The Unequal Yoke

No one who sincerely desires to attain, in his own person, or promote in others, a purer and more elevated discipleship, can possibly contemplate the Christianity of the present day without an indescribable feeling of sadness and heaviness. Its tone is so excessively low, its aspect so sickly, and its spirit so enfeebled, that one is, at times, tempted to despair of any thing like a true and faithful witness for an absent Lord. All this is the more truly deplorable when we remember the commanding motives by which it is our special privilege ever to be actuated. Whether we look at the Master whom we are called to follow, the path which we are called to tread, the end which we are called to keep in view, or the hopes by which we are to be animated, we cannot but own that, were all these entered into and realized by a more simple faith, we should assuredly exhibit a more ardent discipleship. 'The love of Christ,' says the apostle, 'constraineth us.' This is the most powerful motive of all. The more the heart is filled with Christ's love, and the eye filled with His blessed person, the more closely shall we seek to follow in His heavenly track. His footmarks can only be discovered by 'a single eye;' and unless the will is broken, the flesh mortified, and the body kept under, we shall utterly fail in our discipleship, and make shipwreck of faith and a good conscience.