Bowen's Daily Meditations

Our translators have shown an unnecessary timidity, in substituting the word " seats" for " thrones." The original is: " And round about the throne, thrones twenty and four." " I am glorified in them," said Christ. Their glory does not detract from his glory, any more than his from the Father's; but their glory is his glory. Christ is enthroned over again and crowned over again, in every redeemed one who is brought up out of the horrible pit and miry clay of sin, and advanced to a...

Scarcely with anything can man be properly said to be acquainted. He is painfully alive to the fact of his limited comprehension of even the least department of the works of God; yet has no trouble at heart on the score of his want of acquaintance with the Lord of the universe. " God, I know," says one; " leave me alone with regard to any account of him. See, I am very busy in the study of these caterpillars; your talk of God hinders me from getting some valuable knowledge.'' " Why is this...

Observe, there is an " if " in the case. The prize exhibited is obtainable on a condition. There is a glorious certainty; but it exists only in a particular path.

If thou seek him. The words stop with thee. It does not glance by thee to another. The question is not, " What shall this man do?" - "Are there many that be saved?" But, "Wilt thou seek Him? Unless thou canst distinctly prove that he has been found of thee, this word will not let thee go. Its errand from heaven is to thee,...

We have here the perseverance of the saints.

God will keep the foot of those who walk in his paths. They are saints, inasmuch as the Holy Spirit dwelleth in them, as they are born of God, walk by faith, renounce the idea of their natural holiness, and hunger and thirst after righteousness. Their feet he will keep. He will not keep the feet of those who simply seek to be kept from eternal perdition; but of those who wish to be kept from all steps that accord not with the glory of God....

The church of Sardis, as a whole, might be spoken of as dead. The ordinances of religion were indeed maintained and attended; the word read; prayer offered; the communion partaken. In the estimation of many of the members, the church was anything but dead; but their conception of a living church was different from Christ's; and he pronounced it dead: dead, as a church. Yet was not vital godliness altogether extinct; some believers there were; and their position was one of great...

Canaan was divided among the ancient people of God. Each tribe had its portion. The question might have been asked, What portion has the Lord reserved for himself? The answer would have been, " The people of God are his portion. They are his peculiar possession in the earth. They are his habitation. Not merely the first fruits, not merely the Sabbaths, not merely the firstling of the flock: - all is his. The people are his; their allegiance, their service belong to him.''

So it was...

David was not a man un-susceptible of fear; nor was he ashamed to confess that he could fear. Often he makes the confession. In this he was braver than many. But David stood firm, when a thousand brave men would have fled. Few shepherds would have stood by their sheep, on the approach of a bear; fewer, on the approach of a lion; but David, the stripling, did this: he met the bear and conquered it; he fought the lion and destroyed it. Afterward he met him before whom the whole Israelite army...

Who is there that hath not a burden? - who that stands in no need of relief?

The burden of ignorance weighs heavy on one man. He finds himself so lamentably in the dark with regard to many most important things. The burden of responsibility weighs heavy on another. The burden of some secret frailty, some unconquerable weakness oppresses another. The burden of doubt is crushing to this sin-tormented soul. The burden of mortality, the fear of death, is more than another can bear. The...

This is the portion of those that come out from the world and are separated. Adam was called the son of God; for God breathed his own Spirit into him, and created him in his own image. The sons of God shouted for joy at the dawn of mundane things, and most of all, when they saw their new brother, the inhabitant of Eden. In order that we might recover the knowledge of what is meant by the expression, " Son of God," Jesus Christ came into the world. The Father speaking from heaven, bade us...

There is a hope that cannot exist without fear, and a fear that should not be dissevered from hope. There is a fear that is obnoxious to perfect love; that is, a fear that has torment in it; it must be cast out, and sent to its own place - the bosom of the evil one. But the fear we speak of, angels would not be without for worlds; and saints cannot be without it. You may call it a loving solicitude to have Christ abiding in the heart by faith; to do our heavenly Father's will, without...

" In thy favor is life." When Adam sinned, he lost the favor of God, and thus he died. This is the worst of all deaths; for all other deaths are just the expression of God's disfavor. Ask one of the lost in hell when he died, and he will rightly tell you that it was when he lost the divine favor. When a man comes to Christ, he finds what Adam lost and what Adam doubtless regained, - the favor of God, life in the highest sense; for all the other things called life are but the expressions of...

By standing is here meant standing in the favor of God. This is the position of the believer. It is right for a man to think that he stands, if there he sufficient reasons for him so to think. It is not in itself a fault to entertain the idea that we stand. We are not told to renounce that opinion. "We may entertain it even with the greatest confidence, the most unwavering assurance. The words of the text suppose indeed that the party spoken of does stand ', for it is only one that standeth...

He is not as one who begins to build without having counted the cost. Not as a sculptor who begins to execute a work without having ascertained the impracticable nature of his material. These are the shameful mistakes of men. God is not a workman that will need to be ashamed. He has called together a goodly company of the nobility of heaven to look on, while he brings a holy creature out of your unholy nature. Will he lay down his implements and say, " I miscalculated?"

They that know...

One of the resolutions made by that eminently devoted and successful combatant for Christ, President Edwards, was to the following effect: " Resolved, so to live and strive as I would do if I knew that only one man of this generation were to be saved, and I were fully determined to be that man."

This seems to be much the same spirit that breathed in the words of Paul: " Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. I...