Gathering Jewels: The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries.Knowles, James
Religion
Gathering Jewels: The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries.
Knowles, James
Allen Street Presbyterian Church (New York, N.Y.); Knowles, James, 1811-1886; Knowles, Matilda Darroch, 1811-1886
Henry says, "The _Providence_ that removes God's saints has a loved
voice which crieth in the city to the survivors. The death of the saints
speaketh the evil of sin." It is owing to that they die, for "the body
is dead because of sin." It speaks the vanities of life, and of all its
delights and enjoyments; for if the favorites of heaven are dying daily,
and going out of this world it is a sign that the things of this world
are not the best things, else those whom God loves best would not be
taken soonest from them. It speaks that all things come alike to all,
and that one event happeneth to the righteous and to the wicked, "so
that none knows love or hatred by all that is before him in this world."
But he that would know it must look before him into the invisible world.
Lay your ears this day to the coffins and graves of departed saints, who
though they do not pray for us, yet preach to us in the words of Christ,
"Be ye also ready." (Matt. xxiv. 44.) They are gone, and we are going;
their glass is run out, and ours is running; and therefore it concerns
us to daily die unto sin, and be alive to holiness, standing on the
watchtower, like the sentinel, with "loins girt," and "lamps burning,"
knowing that it is not the stroke, but the sting of death from which the
imputed righteousness of the Redeemer delivers.
God's saints are like a green olive-tree, in the house of God, because
they trust in His manifold mercy. They are like trees planted by the
rivers of water, and whose leaf shall never fade. While death can lay
his cold and icy hand upon the Christian's body, yet his soul he can
never touch. While God destroys the wicked at death, and plucks him out
of his dwelling-place, and roots him out of the land of the living, yet
to die in the Lord is to sing with the Psalmist, "I will not be
afraid," "I will render praises unto thee, for thou hast delivered my
soul from death," "and thou shalt bring me up again from the depths of
the earth."
Heaven is propitious. Streaming love flows from the fountain of Divine
compassion. "God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son,
that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting
life." Oh, this constant untiring love of our kind heavenly father.
"Scarcely," says Paul, "for a righteous man will one die: yet,
peradventure, for a good man some would even dare to die; but God
commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ
died for us." If we would _die in the Lord_, we must get a sight of
Calvary. He has died that we might live. We must behold His pierced
hands and feet and side. It is this sight that saves.
Not all the blood of goats and bulls,
On Jewish altars slain,
Can give the guilty conscience peace,
Or wash away the stain.
But Christ, the heavenly Lamb,
Takes _all_ our guilt away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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