A shallow, sneering generation, which laughs at those
who have gone before it, is ripe for disaster and slavery. We are
not bound, of course--as those old Rechabites considered themselves
bound--to do in everything exactly what our forefathers did. For we
are not under the law, but under grace; and where the Spirit of the
Lord is, there is liberty--liberty to change, improve, and develop as
the world grows older, and (we may hope) wiser. But we are bound to
do, not exactly what our forefathers did, but what we may reasonably
suppose that they would have done, had they lived now, and were they
in our places. We are to obey them, not in the letter, but in the
spirit.
And whenever, in the prayer for the Church militant, we commemorate
the faithful dead, and thank God for all his servants departed this
life in his faith and fear, we should remember with honest pride that
we are thanking God for our own mothers and fathers, and for those
that went before them; ay, for every honest God-fearing man and
woman, high or low, who ever did their duty by God and their
neighbours, and left, when they died, a spot of this land somewhat
better than they found it.
And for God; the Father of all fathers; our Father in heaven--Oh, my
friends, God grant that it may never be said to any of us, Behold the
words of Jonadab the son of Rechab, which he commanded his children,
are performed: but ye have not hearkened unto me.
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