SELF-DECEIT IN GOD'S SERVICE.

ISAIAH lviii. 2.

"Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God."

(From the Lesson for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany; Evening.) Ir is a remarkable state of society which the prophet portrays, in a few brief touches, in the chapter which formed the first lesson of this evening's service. The people of Judah, even when under their best monarchs they turned unwillingly from their idols to worship Jehovah, were still unwilling to obey His commandments. Covetousness, and want of charity, and even sins of deeper heinousness, were common amongst them. "The heavy burdens "they laid upon their slaves and others were "not undone, nor the oppressed let go free; their bread was not dealt to the hungry, nor the poor that were cast out brought into their house." Nor was it merely that they left undone what they ought to have done. Sins of commission were added to those of omission. Pride, perjury, fraud, injustice, adultery, and even open impiety, are charged upon them by the prophet Jeremiah, who represents the corruption of the people as so general that he breaks out into the melancholy exclamation,—“Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth; and I will pardon it'." Well might he add in the awful words of his Master,

[No. 12.]

1 Jer. v. 1.

157

"Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord: Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?" But the point most worthy of remark is, that in the midst of this general and deplorable corruption there were times when the people of Judah performed with considerable strictness the duties of religious worship, and wore every appearance of real and habitual devotion. They killed oxen and burnt incense; they observed the new moons and Sabbaths, and trode the courts of the Lord: they "bowed down their heads as a bulrush, and" in their fasts "spread sackcloth and ashes under them:" they went unto the prophets, as Ezekiel speaks in his own case, and they sat before them as God's people, and they heard their words, but they would not do them. Nor does it appear that we should be borne out in charging them for this conduct with hypocrisy; or, if they were hypocrites, they were of that common class, who, beginning by deceiving others, end in deceiving themselves. They seem not to have been strangers to devotional feeling, though their conduct proved it to be spurious and unsound. They "seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God." They were even surprised, and expostulated with God, because their prayers were not answered, nor their services accepted by Him "Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? Wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge?" It was in order to dispel this illusion that the prophet was com

2 Ezek. xxxiii. 31.

manded to "Cry aloud, and spare not ;" to "lift up his voice like a trumpet, and show God's people their transgressions, and the house of Judah their sins." He discovers the hollowness of their religion by pointing out its unfruitfulness in their lives. It is mercy that God requires, rather than sacrifice; but they, while they paid the sacrifice, were strangers to the mercy. To abstain from evil is the best of fasts; but they, while they could mortify the body, could not restrain the passions of the soul. They made their voice to be heard on high in prayer, but the cry of the oppressed rose with it to the Throne of Grace, and made it an abomination to the Lord.

It is not my intention to draw any parallel between our state and that of the Jews; and God forbid the time should ever come when the descriptions and denunciations of the prophet should be applicable to us as a nation! But I think that from the passage we have been considering may be drawn a lesson which well deserves to be pondered with seriousness and self-examination. It is that a punctual observance of religious duty, and even certain devotional feelings, may co-exist with very defective religious principles, evidenced by irregularity of life. We may seek God daily, and delight to know His ways; we may ask of Him the ordinances of justice, and take delight in approaching to God; and yet we may need the voice of God's Spirit, lifted up like a trumpet, to show us our transgressions, and convince us of our sins. And, indeed, it is characters of this inconsistent cast which our Saviour describes, at once, and condemns, in those impressive words. "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but

he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity "." Religious principle must be proved by religious practice. The tree must be known by its fruits. The profession of the lips, and even the apparent feelings of the heart, must be tested and evidenced by the tenor of the life.

There is, indeed, a spurious morality, as well as a spurious religion. Pride, or self-love, or a mere respect for the good opinion of others, may produce a decent and praiseworthy regularity of conduct; but this is so far from partaking of the nature of true holiness, that, divested as it is of the only motive which will be accepted by God, it serves but to show the extent and strength of the unworthy motives from which it takes its rise. The produce may be plentiful, and even luxuriant; but it is because the soil is fertilised with corruption. An outwardly moral life, too, without inward religious principle, has this additional danger, that it is apt to lull the soul in a false security, and cheat it into a self-satisfied complacency, from which the words of warning glance off without leaving an impression. Against this deadly error it is the preacher's bounden duty to warn his hearers; and against it, my brethren, I would, in passing, warn you now. There is not, believe me, there is not a motive that can be really acceptable to God but love,-sincere, heart-felt, self-abandoning love, to Him. If you are acting from other mo

3 Matt. vii. 21-23.

tives, you are deceiving yourselves with a phantom of obedience. You are not obeying Him. You are obeying your own pride, or your love of praise, or the dictates of the world's opinion. There must be a change of heart,—a new set of motives, of desires, of ends. You must see, in the faithful mirror of God's word, the imperfection, the error, the sinfulness of even your best acts, and must feel that in yourselves you are but helpless sinners in the sight of God. You must come to Him by the only and the living way, Jesus Christ, and pleading the allsufficient merits of His sufferings, must trust in Him alone for pardon, and sanctification, and peace. And then, warmed with love for a crucified Saviour, and feeling that to Him you owe all that is precious here, and all that is glorious in the prospect of hereafter, you must give yourselves up to His holy service, and work out your own salvation,-with fear and trembling, indeed, for the work is great, and the failure, if you fail, irretrievable,-but with a fear which acts in harmony with love, and a trembling anxiety that dreads to offend its Redeemer. Work out your own salvation, did I say? Yes, for so says the word of God. But the reason and the motive is, because it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." It is the entire work of God the Holy Ghost, that the soul is convinced of sin, and renewed unto a lasting and sincere repentance; that the heart believes unto salvation, and learns to trust its all upon the Cross of Christ; that faith worketh by love, and the corrupt and lifeless tree is renewed and reinvigorated to bring forth the fruits of the Spirit, and shed around the

4 Phil. ii. 13.