Romans 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwells no good thing: for to will is present with me… I. WE HAVE ALL FELT THE EXCEEDING DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TONE AND TEMPER OF THE MIND AT ONE TIME FROM WHAT IT IS AT ANOTHER. 1. Many of you can recollect that under a powerful sermon, in church, you caught something like the elevation of heaven; and that when you passed into another atmosphere, the whole of this temperament went into utter dissipation. And again, how differently it fares with us in devotional retirement, and in the world! 2. And many who are not, in the spiritual sense of the term, Christians, will not be surprised when they are told of two principles in our moral constitution — which, by the ascendancy of the one or the other, may cause the same man to appear in two characters that are in diametric opposition — and of two sets of tendencies, one of which, if followed out, would liken them to the seraphs, and the other to the veriest grub worm. 3. We appeal to a very common experience among novel readers — how they kindle into heroism, and melt into tenderness, and appear while under the spell to be assimilated to that which they admire. And yet all flees when again ushered into the scenes of familiar existence. There is one principle of our constitution that tends to sublime the heart up to the poetry of human life; and there is another that weighs the heart helplessly down to the prose of it. 4. A conspicuous instance of the same thing is the susceptibility of the heart to music. You have seen how the song that breathed the ardour of disinterested friendship blended into one tide of emotion the approving sympathies of a whole circle. It is hard to imagine that on the morrow the competitions and jealousies of rival interest will be as busily active as before, and will obliterate every trace of the present enthusiasm. And yet there is in it no hypocrisy whatever. The finest recorded example of this fascination is that of the harp of David on the dark and turbulent spirit of Saul. During the performance all the furies by which his bosom was agitated seem to have been lulled into peacefulness. II. LET US UNFOLD THE USES OF THIS INCIDENT IN THE ARGUMENT BEFORE US. 1. (1) Saul was refreshed and became well under the operation of this music. In which case it was his duty to call in the harp on the very first approaches of the threatening visitation; for by it alone, it seems, could his tranquillity be upheld. (2) Further conceive of Saul on the strength of the foreign application, ever at hand and never neglected, conquering the rebellious tendencies of his inner man. (3) Consider how Saul should have felt as well as acted, under the consciousness of what he natively was. Should he not have been humbled when he bethought him that, to sustain his moral being, he had to live on supplies from abroad, because in himself there was the foul spirit of a maniac and a murderer; and it would have become this monarch, even when feeling at his best, to loathe his savage propensities in dust and in ashes. (4) That sense of depravity which prompted the self-abasement of his spirit would prompt an unceasing recurrence to that by which its outbreakings were repressed; and so the more intense his detestation of his own character, would be the vigour and efficacy of that alone practical expedient by which his character was transformed. 2. And thus, in all its parts, does it hold of a Christian. (1) He feels that in himself he is like Saul without the harp. The streams of his disobedience may not be of the same tinge, but they emanate like his from the heart. The Christian feels that in that part of his constitution which is properly his own, there is a deeply seated corruption, the sense of which never fails to abash and to humble him. (2) What, then, is it which serves to mark him as a Christian? Not most assuredly that he is free of a carnal nature, but that he has access to an influence without, by which all its rebellious tendencies are thereby overborne. The Christian hath learned whither to flee in every hour of temptation; and thus it is that a purifying influence descends upon his soul. (3) There was a personal agent called in by Saul — the son of Jesse. In the former case, the power to soothe lay materially and directly in the music — though, to bring it into contact with the organ of hearing, there needed one to perform it. In the latter case, the power to sanctify lies materially and directly in the doctrine — though, to bring it into contact with the organ of mental perception, there needed to present it the Holy Spirit, whose office it is to bring all things to our remembrance. And so, when like to be overborne by the tyranny of your own evil inclinations, is it your part, depending on the Holy Ghost, to go forth and meet His manifestations, as He takes of the things of Christ and shows them unto your soul; and the heart will be kept in the love of God; and this will attune it out of all discord and disorder. In conclusion, learn from these observations how it is that by means of a power external to the mind of man, he may be so transformed as to become a new creature. If eloquence, or romance, or poetry, or music attune the heart to nobler and better feelings than those by which it is habitually occupied, shall we wonder that, upon faith realising the promises and the prospects of the gospel, the heart shall be translated into a new state? What music can be sweeter to the soul than when peace is whispered to it from on high; or what lovelier vision can be offered to its contemplation than that of heaven's Lord and of heaven's family; or what more fitted to lay the coarse and boisterous agitations of a present world than the light which has pierced across the grave and revealed the peaceful world that is beyond it? (T. Chalmers, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. |
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