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 WAYMARKS; 
 
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 COUNSEL AND ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PENITENT SEEKERS 
 
 OF SALVATION. 
 
 BY K. H. DEWART. 
 
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 Set thee up Waymarks.— Jer. xxxi. 21. \ 
 
 TORONTO: 
 
 PHINTKD AT THE WK8LEYAN METHODIST PRINTING ESTABLISHMENT, 
 
 80 KINO STREET BAST, AND 4 COURT STREET. 
 
 1867. 
 
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WAYMARKS; 
 
 OR, 
 
 COUNSEL AND ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PENITENT SEEKERS 
 
 OF SALVATIO . 
 
 BY K. H. DEWAllT. 
 
 Set thee up Wayjiarks.— Jer. xxxi. 21. 
 
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 TORONTO: 
 
 PRINTED AT THE WSBLBTAN METHODIST PBINTIKG ESTABLISHMENT) 
 
 80 KINO 8TBSST BAbT, AND 4 COURT STRUT. 
 
 1867. 
 
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TO THE READER. 
 
 As this little treatise relates to matters of vital interest to you, and 
 has been written with a sincere desire to afford help to those who are 
 anxiously seeking deliTerance from a sense of condemnation, and 
 desiring to obtain the joy of salvation, it is earnestly requested that 
 it be read thoughtfully, in circumstances as free as possible from 
 distracting influences, and with fervent prayer, that God may make 
 it a blessing to the soul of the Reader. 
 
 56768 
 
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W-^YMARKS; 
 
 OR, 
 
 COUNSEL AND ENCOURAaKMENT FOU PENITENT SEEKERS 
 
 OP SALVATION. 
 
 It is an important and critical point in our life, 
 when the soul awakens from its slumbers, and be- 
 comes conscious of the grandeur and interest of its 
 spiritual destiny, and of the sad evidences of ingrati- 
 tude, enmity against God, and selfish folly, which blot 
 and darken the past life ; when guilty fear overshadows 
 the conscience and shrouds the future, and the dis- 
 quieted spirit, anxiously and despondingly seeks 
 deliverance. To one who feels this burden of 
 conscious condemnation, and sincerely desires to 
 obtain an assurance of pardon and adoption, this tract 
 is addressed ; with a hope, that at such a time, a 
 few plain words of warning and encouragement may 
 be read with special interest and advantage. 
 
 I. Fully renounce every Sin. Many seek for- 
 giveness with much apparent earnestness, and yet 
 cling to some enslaving idol, some sinful habit, or 
 some feeling of enmity and bitterness to others, which 
 keeps them from attaining the blessing sought. If 
 ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your 
 Father forgive your trespasses. If 1 regard iniquity 
 in my hearty the Lord tvill not hear me. Many who 
 
D WATMARKS. 
 
 have a name to belong to Christ, make no progress, 
 for the same reason : they hope to enjoy the advan- 
 tages of religion, and still retain some of their 
 pleasant and profitable sins. But tliis cannot be. 
 Ye cannot serve God and Mammon, If thy right 
 hand offend thee, cut it off^ and cast it from thee. You 
 must chose whom you will serve. The heart must 
 be fully surrendered to Christ before He will dwell in 
 you the hope ot glory. Any unholy attachment per- 
 sisted in will keep you in darkness and condemnation. 
 We must lay aside every weight, and the sin that 
 doth so easily beset us, in order to run with patience 
 the race that is set before us. And whosoever doth not 
 bear his cross, and come after me, he cannot be my 
 disciple. Hence all need to pray fervently : — 
 
 '* The dearest idol I have known, 
 What e'er that idol be, 
 Help me to tear it from thy throne, 
 And worship only Thee." 
 
 H. Get it distinctlv fixed in your mind, that 
 
 YOU CANNOT MERIT SALVATION BY YOUR OWN W0RK3. 
 It IS THE GIFT OF GoD, RECEIVED BY FAITH. For 
 
 by grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of 
 yourselves; it is the gift of God. When the trembling 
 Jailor asked, — " What must I do to be saved ?" Paul 
 answered, — " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou 
 shalt be saved, and thine house,^^ And throughout 
 the New Testament faith is constantly declared to be 
 an essential condition of justification, yet there may 
 be cases in which something must precede justifying 
 
WAVMARKS. 7 
 
 faith. On the day of Pentecost, to the question, Men 
 and biethren, what shall we do? Peter answered,— 
 " Repent, and be baptised, every one of you, in the name 
 of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall 
 receive the gift of the Holy Ghost,'' To the young 
 man who asked,—" What shall I do, that I may inherit 
 eternal life?'' Christ answered, — " Sell all that thou 
 hast, and distribute to the poor, and thou shalt have 
 treasure in heaven ; and come, follow me'' Doubtless, 
 because He saw that this was necessary to counteract 
 the love of the world which ruled his heart. But, 
 though a measure of faith in Divine truth must exist 
 as the ground of penitence, in some cases hindrances 
 nftay exist, which must first be removed before we can 
 believe unto salvation ; but in all, faith is essential 
 to pardon. He that believeth not, is condemned already, 
 because he hath not believed on the name of the only 
 begotten Son of God, 
 
 But what is that faith which is the condition of 
 justification ? From its very simplicity, most at- 
 tempts to explain the nature of faith have obscured 
 it. Perhaps this is unavoidable. Without attempt- 
 ing any formal definition, we may say a few 
 words about faith, which may aid you in compre- 
 hending the simplicity of its nature. It implies 
 the giving up of the false views of God, which are 
 cherished by the unrenewed heart, and the implicit 
 reception of the truths respecting the Divine character, 
 which are revealed in the Holy Scriptures. Wrong 
 
8 WAYMARKS. 
 
 views of God promote and strengthen unbelief. How 
 many think only of God as a stern and angry judge, 
 without fatherly sympathy or love. As if what we 
 receive from Him was wrung from Him by our im- 
 portunity, and given grudgingly, rather than freely. 
 As if Christ only was merciful, and the Eternal 
 Father had no feeling towards us but wrath. But 
 this is all wrong. The Father is as merciful as the 
 Son, and the Son is as just as the Father. It was our 
 Father in heaven that so loved the world that He gave 
 His only begotten Son, that whosoever helieveth on Him 
 should not perish, but have everlasting life* His 
 thoughts towar-ls our fallen and guilty race are 
 thoughts of mercy and peace. 
 
 True faith has its foundation in right views of God. 
 A full conviction of the holiness and justice of God 
 produces the feeling of conscious guilt and condemna- 
 tion. A full, confiding belief in the mercy of God in 
 Christ, brings peace. It implies the full renunciation 
 of every other ground of confidence and hope, and the 
 acceptance of Christ, with the assent of the understand- 
 ing, and the trust of the heart, as our salvation. It 
 is not enough that the mind be enlightened, and 
 receive right views of Divine truth ; this must be 
 followed by the practical trust of the heart. Faith 
 in Christ is not something essentially different from 
 confidence in man. You know what it is to trust in 
 the veracity and friendship of a fellow being, and to 
 act upon this confidence. So faith in Christ is simply 
 
WAYMARKS. 9 
 
 trust and confidence in the word of Christ, in His 
 faithfulness and love, in his willingness and power 
 to save you, and to save you now, freely and gra- 
 ciously, for His own mercy's sake. It is fully believini; 
 that He will do what He has promised, saying humbly, 
 but confidently from the heart, 
 
 " Me, with all my sins T cast, 
 On the atoning blood." 
 
 in. Beware of seeking languidly, as if merely 
 
 SOME secondary INTEREST WERE AT STAKE. It is 
 
 no vain thing, it is your life, You are seeking bless- 
 ings so important, that, if you fail to secure them, you 
 are forever undone. You are asking light for your 
 darkless, pardon for your guilt, strength for your 
 weakness, healing for your soul's deadly mr.lady, a 
 title to heaven's blessedness, and a meetness for its 
 holy and immortal fellowship. Let the greatness of 
 the blessings sought, impel you to seek with an ear- 
 nestness proportioned to their inestimable worth. If 
 you are seeking feebly, you cannot have rightly esti- 
 mated the value of the blessings you ask. You are 
 yet resting in shallow and imperfect views of your 
 guilt and danger, and need to pray earnestly that 
 God would give you true views of yourself. It is an 
 evil iking, and bitter, that thou hast departed from the 
 Lord thy God, It is against His love and faithfulness 
 you have sinned. It is His mercy you have slighted 
 and neglected. It is His wrath that unforgiven sin 
 will draw down upon your unsheltered head. There 
 is no hope for you but in His mercy. If He save you 
 
10 WAYMARKS. 
 
 not, you must remain forever unsaved and unblest. 
 Cry mightily therefore to God for mercy. Christ him- 
 self, in the days of his fleahy offered vp prayers and 
 svpplicattotis, with strong crying and tears, to Him that 
 was able to save Him from death. God's promise to 
 you is, and ye shall seek me and find me, when ye have 
 searched for me with all your heart. Never relax your 
 earnestness until the Sun of Righteousness arise in your 
 heart with healing in his winos. Until the day breaks 
 and the shadows flee away, continue to plead, / will not 
 let Thee go unless Thou bless me, 
 
 IV. Some seek for a short time, become dis- 
 couraged, AND GIVE UP THE STRUGGLE BEFORE FIND- 
 ING THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE. HoW Call SUch 
 
 persons be really sincere ? If ever there w^as reason 
 to be anxious and earnest to secure salvation, that rea- 
 son still exists with unchanged force. God is un- 
 changeably holy and just. Sin is unchangeably de- 
 grading and ruinous. Mercy and salvation are ever 
 unspeakably desirable. It is not safe to yield to dis- 
 couragement, and sink back into indifference. This 
 last state is worse than the first. Rest not without the 
 joy of salvation. Let your faith and prayers have a 
 definite object, and plead the Divine promises as the 
 ground of your expectation. Keep it clearly before 
 your mind that it is your privilege to have the assur- 
 ance of God's favor — the witness of the Holy Spirit 
 with your spirit that you are a child of God. Beware 
 of soothing a disturbed conscience with some reforma- 
 
WAYMARKS. 1 1 
 
 tion ill conduct and a stricter attendance on reliiifious 
 duties, while the sentence of condemnation still re- 
 mains, sternly written against you. There is no 
 need that you should settle down with a false peace. 
 True peace and rest are promised in Christ and may 
 be yours. As Mr. Fleicher says, ** Better go on thy 
 way weeping, till thou hast really found the pearl of 
 great price, than to rest in a hasty conceit that thou 
 hast found it, when thou hast not. Let the cry of 
 your heart be, — 
 
 " Short of thy love 1 would not stop, 
 A stranger to the Goepel liopc, 
 
 The sense of sin forgiven ; 
 I would not, Lord, my soul deceive. 
 Without the inward witness live, 
 That antepast of heaven." 
 
 There may be times when the skies seem shrouded 
 with despair, and every star of hope and promise is 
 hidden from your sight. All that you had deemed 
 fixed and sure seems to reel and totter around you. A 
 sense of uncertainty oppresses you. You are ready to 
 doubt everything ; and the adversary of your soul 
 taunts you with these very doubts (which he himself 
 suggested) to bring you back into the slavery of des- 
 pair. Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure. 
 Cast not aivay therefore your confidence^ which hath great 
 recompense of reward. In the darkness God is near, 
 though our unbelief apprehends Him not. Many of 
 God's most honored servants have passed through a 
 Red Sea of doubt and darkness into the promised rest 
 
12 WAYMARKS. 
 
 of faith, where the light of God's countenance scat- 
 ters the shadows of guilty fear away. 
 
 V. Do NOT WAIT FOR THE FEELING OF JOY AND PEACE 
 TO SPRING UP IN THE HEART, BEFORE YOU BELIEVE IN 
 
 Chr.'st. First believe, and the <; you shall see the sal- 
 vation of God. Peace is the fruit of faith. Sometimes 
 a penitent sinner keeps looking into his own heart, to 
 find something in its condition that would warrant him 
 to trust in Christ. But we can never discover any- 
 thing in ourselves that would justify such confidence. 
 The ground of our confidence is Christ himself. It is 
 a riofht apprehension of the faithfulness, power, and 
 compassion of Christ, presented by the Holy Spirit, 
 which alone can inspire true faith in the heart. Neither 
 is it right to take any special type of experience, and 
 imagine you must have a precisely similar experience. 
 That may never be. Difference of mental character will 
 produce corresponding difference in the outer phases or 
 circumstances of conversion. Tliere are diversities of 
 operations^ hut it is the same God which worheth all in all* 
 The great matter is to get the heart changed from sin 
 to holiness; and to possess an assurance of God's 
 adopting love, and the joy of His salvation. Whether 
 that experience is realized, — like a sudden flash of light 
 scattering the darkness, or as the gradual dawn of the 
 morning,— is quite a secondary matter. Seek the 
 blessings your soul needs, leaving the manner and 
 way, in which your desires shall be fulfilled, to the all- 
 wise God. 
 
WAYMARKS. 13 
 
 VL Perhaps you have already yielded to the 
 
 DESPONDENCY WITH WHICH UNBELIEF SO OFTEN EN- 
 FEEBLES THOSE WHO ARE SEEKING SALVATION. Yoll Say 
 
 in your heart, " I could have some hope that my prayers 
 would be answered, were I not so utterly unworthy of 
 His grace. It is too much for me to expect that God 
 will ever forgive all my sins, heal my back-slidings, 
 and give me the seal of his favor." It would indeed 
 be too much to hope for, if the ground of that expect- 
 ation was any goodness or merit in yourself, anything 
 you have done or can do. But it is not too much to 
 expect from the infinite love of our Father in Heaven. 
 Not too much to expect from Him who shed his pre- 
 cious blood to redeem us from sin and death, and who 
 ever liveth to make intercession for us. But you ex- 
 claim, " Ah ! I am so great a sinner ; I have so long 
 and wilfully rejected the salvation of the Gospel, that 
 I dare not hope for mercy." Though you are a great 
 sinner, Christ the great Physician is mighty to save. 
 Yield not to despair. No dark decree of reprobation 
 throws its shadow across the path of a sinner's 
 approach to Christ. No stain is too deep for Him 
 to wash away. God has solemnly sworn that He 
 has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Listen 
 to His words of boundless mercy and love. 
 
 Come nowy and let its reason together, saith the 
 Lord: though your sins be as scarlet they shall be 
 as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, 
 they shall be as wool* Ho! every one that thirsteth, 
 
14 WAYMARKS. 
 
 come ye to the waters. Look unto me all ye ends 
 of the earth, and be ye saved. He is able to save 
 them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, 
 seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them. 
 And He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for 
 ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. 
 For ALL the sins of all the world. Him that cometh 
 unto me I will in no wise cast out. He gave Hi^n- 
 self a ransom for all to be testified in due time. Can 
 you doubt these gracious assurances ? Heaven and 
 earth shall pass away, but His word shall endure for 
 ever. 
 
 If all this is not sufficient, Jook to Calvary. There 
 behold in the death of Christ the glorious display of the 
 everlasting love v*^ith which God loved our guilty race, 
 and let it rebuke your unfounded fears. He that 
 spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us 
 all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all 
 things ? And as you wonder at the grace that led 
 the blessed Redeemer to die for us, remember there is 
 no change in His love. He is the same yesterday, 
 to-day, and forever. The same Lord over all is rich 
 unto all that call upon Him. Consider how greatly 
 your unbelief dishonors Christ. You profess to believe 
 in His power and willingness to bless, and yet you doubt 
 His word ; as if He did not really mean what He says, 
 when He promises rest to the weary and heavy-laden 
 who come to Him. If some kind earthly friend, in 
 whose good-will you had confidence, had power to for- 
 give and bless you, you would have no hesitation in 
 
WAVMARKS. 15 
 
 believing he would do it freely. But you greatly wrong 
 the blessed Redeemer, when you think of Him as less 
 willing to save you than the dearest eartlily friend. 
 His love vastly surpasses all your unbelieving thoughts. 
 He loves with an everlasting love. He is able to do 
 exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. 
 Be not afraid, only believe, 
 
 " He breaks the power of cancelled sin, 
 He sets the prissoner free, 
 His blood can make the foulest clean, 
 His blood availed for thee.*' 
 
 VH. Beware of the dangerous tendency to 
 
 DELAY, WHICH HAS CAUSED THE RUIN OF MULTITUDES. 
 
 Many who once seemed to be " not far from the king- 
 dom of God," have come short of obtaining salvation, 
 by putting off to some future time the act of closing 
 in with Christ, and trusting in Him. As soon as the 
 prodigal son had resolved, he arose and came to his 
 father. There is nothing to be gained by delay. 
 The excuses by which it is justified will not bear an 
 impartial scrutiny. Your guilt will not grow less by 
 waiting. Christ is as worthy of your acceptance and 
 full confidence now as He ever will be. God, the 
 Father, will not become more merciful, nor the Re- 
 deemer more willing to receive you, nor the Holy 
 Spirit more ready to renew your heart by delay. Every 
 moment you delay to accept Christ by faith, you dis- 
 honor his gracte: rin^l endanger rour sours safety. You 
 cannot prepare*' .yourself, -to cox-rte. .to". J ^Sus. 
 
 '^' |.*.Ail: .the; fitness, Hg .requjnes,. ... 
 '.V- , ♦'irf.tv feael : youF Ko^d' of Hiiiil." . ; 
 
16 
 
 WAYMARKS. 
 
 If ever yon are saved, you must be saved for Christ*s 
 sake, by God's free grace, and not for the sake of any 
 worthiness in yourself. And as there must be a point 
 of tiL.e when you will let go every other ground of 
 hope, and trustingly venture on Christ to forgive and 
 save you, why not now venture confidently upon his 
 faithful and gracious promises, and trust for salvation 
 to liis infinite love ? Come, for all things are now 
 ready. Behold, ^ow is the accepted time ; behold, now 
 is the day of salvation. Nothing is wanting but your 
 hearty acceptance of his offered mercy. There is no 
 risk in trusting in him. He that believeth on Him 
 is not condemned. Fear not, He will not fail you in 
 your soul's need. The everlasting arms of love are 
 extended to receive you. Even now, O trembling and 
 doubting one, He rebukes your delay ! Ye will not 
 come unto Me that ye m.ight have life. He asks, — 
 Wilt thou be made whole? Dost thou believe upon 
 the Son of God? Hesitate no longer. Dare to be- 
 lieve. Let your heart reply, Lord, I believe: help 
 Thou my unbelief, 
 
 *' With faitli I plunge me in this sea ; 
 
 Here is my hope, my joy, my rest ; 
 Hither, when hell assails I flee ; 
 
 I look into my Saviour's breast. 
 Away, sad doubt and anxious fear ! 
 
 Mercy is all that's written there."