Parish Papers by Norman Macleod
page 156 of 276 (56%)
page 156 of 276 (56%)
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accomplishment of this end, all has been done which is recorded in the
Bible, from Genesis to Revelation;--that God has been working in him, through agencies innumerable, since his childhood, by parents and friends, by tender mercies and bitter chastisements, by Sabbath ordinances and pulpit ministrations, by the constant witness of conscience and the Word of God, in order that he should know and love God his Father,--then, seeing this, will he see also how he may be a "fellow-labourer with God." _And have not you, my reader, been conscious of this work?_ You cannot get quit of the conviction that there is One higher than yourself with whom you have to do,--One who is ever with you, seeking to deliver you from evil, from your own evil self,--One whose voice is never silent, and who is righteously judging your daily life. And have you never been conscious, too, of fighting against what you certainly knew was not self, but a holy, winning, mysterious power or Person, who opposed self, and for that very reason was resisted by self? And therefore your sin has not been the ignorance of good, but opposing the good,--not the absence, but the resisting of a good work in you. It is on this very principle men will be condemned, for "This _is_ the condemnation, that light hath come into the world, and men _prefer_ darkness to light, because their deeds are evil." And if this has been your sin, so has it been your misery. In exact proportion as you thus "hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord," you become wretched and unsatisfied. No wonder! for with whom does the man work when he works in opposition to the will of God? In refusing to serve God, he serves Satan, and becomes a "worker together" with "the spirit who now worketh in the children of disobedience!" Well, then, what are you to do? I reply: "Yield yourselves to God;" "be subject to the Father of your spirit, and live." "Wherefore do |
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