Bowen's Daily Meditations

Is it at all unreasonable to suppose that the contemplation of God will yield us greater more precious results than the consideration of anything or of everything in this world that he has made? You are wrapt up in the study of mineralogy, or botany, or conchology; and have no time to spare for the cultivation of your acquaintance with God. The sight of a little shell has wonderful power to awaken all your faculties: and you have no rest till you have ascertained its characteristics, traced...

Poor man, says the world. But no, says the believer; he is to be pitied who boasts of any other portion than this. If the Lord be not thy portion, will any portion that thou hast continue? Let it be power like that of Napoleon, wisdom like that of Socrates; fame like that of Bacon, imagination like that of Scott, wealth like that of the Bourbons; let it be beauty, or valor, or wit, or industry; let it be troops of friends, or one most loving heart; let it be what it may, it is a contemptible...

This modest text is supported by a bolder and more eloquent one in Isaiah. " Men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him." Those that waited for the Messiah, and at length beheld him, found the promise of these texts verified in their experience.

But we have not in this dispensation bid farewell to the attitude of waiting. The great and precious things bestowed upon us, do not hinder...

God hath said, " Thou shalt not kill," But thou hast done more than this. Imagine thyself in the presence of some pure and spotless inhabitant of heaven, clad in perfections that enable him to ' smile at any difficulty however gigantic, and resplendent with the glory of God. Imagine thyself as sailing him in his purity, wisdom, love, power, and glory; and stripping him of all his perfections one after another, and finally precipitating him to earth, a poor depraved sensual rebel. Cease now...

For the devices of man only increase my malady. The utmost they can do is to conceal a plague spot here and a plague spot there; but concealment is not abatement. What is my pride the better for all their prescriptions? What have they done for my self-will? For my unbelief, slothfulness, irritability, prayerlessness, impulsiveness? I come to thee, Lord. He that created me, and whose creation I have spent my days in marring, can alone restore to me his image, and make me to walk in the health...

We should greatly err if we understood this word " blessed' as teaching that the man who trusteth in God will pursue a path of tranquil enjoyment and exemption from sorrow. He is blessed because he is enabled to pursue the path, the only path, that leadeth unto everlasting life. Because the favor of God is his. Because Christ forsaketh him never. Because the Spirit of God dwells in him. Because he has grace to seek the welfare of his fellow-men. And he is blessed because of the peculiar...

The position of the church in the world is like that of the low countries. Its ground is all recovered ground; dyke's compass it about; and against these the mighty ocean mutters, dashes, rages, as its mood may be. The law of all waters is opposed to its existence; Pacifics, Atlantics and Antarctics, seem ever to be uttering a protest against it. Anon, they, or their representative waters, arise in strength and precipitate themselves upon it. A flood is always ready for the Church; at every...

There is a fight that is good; a warfare that is eminently laudable. It is lamentable to see how easily men err in deciding what is worthy, what is not worthy to enlist their noblest energies. A question of unspeakable importance; ― for what boots it that you undergo hardships, surmount difficulties, make the most incredible sacrifices, exhibit the most brilliant valor, or the most consummate skill, if the cause in which you have embarked be one not worthy of your energies and sufferings?...

It is regarded as one of the saddest facts in our condition, that the objects which interest and attract us, have no power to perpetuate their own attractiveness; and the mind obtaining what it passionately sought, and by degrees getting accustomed to its particular features of beauty, loses day by day something of its own delight in them. Fascination can get no victory that is not stolen from it again by time. And this is said to be an inevitable, Nemesis-like fact in our finite condition....

Blessed are they to whom the gospel is proclaimed; that is, a blessing is put within their reach. But especially, essentially blessed are they who know it as glad tidings of great joy.

One land is blessed with great fruitfulness; another with great mineralogical treasures; another by its geographical situation, favorable for commerce. One nation has a liberal government; another an admirable system of education. One country has numerous and exquisite remains of ancient art; another...

Who is this that spends his time with a company of poor despised sheep, seeking for them appropriate pastures, leading them beside still waters, defending them from evil beasts with his crook, carrying the lame ones in his bosom, studying all the peculiarities in the condition of each; apparently wrapped up in them, with no wisdom, no power, no resources save such as are needed for their welfare? Why! this is He that measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, meted out heaven with his...

The Bible, first and last, insists that man shall give unto God, all power, honor and glory and distinctly recognizes his own dependence, ingloriousness and insignificance. Some foolishly gather from this that God is against man, and is jealous lest he should attain to too much dignity. But the very word of God that makes such bitter warfare on the imagined strength and goodness of man, shows us the Lord of the universe ready to bestow his treasures of strength, wisdom and righteousness upon...

Take this text as your interpreter, and join yourself to the Lord Jesus, as he sets his face steadfastly to go up to Jerusalem. With tears he gazes on the city. He endures the contradiction of many sinners; ― Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians. He partakes of the passover with Judas. Washes the feet of his disciples. Gives the symbols of his broken body and shed blood to a little company the hope of the world, the elect of mankind, that were about to forsake him and flee. Look at these...

There is not only the one transcendent prize of everlasting life held up to the assured hope of every believer; but it would seem that the Lord Jesus Christ (out of his treasury bringing forth things new and old,) holds out particular and altogether wonderful rewards to those who throw themselves into the thick of the conflict of life, and overcome where there were peculiar difficulties in the way of their overcoming. The records of the past bear their not unwilling testimony to this....