, and be born again, as saith the Scripture,
you shall not receive the truly existent Father, nor shall you ever enter
into the kingdom of heaven. For in what way is a stranger permitted to
enter? Well, as I take it, then, when he is enrolled and made a citizen,
and receives one to stand to him in the relation of father, then will
he be occupied with the Father’s concerns, then shall he be deemed
worthy to be made His heir, then will he share the kingdom of the Father
with His own dear Son. For this is the first-born Church, composed of
many good children; these are “the first-born enrolled in heaven,
who hold high festival with so many myriads of angels.” We, too,
are first-born sons, who are reared by God, who are the genuine friends
of the First-born, who first of all other men attained to the knowledge
of God, who first were wrenched away from our sins, first severed from
the devil. And now the more benevolent God is, the more impious men are;
for He desires us from slaves to become sons, while they scorn to become
sons. O the prodigious folly of being ashamed of the Lord! He offers
freedom, you flee into bondage; He bestows salvation, you sink down into
destruction; He confers everlasting life, you wait for punishment, and
prefer the fire which the Lord “has prepared for the devil and his
angels.”960
Wherefore the blessed apostle says: “I testify in the
Lord, that ye walk no longer as the Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their
mind; having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life
of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness
of their heart: who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to
lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness and concupiscence.”961
After the accusation of such a witness, and his invocation of God, what
else remains for the unbelieving than judgment and condemnation? And
the Lord, with ceaseless assiduity, exhorts, terrifies, urges, rouses,
admonishes; He awakes from
the sleep of darkness, and raises up those who have wandered in
error. “Awake,” He says, “thou that sleepest, and
arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light,”962
—Christ,
the Sun of the Resurrection, He “who was born before the
morning star,”963
and with His beams bestows life. Let no one
then despise the Word, lest he unwittingly despise himself. For the
Scripture somewhere says, “To-day, if ye will hear His voice,
harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation
in the wilderness, when your fathers proved Me by trial.”964
And
what was the trial? If you wish to learn, the Holy Spirit will show you:
“And saw my works,” He says, “forty years. Wherefore I
was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in heart,
and have not known My ways. So I sware in my wrath, they shall not
enter into My rest.”965
Look to the threatening! Look to
the exhortation! Look to the punishment! Why, then, should we any
longer change grace into wrath, and not receive the word with open
ears, and entertain God as a guest in pure spirits? For great is the
grace of His promise, “if to-day we hear His voice.”966
And that
to-day is lengthened out day by day, while it is called to-day. And to the
end the to-day and the instruction continue; and then the true to-day,
the never-ending day of God, extends over eternity. Let us then ever
obey the voice of the divine word. For the to-day signifies eternity. And
day is the symbol of light; and the light of men is the Word, by whom we
behold God. Rightly, then, to those that have believed and obey, grace
will superabound; while with those that have been unbelieving, and err in
heart, and have not known the Lord’s ways, which John commanded to
make straight and to prepare, God is incensed, and those He threatens.
And, indeed, the old Hebrew wanderers in the desert
received typically the end of the threatening; for they are said not to
have entered into the rest, because of unbelief, till, having followed
the successor of Moses, they learned by experience, though late, that they
could not be saved otherwise than by believing on Jesus. But the Lord, in
His love to man, invites all men to the knowledge of the truth, and for
this end sends the Paraclete. What, then, is this knowledge? Godliness;
and “godliness,” according to Paul, “is profitable
for all things, having the promise of the life that now is, and of that
which is to come.”967
If eternal salvation were to be sold, for how
much, O men, would you propose to purchase it? Were one to estimate
the value of the whole of Pactolus, the fabulous river of gold, he would
not have reckoned up a price equivalent to salvation.
Do not, however, faint. You may, if you choose,
purchase salvation, though of inestimable value, with your own
resources, love and living faith, which will be reckoned a suitable
price. This recompense God cheerfully accepts; “for we trust in
the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of those
who believe.”968
But the rest, round whom the world’s growths have
fastened, as the rocks on the sea-shore are covered over with sea-weed,
make light of immortality, like the old man of Ithaca, eagerly longing
to see, not the truth, not the fatherland in heaven, not the true light,
but smoke. But godliness, that makes man as far as can be like God,
designates God as our suitable teacher, who alone can worthily assimilate
man to God. This teaching the apostle knows as truly divine. “Thou,
O Timothy,” he says, “from a child hast known the holy
letters, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith
that is in Christ Jesus.”969
For truly holy are those letters that sanctify
and deify; and the writings or volumes that consist of those holy letters
and syllables, the same apostle consequently calls “inspired
of God, being profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect,
thoroughly furnished to every good work.”970
No
one will be so impressed by the exhortations of any of the saints, as
he is by the words of the Lord Himself, the lover of man. For this, and
nothing but this, is His only work—the salvation of man. Therefore
He Himself, urging them on to salvation, cries, “The kingdom of
heaven is at hand.”971
Those men that draw near through fear, He
converts. Thus also the apostle of the Lord, beseeching the Macedonians,
becomes the interpreter of the divine voice, when he says, “The
Lord is at hand; take care that ye be not apprehended empty.”972
But are ye
so devoid of fear, or rather of faith, as not to believe the Lord Himself,
or Paul, who in Christ’s stead thus entreats: “Taste and see
that Christ is God?”973
Faith will lead you in; experience will teach you; Scripture
will train you, for it says, “Come hither, O children;
listen to me, and I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” Then, as to those who already
believe, it briefly adds, “What man is he that desireth life,
that loveth to see good days?”974
It is we, we shall
say—we who are the devotees of
good, we who eagerly desire good things. Hear, then, ye who are far off,
hear ye who are near: the word has not been hidden from any; light is
common, it shines “on all men.” No one is a Cimmerian in
respect to the word. Let us haste to salvation, to regeneration; let
us who are many haste that we may be brought together into one love,
according to the union of the essential unity; and let us, by being made
good, conformably follow after union, seeking after the good Monad.
The union of many in one, issuing in the production
of divine harmony out of a medley of sounds and division, becomes one
symphony following one choir-leader and teacher,975
the Word, reaching and resting in the same truth, and crying Abba,
Father. This, the true utterance of His children, God accepts with
gracious welcome—the first-fruits He receives from them.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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