In one of the Psalms it is written,

These words are comprehensive words. They may be used by every saint of God, whenever and wheresoever living and dwelling. They cover and define the position of every heir of salvation. They express accurately his present relation to God and all the hopes growing out of it. It is true of all of them, without exception, in whatever age or nation, that they are guided during their mortal probation by the Divine counsel, and will afterwards at the appointed time, be received in one joyful company into that glory, honour and immortality which God hath in store for those who please Him-to be manifested at the second appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us ponder its import with regard to the present time. Let us realise some of its applications to our present ways; for this will be for our profit, and thus shall we fulfil in ourselves the saying of Paul, that the scripture given by inspiration, which is profitable for instruction in righteousness, has been given, “that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works”-not partially, but thoroughly furnished, wealthily furnished, heartily furnished, efficiently furnished, zealously furnished-even to the point of having the word of Christ dwelling in us richly, with that intensity of appreciation expressed in the words,

And furnished unto all good works-not one or two; not like those who perform one set of duties and neglect others: who attend lectures, but absent themselves from the breaking of bread; who like to argue about first principles, but disrelish exhortation to holiness and prayer: who get up public meetings, but forget the ministration of the saints: who like discussion, but have no taste for worship: who are interested in the signs of the times, but dull on the law of Christ: who take an interest in the stranger, but forget love to the brethren: who zealously invoke the law and the testimony, but neglect the daily reading of the Scriptures: who teach doctrine, but pass over mercy and the love of God: who are diligent in business, but do not serve the Lord; who cherish theory, but fail in practice; who are alive to correctness of belief, but dead to holiness of life; who contend for the faith, but neglect the works without which faith is dead; who promise liberty to others, while they themselves are servants of corruption. On the other hand, the man of God, furnished unto all good works, will not be found in opposite extremes. He will not exalt “charity” over the gospel: he will not preach “love” where the word of God is corrupted; he will not advocate peace where there is not purity; he will not hold up almsgiving as the way of salvation; he will not inculcate union and friendship with the world on the plea of loving our neighbours as ourselves. For everything there is a time and a place; and the study of the word will teach us the when and the where. There is a right division of the word of truth and a handling of the word of God deceitfully. The man of God, thoroughly furnished unto all good works, will discern instinctively the one and the other, and be enabled to give its right place to every part of the word of the testimony.

How, then, are the heirs of salvation guided by the counsel of God in the days of their sojourn in the present evil world? Timothy is an example, to whom Paul declares that-

“From a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation.”

Paul’s parting benediction to the brethren of Ephesus contains the same answer:

The Psalmist gives the same idea plainly in the words we all know:

“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”

Finally Christ affirms it in those words of petition concerning his disciples:

“Sanctify them through thy truth: Thy word is truth.”

We live in an age when it is particularly necessary to recognise and insist upon this truth, that the counsel by which God now guides His people whom He shall afterwards receive to glory, is contained in the book written by holy men of old who spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. On all hands, there is a tendency to glorify the human mind as containing wisdom sufficient for guidance in spiritual things. We are asked to look into ourselves for light. It is taught that a degree of inspiration appertains to all men. We are asked to cultivate our faculties as the surest mode of obtaining a safe direction in the highest affairs of human well-being. This style of doctrine usually goes along with disparagement of the Bible. The preachers of it say that the Bible was very good in its day; that, in fact, we owe a great deal to it, but that we have outgrown it; that we have attained to further light; that our progress has made it obsolete, and that it is no more suited to the spiritual need of man now than ancient treatises are useful to modern students of chemistry. This is a dangerous doctrine, because it is pleasant falsehood.

Repulsive lies are innocuous: it is those that come with good words and fair speeches that expose us to mortal peril. It is flattering to be told we are wise; and that even the “good old book” (as modern pagans patronisingly phrase it) is a long way in our rear. The falsehood is double. It is not true that we have wisdom in us; and it is not true that the Bible has lost an atom of its transcendent value to poor perishing man. Folly and not wisdom is the native evolution of our minds. Knowledge of all sorts has to be put in, and we have to keep putting it in for it to stay. Paul was more accurate as a matter of mental philosophy, when he said: “In me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing,” than the stilted writers of our day, who, in a cloud of picturesque talk, glorify humanity as a good and noble thing. Their dissertations are mostly beautiful falsehood. Novels are the order of the day in more senses than one. Truth is too plain and too stern for an emasculated generation of pleasure hunters. But truth is beautiful for all that, and a tree of life and a spring of everlasting pleasure, as her faithful friends will realise when he who is the truth will come, and gird himself and make them sit down to meat and serve them. The Bible is our light and our life as much today as when fresh from the hands of its Author. If possible, it is more so, for those who received “the lively oracles” were under the power of what they had “seen and heard” in the course of the delivery of them, while we are wholly indebted to what we read in them. As we value our life, let us stand with indomitable resolution against all doctrines that would either flatter our spiritual dignity or detract from the authority or importance of the Scriptures in the least particle. The day will come when that which is written will be manifest to all men, namely,

“Whoso despiseth the Word shall be destroyed”: and “their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust, who cast away the law of the Lord of Hosts, and despise the word of the Holy One of Israel.”

“Woe unto men that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!”

There is another class, more numerous perhaps, among our immediate neighbours at all events, and whose doctrine in another direction is equally dangerous. I mean those who are so glib in the use of Paul’s words in a sense totally different from that in which Paul used them:

“The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”

This class say the Bible is all very well in its place, but that what we have to look to is the indwelling and abiding presence of that Spirit of Truth which Christ promised to his disciples, and which he said would guide them into all truth. Doubtless, it would be a great privilege, the value and comfort of which it would be impossible to exaggerate, if we had with us, as he was with the apostles, “the Comforter,” the Spirit of Truth, whom the world “cannot receive,” and who would “show us things to come.” But even if we had, the Spirit as a living intelligent presence with us would not discredit or disparage what the same Spirit had caused to be “written for our learning.” We should at least, even in that case, hold the Scriptures in the same estimation as the apostles who, though they had the Spirit, appealed to them in their reasonings about Christ, and who though recognising the gifts of the Spirit as among the brethren, commended the brethren to the written Word as the means of their comfort and sanctification. But what shall we say in the actual situation of things in our day? Shall we pretend to have the presence of the Spirit when it hath not pleased God to vouchsafe the glorious privilege in this closing term of the dark and Godless times of the Gentiles? Could we have His presence in our midst and be ignorant of the fact? Is it not the part of truth and wisdom to recognise our poverty-stricken condition, and cling with all the more determination to the Holy Oracles as our only hope? Are we not invited to drink at these living waters? Is it not the fact that salvation is predicated on faith in Christ and obedience to his commandments, and not on the enjoyment of the special privilege of the Spirit’s supernatural presence and guidance?

I can imagine a rejoicing enemy of the orthodox type seizing hold of these admissions, and using them against our profession, and in favour of the surrounding systems. “See,” he might say, “you admit the Spirit of God is not with you; you condemn yourselves. He is with us. He visits our meetings, waters our operations, strengthens our hearts, converts our hearers, helps our prayers, and gives a blessing to our cause.” But assertion is not proof. We must “try the spirits whether they are of God” (1 John 4:1). I can only say that if it were true that the Spirit of God was working with the popular systems, I for one should instantly and gladly cease my opposition to them, and seek to condone that opposition, so far as the past is concerned, by humbly asking admission to one of the meanest branches of their operations. But what do we find? First, we find that all these systems equally profess to have the Spirit, and yet differ from one another in their interpretation of the Lord’s will in important particulars. Here, at once, is conclusive evidence that they cannot all be guided by one Spirit; because if they were, they would “all speak the same thing, and be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” of divine matters as all the apostles and prophets concerning the kingdom of God and concerning the great doctrine of eternal life. If this is true (and no one really acquainted with the Scriptures will doubt its truth), what escape is there for any of them from the conclusion to which God commands us to come, in saying,

There is a spirit, doubtless, at work among the religious bodies around us: a spirit which they “feel.” I have felt it myself: a spirit which they sometimes see. I have often seen it myself in bright electric spark before the eye. But it is not the Spirit of God in the primary sense. It is the spirit of man-the life-energy of the blood condensed and applied by a specific action of the mind: a process which is effectual in an assembly in proportion to the number of persons contributing to the supply of the nervous fluid, and in proportion to the harmony of the surrounding conditions, such as matting on the floor, no draughts, no disturbance of the attention by people coming in, etc. Singing greatly helps it, because by the act of singing, the nervous system is stimulated and vital electricity more abundantly given off. Even the Spiritualists find the value of singing in this respect in another and a little darker branch of the same class of misunderstood phenomena. This “spirit” may be accurately defined as “the spirit of the flesh,” because it is given off by the flesh in functional excitation. The Spirit of God is in complete contrast; for the Spirit of God comes direct, as on the day of Pentecost, like “a mighty rushing wind,” independent of all conditions; and when it comes, it causes a man to think and speak in harmony with the Spirit’s already recorded utterances. It comes not in our day, for the simple reason that we are living in the days of Israel’s down-treading, when all things Gentile are in the ascendant, and when it has pleased God to appoint that there shall be a famine of hearing His words (Amos 8:11-12; Micah 3:6).

It is wise, therefore, though disagreeable, to repudiate the popular claim to the possession and guidance of the Holy Spirit. It is a false claim and a mischievous one. It leads people to look to the wrong direction. It leads them to attach great importance to the changeful moods and tempers of the human mind, which are as useless for spiritual guidance as the flicker of sheet lightning is to the mariner nearing land at night. On the other hand, it leads them practically to make light of and neglect the Bible, which is the only safe and sure guide, like the lighthouse on the dangerous coast, sending its beams athwart the darkness, for the guidance of the approaching ships. In fact, the result of the popular error on this point cannot better be described than in the language of the prophet, concerning Israel’s departure from the living God.

They neglect the true counsel by which God guides His people in the Scriptures of truth, and run after human thoughts, feelings and sentiments which lead away from that counsel. Be it ours to hold fast by the true light which God has placed in the world to lead us from the paths of darkness.

To some it may appear unsuitable to apply the words, “Thou wilt guide me by thy counsel,” to the passive relation of things implied in the mere possession of a book that has come from God. It may appear to them that these words require a more active and direct guidance than this. The answer is, the guidance in the case of David, who wrote the words in question, was more direct than in our case. He could say what we cannot say:

It could be recorded of him as it cannot be of us, referring to his anointing by Samuel,

The “counsel” or advice and direction would, in consequence of this be, in his case, more direct and personal than in our day of drought, when “there is no answer from God.” But even in his case, this directness of guidance did not displace from his supreme regard the written guidance which had been vouchsafed to others before his day. On the contrary, David valued and extolled very highly the written testimonies. The Psalms abound with this appreciation. He says in Psa. 19:10:

“More to be desired are they (the law, statutes and judgments of the Lord), than gold, yea, much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is thy servant warned; and in keeping of them is great reward.”

His description of the blessed man in the very first Psalm is of one “whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night.”

But even if we had not this exemplification of David’s devoted appreciation of the law and the testimony, as a lamp and a light and a guidance-that is, supposing David’s guidance had been altogether direct and personal by the Spirit (which it was not), and, therefore, out of the category of our experience, we should still be in a position to apply his words to ourselves. We should still be able to say, if diligent students of the Holy Oracles,

“Thou wilt guide me by thy counsel.”

For, when the counsel communicated to David and other servants of God is reduced to writing, does it not then become the property of all who posses the writing? And if we obey it, are we not guided by it? And are we not, in that case, guided by God, who gave the counsel? Unquestionably. We shall realise the force of this if we think what our position would have been in the absence of the Scriptures. We should have been totally in the dark, cut off from all knowledge of God, and, therefore from all prayer and hope and righteousness. Not knowing His will, we could not have done it. We should have been sunk in deep night, “alienated from the life of God through ignorance in us, because of the blindness of our hearts” (Eph. 4:18). With the Scriptures in our hands, it is entirely different. We may, if we suffer ourselves, be guided by His counsel, and, afterwards, received to glory, and this guidance and reception will be all of God.

But some will think, “Surely there is more guidance than this. Surely God does not leave us to the Bible merely. Surely God is not indifferent to those who strive to know His will, and to realise its power in themselves, and to do it. Surely He helps them.” The thought is not unscriptural. On the contrary, it is the teaching of the word that if we draw nigh to God, He will draw nigh to us; that if we choose the things wherein He delights-and those things are all embodied in the Bible-He will have His eye upon us and regard our way; that if we commit our way to Him, He will direct our steps; that if we are broken and contrite in heart and tremble at His word, He will look to us and help our infirmities, and succour us in temptation, and supply our needs, and chasten us in our errors, and forgive our sins, and strengthen us in the way of righteousness, and make all things work together for our good. But all this is dependent on our waiting on the word in daily reading and meditation. He hath magnified His word above all His name. He has appointed it as the means of our sanctification, the place of our meeting with Him. Honouring the word we honour Him. Despising the word we despise Him; and it is written,

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