The Devout Man
By Alexander Campbell
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There is no trait in the character of the Savior more clearly marked, more forcibly exhibited in the memoirs of his life, than his unreserved devotion to the will of his Father and his God. How often do we hear him say, "I came not to do my will, but the will of him that sent me." "It is my meat and my drink to do the will of him that sent me, and to accomplish his work." The motto of his life was sung by David in these words: "To do thy will 0 God, I delight." An unfeigned and unreserved submission to, a perfect acquiescence in, and a fixed unalterable determination to do, the will of the Most High, is the standard of true devotion, and the rule and measure of true happiness.
Whence, let me ask, arose this devotion to the will of the Father in our Lord and Savior? We answer, because he knew the Father. He knew that God is, and was, and ever shall be love, and he received every expression of his will, whether pleasing or displeasing to flesh and blood, as an exhibition of God's love. He knew, too, that there was no love like the love of God, either in nature or degree. The love of God is a love emanating from, incorporated with, and measured by, an infinite wisdom and omniscience.
Human affection is often misplaced and misdirected, because of human ignorance and human weakness. The love of some men is much greater than that of others, because of the strength of their natural endowments. But as the wisdom of God is unsearchable, so his love can never be displaced, misdirected, measured or cir-
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Every oracle of God, is a manifestation of it. As the electric fluid pervades the earth and all bodies upon it, but is invisible to the eye and imperceptible to the touch; but when drawn to a focus in a cloud by its law of attraction, and when it is discharged to another body which requires more of it than the point from which it emanated, it assumes a new form, and a new name, and becomes visible to the eye, and its voice is heard. Every expression of the will of God, every commandment of God, is only drawing to a certain point, and giving form and efficacy to his love. It then becomes visible, it is then audible, and we see it, hear it and feel it.
The very term devotion has respect to the will of another. A devoted or devout man is a man who has respect to the will of God. When a person is given up to the will of any person, or to his own will, he is devoted to that person or to himself. But as the term devout is used in religion, we may say that every man is more or less devout, according to his regard to the will of God expressed in his holy oracles. The Savior was perfectly so, and he is and ever shall be the standard of perfect devotion. Not an item of the will of God found in the volume of the old book written concerning him, that he did not do, or submit to; not a single commandment did he receive in person from his Father which he did not perfectly acquiesce in, and obey. He was then perfectly devout.
Now, in proportion as men are regenerated, they are like him. Faith always purifies the heart. A pure heart is an unmixed heart, that is, a heart singly fixed upon the will of God. The regenerated are therefore devout, or devoted to the will of God, and the unregenerated care nothing about it. Now everyone that is devout, or devoted to the will of God, will continually be inquiring into the will of God. Hence his oracles will always be their meditation. Every regenerated man will therefore be devout, devoted to the revealed will of God, will seek to know, and understand, and practice it; therefore every regenerated man will be a friend and advocate of the ancient order of things, in the church of the Living God, because that order was according to the will of God, and every departure from it according to the will of man. There is not a proposition in Euclid susceptible of a fuller demonstration than this: Every regenerated man must be devoted to the ancient order of things in the church of God, provided it be granted as a postulatum that the ancient order of things was consonant to the will of the Most High. A mind not devoted to the whole will of God, revealed in the New Book, is unregenerate. He that does not obey God in every thing, obeys him in nothing.
...Ah! remember, my friends, that all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man, rabbinical, clerical, regal, is as the flower of the grass; the grass withers and the flower falls down but he that does the will of God abides forever. Ye Doctors of Divinity, who are doting about questions and fighting about straws; ye Editors of religious journals, who are surfeiting the religious mind with your fulsome panegyrics upon those who second your views, and directing the public mind to objects lighter than vanity--remember that the will of Jehovah will stand forever, and that when "gems and monuments and crowns are mouldered down to dust," he that does the will of God shall flourish in immortal youth. Go to work, then, and use your influence to restore the ancient order of things.