Genesis 49:4 Unstable as water, you shall not excel; because you went up to your father's bed; then defiled you it: he went up to my couch. I. If we throw a stone into the water, although at first certainly it divides the surface and gives it a new impression, yet, after a few circling eddies, tranquility is restored, and no mark remains of its recent motion. If you launch a boat upon the stream, instead of its remaining a fixed weight upon it, it rolls and moves with the rolling current. If we cast our eyes upon the ocean, that mighty world of living waters, how changeable is the scene that comes before us! Every breeze that blows varies even its colour, while its waves exhibit to us nothing but tumult and commotion. Now all this is, in reality, what it is intimated to be in the text — an emblem and a picture of several amongst the children of men. 1. Whenever a new object comes before some people, it makes, like the stone cast into the water, an impression upon them at first; it engages their attention; they are, probably, pleased with it and delighted, and fancy that they have discovered the treasure of true satisfaction. But again, like the stone, after a few circling eddies — that is, after a few observations, after a few gratifications and short acquaintances — the novelty is over; something fresh catches the attention, and the former object departs without leaving a single mark or vestige behind. 2. You shall see other people, like the boat upon the stream, quite at the mercy of the fickle current. They never fix to anything; they are without a rudder, without ballast, without any of the other requisites of good management. The surface upon which they rest is soft and variable; and thereon, without allowing any confidence to be placed in their firmness and stability, they rock about with every momentary agitation of the water. 3. Thirdly, there are others completely like the sea. Such people never continue in the same mind for a month, nay, sometimes not even for a day together — and that too upon subjects of the greatest possible concern and importance. Now they view life and the world under one colour, and now under another: one while they are full of hope, and energy, and self-satisfaction; at another time they are absorbed in gloomy presentiments, and anxieties, and melancholy: one day they represent this life as everything; the next they speak against it as of no kind of importance or value at all: and all this, not from any change of circumstances; nor indeed from any one good cause, as relates to themselves, is this alteration in their opinions, but from an innate principle of unsteadiness, and from the temper and humour they happen to be in at the moment of forming them. Now, look at such men in their pursuits, and in their occupations; and there they are just the same as they were in their opinions; there is a perpetual variation. Observe such persons once more — observe them in their attachments: and what are they in this respect? The very same — inconstant and fickle. II. But I come now to the most useful bearing in this argument: and that is the adaptation of it to higher, and to spiritual designs. If the sentiment in the text be a true one in affairs of this world how much more true is it in things connected with that world which is to come! If a man cannot excel in a trade, a profession, or science without study, application, and perseverance; if a man cannot, and with very just cause cannot, we will say, become either a good scholar or a skilful architect, provided he will not submit to the rules of the art, and if he only attend by fits and starts; how, let me ask, can he reasonably expect to become a good Christian by the same means? What is it that exempts Christianity from that careful attention that belongs to every other pursuit? What is it that induces us to hope that the foundation and superstructure, the knowledge, the experience, the application, the comfort of religious truths, are all to be acquired by a few trifling fanciful attempts, just according to a momentary burst of feeling, or a capricious use of accidental opportunities? Is it that religion is of no importance, and therefore need not take up much of our time? Our work is never done. Amongst the clearest truths in the whole Bible is this: that religion is a progressive state. (E. Scobell, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel; because thou wentest up to thy father's bed; then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch. |
    |