PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Morning of Joy
Horatius Bonar, 1808–1889 · 43,235 words · 50 reading sections
PREFACE. Vll
.■lo. "of • 0 -. J i- MORNING OF JOY 5 A. SEQUEL TO THE NIGHT OF WEEPING ' §mj nrraity in tin ranrning." PSAL. XXX. 8k REV. HORATIUS BONAR, KJSL80. NEW YORK: ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, No. 285 BROADWAY. 1854. ,£-ss r CONTENTS MM PREFACE 7 CHAPTER I. THE ANTICIPATIONS ....... 1 CHAPTER II. THE NIGHT-…
896 wordsSECTION 2THE ANTICIPATIONS.
For it is resurrection-change he looks for, and re- joices in as his hope. When that day arrives the trumpet shall sound, the voice of God shall speak, — Thou shalt call, And I will answer ! But how is he so assured of being thus remembered of God? He knows how precious in his eyes is the dust of his saints, — Tho…
885 wordsSECTION 3THE ANTICIPATIONS. 9
It often seems strange to us, and it must seem much more so to unfallen beings, that saints should be found at all in such a world, — a world without God, a world of atheists, — a world that from the days of Cain has been the rejecter of his Son, both as the sacrifice for sin and as the heir of all things. It is not on…
952 wordsSECTION 4THE NIGHT-WATCH. 15
Beyond the death-bed and beyond the grave, she sees resurrection. Beyond the broken hearts and severed bands of time, she realizes and clasps the eternal love-links ; beyond the troubles of the hour, and be- yond the storm that is to wreck the world, she casts her eye, and feels as if transported into the kingdom that …
856 wordsSECTION 520 THE NIGHT-WATCH.
Sometimes too a feeble, doubting, or, it may be, inconsistent saint, asks in wonder, How are you so strong, so hardy, so able for the struggle, so successful in the battle ? She answers, "X watch." Or he asks, How do you keep up a tone so elevated, and maintain a walk so close, so consist- ent, so unearthly ? She answe…
886 wordsSECTION 6THE NIGHT-WATCH, 25
the command nor the declaration of uncer- tainty and suddenness. It would have anticipated all these. It would have acted upon them unbidden. But the Lord could not trust us. He could not trust our love; and therefore he adds the command, there- fore he reiterates the warning. It is strange and sad indeed, that neither…
878 wordsSECTION 780 THE NIGHT-WATCH.
We watch ; for it is night, and though we are not children of the night, still the night with its shadows rests heavily upon us, making us with wistful keenness to look out for its passing away. We grow more dissatisfied with it as it deepens. It brings so many griefs, it gathers round us so many temptations, it calls …
955 wordsSECTION 8THE MORNING. 35
80 THE NIGHT-WATCH. interval interposed before the advent, alters the posture, destroys the character, and breaks the oneness of the church, while it defeats the object which God had so specially in view in keeping the times and seasons in his own power. Often, since the Lord left the earth, has the watch been change…
858 wordsSECTION 940 THE EARNESTS OP
than his beginning."* Such was Israel's " morning " when the Lord turned back the captivity of Zion, " making them like men that dream/' filling " their mouth with laughter and their tongue with sing- ing," in the day of their deliverance from exile. Thus there are "mornings" ever and anon bursting on us now. They are…
933 wordsSECTION 10THE MORNING. 45
How wise, how gracious that' it should be so ! One firmament of gloom, spanning our whole life-time, would be intolerable. One long heavy chain of grief, with which we could never get familiar, and on which we could never learn to look calmly ; or one linked succession of griefs, ever tearing open old wounds and adding…
886 wordsSECTION 11THESE EARNESTS. 51
It was then that we could make the utterance of Jacob's patient faith our own, u I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord ; " subscribing ourselves to our fellow saints as " your companion in tribulation and in the kingdom and patience of Christ " (that is, in patient waiting for his king- dom). It was then that these w…
924 wordsSECTION 1256 THE USE OF
THESE EARNESTS. 51 strength, and we feel as if a chain were on our limbs. There is not indeed the bond- age arising from any uncertainty as to the relationship in which we stand towards God. These fetters fell from us when we received God's record of forgiving love, and knew what it is to be freely pardoned. These fet…
902 wordsSECTION 13THE MORNING- STAR. 61
These intervals of brightness, then, are the true seasons for labour. These earnests of the morning should be prized as oppor- tunities specially afforded us by God for strenuous labour. If thus laid out, how blessed will they be found ! They are brief, for tribulation is our lot on earth, not ease ; but this should on…
892 wordsSECTION 1466 THE MORNING-STAR.
* " Fairest of stars, last in the train of night, If better thou belong not to the dawn : Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling morn With thy bright circlet, praise him in thy sphere, While day arises, that sweet hour of prime." Paradise Lost. Book V* 62 THE MORNING- STAR. the morning;" and the morning-star …
898 wordsSECTION 15THE MORNING-STAR. 71
Lastly, there is the day in its full brightness. For the path of this Just One is like the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. Of that day, earth has never seen the like. For that day it waits in patient hope, strug- gling hard, meanwhile, with darkness, and THE MORNING- STAR. 67 labouring …
787 wordsSECTION 16THE MORNING. 77
shall not go before those that are asleep, yet they shall not be behind them in the bless- edness. They shall have the same privileges of the early morning, — the same honour, the same glory. Their eye shall look upon that Star ; and it shall be to them all that it is to those who were " dwelling in dust." Living in th…
835 wordsSECTION 1782 THE MORNING.
or be heedless as to its arrival. For the coming of the morning is the coming of Him whom we long to see. It is the coming of Him " who turneth the shadow of death into the morning." (Amos v. 8.) It is the return of Him whose absence has been night, and whose presence will be day. It is the return of Him who is the res…
918 wordsSECTION 18THE MORNING. 87
Look again at the forty-sixth Psalm. It is the utterance of the faith of Israel's faithful ones, in the time of " Jacob's trouble." The earth is shaken (verse £, compared with Haggai ii. 6 ; and Heb. xii. 26, 27) ; the sea and the waves roar (ver. 3, comp. with Luke xxi. 25) : but there is a river whose streams gladden…
924 wordsSECTION 1992 THE MORNING.
Thus we see all kinds of joy brought within the circle of this morning. It is a morning of joy, because it is the morning introduced by Him, who said, cc These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full " (John xv. 11) ; by Him " in whose presence there is fulness of…
877 wordsSECTION 2096 THE VICTORY OVER DEATH*
* Goethe, the world's favourite, if one may so speak, confessed when about eighty years old, that he could not remember being in a really happy state of mind even for a few weeks together ; and that when he wished to feel comfortable he had to veil his self- consciousness ! And the following is the closing sen- tence o…
868 wordsSECTION 21102 THE VICTORY OVER DEATH.
" O death, where is thy sting?" He that hath the power of death is the devil, the old serpent, and he torments us here. Sin gave him his sting, and the law gave sin its strength ; but now that sin has been forgiven and the law magnified, the sting is plucked out. The stinging begins with our birth; for life throughout …
858 wordsSECTION 22THE VICTORY OVER DEATH. 107
bereavement, tears of adversity, tears of heart-breaking sorrow, these are forgotten. We cannot weep again. The fountain of tears is dried up. God our Lord wipes off the tears. It is not time that heals the sorrows of the saints, or dries up their tears ; it is God; God himself; God alone. He reserves this for himself,…
889 wordsSECTION 23THE REUNION, 113
shall be revived. Our risen friend shall be in very deed — form, look, voice — the friend that we have known and loved. Our risen brother will be all that we knew him here when, hand in hand, we passed through the wilderness together, cheered with the blessed thought that no separa- tion could part us long, and that th…
878 wordsSECTION 24118 THE REUNION.
But there is reunion. And one of the joys of the morning is this reunion among the saints. During the night they had been scattered, in the morning they are gathered together. In the wilderness they have been separated, but in the kingdom they shall meet. During this age they have been like the drops of the fitful show…
877 wordsSECTION 25THE REUNION. 123
It is to this reunion, and to the honours that shall then be given to the whole church at once, that the apostle refers, when he says, that " they (the Old Testament saints, to whom the promises came) without us should not be made perfect." (Heb. xi. 39, 40.) Thus he intimates that the actual possession of the thing pr…
801 wordsSECTION 26THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD.
gether into one. That which we call dis- tance is annihilated, and the curtain drawn by sin is withdrawn from between the uppei and the lower glory, and the fields of a paradise that was never lost are brought into happy neighbourhood with the fields of paradise regained ; God's purpose develop- ing itself in the onene…
907 wordsSECTION 27134 THE PRESENCE
It is with such feelings that we look for ward to our meeting with Him " whom having not seen we love/' and anticipate the joy of being for ever " with the Lord." That day of meeting has in it enough of gladness to make up for all the past. And then it is eternal. It is not meeting to- day, and parting to-morrow ; it i…
904 wordsSECTION 28OP THE LORD. 139
The time of this meeting is his coming ; not till then. Before that there is distance and imperfection. I know that in the disembodied state there will be greater nearness and fuller enjoyment than now. And this the apostle longed for when he had the " desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better." Even bef…
919 wordsSECTION 29OF THE LORD. 143
These are privileges ; and yet it might be said, on the other hand, that these saints do not taste the gladness of resurrection ; that they are not conformed to their Lord in this, that he died and rose. Still the end in both cases is the same, — the one shall have no advantage, no pre-eminence over the other. Both are…
894 wordsSECTION 30148 THE PRESENCE
Thus with songs shall we go up on high ; our songs in the night being exchanged for the songs of the morning. They shall be " songs of deliverance," with which we shall then be " compassed about " in that day when we get up into our " hiding- place " to be " preserved from trouble " (Psa. xxxii. 7) ; when we " enter in…
948 wordsSECTION 31THE KINGDOM. 133
This is what we look for ; this is our watchword and our song even in the day of absence and sorrow; and it is this that makes the expected morning so truly a OF THE LORD, 149 morning of joy. " As for me, I will be- hold thy face in righteousness : I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." (Psa. xvii. 1…
782 wordsSECTION 32158 THE KINGDOM*
To think of trial as a preparation for the kingdom is much ; but to look at it as an entrance into it is more. At the end of time's dark avenue stands the mansion- house, the palace ! At the edge of our de- sert-track lies the kingdom ! The avenue may be rugged under foot, thorny on every side, and gloomy over head ; t…
850 wordsSECTION 33THE KINGDOM. 163
sorrow which has bowed us down while here. And such is obviously the point of Christ's declaration to his disciples. (Luke xxii. 28 — 30.) For having said to them, " Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations/' he adds, " and I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Fa- ther hath appointed unto me ; that ye …
918 wordsSECTION 34168 THE KINGDOM.
where shall he inscribed the motto upon Gideon's altar, "Jehovah-Shalom." (Judg. vi. 24, margin.) " The beasts of the field shall be at peace with us " (Job v. 23) ; for " the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a lit…
911 wordsSECTION 35THE GRACE. 173
" Thy kingdom come ! " This is the bur- den of our cries. Weary of man's rule, we long for God's. Sick at heart with this world's scenes of evil,— man spoiling man ; man enslaving man ; man wounding man ; man defrauding man ; man treading upon man ; — we long for the setting up of the righteous throne. Oh, what a world…
761 wordsSECTION 36THE GRACE. 177
For thus saith the prophet, " Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green ; and shall not be care- ful in the year of drought, nei…
919 wordsSECTION 37182 THE GRACE.
f Eph. ii. 7. p The word " exceeding " is a very strong one, vtrtptaWovTa ttXovtov, and is the same word used 2 Cor. iii. 10, "The glory that excelleth ;" Epk. i. 19, " The exceeding greatness of his power ; M iii. 19, "The love of Christ that passeth knowledge." 178 THE GRACE. it is not merely grace, but it is riche…
766 wordsSECTION 38THE GRACE. 187
eousness." (2 Tim. iv. 8.) It makes us pillars in the temple of our God. It writes upon us the name of our God, and the name of the city of our God. It gives us " the morning-star." It gives us the white stone, and in the stone a new name written which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it. It makes us to eat of …
923 wordsSECTION 39192 THE GLORY.
until the day of Jesus Christ." The grace has not had full room to expand itself and show all the vastness of its compass. Our life is hid ; our glory is hid ; our inherit- ance is hid ; our city has not yet come down out of heaven from God. In the pit of Dothan it did not appear what Joseph was to be. His strange drea…
926 wordsSECTION 40THE GLORY. 197
Such is the case of a saint. From the moment that the hand of the Spirit is laid on him to begin the process of separation, from that moment his history begins. He then receives a conscious, outstanding personality, that fits him for having a his- tory— a history entirely marvellous ; a history whose pages are both wri…
843 wordsSECTION 41THE GLORY. 201
For all being has its more and its less per- fect parts. And its glory is that which is most perfect about it, to which of course that which is less perfect has, according to its measure, contributed. Light is the glory of the sun. Transparency is the glory of the stream. The flower is the glory of the plant. The soul …
850 wordsSECTION 42206 THE GLORY.
The hope of this glory cheers us. From under a canopy of night we look out upon these promised scenes of blessedness, and we are comforted. Our dark thoughts are softened down, even when they are not wholly brightened. For day is near, and joy is near, and the warfare is ending, and the tear shall be dried up, and the …
879 wordsSECTION 43THE GLORY. 211
" The riches of his glory," says the apos- tle in one place (Rom. ix. 23) ; " the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints," writes he in another. (Eph. i. 18.) Strange expressions these ! They carry us up to a height of such infinite glory and joy, that we feel bewildered and overwhelmed. Just as there are…
837 wordsSECTION 44216 THE GLORT.
glorious gospel of the blessed God/'* (1 Tim. i. 11); or, more literally, " the gos- pel of the glory of Christ," that is, "the good news about the glory of Christ," and " the good news about the glory of the blessed God." As it is <( the gospel of the kingdom," or good news about " the king- dom," that is preached, so…
929 wordsSECTION 45285 BROADWAY, XEW YORK.
brood over our case, and make self the ob- ject of our sad and anxious care. If we are to have glory as surely and as cheaply as the lilies have their clothing, or the ravens their food, why be so solicitous about self? Or why think about self at all, save to re- member and to rejoice that God has taken all our concern…
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811 wordsSECTION 500 017 077 261 1
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238 wordsSource & rights
Public-domain historical work by Horatius Bonar, 1808–1889. OCR from an original historical scan hosted by Internet Archive; OCR may contain recognition errors.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.