BIBLE EMBLEMS.

BY
THE LATE REV. EDWARD E. SEELYE, D. D.
SCHENECTADY, N. Y.

PUBLISHED BY THE
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY,
150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by the American Tract Society,
in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the Southern District of the State of New York.

CONTENTS.

BIBLE EMBLEMS.

I.

The higher Rock.

LEAD ME TO THE ROCK THAT IS HIGHER THAN I. Psalm 61:2.

This is a humble cry: the cry of a soul needing help—a soul looking outside of and beyond self for aid and succor.

Strange and unusual as it is to hear it, it is the most rational cry that the human soul ever uttered.

It cannot be disguised, that man is unsatisfied with his present condition. He looks for something higher. He longs to become what he is not now.

Every soul has within it the secret consciousness of imperfection, and a secret aspiration for improvement. Evils and infirmities now encompass it, but it has an idea of a higher state of being, and a more perfect development of spiritual life.

The great question is, how man shall gain this spiritual life. Where is the power which shall effect his elevation and improvement? Where is he to look for that influence which will insure his progress, which will exalt and sanctify him, and fit him to fulfil the great end of his creation? Is it from earth, or heaven? Is it within him, or above him? Is it human, or divine? Is it nature, or is it grace?

This is the vital question to be settled; the turning-point of all our views of religion and humanity.

We are satisfied that the only basis of man’s improvement lies in his dependence upon almighty power. The only rock on which he can ever be satisfied to rest, is the Rock that is higher than he. If ever his condition is bettered, it must be by some agency outside of himself. If ever he is to reach a heaven of perfection and of blessedness, he must be drawn thither by a heavenly power.

We confess we expect very little from all the flattering theories of self-dependence and self-development. We are tired of the endless talk of man’s noble and sublime endowments, and his vast capacities for reaching his ultimate perfection. We turn away from much that is uttered under the guise of religion, which is little else than a ringing of perpetual changes on the progressive energy of human nature, and which utterly ignores the need of divine grace, while it teaches man to make himself a seraph. Very empty is it all to us—this godless humanitarianism, discoursing perpetually upon