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Have you had a testing time? Thank God
that you have come out. and up to the highest
usefulness. A. A. L.
Contributed
WHAT OF FREE AGENCY;
By Rev. II. P. McClintic.
Whatever freedom of will man may have
ever had, even in his state of innocency, must
have been limited, growing out of the fact that
he is a creature of an absolute and sovereign
Creator.
He has freedom of will, but that freedom is
always exercised in accordance with his nature.
If man is sinful, then the whole man is sinful
in every part of his being. If it is his nature
to sin, of necessity the will is of the same na
ture, it can not be one thing while the remain
ing parts of the man is something else. Man's
will acts freely, but always in harmony with
his nature, anything else is to us unthinkable.
The first man was free to choose. He could
either obey God or the Devil. "When he de
liberately chose the latter he became like him
whom he obeyed, devilish. The total man in
all his parts and faculties was and is involved.
In his obedience to the devil instead of God
he naturally lost his likeness to God. He could
not sin and still be like God. Not only did
he lose his nature, but he also lost his standing
before the law of God and of necessity be
came an exile from that Kingdom against
whose laws and King he had transgressed. He
became a citizen of the kingdom of him whom
he obeyed. Being an exile all his posterity by
ordinary generation arc born in exile, born
away from and out of the kingdom of heaven ;
in short, are born in the kingdom of the devil.
To call that kingdom anything else than hell
does not in any sense change its condition. Be
ings born in the kingdom of the devil are like
him in whose kingdom they are born, hence
at enmity with God, not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can be.
To illustrate, we know that one is a free
citizen of the State until he breaks the laws of
that State in which he resides; when he does
so he forfeits his freedom as a citizen therein.
The State has the right and exercises itself
in the same when it lays its hands upon law
breakers and incarcerates them in prison, it
may be for life, they having forfeited all their
rights of freedom. When one has been thus
deprived of his liberty, mind you, not by the
State, but by his own deliberate act, there is
no way by which he can regain his freedom by
any act that he may perform, for whatever
good he may do is but what is due from him
and can in no regard remove the penalty of
his past offense. There is but one hope left
him of regaining his freedom and that by the
pardoning clemency of the States against which
he has sinned. His pardon, which removes his
further obligation to the penalty of his trans
gression, is of grace, purely a matter of favor.
As to what he will do with his citizenship so
graciously restored to him will depend upon
his conduct. This illustrates to our mind the
spiritual situation of man who was a free citi
zen in the Kingdom of God until he broke the
laws of that kingdom, thereby forfeiting his
freedom as such. He became exiled from God's
Kingdom, or, may we say, was shut up in God's
prison, whose keeper thereof is the devil. He
can not escape therefrom nor can he be re
stored to his freedom as a citizen in the King
dom of God, save by His pardoning grace, the
clemency of God against whom he has sinned.
If he can win his pardon it is then not of grace
but of works. What the pardoned sinner does
with his restored freedom as a citizen in the
kingdom, of course depends upon him. Christ
entered the prison house, conquered the keep
er thereof, so that the gates of hell can not
prevail against him or his blood-bought, re
deemed Church, but must swing open for his
and their exit therefrom.
Faith, by its very nature, precludes it from
being a condition of this pardoning grace, but
a result. Faith is vision. It is seeing. It is
the restoration of sight to those made blind by
sin. It is the first act of the regenerated soul
which enables it to see and to comprehend
something of the fullness of the pardoning
grace that makes us free, free agents, free to
love and to serve him who has bought our free
dom at the cost of his servitude even unto death.
So we are justified by the works of Christ on
his paitf, on ours by faith. That is to say, our
faith is accounted unto us in the place of our
righteousness, in the stead of our original
standing before the law, which we lost in the
sin of our federal head, Adam, regained in
our federal head, the Second Adam.
An unpardoned, unregenerated sinner is no
more a free agent, than is the penitentiary
convict, serving time for life. For a -man in
prison to boast of his freedom is consummate
folly. For a sinner out of God and in the
prison house of sin to boast of his freedom, is no
less a folly, yea it is folly run mad. In Christ
we have a freedom that is born of God, in Him
we are freedmen, bought out of the slave mar
ket of sin and freed forever. Christ and t
alone is our emancipator.
As to our personal sins after regeneration,
we get forgiveness for them conditioned on our
repentance, and are punished for them in this
life. The judgment seat of God is to his re
deemed no longer a judgment seat, but a mercy
seat, having been sprinkled with the blood of
the Judge Himself.
Liberty, Mo.
THE SOLE SOLACE ON THE DYING BED.
By L. S. Marye.
G. R. P. Kean (Garlick Kean as he was called
by his friends) was an A. M. of the Univer
sity of Virginia and one of its most disting
uished graduates. He was not only a fine
scholar, but a learned lawyer, also, the leading
lawyer at the Lynchburg bar, and with the
exception of Judge William J. Robertson, the
most eminent lawyer in the State.
On his death bed he repeated, as if to him
self, the first verse of Cardinal Newman's beau
tiful hymn on resignation:
Lead kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead thou me on.
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead thou me on.
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene ? one step enough for me.
Here was this ripe scholar and jurist when
"life's fitful fever was ended," the inevitable
home at hand, and the last enemy knocking at
the door. In that supreme moment all his
erudition was of no avail. His sole solace was
the Light to kindly lead him on, the invitation
of the Saviour, "Come unto me ye who are
weary and heavy laden and T will give you
rest."
This story calls to mind the death-bed scene
of Sir Walter Scott. As the great novelist, at
his beautiful home, Abbotsford, lay on his
death-bed, listening at the open window to the
rippling of the Tweed, he said to his nephew
Trevillian: "Hand me book." "What book!"
inquired his nephew. "There is but one book,"
answered Sir Walter, whereupon Trevillian,
now understanding him, handed him the Bible.
Here was Sir Walter Scott, who had read
hundreds of books, and who had himself writ
ten many, on his death-bed declaring that
there was but one book. In that supreme mo
ment he counted all the books he had read,
and his own Waverly Novels, as nothing. There
was for him in his expiring hour but one book,
the Bible. Its precious promises and invita
tions could alone give him consolation and so
lace in that supreme moment.
Charlottesville, Va.
PRISONERS OF THE PAST.
By Rev. R. V. Lancaster.
Each of us is the prisoner of his past. Few
earthly prisons are as secure and none more
largely determine the scope and value of a
man's life. Of this prison memory constitutes
the bars, reputation is the lock, habits the
wardens and disposition the containing wall.
This does not make men the victims of acci
dent or the pawns of destiny. It invites them
to a full valuation of the present, and by giving
them the consciousness that what is and what
is to be will both certainly one day be the past.,
arms them with a divine prescience for the
conduct of life as it comes upon them. Now
no one will be able to pause at each turn and
event of life to consciously weigh the issue
and determine what its character will be when
it shall have taken its place in the past. But
there are great lanes of life which if chosen
and walked in become transformed like the
sun's western trail into luminous glory when
the present has dissolved into the past. These
are the paths to choose. They send forth no
ray or cloud of unhappiness and regret.
Selections
BEGIN RIGHT.
"John, let us begin right."
The word was spoken with a winning smile,
itself a good beginning for the day, flashed at
John across the breakfast table.
Yes, they were just setting up housekeeping
? John and Mary, and this was their first meal
in the pretty home the young husband had
provided for his dainty bride. The interior of
the house, the cleanness and neatness of its
furnishings, the flowers tastefully arranged,
the well-laid repast, gave token that the little
wife had done her happy part and that, as ever,
the deft weaver and the doughty house-band
had united to produce the charming picture of
"Love in a Cottage" that men and angels love
to look upon ? if they may.
Just now John was folding his napkin with
a satisfied air, and was evidently preparing to
give the hearty but hasty morning salutation
and catch his car for down-town and the day's
work that was calling to him.
"Wait a minute, John. Let us begin right,"
said Mary.
John looked across at his little wife a bit
surprised. "I ? I thought we had already be- ?
gun," he ventured. ,
"Yes; but you know what I mean, John.
We ought to begin the day with God, oughn't
we?" H H I J:|^
The man of the house threw up his head
slightly and .then looked gravely down for a
moment. He was a Christian, as was the fair
daughter of a pious homo ho had chosen for
his helpmate; but he had never accustomed
himself to lifting his voice in public prayer
or voicing his personal petition aloud. How ?
many others there are like him ! And so he
answered quite naturally, "What shall I ? yt*iW