counsel." But when the counsel is bad, we are fearfully responsible. The sad conduct of Roger Miller for months and years must be traced to the bad advice he received from a member of the church. Oh, professors, take heed what counsel you give to young converts as well as what example you set before them! 5. Never violate your conscience under any pretext or urgency. To him that esteemeth anything to be sin, to him it is sin. If we even regard a course as doubtful, we must avoid it. He that doubts the lawfulness of any course he is pursuing is sinning all the time. Even Cicero, a heathen, had a knowledge of the right rule: "If thou doubtest whether a thing be lawful or not lawful thou shalt not do it." Poole well and sententiously says, "What a man doth doubtfully, he doth sinfully." No advice should prevail to alter our conduct till our convictions are clear. 6. A converted man may go far astray. Be warned by the drunkenness of Noah and of Lot; by the prevarication of Abram and Jacob; by the murder and adultery of David; by the denial and dissimulation of Peter. There is no conduct so vile, so base, that we may not be guilty of it if the Lord leave us to ourselves. If any say that the falls of professors are not sinful and dangerous, they do greatly err from the truth, and are themselves in great peril at the very time. 7. One of the sad things about the inconsistent walk of professors is that their repentance does not undo the mischief they have wrought. Long after they are convinced of their folly and have wept over it, they sometimes see others pursuing paths into which they were led, or in which they were encouraged, by those who now hate every false way. 8. No kind of open sin seems to have a more hardening or debasing effect than a profanation of the Lord's day. Holy time and holy things desecrated make the heart terribly obdurate and greatly blind the mind. When Roger Miller spent part of his sabbaths in his shop, he soon lost relish for the public and private worship of God. Why was this? Surely there was a cause for this sad work. One reason for the very hardening effect of sabbath-breaking is the fact that we seldom break it alone. Roger Miller gathered around him on the Lord's day a set of profane men, to whose irreligious and worldly conversation he voluntarily subjected himself. The trial was too great for him. Then, in profaning the sabbath we sin immediately against God. "If any man sin against another, the judge shall judge him; but if a man sin against the Lord, who shall entreat for him?" Nor can we engage in systematic sabbath-breaking without greatly polluting our souls by the deliberation with which we do it. We cannot plead the suddenness of the temptation nor the power of surprise. In this land and age very few are ignorant of the law of God requiring us to remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. The commandments are generally known and often repeated. There are millions of copies of them in our country. If men will profane the sabbath, they cannot do it ignorantly. Now, to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." "He that knew his Lord's will, and did it not, shall be beaten with many stripes." 66 Nor is this all. The fourth commandment is like the keystone of an arch: remove it, and our whole moral code falls to pieces. If we have no sabbath of the Lord, we shall soon have no worship of God, and no God so believed in as to be worshipped by any but the superstitious. If we profane God's day, is it not certain that we shall profane His name? and if we do not fear God enough to keep His sabbaths, is it likely that we shall regard the rights of man? It is no marvel that he who robs God should cheat, or lie, or steal, or break all the precepts of the second table of the law. Moreover, God has in all past ages put a mark on those 1 I Sam. ii. 25. who break his sabbaths. Sore evils have come on those persons and communities who openly contemn the holy sabbath. Revolutionary France utterly abolished the Christian sabbath; then she " got drunk on blood to vomit crime." Many a felon under the gallows, or as the day of execution approached, has confessed, and desired it to be made known, that when he became so hardened as not to shrink from openly violating the sabbath, he was, in mind, preparing for the worst crimes. On the other hand, good men have long borne testimony to the fact that God has greatly blessed them in their right observance of His day. All this was promised, and therefore was to be expected. Roger Miller, in his better days, and millions of others, have proved the truth of this statement. Long since Jehovah promised, "If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord and honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth." "" 1 The fourth commandment has not expired by limitation, for it was not limited. It has not been repealed or set aside by any competent authority. Jesus Christ has expressly told mankind that He did not come to destroy the law. Nor is the fourth commandment become impracticable. It was given to the Jews in the wilderness-a whole nation on a journey. When rightly disposed, they kept it; and if we will, we can keep it also. Here it is: "Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. "Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work ; "But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy gates: 1 Isa. lviii. 13, 14. "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it." Remember the fall of Roger Miller. "Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy." "In Your Sins." AYS Christ, "If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins." No matter how unsullied your virtue, how incorruptible your honesty, how lovely your deportment, how extensive your benevolence, how kind your disposition or delicate your susceptibilities; no matter how refined and elevated may be your conceptions of the beautiful in nature, art, or morals; no matter what exalted opinions your fellow-men may form in relation to you if you have no vital connection with Christ by faith, you will die in your sins. Your sins must be forgiven before you can enter heaven. They can be cancelled only by belief in Christ, the appointed way; and if not cancelled, you will die with all their terrible guilt attached to them; sins surcharged with the fearful punishment which they deserve. Are you running the fearful risk of dying in your sins? You would not risk all your property upon the throw of a die; yet you risk eternal misery upon the chance of your dying as you are. In your sins when you die, is to be out of heaven, the sinless abode of the pure; in your sins, is to be in hell, where sin is supreme; in your sins when you die, is to have your destiny fixed for ever. I conjure you, get out of your sins, lest you die in them. Deeply repent of them, and have your heart cleansed of them by the blood of Him who taketh away the sins of the world; so shall you, when you die, die "in the Lord." Almost persuaded that Saviour to love Who left His bright home in the regions above, Almost persuaded, when sunk in the wave, Almost persuaded, when sick and when faint, Almost persuaded, when deeply distrest, Is it almost persuaded, I still hear you say? 66 'Come, heavily laden one, come unto Me." 'Tis Jesus alone who can give thee true rest- |