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In what a differing manner is the image and representation of the same person brought into these two pieces of art? In the one it is effected by the soft and silent touches of the pencil, which happily convey likeness and beauty together. In the other it is formed by the rough and loud strokes of the hammer and by the deep cuttings and sculptures of instruments of steel.
In as strange and far differing way is the heavenly image of God formed in the souls of new converts when first made partakers of the divine nature. In some, God paints (as I may so speak) his own likeness by a still and calm delineation of it upon the table of their hearts. In others he carves it by afflicting them with a great measure of terrors, and wounding their souls with a thorough sense both of the guilt and defilement of sin.
But in this diversity of working, God is no way necessitated or limited by them disposition and temper of the matter, as other agents are, but is freely guided by the counsel of his own will, which is the sole rule and measure of all his actions towards the creature, as his Word is of theirs towards him.
Lord, therefore, do with me what thou pleasest: let me be but thine and I will not prescribe thy wisdom the way to make me thine. Bruise, break, wound, yea, kill, Lord, so that I may be made alive again by thy power, and bear thy holy image according to which I was first made and to which by thy grace and might only I can be restored.
A Battered Plate is methinks an emblem of a suffering Saint, who by afflicting strokes may lose somewhat of his accidental beauty; but nothing of his real worth.
In the plate the fashion is only marred; but the substance is neither diminished or embased. If you bring it to the scale, it weighs as much as it did; if you try by the touchstone, it is as good silver as it was.
And is it not thus with a Saint when bruised and broken with many sore pressures? His luster and repute with men may be prejudiced and eclipsed by them, but not his person or his worth with God; if he be weighed in His unerring balance, he will not be found thelighter; if examined by His test, he will not be esteemed the less precious.
It is not the cross that makes vile, but sin; not the passive evils which we suffer, but the active evils which we do. The one may render us unamiable to men, but the other makes us unholy before God; the one raise the casket, and the other makesa flaw in the jewel.
Happy and wise therefore is that man who maketh Moses his choice to be his pattern in choosing affliction rather than sin; esteeming it better to be an oppressed Hebrew that builds the houses and palaces of brick, than an uncircumcised Egyptian to dwell in them, for when he is tried he shall receive the Crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him.
Such is the disparity between a Lamp and a Star, as that happily it may not a little be wondered at, as to why I should make a joint meditation of them which are so greatly distant in respect of place, and far more in respect of quality, the one being an earthly, and the other a heavenly body.
What is a Lamp to a Star in regard of influence, duration, or beauty? Hath it any quickening rays flowing from it? Or is its light im-mortal, so as not to become despised by expiring? Can it dazzle the be-holder with its serene luster, and leave such impressions of itself upon theeye, as may render it for a time blind to any other objects?
Alas! These are too high and noble effects for such a feeble and uncertain light to produce, and proper only to those glorious bodies that shine in the firmament.
But yet this great inequality between the one and the other serves to make them both more meet emblems of the differing estate of believers in this and the other life, who in Scripture, while they are on this side heaven, are compared to wife virgins with Lamps burning, and when they come to heaven, to Stars shining, which endure forever and ever.
Grace in the best of saints is not perfect, but must, like a lamp, be fed with new supplies that it go not out, and be often trimmed that it be not dim. Ordinances are as necessary to Christians in this life as manna to the Israelites in the wilderness though in Canaan it ceased.
And therefore, God hath appointed His Word and Sacraments to drop continually upon the hearts of His children, as the two olive trees upon the golden candlestick.
What mean then those fond conceits of perfectionists, who dream of livingabove all subsidiary helps, and judge ordinances as useless to them, as oilfor a Star, or a snuffing of the Sun to make it shine more bright?
It is true, when we come to heaven such things will be of no more use to our souls,than meat or drink will be to our bodies; but yet while we are on the earth,the body cannot live without the one, nor the soul without the other.
Do thou therefore, holy God, preserve in me a due sense of my impotency and wants, whose light is fading, as well as borrowed, that so I may daily suck supplies from Thee, and acknowledge that I live not only by grace received, but by grace renewed, and while I am in this life, have light only as a Lamp in the Temple, which must be fed and trimmed, and not as a Star in heaven.