George Muller of Bristol Part 31

_Ans._ Although we have no express command respecting the frequency of its observance, yet the example of the apostles and of the first disciples would lead us to observe this ordinance every Lord's day.

(Acts xx. 7.)

(2) _What ought to be the character of the meeting at which the saints are a.s.sembled for the breaking of bread?_

_Ans._ As in this ordinance we show forth our common partic.i.p.ation in all the benefits of our Lord's death, and our union to Him and to each other (1 Cor. x. 16, 17), opportunity ought to be given for the exercise of the gifts of teaching or exhortation, and communion in prayer and praise. (Rom. xii. 4-8; Eph. iv. 11-16.) The manifestation of our common partic.i.p.ation in each other's gifts cannot be fully given at such meetings, if the whole meeting is, necessarily, conducted by one individual. This mode of meeting does not, however, take off from those who have the gifts of teaching or exhortation the responsibility of edifying the church as opportunity may be offered.

(3) _Is it desirable that the bread should be broken at the Lord's Supper by one of the elders, or should each individual of the body break it for himself?_

_Ans._ Neither way can be so decidedly proved from Scripture that we are warranted in objecting to the other as positively unscriptural, yet--

(1) The letter of Scripture seems rather in favour of its being done by each brother and sister (1 Cor. x. 16, 17): "The bread which _we break."_

(2) Its being done by each of the disciples is more fitted to express that we all, by our sins, have broken the body of our Lord.

(3) By attending to the ordinance in this way, we manifest our freedom from the common error that the Lord's Supper must be administered by some particular individual, possessed of what is called a ministerial character, instead of being an act of social wors.h.i.+p and obedience.

APPENDIX N

THE WISE SAYINGS OF GEORGE MULLER

FEW who have not carefully read the Narrative of Mr. Muller and the subsequent Reports issued year by year, have any idea of the large amount of wisdom which there finds expression. We give here a few examples of the sagacious and spiritual counsels and utterances with which these pages abound.

THE BODY.

CARE OF THE BODY.

I find it a difficult thing, whilst caring for the body, not to neglect the soul. It seems to me much easier to go on altogether regardless of the body, in the service of the Lord, than to take care of the body, in the time of sickness, and not to neglect the soul, especially in an affliction like my present one, when the head allows but little reading or thinking.--What a blessed prospect to be delivered from this wretched evil nature!

HABITS OF SLEEP.

My own experience has been, almost invariably, that if I have not the _needful_ sleep, my spiritual enjoyment and strength is greatly affected by it. I judge it of great moment that the believer, in travelling, should seek as much as possible to refrain from travelling by night, or from travelling in such a way as that he is deprived of the needful night's rest; for if he does not, he will be unable with renewed bodily and mental strength to give himself to prayer and meditation, and the reading of the Holy Scriptures, and he will surely feel the pernicious effects of this all the day long. There may occur cases when travelling by night cannot be avoided; but, if it can, _though we should seem to lose time by it, and though it should cost more money,_ I would most affectionately and solemnly recommend the refraining from night-travelling; for, in addition to our drawing beyond measure upon our bodily strength, we must be losers spiritually. The next thing I would advise with reference to travelling is, with all one's might to seek morning by morning, before setting out, to take time for meditation and prayer, and reading the word of G.o.d; for although we are always exposed to temptation, yet we are so especially in travelling.

Travelling is one of the devil's especial opportunities for tempting us.

Think of that, dear fellow believers. Seek always to ascertain carefully the mind of G.o.d, before you begin anything; but do so in particular before you go on a journey, so that you may be quite sure that it is the will of G.o.d that you should undertake that journey, lest you should needlessly expose yourself to one of the special opportunities of the devil to ensnare you. So far from envying those who have a carriage and horses at their command, or an abundance of means, so that they are not hindered from travelling for want of means, let us who are not thus situated rather thank G.o.d that _in this particular_ we are not exposed to the temptation of needing to be less careful in ascertaining the will of G.o.d before we set out on a journey.

CHILDREN.

CONVERSION OF CHILDREN.

As far as my experience goes, it appears to me that believers generally have expected far too little of present fruit upon their labours among children. There has been a hoping that the Lord some day or other would own the instruction which they give to children, and would answer at some time or other, though after many years only, the prayers which they offer up on their behalf. Now, while such pa.s.sages as Proverbs xxii. 6, Ecclesiastes xi. 1, Galatians vi. 9, 1 Cor. xv. 58, give unto us a.s.surance not merely respecting everything which we do for the Lord, in general, but also respecting bringing up children in the fear of the Lord, in particular, that our labour is not in vain in the Lord; yet we have to guard against abusing such pa.s.sages, by thinking it a matter of little moment whether we see _present_ fruit or not; but, on the contrary, we should give the Lord no rest till we see present fruit, and therefore, in persevering, yet submissive, prayer, we should make known our requests unto G.o.d. I add, as an encouragement to believers who labour among children, that during the last two years seventeen other young persons or children, from the age of eleven and a half to seventeen, have been received into fellows.h.i.+p among us, and that I am looking out now for many more to be converted, and that not merely of the orphans, but of the Sunday-school and day-school children.

NEGLECT OF CHILDREN.

The power for good or evil that resides in a little child is great beyond all human calculation. A child rightly trained may be a world-wide blessing, with an influence reaching onward to eternal years.

But a neglected or misdirected directed child may live to blight and blast mankind, and leave influences of evil which shall roll on in increasing volume till they plunge into the gulf of eternal perdition.

"A remarkable instance was related by Dr. Harris, of New York, at a recent meeting of the State Charities Aid a.s.sociation. In a small village in a county on the upper Hudson, some seventy years ago, a young girl named 'Margaret' was sent adrift on the casual charity of the inhabitants. She became the mother of a long race of criminals and paupers, and her progeny has cursed the county ever since. The county records show _two hundred_ of her descendants who have been criminals.

In one single generation of her unhappy line there were twenty children; of these, three died in infancy, and seventeen survived to maturity. Of the seventeen, nine served in the State prison for high crimes an aggregate term of fifty years, while the others were frequent inmates of jails and penitentiaries and almshouses. Of the nine hundred descendants, through six generations, from this unhappy girl who was left on the village streets and abandoned in her childhood, a great number have been idiots, imbeciles, drunkards, lunatics, paupers, and prost.i.tutes: but two hundred of the more vigorous are on record as criminals. This neglected little child has thus cost the county authorities, in the effects she has transmitted, _hundreds of thousands of dollars,_ in the expense and care of criminals and paupers, besides the untold damage she has inflicted on property and public morals."

TRAINING OF CHILDREN.

Seek to cherish in your children early the habit of being interested about the work of G.o.d, and about cases of need and distress, and use them too at _suitable times,_ and under _suitable circ.u.mstances,_ as your almoners, and you will reap fruit from doing so.

CHRISTIAN LIFE.

BEGINNING OF LIFE, ETC.

G.o.d alone can give spiritual life at the first, and keep it up in the soul afterwards.

CROSS-BEARING.

The Christian, like the bee, might suck honey out of every flower. I saw upon a snuffer-stand in bas-relief, "A heart, a cross under it, and roses under both." The meaning was obviously this, that the heart which bears the cross for a time meets with roses afterwards.

KEEPING PROMISES.

It has been often mentioned to me, in various places, that brethren in business do not sufficiently attend to the keeping of promises, and I cannot therefore but entreat all who love our Lord Jesus, and who are engaged in a trade or business, to seek for His sake not to make any promises, except they have every reason to believe they shall be able to fulfil them, and therefore carefully to weigh all the circ.u.mstances, before making any engagement, lest they should fail in its accomplishment. It is even in these little ordinary affairs of life that we may either bring much honour or dishonour to the Lord; and these are the things which every unbeliever can take notice of. Why should it be so often said, and sometimes with a measure of ground, or even much ground: "Believers are bad servants, bad tradesmen, bad masters"? Surely it ought not to be true that _we, who have power with G.o.d to obtain by prayer and faith all needful grace, wisdom, and skill,_ should be bad servants, bad tradesmen, bad masters.

THE LOT AND THE LOTTERY.

It is altogether wrong that I, a child of G.o.d, should have anything to do with so worldly a system as that of the lottery. But it was also unscriptural to go to the lot at all for the sake of ascertaining the Lord's mind, and this I ground on the following reasons. We have neither a commandment of G.o.d for it, nor the example of our Lord, nor that of the apostles, _after the Holy Spirit had been given on the day of Pentecost._ 1. We have many exhortations in the word of G.o.d to seek to know His mind by prayer and searching the Holy Scriptures, but no pa.s.sage which exhorts us to use the lot. 2. The example of the apostles (Acts i.) in using the lot, in the choice of an apostle in the room of Judas Iscariot, is the only pa.s.sage which can be brought in favour of the lot from the New Testament (and to the Old we have not to go, under this dispensation, for the sake of ascertaining how we ought to live as disciples of Christ). Now concerning this circ.u.mstance we have to remember that the Spirit was not yet given (John vii. 39; xiv. 16, 17; xvi. 7, 13), by whose teaching especially it is that we may know the mind of the Lord; and hence we find that, after the day of Pentecost, the lot was no more used, but the apostles gave themselves to prayer and fasting to ascertain how they ought to act.

NEW TASTES.

What a difference grace makes! There were few people, perhaps, more pa.s.sionately fond of travelling, and seeing fresh places, and new scenes, than myself; but now, since, by the grace of G.o.d, I have seen beauty in the Lord Jesus, I have lost my taste for these things.... What a different thing, also, to travel in the service of the Lord Jesus, from what it is to travel in the service of the fles.h.!.+

OBEDIENCE.

_Every instance of obedience, from right motives, strengthens us spiritually, whilst every act of disobedience weakens us spiritually._

SEPARATION UNTO G.o.d.

May the Lord grant that the eyes of many of His children may be opened, so that they may seek, in all spiritual things, to be separated from unbelievers (2 Cor. vi. 14-18), and to do _G.o.d's work_ according to _G.o.d's mind!_

SERVICE TO ONE'S GENERATION.

My business is, with all my might to serve my own generation; in doing so I shall best serve the next generation, should the Lord Jesus tarry.... The longer I live, the more I am enabled to realize that I have but one life to live on earth, and that this one life is but a _brief_ life, for sowing, in comparison with _eternity,_ for reaping.

SURETY FOR DEBT.

How precious it is, even for this life, to act according to the word of G.o.d! This perfect revelation of His mind gives us directions for everything, even the most minute affairs of this life. It commands us, "Be thou not one of them that strike hands, or of them that are sureties for debts." (Prov. xxii. 26.) The way in which Satan ensnares persons, to bring them into the net, and to bring trouble upon them by becoming sureties, is, that he seeks to represent the matter as if there were no danger connected with that particular case, and that one might be sure one should never be called upon to pay the money; but the Lord, the faithful Friend, tells us in His own word that the only way in such a matter "to be sure" is "to hate suretys.h.i.+p." (Prov. xi. 15.) The following points seem to me of solemn moment for consideration, if I were called upon to become surety for another: 1. What obliges the person, who wishes me to become surety for him, to need a surety? Is it really a good cause in which I am called upon to become surety? I do not remember ever to have met with a case in which in a plain, and G.o.dly, and in all respects scriptural matter such a thing occurred. There was generally some sin or other connected with it. 2. If I become surety, notwithstanding what the Lord has said to me in His word, am I in such a position that no one will be injured by my being called upon to fulfil the engagements of the person for whom I am going to be surety? In most instances this alone ought to keep one from it.

3. If still I become surety, the amount of money for which I become responsible must be so in my power that I am able to produce it whenever it is called for, in order that the name of the Lord may not be dishonoured.

4. But if there be the possibility of having to fulfil the engagements of the person in whose stead I have to stand, is it the will of the Lord that I should spend my means in that way? Is it not rather His will that my means should be spent in another way? 5. How can I get over the plain word of the Lord, which is to the contrary, even if the first four points could be satisfactorily settled?

CHURCH LIFE.

a.s.sEMBLY OF BELIEVERS.