Old Wine and New: Occasional Discourses

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Cross Joseph. Old Wine and New: Occasional Discourses

Old Wine and New: Occasional Discourses

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Joseph Cross

Published by Good Press, 2019

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This is the idea of our text: "Ye are strangers and sojourners with me." It is God speaking to his chosen people, about to take possession of the promised land, instructing them concerning their polity and conduct in their new home and relations. One of the specific directions given them is, that they are not to sell the land forever, because it belongs to him, and they are his wards—tenants at will, dwelling on his domain, under his patronage and protection. For six years he leased to them the land, so to say; but every seventh year he reclaimed it as his own, and it was to be neither tilled nor sown; and after seven such sabbatic years, in the fiftieth year, which was the year of Jubilee, every thing reverted with a still more special emphasis to the divine Proprietor; and the people were not permitted to reap or gather any thing that grew of itself that year even from the unworked soil, but were to subsist on the product of the former years laid up in store for that purpose. All this to teach them that the domain was Jehovah's, and they were only privileged occupants under him—that he was their patron, protector, benefactor, while they were strangers and sojourners with God.

In a general sense, these sacred words describe the condition of all men. All live by sufferance on the Lord's estate, fed and sustained by his bounty. Whether we recognize his rights and claims or not, all we have belongs to him, and the continuance of every privilege depends upon his will. You may revolt against his authority, and fret at what you call fate; but his providence orders all, and death is only your eviction from the trust and tenure you have abused. What is your life, and what control has any man over his destiny? A shadow on the ground, a vapor in the air, an arrow speeding to the mark, an eagle hasting to the prey, a post hurrying past with despatches, a swift ship gliding out of sight over the misty horizon—these are the Scripture emblems of what we are. Every day is but a new stage in the pilgrim's progress—every act and every pulse another step toward the tomb. The frequent changes of fortune teach us that nothing here is certain but uncertainty, nothing constant but inconstancy, nothing real but unreality, nothing stable but instability. The loveliest spot we ever found on earth is but a halting-place for the traveller—an oasis for the caravan in the desert. The world itself, and all that it contains, present only the successive scenes of a moving panorama; and our life is the passage of a weaver's shuttle—a flying to and fro—a mere coming and going—an entry and an exit. For we are strangers and sojourners with God.

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