Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 2.pdf/354

 a thought of his neighbour, never crosses his imagination; and the passage he has read never once strikes him as applicable to his own condition. Look at that calm and placid countenance: it has just bent over the precept. Be wise as serpents, and it goes forth in suspicion to every one it meets, but armed with external simplicity to avert suspicion on the part of others, and to meet subtlety with deeper cunning; thinking meantime, the application of the passage suited only for the warning of himself against the craft and subtlety of others. In like manner, almost every passage in the pure Word of God is misapplied. Every one thinks the good belongs to himself, and the evil to others. Now, how to escape from this—how to render every passage in the Word applicable to himself, should be the great concern of the Christian! And this attempt will assuredly bring about the period when the lion and the lamb shall dwell together, and there shall be nothing to hurt or destroy in all the holy mountain of the Lord. The great Saviour has been revealed to us as the "Lion of the tribe of Judah;" and as the "Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world." As the Lion of Judah, He engaged with all the fierce passions of men and infernals; before Him, craft became unmasked; cruelty and rapine stood bare in their naked deformity; revenge and deceit shrank into their own dark abodes; and the resistless power of truth brought all into subjection. And yet, in this Lion, all the guileless innocency of the Lamb dwelt; a gentleness which subdued the fiercest—a patience which exhibited the confidence of innocence—a mercy which proved the truth of its own doctrine, overcoming evil by good.