THE GUIDING EYE
OR
I
THE HOLY SPIRIT'S GUIDANCE OF
V
i THE BELIEVER.
"I will guide thee with mine eye." — Psalm xxxii. 8.
"When lie, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth."
—John xvi. 13.
BY
REV. A. CARMAN, D.D.
^ General Superintendent of the Methodist Church.
Hororito :
WILLIAM BRIGGS.
MONTREAL: C. W. COATES. HALIFAX: S. F. HUESTIS.
PEEFAOE.
T is a comfortincj thought to some of us that a
rill is as much of a fact as a river ; and a river
as real a thing as the ocean, and in some regards as
useful, even if not so broad, deep, mighty, or sublime.
We are saved from despair by the reviving recollection
that a grain of vv^heat in a bushel of chaff may be as
good wheat as the waving wealth of the prairie or
the granary's golden store. But we are by no means
justified in the illusion that the rill can bear up
argosies and navies, with all their riches and power,
or that the grain of wheat can maintain armies and
nations. Yet who knows but the rill, gathered as a
confluent, might at length sweep grandly past mart
and capital to the sea ? Who knows but the one
grain falling into the ground may, of nature's kind
nurture, shoot forth upward into the light, adding
beauty to the valley, holding the gem of the dew in
the diadem of the hills, bringing gladness to the reaper
and glory to the harvest ? Or if the rill never reach
ocean, it may brighten the sweet, quiet flower by
1 V PREFACE.
its course, or even strengthen the root and widen the
sweep of the noble elm. If the one grain never bursts
into the fulness and increase of the harvest, it may
nurture the lark that greets the dawn and cheers the
morning with his song. What if this little book
should quicken the rootlet or nourish the fibre of
some majestic tree whose leaf doth not wither, and
whose fruit cometh forth in his season ? What if this
little book should bring light to some mind and joy to
some soul that, on renewed pinion, shall swell the
chorus rising with the advancing splendors of the Sun
of Righteousness ? Would it not be reward enough ?
Would it not be the supreme satisfaction enjoyed by
humble souls guided by the Spirit of God onward in
truth ?
The Author has earnestly sought the guidance of
which he writes ; and in faith in God in the comfort
of the Spirit through the merit of the Blood, offers
an imperfect work to those that are obeying the
command, " Be perfect," and are truly " perfecting
holiness in the fear of God ; " and to all that are
seeking like blessed estate, " forgetting those things
which are behind, and teaching forth unto those
things which are beforG ; pressing toward the mark
for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ
Jesus."
Without a disposition to claim lofty relationships,
PREFACE. V
this aspirant among the books to the study and
attention of devout minds and prayerful hearts may
affirm a likeness to Paley's " Natural Theology and
Evidences of Christianity," in one, and only one,
regard ; and to Kant's " Critique of Pure Reason," in
another ; namely, that after the pattern of the genesis
of the former immortal works, it springs out of
external occasion and actually existing circumstances,
out of the current thought of the time ; and after the
style of the production of the latter, it has been, as to
its substance, the subject of observation and study for
some time; and then written through interruptions,
and in a hurry. No wonder if there are ill-joined
parts, crudities and repetitic^s. Some strange, extra-
vagant and misleading views on the guidance of the
Holy Spirit as the privilege of believers in Christ on
the one hand ; and on the other somo denunciations of
these views, led to closer examination of the Scriptures
on this doctrine ; supplied the germ of a sermon, and
the sermon grew into a book. And now the book is
sent forth, with the earnest prayer that it may do
many people much good. It certainly never will win
its way by its lore or its literary excellencies ; nor is
this expected or designed. Its matter and marrow
must be its passport to the favor of ordinary Christian
people who " think on these things."
COKTEJS'TS.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
Statement and Relation of the Doctrine 9
CHAPTER II.
Vital Unity in Infinite Diversity 12
CHAPTER III.
The Human View 17
CHAPTER IV.
The Original Purpose and the Present Plan 23
CHAPTER V.
Rule of Seasch 27
CHAPTER VI.
The Key-Word, " Guide." 33
CHAPTER VII.
Certain Plain Inferences 39
CHAPTER VIII.
Qualifications of the Guide 44
CHAPTER IX.
The Instrument of Guidance 50
Vni CONTENTS.
CHAPTER X. PACK
The Learnkb, Scholar 60
CHAPTER XI.
Relioion Natural in the Kingdom of God 70
CHAPTER XII.
The Spirit of Truth 77
CHAPTER XIII.
Heart-Guidancf, vs. Head-Guidance 95
CHAPTER XIV.
Infallibility and Certainty 104
CHAPTER XV.
What IS It? 112
CHAPTER XVI.
What is its Extent? 118
CHAPTER XVII.
Where Located 129
CHAPTER XVIII.
Wherein Applied 149
CHAPTER XIX.
How Conveyed 169
CHAPTER XX.
Summary Catechism 180
t
THE HOLY SPIRIT'S GUIDANCE.
CHAI^TER I.
STATEMENT AND RELATION OF THE
DOCTRINE.
" Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide
you into all truth." — John xvi. 13.
HE doctrine of the text and context is plainly, ' The
guidance of humble, teachable, obedient souls by
the Holy Spirit. It is a bright beam of the full-
orbed doctrine of the Holy Ghost, shining out steadily
and clearly from the central Godhead upon all pure,
moral beings ; and, in the mercy of God, especially
upon the human race in its upward struggle to purity
and everlasting light. This doctrine of the Spirit is
the radiant and crowning glory of the New Dispensa-
tion's ineffable splendors ; and this doctrine of the
Spirit's guidance is the brightest, purest ray, the
focal ray, the very Shekinah of that Spiritual temple,
more costly and brilliant than polished cedar, and
precious stones, and gold. It is not the doctrine of
10 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
moral consciousn 3, the basis of all religion ; con-
sciousness of conscience and of God ; fundamental and
important as that doctrine is, and closely related as it
is to it, and springing as it does, like the other doc-
trines of the Spirit, out of it. Nor is it the doctrine
of the conviction of sin, essential as that divine illumi-
nation of the darkened human soul is. Nor is it the
doctrine of the washing of regeneration and renewing
of the Holy Ghost, shed on us abundantly through
Jesus Christ our Saviour, indispensable as is that doc-
trine to Christian life and character, to admission to
the kingdom of God, and the fruiiion of heavenly
felicity. Nor is it the doctrine of the witness of the
Spirit of God with our spirits that we are children
and heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ ; the
divine attestation of our adoption as sons, the seal of
our pardon and earnest of our inheritance; assuring
and comforting and strengthening ; cheering and em-
boldening as is that personal and indubitable visitation
of God to the individual man, to every truly and
clearly justified soul warring a good warfare and con-
tending for the crown of eternal life. Nor is it the
doctrine of the perfect love that casteth out fear,
of the assurance of the hope that glorieth in tribula-
tions also, because the love of God is shed fully abroad
in the heart by the Holy Ghost given unto us ; lus-
trous as is this blessed doctrine, with the light of
heaven even on the sin-darkened earth. Neither is it
even the great missionary doctrine — the baptism of
fire, the pentecostal power, the promise of the Father,
and the gift of the Spirit to man, sent forth with a
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 11
new and divine energy to lift up a fallen world ; inti-
mately and even inseparably associated and combined
as it is with this doctrine and these other higher doc-
trines and developments of the Christian faith. But
it is the doctrine, inclusive of all these, filled with all
and encompassing all, the doctrine of the indwelling
Spirit in the hearts of believers : the ever-enlightening
Spirit, directing Spirit, prompting Spirit, chastening
Spirit, instructing Spirit, revealing, upholding and
guiding Spirit, the uniting and helping Spirit that the
humble, faithful, teachable soul may advance from
knowledge to knowledge, from strength to strength,
from joy to joy ; may prove in ever-opening opportu-
nity and exercise that eye hath not seen, and ear hath
not heard what God hath prepared for them that love
Him, and what is the exceeding great riches of His
grace toward us in Christ Jesus. It 's the doctrine of
the divine companionship and leadership of His
people ; the aid and fellowship, the light and peace of
God in all the paths of truth and duty, those paths in
which it is the health and the delight of a rectified
soul ever to walk. It is the doctrine of true unity
and co-operation in the great enterprises of the king-
dom of Jesus Christ : in the motives inspired, the
dispositions inwrought, the capabilities discovered and
developed, the progress achieved and the reward
secured ; it is at least something of heaven below, the
fulness of the " kingdom of God within you."
12 THE GUIDING EYE ; OR,
CHAPTER II.
VITAL UNITY [N INFINITE DIVERSITY.
fRULY here is a resplendent orb, this doctrine of
the Holy Spirit ; His existence, deity, dignity,
office, and power ; and focal ray of all its splen-
dors is this doctrine of the divine guidance of each
willing man, and all obedient men into all truth. To
the non-Christian world He is, of course, as though He
were not. They know not of Him, speak not of Him,
seek not unto Him. And, at the best, we climb gradu-
ally, slowly into light. Behold the history of the
Church of God. In the Christian world some openly,
multitudes practically, deny His very existence. Some
admit an existence, but deny His deity. He is but an
emanation, an office, an influence. Even where His
deity is recognized in the creeds, the dignity and
essential equality in the Godhead are virtually dis-
owned. And when this is accepted, the offices and
power are too often discredited. The ground is fought
over inch by inch. Though many say it, how few be-
lieve in God the Holy Ghost as brought nigh unto us,
and as set forth in the New Testament ? Why say, .
" I believe in the Holy Ghost," and then deny the
spiritual regeneration of our nature, and the Holy
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. IS
Spirit as the sole agent of that regeneration ? Why
say, " 1 believe in the Holy Ghost," and then deny
that we may know our sin forgiven, and that the
Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the
children of God ? Why say, " I believe in the Holy
Ghost," and then deny that God's plan of salvation is
through sanctitication of the Spirit, and belief of all
His saving truth ? Why say, " 1 believe in the Holy
Ghost," and then doubt or deny that the Spirit of God
may dwell in us, that we may be led of the Spirit, that
we may bring forth the fruits of the Spirit, and that
He will guide us, obedient, into all truth ? How few
appreciate His work, the grandeur of His work, the
minuteness of His work, the- definiteness of His work,
the luminousness of His work, and the utter indispen-
sableness of that work at every stage, in every believer's
progress, and in the Church of God. He shows us
the terror of our darkness, and then fills us with light.
He wounds us with the keen shaft of conviction, a
sense of our guilt, and then heals us with the peace of
attested pardon. He leads us into the abysses of
despair, and then bears us upward to the radiant sum-
mits of triumph and hope. He makes us feel our
weakness, and pours on us the tides of unconquerable
strength. He pierces us with the pangs of an unutter-
able grief, and thrills us with the raptures of an inex-
pressible joy. He shows us our estate of drought and
barrenness, and leads us into a land of plenty and
fruitfulness. By Him we feel our ignorance and ruin,
and by Him we come to the fountains of knowledge
and life. By Him we groan under our disease and
14 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
foulness ; and by Him we sing the new song ; we have
the washing of the regeneration, the healing of the
balm, and the cleansing of the blood. And all these
worketh that one and the self-same Spirit. There is
only one Holy Ghost, and He is all-suflEicient for every
true believer. Just as to the man that can say Jesus
is the Lord by the Holy Ghost, there are diversities
of gifts, but the same spirit ; and diversities of opera-
tions, but the same God working all in all ; so in our
spiritual growth, from the elements of natural reli-
gion to the highest Christian attainment, it is the same
Holy Ghost that awakes us to moral consciousness,
stirs our faculties into action, incites us to ask which
is right and which wrong ; what is our law, and
who is our judge ; guides and helps us to repentance ;
in repentance instructs us onward to saving faith ;
through faith executes and assures the pardon, accom-
plishes the regeneration, attests the adoption," and
beckons on to higher, broader knowledges and faiths,
to holiness and perfect love; to the abiding, indwelling,
enlightening, strengthening, con "orting fellowship ; to
the enduement of power and perpetual baptism of lire ?
Here surely is a vast variety of exercise, and to us an
infinite diversity of experience ; but after all, it is the
same ever blessed Holy Spirit. As in the allotment of
gifts in the Church of God in countless degrees and
measureless combinations and varieties, the unity of
the Church, the body of Christ, is perfectly preserved;
so in infinite wisdom, in the exercise of functions in
adaptation to innumerable diversities of talent and
relation, the unity of the life and experience is per-
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 15
i'ectly preserved ; for it is one and the same Holy
Spirit. It is one ocean from the topmost shallows to
the profoundest caverns, from the minutest protozoon
to the hugest whale. One sun illumes the whole
hemisphere, and throws out broadly one landscape,
from the insect to the eLphant, from the trembling
leaf to the immovable mountain. Perfeci unity in in-
ftnite diversity. To displace anything is, more or less,
to change everything. Why unduly magnify any one
part of the immense doctrine of the Holy Ghost ?
Why lift up one function to the displacement of
others ? Why deal with God in our thought as though
He were made of parts disproportionate and ill-
adjusted, and His administration of offices ill-adapted,
and fancifully and fitfully executed ? Why esteem
conviction of sin first and last and everything, as do
some that say we can never advance to the knowledge
of sin forgiven ? Why hold the regeneration all sufii-
cient, as do they who say it is not necessary further to
seek a clean heart ? Why rest in the act and estate
of entire sanctification, as they do who desire to settle
down into a self-gratu^atory quietism, and ignorantly
fancy all is done so long as they " feel happy ? " Why
not perfect holiness in the fear of God, in the con-
current, co-existent and co-efficient purity of heart,
righteousness of life, abiding Christ and abiding in
Christ, walking in the Spirit and indwelling Holy
Ghost; at once guide and strength, comforter and
power ? Why force or strain these doctrines out of
their natural, necessary, logical, covenanted and
eternal order; as though God, in the covenant and
16 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
eternal purpose of grace and righteousness in Jesus
Christ, could sanctify an unpardoned man, or abide
perpetually and lovingly and luminously in the un-
sanctified ? There is the divine order in the blood of
the Covenant through th:. Eternal Spirit; and the
Great God of truth and righteousness will not, cannot
dishonor Christ, or displace or perplex the Holy Ghost
by any fitful, irregular or uncertain procedure. '■ First
the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear."
And this doctrine of the guidance of the Spirit is not
to be taken out of its proper connection and relation ;
but is rooted in all the doctrines of the Spirit that pre-
cede it, and throws forth its branches, its energies,
into all the doctrines of the Spirit that follow it, and
arise out of it and its antecedent doctrines, conditions
and relations. Let there be no mistake here. To
obtain and retain this divine guidance implies very
much fundamental and antecedent, and very much
developing and consequent that, perhaps, are little
thought of by many that speak very carelessly and
presumptuously in these matters.
,c
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 17
CHAPTER III.
THE HUMAN VIEW.
fHIS glorious full-orbed doctrine of the Spirit has
many beams and many rays. There is the life-
giving ray of creative energy ; the heat ray of
infinite love ; and the impelling, directing ray of
inspiration ; the illuminating ray of guidance ; the
color ray of maturity, discipline ; and the active, actinic
chemical ray of conversion ; and each in all and all in
each ; and the one ever-blessed Holy Spirit in His
entirety in every one ; these being but phases of His
action open to our view, as suited to the dispensation,
time, needs, and circumstances, and exercised in all
their combinations and diversity with all the attributes
of His glorious divine character in infinite wisdom and
goodness. First, it is creative power brooding over the
abyss, moving upon the face of the waters ; and then
associated in the Godhead, making man in the sublime
image of the triune Deity; then it is the guiding,
instructing power in the same majestic, mysterious,
eternal triune association in the Godhead, teaching the
new man the law of the Lord and the glory of life in
the peaceful walks and bowers of Eden — His delights
were with the sons of men in happy fellowship ; then
2
18 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
it is rebuking, condemning power, preaching unto the
spirits in prison and striving with a fallen, sinful
race ; then it is inspiring, prophetic power, sweep-
ing David's harp of solemn sound, kindling the
raptures of Isaiah, darkening Jeremiah's woe and in-
toning his dismal wail, lifting the vista of the coming
kingdom to Daniel's eye, and thundering with Hosea
and Joel and Micah against the apostasies of Israel and
the abominations of the heathen, that in their idolatries
had forsaken God ; and always and everywhere the
recreating, renewing power to the man that had
learned of God to send up the cry of the anguished
heart, " Create in me a clean heart, O God ; and renew
a right spirit within me ! " Then in the beginning
of the restitution of all things ; the reconciliation of
all things to Himself, whether they be things in earth
or things in heaven ; in the promise of the Father and
its Pentecostal fultilment ; in the return of the Holy
Spirit to the human race at large, as the common,
purchased gift for all, we have not merely a ray
here and a ray there, as for an exigency ; or a beam
pushing its way out into universal darkness to write
a book, deliver a message, or save a nation ; but the
full-orbed glory and the firmament all aglow ; the
Spirit of God, the purchase, pledge and witness of our
Divine Redeemer again returning to the redeemed
race to fill every office and administer every grace
impartially to every man, necessary to restore us ail
fully to God ; not simply tc inspire one here and an-
other there with an inspiration He knew not of ; not
merely to visit a few favored ones in one small nation ;
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 19
but to lift all men of all nations into light, to convince
all men everywhere of sin, of righteousness, and of
judgment ; that is, to bring every man to a knowledge
of himself and of God ; to recreate every repenting soul
trusting in Jesus Christ ; to sanctify all the obedient ;
to instruct the erring and all those that seek know-
ledge ; to strengthen the weak and comfort all that
mourn ; to fill every willing soul as a pure and radiant
temple, and abide in every humble, teachable spirit a
joy, a strength and a guide. " If ye love Me, keep My
commandments : and I will pray the Father, and He
shall give you another Comforter that He may abide
with you forever : even the Spirit of truth, whom the
world cannot receive, becau.se it seeth Him not, neither
knoweth Him : but ye know Him, for He dwelleth
with you and shall be in you." " Howbeit when He,
the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all
truth . . . and He will show you things to come."
Is it a wonder that such brightness dazzles our sight
in a world of alienation from God ; a world of moral
darkness, rebelRon and sin ? Possibly our spiritual
dimness of vision is at once our ruin and our hope ;
our ruin, if we settle down into blindness and dark-
ness ; our hope, if we exercise ourselves to keenness of
vision, and struggle up into fulness of light. Possibly
the brightness is tempered to every man, an incentive
to activity, a ray to lead him up out of prison, a beam
of the upper glory to beckon him on to the unfailing
splendor ; and not the full blaze of glory to darken
and destroy the spiritual eye and dash away all pros-
pect and expectancy in defiant indifference or blank
despair. What could we do if no light were given us?
20 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
What should we do if God's unveiled glory and heaven's
undiminished splendors were poured at once upon us ?
Is it a wonder that questionings arise ? Is it a won-
der that the ancient prophets searched diligently what
or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which
was in them did signify ^ Is it an anomaly, a misdi-
rection, a mistake that he that is least in the kingdom
of Heaven is greater than John the Baptist, the Elias
that was to come, than whom a greater had not been
born of woman ? Is it a wonder that honest-hearted
teachers in the Church of God, learned doctors of the
law, should inquire, " How can a man be born when
he is old ? " Is it a wonder that the aroused and curi-
ous woman at the well of Samaria, utterly blind to
spiritual things, should reply to the traveller unknown:
" Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with and the well is
deep ; whence then hast Thou that living water ? " Is
it a wonder, in the glory of the Pentecostal effusion,
when they were filled with the Holy Ghost, and begian
to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them
utterance, that the multitude were amazed and were in
doubt what it meant, and charged upon them that
they were drunken ? Was Paul in error in his pointed
test question at Ephesus, " Have ye received the Holy
Ghost since ye believed ? " Was he wrong in adminis-
tering supplemental baptism when they confessed they
had not been baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity
— Father, Son and Spirit ? Shall we marvel that
whole churches have not believed in the necessity or
possibility of spiritual regeneration, in the Holy
Spirit's witness to our adoption into the family of
God, in the blessed assurance of faith, or in the sancti-
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 21
fying power of the indwelling Holy Ghost ? When
we consider man's moral insensibility, dulness and un-
belief, is it an astonishment that there are yet churches,
and likely yet, in all the churches, that deny that we
can be perfected in love or wholly sanctified in this
life ? That have no idea of the baptism of power, of
the perennial fruits of the Spirit, or of the safe guid-
ance of the illuminating Holy Ghost ?
Are we surprised, on the other hand, when a devout
soul is filled with the Holy Ghost, there should be
elated feeling and strong assertion ? \i one of the
Lord's dear children, resting on Him, trusting in Him,
proving it by the meekness of holy living, full of His
spirit, should bring into the social meeting or public
assembly, as if it were a family of God, the extravagant
language of privacy, even the rhapsody of devotional
secrecy, the foolish fondness of filial affection, or the
unblushing confidence in the Beulah estate where the
soul is married and rejoices in her spouse, shall we
stand smitten with consternation and be appalled at
the " danger ahead ? " Whatever the little ones may
think or say of their liability to mistake, shall we be
exercised to uncharitableness, and, perhaps, even un-
kindness, by this evident indiscretion aud mistake
through excessive zeal of utterance or defective know-
ledge, or lack of appreciation of the decency and order
of 'public worship ? Is the ark of God in danger be-
cause some fervid, impulsive spirit leaps beyond our
conceptions of propriety ; or because physical or hys-
terical excitement sweeps unguarded and untutored
imitators to extremes ? When the divine intimations
to Gideon were so precise and decisive, the divine
22 ' THE GUIDING EYE ; OR,
guidance of Saul so minute in his search for the asses
of Kish, the divine arrangements for the meeting of
Peter and Cornelius given so in detail, is it marvellous
that God should vouchsafe some minuteness of direc-
tion to His children in this age of the Spirit ? Because
inconsiderate people may sometimes mix up ill-founded
impressions with divine intimations and directions,
shall we abate our regard for the doctrine of the Holy
Spirit's guidance ? Because there may be some fanati-
cism, shall we abandon the solid ground of Scripture,
experience and fact ? On which side is the danger
after all ; that some will be too earnest, yielding them-
selves up to the guidance of the Spirit, or give them-
selves over to extravagance in attempting it ? or that
the vast, vast, innumerable majority, and even some
professing Christians, will still go on after the usual
course of this world, leaning to their own understand-
ing ; and often, often sitting in cool judgment or swift
controversy even upon the plainly declared will of
God, and rendering thereto but a reluctant and partial
obedience ; little inquiring and little caring whether,
under the general provisions of grace, there may not
be a closer communion and a special direction, a higher
privilege and a clearer light for those that seek them ;
just as we have come at length to understand, on the
principle of natural religion, if nothing more, that there
is a general providence over all, and there are special
helps, safeguards and rewards for the virtuous and the
good ? God's Bible will as surely, in this regard, be as
keen a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the
heart, the necessities of man and the mind of God as
God's Providence.
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 23
CHAPTER IV.
THE ORIGINAL PURPOSE AND THE
PRESENT PL*N.
^N man's orii^inal estate in Eden, the Lord God, the
Holy Trinity, that made man in His own image
and likeness, was his companion. All truth was
spread before him ; he was himself very good, perfect,
unimpaired ; and his teacher was the Lord — guide and
friend. " In the beginning was the Word : the Word
was with God : the Word was God. The same was
in the beginning with God. All things were made by
Him, and without Him was not anything made that
was made. In Him was life, and the life was the
light of men." This Creator under covenant, and Re-
deemer by the same covenant ; this Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world, announced Himself the
Way, the Truth, and the Life ; and . in Him it is de-
clared are hid all the treasures of wisdom and know-
ledge. We speak of the conflict of science and
religion, but in the beginning it was not so. It is
sin that hath deranged all things and effected the
divorce. Religious truth, knowledge of God, know-
ledge of man, knowledge of conscience and its functions,
knowledge of the Divine Son, the Creator, and. the
24 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
•
pathway of truth and light, up which, without death
and without blood, He had led unt'allen, obedient man
is just as much and as profound philosophy, just as
much scientific truth as any other truth. And true
astronomy, and true chemistry, true ethnology, and
true sociology, and true science of every kind, the
shining track up which the creating Son and Guide
had led unfallen, improving man, is as much and as
grandly religious truth as any other truth. God the
Son, the Eternal Wisdom, was leading into all truth.
The Eternal Wisdom, set up from everlasting, from
the beginning or ever the earth was ; brought forth
when there were no depths, no fountains abounding
with water ; by which the Lord hath founded the
earth and established the heaven ; by which He hath
set a compass upon the face of the depth and given
to the sea His decree ; ever with the Almighty Crea-
tor, and rejoicing always before Him, rejoiced especi-
ally in the habitable parts of the earth, and His special
delights were with the sons of men. His high ere-
dentials as a Divine Teacher are thus proclaimed : " I,
Wisdom, dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge
of witty inventions. Counsel is mine, and sound wis-
dom : I am understanding. I have strength. By Me
king's reign and princes decree justice. Riches and
honor ave with Me, yea, durable riches and righteous-
ness. All the words of My mouth are in righteous-
ness : they are all plain to him that understandeth,
and right to them that find knowledge. Whoso find-
eth Me findeth life." This Ancient of Days was the
guide of the pristine unfallen man, lie led him in
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 25
the paths of righteousness. He was leading, leading
him up the slope of the centuries in liglit supernal
into all truth. But man revolted, rejected His coun-
sel, and wandered in darkness. And, ch, what dark-
ness ! for darkness covered the earth, and thick dark-
ness the people. The Spirit of the Lord God was
taken away from man. Ignorance of God, of him-
self, of the world, settled down like a starless night
upon the human race. Fallen from light, from right-
eousness, from truth, man wandered in the endless
mazes of ignorance of all things. The terrible errors of
superstition, and the frightful enormities of paganism,
became not only possible, but universally actual. True
science and true religion, one at the bottom and one
at the top, and one at all vital points and in all nor-
mal growth all through, were violently rent asunder,
so that men were, or could be, neither learned nor
pious. Not led into all truth in its ever opening
domain, with ever painful effort, they acquired very
little truth : but a glimmer of the light through a
chink in the wall within which, in their burrowing
and toiling, they had entombed themselves. What a
contrast this darkness, this darkness that may be felt,
this, to human sight and ken, impenetrable darkness,
with the bright shining, and the clear light of the
New Testament — the brightness of Him that came as
the Light of the World, the brightness of the Father's
glory, and the express image of His person ! Here,
and here alone, is hope. He that made the worlds,
and was the primitive and universal teacher and
guide, " in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom
26 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
and knowledge," undertakes, first in unalterable jus-
tice and truth, to restore righteousness, obedience,
love — the basis of all moral and intellectual life, hence
the basis of all knowledge ; and second, in infinite
philanthropy. His delights yet with the sons of men,
again to lead up this human race along the avenues
of light, into the clear and bright domain of truth,
peace, happiness, and power. And it is His promise
we are studying : " When He, the Spirit of Truth, is
come. He will guide you into all truth." This the
agent, the order, the end, and the law of the Redemp-
tion scheme ; first the central, vital truth ; then the
enlargement into all truth.
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 27
CHAPTKR V.
RULE OF SEARCH.
fN the very threshold of this subject, as if smitten
in the face by the flashing heat of an open fur-
nace, we are sharply brought to a stand by a
very plain, pertinent, practical question : How shall
we understand or explain the doctrine of the Spirit,
except by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven ?
How shall we write or speak of the Spirit ? How
shall we preach the indwelling, guiding. Holy Ghost,
but by the Holy Ghost ? " What man knoweth the
things of a man save the spirit of man which is in
him ? " That is sound philosophj?^ ; down firm on the
solid rock of consciousness; firmer than which philo-
sophers say cannot be, and deeper than which they
cannot go. Why is not the rest of the verse just as
sound philosophy ? " Even so the things of God
knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God," Philoso-
phically then, to say nothing about scripturally, we
need the Holy Ghost. Just over the doorway to our
theme is written : Tarry, till ye be endued with the
power of discernment from on high. Tarry in prayer,
in obedience, in meekness, in activity, in searching, in
labor, in suffering, in patience, in faith, in love ; tarry
28 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
as the scholar at the difficult problem, with aim and
purpose and perseverance; with effort and toil, and
fidelity to principles and standards ; with diligent use
of the proper appliances of investigation and acquisi-
tion, and of the knowledge, little or much, already
secured ; tarry as the merchant at his business, from
early morn till late at night, with care, with vigilance,
with enterprise and energy, with studious manage-
ment and self-restraint, with kindness and economy,
with improving knowledge of markets and customers,
with candor, honest dealing, and uprightness. " Tarry
ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with
power from on high." " Wait for the promise of the
Father, which ye have heard of Me." What more
philosophic than all this ? Where greater fidelity to
human life and experience ? Who shall teach the
deep things of chemistry, but a skilled chemist ? Who
shall teach the higher mathematics, but a practical
mathematician ? Who shall show the power of logic,
but the well versed lofjician ? Who shall teach us
the nature of the Spirit, the work of the Spirit,
the mind of the Spirit, the power of the Spirit, but
the Holy Spirit Himself come down from heaven ?
A man msij preach philosophy, so far as he has
gone in it, by natural reason. He may preach theory,
speculation, by fancy — imagination. He may preach
logic and science out of the progress of knowledge and
the processes of the mind. He may preach ethics out
of conscience and the intuitions ; and natural religion
and providence out of the intellectual and moral
nature of man, the course of events, the life of indi-
THE HOLY SPIRITS GUIDANCE. 29
viduals, the growth and decay of society, the records
of the nations and the history of the human race.
There can be religious teaching enough for some pur-
poses, and preaching enough without any Holy Ghost.
There has been such teaching in all religions, and in all
systems of ethics, and in nearly all ages of the world ;
and it is just possible there is j-^et some very fine
preaching, without any Holy Ghost. But whatever
else may be done, how shall we preach the Holy Ghost
without the Holy Ghost ? What need have we now
for enlightenment, for guidance ? For how shall we
instruct or guide others on so subtle and stupendous
a theme except we be ourselves guided and instructed
from on high ? If the single eye, the pure heart, the
obedient will, the meek, submissive spirit, the earnest,
consecrated soul and the holy life will at once secure
this guidance ; and prove, increase, and fructify its
possession better than the rhapsody of an hour, the
excitement of an assembly, the impulse of impressions
and fancies, our own or of others, or the persuasion of
illumination and direction outside of the orderly
procedure of our Teacher and Lord in His Church,
His work, and His Word ; we better seek, through
the single eye, the devout and prayerful spirit,
and the constantly consecrated, obedient and enlarg-
ing life, the fulness of this indwelling — the brightness,
safety, power and joy of this glorious guidance. If the
Spirit of God is at war with genuine philosophy, sound
reason, true logic, safe a,nd solid science and utterly
irreconcilable to them, we had better find it out —
preach the Spirit by the Spirit, and fling reason, logic,
30 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
knowledge and science to the winds ; for who but the
Spirit shall know the mind of the Spirit ? But
reason gone, and logic gone, and knowledge and
the principles of all science and knowledge gone,
how shall we know we have the Spirit of God or
a devil ? Hov/ shall wg know there is a Spirit ?
How shall we know anything of His way and work ?
Shall we just trust impressions, notions, fancies ? Shall
we run after the speculations of a vain philosophy, or
rest in the dogmas of proud, earthborn science, whose
thoughts and teachings are only of the earth, earthy ?
Or shall we use human reason in a holy life, combining,
as doth the Apostle Paul, the grasp of godliness with
the grip of logic ; holding fast the form of sound words
in faith and love in Christ Jesus ; obedient to the law,
rejecting anything and everything contrary to sound
doctrine ; holding fast the faithful word, that we may
be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to con-
vince the gainsayers ; for God hath given us the Spirit
of power, and of love, and of a sound mind ^ Sound
words, sound doctrine, a sound mind ; right principles,
right expression and apprehension, right judgment ;
truth, holiness and common sense ; godliness and
righteousness; correct teaching, logic and reason —
truth's trinity under the Holy Ghost for holy living
and the salvation of the world.
In the next place, we must bear in mind the doc-
trine of the Holy Spirit's guidance is purely and
simply a doctrine of divine revelation. It is not of
man's discovery, or the result of his best investigations.
Our ignorance might well zt'isA for something, but it
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 31
is not in ignorance to rise even so high as to the desire
of knowledjje. Our wretchedness might well sigh for
relief, but it is not in a sightless wretchedness to even
think to look up. Our guilt might well flee punish-
ment, but it is in sin only to multiply sin, and guilt
to accumulate guilt, heaping up wrath against the day
of wrath. How shall the blind, guilty, wretched soul
ever dream of pardon and peace ? How should the
wicked, rebellious soul ever think of the new heart,
much less of the clean heart and the indwelling God ?
Whence should hope of heirship of God and eternal
glory ever come, if not from God Himself ? Who
would have ever thought that the infinitely holy and
all- wise God Avill make His abode with men — yea, in
man — and lead him into all truth, if God Himself had
not told him ? No wonder it is called the Gospel — the
good news ! What man could not have imagined, or
had the faintest gleam of, God declares with open voice
and reveals in clearest light. He that made the earth
out of nothing, from deepest degradation and ignor-
ance, calls His sons and exalts them to His glory.
What man would not have believed, and even now
that it is declared does not believe, God hath set before
us in the open day and under the full blaze of the
meridian sun. Therefore we may well wait upon
God, learn His law, and own His power. We may
expect doctrines not contradictory to right reason and
a sound mind, but above human reason and transcending
human thought. Will God in very deed dwell with
men on the earth ? Yea, more, will He walk with us
and abide with us, and dwell in us, and lead us into
32 The guiding eye; or,
all truth ? So verily say the Scriptures of God, our
first and last and perpetual and only authority in the
case. What this doctrine of the guidance of the Spirit
is, what it means, for whom it is designed, how it
manifests the wisdom and goodness of God, and what
it can accomplish in us and for us, we must learn out
of the Holy Scriptures — the sure and steady light of
God from heaven — and not from the clouded ray of
human reason or the uncertain lights and flitting
shadows of human feeling and experience. With the
Bible in hand, and guided of the Spirit of Truth, let
us see what we may learn of this high doctrine enun-
ciated by our adorable Lord. " When He, the Spirit of
Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth."
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 33
CHAPTKR VI.
THE KEY- WORD, "GUIDE."
QIND in the first place, it is to be noticed that what
(4\ He, the Spirit of Truth, undertakes to do is to
guide ns into truth, yea, into all truth. The word
" guide " is the key- word of the text. It is not '" drive "
us into truth ; or push or thrust us into truth ; or throw
or hurl us into truth ; or draw or drag us into truth ; or
in any way compel or coerce us into truth ; or lift or
shoot, or dash us into truth, as by some sudden ex-
plosion ; or frighten or astonish us into truth ; or
flatter or coax or buy us into truth ; but guide, guide
us into truth. Guide, lead, teach are the Scripture
words ; they are as well the words of God and of the
human mind. They are the words of the rational
process and of the laws of thought, as well as the
words of inspiration. These two books of God herein
perfectly agree, and we make a fearful mistake if we
attempt their disagreement, or strain one in the undue
use of the other. Each has its place, and does the
other no violence. " Behold, ye despisers, and wonder,
and perish." See that it is God in His work, and God
in His Word. Ho ! ye that scorn reason and true
learning; and see thpj it is the same God in the
3
34 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
volume of inspiration and in the processes and prin-
ciples of the spirit of man in quest of all truth.
That we may be the more deeply impressed with
the thought and utterances of Scripture in this point
of view, and their fidelity to the rational process and
the laws of the human mind, let us gather out of the
Word of God a few of the indications of the divine
plan of our acquaintance with the truth of God ; the
purpose of the divine mind and declarations of the
Holy Spirit as to our instruction therein, and as to the
enlightenment and salvation of the world through the
truth ; and at the same time the views and experiences
of God's people through all time as to their sanctifi-
cation and progress in the way of knowledge, duty,
usefulness and power. One thing is certain ; God the
Father, the Father of lights ; God the Son, the light of
the world ; God the Holy Ghost, the guide of His
people and leader of faithful souls, is no friend of
ignorance, of moral or intellectual darkness, or the
prejudices, misconceptions, misdirections and errors
that arise out of that darkness and ignorance. He
does not build His kingdom on ignorance, nor does
He expect to do His work by ignorance, or any of
its vile progeny. Our God and His religion are not
the champions of half ideas or the confusion of ideas ;
or of dim, partial and unsettled ideas ; or of the envy
and strife to which they lead. " God is not the author
of confusion, but of peace, as in all the churches of
His saints." " God is light, and in Him is no darkness
at all." " I am the light of tl e world. He that fol-
loweth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 35
the light of life," is the claim of our Lord. " Ye are
all the children of light, and the children of the day.
We are not of the night, nor of darkness," is the
asserted Christian character, " My people aro de-
stroyed for lack of knowledge," crieth the judgment-
pronouncing Hosea. " Wisdom and knowledge shall
he the stability of thy times, and strength of salvation,"
replieth the farther-seeing and more hopeful Isaiah.
" Awake thou that sleepest, and rise from the dead ;
and Christ shall give thee light," is for every willing
soul. "Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the
glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For behold,
the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness
the people ; but the Lord shall rise upon thee, and His
glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall
come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy
rising ; " is a promise specially for the Church of God.
" For the earth shall bo tilled with the knowledge of
the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea," is
our God's grand purpose for this whole human race.
Light, light ; truth, truth ; knowledge, knowledge ;
glory, glory. As in the beginning, so now and ever-
more, " Let there be light."
How all this shall be fulfilled; what God under-
takes in the economy of grace and expects in the
hearts and life of men, is evident from these utter-
ances of His Word: "The meek will He guide
in judgment, and the meek will He teach His
way." " For Thy name's sake lead me and guide me."
" I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which
thou shalt go ; I will guide thee with Mine eye. Be
86 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
ye not as the horse or the mule, which have no under-
standing, whose mouth must be held in with bit and
bridle, lest they come near unto thee." " Nevertheless
I am continually with thee; thou hast holden me by my
right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel,
and afterward receive me to glory." " The integrity of
the upright shall guide them.' " If thou draw out thy
soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then
shall thy light rise in obscurity and thy darkness be
as the noon-day. And the Lord shall guide thee con-
tinually ; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and
like a spring of water whose waters fail not." " Doth
not wisdom cry, and understanding put forth her
voice ? . . . . Unto you, O men, I call, and my
voice is unto the sons of man Hear in-
struction and be wise and refuse it not
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and
the knowledge of the Holy is understanding. . . .
Give instruction to a wise man and he will be yet
wiser ; teach a just man and he will increase in learn-
ing." " Lead me in thy truth and teach me, for thou
art the God of my salvation. On thee do I wait all
the day." ' Teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me
in a plain path because of mine enemies." " O send
out thy light and thy truth, let them lead me, let them
bring me into thy Holy hill." " Thus saith the Lord :
They have turned unto Me the bac and not the face,
though I taught them rising up early and teaching
them, yet they have not hearkened to receive instruc-
tion." " Jesus went into the temple and taught ; He
taught them as one having authority, and not as the
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 37
acribes." "Then said Jesus to those Jews who be-
lieved on Him, If ye continue in My word, then are
ye My disciples indeed, and ye shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make yon free." " Ye yourselves
are taught of God to love one another." " And the
anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and He
said. Is not Aaron the Levite thj brother ? I will
be with thy mouth and with his mouth, and will teach
you what ye shall do." " And when they bring you
unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates and powers,
take no thought how or what thing ye shall ansv/er
or what ye shall say, for the Holy Ghost will teach
you in the same hour what ye ought to say." " The
Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father
will send in My name, He shall teach you all things
and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I
have said unto you." "But the anointing which ye
have received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not
that any man teach you ; but as the same anointing
teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie,
and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in Him."
" So teach us to number our days that we may apply
our hearts unto wisdom." " What man is he that
feareth the Lord ? him shall He teach in the way that
he shall choose The secret of the Lord is
with them that fear Him, and He will show them His
covenant." " And now the Lord God and His Spirit
hath sent me. Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer,
the Holy One of Israel : I am the Lord thy God which
teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way
that thou shouldest go." " If thy children shall keep
my covenant and my testimony that I shall teach them,
38 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
their children also shall sit upon my throne for ever-
more." " Give me understandino^ according to thy
word." " My lips shall utter praise when thou hast
taught me thy statutes." " Now we have received,
not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of
God, that we might know the things that are freely
given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not
in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which
the Holy Ghost teacheth ; comparing spiritual things
with spiritual." " Rabbi, we know that Thou art a
teacher come from God." "Jesus answered and said
unco him ; Art thou a master of Israel and knowest
not these things ? Verily, verily, I say unto you, we
speak that we do know, and testify that we have
seen." " He that coineth from heaven is above all, and
what He hath seen and heard, that He testifieth."
" When He was set. His disciples came unto Him, and
He opened His mouth and taught them, saying : Ye
are the light of the world." " Let your light so shine
before men." " Think not that I am come to destroy
the law and the prophets." " I have given them thy
word Sanctify them through thy truth,
thy word is truth For their sakes I
sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified
through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone,
but for them also which shall believe on Me through
their word, that they all may be one, as Thou Father
art in Me and I in Thee ; that they also may be one in
us." And a second time : " The Comforter, which is the
Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name,
He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to
your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you."
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 39
CHAPTBR VII.
CERTAIN PLAIN INFERENCELv
fROM these citations from the Holy Scriptures,
and the numerous others that may, clearly to
the same effect, be readily made, these several
things are very plain, and these propositions manifestly
justifiable :
1. The salvation of the world, in all that is embraced
in that very comprehensive term, as affecting indi-
viduals, nations or the race, is to be accomplished by
the truth, the truth of God, in one form or another, of
one kind or another, in its legitimate effects upon the
inteJligence, the reason, the conscience ; upon the
private, social and public sense and life of mankind.
The doctrine is : No knowledge, no salvation !
2. This truth of God, of one kind or another, is the
light, and the only hope of the world ; and must be
brought to bear upon the minds and consciences of men ;
each kind by its proper means and under its own law
and the corresponding law of the mind. We no more
make the truth of God than we create the mind of
man ; but we are permitted to have something to do
with their relation and connections.
3. These proper means, at all events as concerning
40 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
moral and religious truth, are clearly set forth in the
Scriptures to be guiding, teaching, leading, learning,
instruction ; obtaining knowledge, wisdom, under-
standing.
4. The Scriptures do not disparage, despise or decry-
any true knowledge, but recognize all genuine truth,
scientific as well as moral and religious, as embraced in
the elevating, saving wisdom. At the same time they
hold that the central and indispensable truth, the truth
on which all other truth grows, the knowledge of
knowledges and science of sciences, is the truth of the
Gospel, the truth lost by rebellious man, restored by
the merciful God, the knowledge of ourselves and the
savinor knowledge of God. The Church of God is
declared in this sense to be the pillar and ground of
the truth.
5. The Scriptures recognize no truth as super-
rational, but broaden and heighten the rational to the
moral nature, the religious obligation, the infinite
reason of God, as well as the finite mind of man. The
reason of God, is rational as well as our poor thought.
A billion trillions is as mathematical as twice three.
The track of the planet Neptune is as open and direct
as the pathway of the moon. The difference is in the
seeing eye, the sweeping sight, the enabling light and
the penetrating, comprehending glance. What right
has any man to shut in metals, mammals and me-
chanics, and say, these are of the domain rational ; and
to shut out God, duty and religion, and say these are
extra-rational, hyper-rational or anti-rational ?
6. Guiding, teaching and leading in their relation to
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 41
knowledge and salvation are in the Bible used very
nearly as universally interchangeable terms. It is the
same prayer, " Guide me by Thy counsel ; " lead me in
a plain path ; teach me Thy statutes.
7. The great teachers ot* the human race have been
God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost.
In different dispensations, by all the power of instruc-
tion, the truth has been applied to lead the world
back to God. Whether we have faith in the truth of
God or not, God Himself has faith in it, and waits for
it to conquer. It is the last resort, the only resort,
the sure resort to reason and conscience, the intelli-
gent soul and moral freedom of man, and the right-
eous, eternal sovereignty of the great God. It is the
only basis of the universal and everlasting empire of
peace, purity, light and life. The truth of God in its
free acceptance and exercise a failure, and all is ruin
and despair ! In the mighty conflict with darkness
and error, God has limited Himself in the nature of
the case to the use of light and truth ; and it is not
likely that human teachers and guides have anything
more promising or potent. Truth, truth is the hope
of the world.
8. Our Scripture citations show clearly enough that
our Divine Teacher — Father, Son, and Spirit — pro-
vides for a crisis, meets an emergency as readily as
the parental care of the home or the prudent fore-
sight of the training school. He certainly were less
than God, aye, less than man, were He to fail under
such a demand. The great crises and emergencies of
the moral world, of the conflict of the ages, are cer-
42 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
tainly not less important than the emergencies of the
home, the school, and the state. It would be strange
enough, when the eternal God gave a man a work to
do like that He gave Moses, if He would not help
him just when he needed it, and as he needed it.
But Moses, in the meantime, works all the time up to
his best measure. The crises are brought on by the
sins or the mistakes of man, or the direct orderings
and combinations of the disciplinary providence of
God. It would be a strange thing, indeed, if the
youthful David should be led out into a course of
training for the throne of God's kingdom, actual and
typical, and then should be abandoned when Saul
hurls his javelin, or Nabal locks up his stores. Pass-
ing strange would it be if an apostle of Jesus Christ,
liable to a sudden arrest, like those of Peter and Paul,
should be left in the lurch because he had no time in
the confusion of the throng, the rush of the mob, to
study up a speech, to order an effective defence ! Why
should not the great Teacher say, " Do not be anxious !
Go on with your work ! Take the consequences ! I
will tell you what to say ! "
9. On the other hand, it just as clearly appears that
while there are special provisions for special emer-
gencies, it is not special emergency, tremendous crisis
all the time ; but that the ordinary course and pro-
cess of Christian life is calm instruction, patient learn-
ing. The great crises come to comparatively few
people, and even to those possibly only a few times in
life. And, as a rule, there is a long course of training
preparatory to great crises. It was so with Moses,
THE lOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 43
David, and Paul. God does not govern or conduct
the world on emergencies, surprises, and irregularities ;
but by the steady ongoing of things, the power of
principle, the stability of truth, the energy of disci-
pline, the excellency of intelligence, the reward of
virtue, and the worth of happiness. Sin makes short
turns and sharp surprises, and the arrest of wicked-
ness sometimes makes the earth tremble, and shakes
the very pillars of heaven. And there are people that
somehow or other think they are nearer God when
they are the champions of crises and the heroes of
emergencies. It is under ground that mines are laid
to blow up Parliament Houses and Courts of Justice ;
it is in the darkness that conspiracies and assassina-
tions are hatched — a brood of hell — and strengthen to
mount into the upper air to blacken the firmament
and hide away the very sun ; and the quicker the per-
petrators are seized, the plots exposed, and the ruin
averted or repaired, the better. This is a crisis ; but
you cannot make good citizens, loyal subjects, grand
commonwealths out of such crises. This is an emer-
gency ; but it is not God's plan. The school system
does more for the country than wanton rebellion ; the
colleges are better for the nation than conspiracies.
The Divine intent and order for the wisdom and weal
of mankind are declared in the text : " When He, the
Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all
truth."
44 THE GUIDING EYE ; OR,
CHAPTER VIII.
QUALIFICATIONS OF THE GUIDE.
illUR next consideration, as is seemly, shall be, What
^ is implied in this guidance ? What does it mean ?
For whom is it intended ? What does it do for
us ? How far does it go ?
These and similar questions will be answered by a
proper examination of three things here closely re-
lated, yea, vitally and inseparably connected, viz. :
the Guide, the means of guidance, and the follower ;
the Teacher, the character of the truth to be learned,
and the disciple ; the Master, the scholar, and the les-
son. The shepherd guides the sheep with the crook ;
some he can guide with his voice. The driver guides
the horse with the rein and bit ; some can be guided
with a word. The pilot directs the vessel with the
rudder. The hunter trains his dog with a piece of
meat. The swineherd leads his squealing, wallowing
litter with a low chuckle and the rattle ot peas in a
pan. The devil lures his dupes and blinds his victims
with glitter of error and flashes of perverted truth.
The tricky politician leads his crowd with a cry and a
bribe. The partisan gathers, holds and hurls his ver-
min vote with palaver, promises, shouts, bands, and
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 45
boodle. The patriot statesman draws true men to him-
self with an intelligent and beneficent policy ; and with
sound principles, scorning the mere success of the hour,
beckons and guides the nation up the highway of lib-
erty, righteousness, and lasting prosperity. The mathe-
matician opens the youth's mind with truth, and in the
powers of mathematical analysis leads the soul through
the grandeur of the universe up the pathway of the
stars and out on the broad range of the infinities. The
chemist takes his scholar into the intricacies of organ-
ism, and in his urgent research knocks persistently at
the very gateway of the royal palace of life. The ex-
pounder of ethics threads his way through the mys-
teries of conscience and reason of man and God, and
according to his going brings forth his disciples into
labyrinths of darkness, or into the broad light. And
genuine science and real truth in these things so found
are by no means of but little worth. They are well-
nigh as far removed in their nature, energy and eflfects
from the darkness and abominations of barbarism as
heaven is from hell. But above the best of all these,
and beyond the safest and brightest of them all, and
beyond all combined, the Spirit of God guides the
humble believer with the truth of God. Yea, we
insist, with the truth of God, and by truth to higher
truth, as surely as the mathematician and the chemist
in their departments of the truth of God. The father
guides the child by his example, his spirit, his felt
presence, his hand, his finger, his look. But the pru-
dent father ever so guides the child on recognized
principles and for his good. So doth the Spirit of God
46 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
guide by His presence, His mind. His example, His
word, His very look. The calm, clear eye of the Infi-
nite Reason, the indwelling Holy Ghost, looks lovingly
into the opening eye of the infinite intelligence, the
obedient human soul. " The meek will He guide in
judgment." " I will guide thee with Mine eye." But
again on recognized, unalterable principles, the Word
of God, truth and candor must be there, or there is no
guidance to good.
The guidance, the teaching, the leading with which
we have to do is not the coaxing of the dog, or the
driving of the horse, or the goading of the ox, or the
buying of the traitor to his country for voting day, or
the bouncing of a ball, or the rush of the torpedo, or
the graceful curve of the sky-rocket ; or the leap of
feeling, or the bound of sentiment and desire, or the
sudden burst of passion's varying flame ; but it is the
work of mind on mind, intelligence on intelligence,
thought on thought, person on person, by sound know-
ledge and pure truth. The Spirit of God undertakes
to guide the willing disciple into all truth. And to
the breadth of the " all truth " to the enlarging soul
He, on His side, sets no limit on earth or in heaven ;
the earth " all truth " for earth, and the heaven " all
truth " for heaven. It is the leadership of capability,
docility and obedience by intelligence, light and love.
It is guidance on the one hand ; willing following on
the other. It is teaching on the one hand ; learning
on the other. It is instruction on the one hand ; ready
discipleship on the other. ^ - -
In the teacher, instructor, guide, in such a case, it is
necessary that these things be found: —
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 47
1. Authority to teach. — " Who made thee a ruler or
a guide over me," is the quick, instinctive demand of
every soul. Teaching is a high and sacred function,
and must be attended with ruling and commandment,
with government and order. This is recognized in all
public systems of instruction, in all institutions of
learning, in well-ordered homes, and in the Church of
God ; in the economy of grace and in the kingdom of
heaven. Conscience, sense of right, respect of order
and law are vital elements in imparting and receiving
knowledge. There can be no extensive or useful
attainments in knowledge without them. Truth's
intrinsic authority must hold sway over the moral
nature of both teacher and scholar.
2. Knowledge. — Subject matter to communicate. It
goes for the saying, the teacher must know before he
can teach. And he should know, not only the fact,
process, or principle taught, but also its bearing, rela-
tion, or connections and power. The more he knows of
these things, of causes and effect, of occasions and
consequences, the better will he understand the central
fact or principle in view, and the more luminously and
satisfactorily will he explain it.
3. Ability to teach. — This is the power of the commu-
nication of knowledge, which is an instinctive, inventive
and sympathetic power ; entering into thought, capa-
bility, inclination and temperament of the learner on
the one hand ; and into the activities of mind and
the broadness, beauty, variety and unity of truth on
the other.
4. Love. — Love of the knowledge itself ; love of the
48 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
very activity and exercise of teachinor; of dealing with
the knowledge and holding it up in its various lights ;
love of the learner as a companion and a disciple, a
kindred spirit of glorious opportunity and abounding
and far-reaching promise ; and love of the fruits of
knowledge in the happy learner, in the ever-brighten-
ing intelligence and ever-increasing power, in the up-
ward flights of the soul, into broader, clearer light.
5. Patience. — Begotten of love and faith, faith in the
omnipotence of truth set shining upon a ready mind ;
patience to wait the unfolding of the untaught powers ;
adapting the lessons to dulness, to inattention, even
to stupidity; expecting hesitancy, stumbling, failure,
and by them possibly even better pointing out the
road ; bearing even with indifference and insensibility
till the day of awakening comes; then kindling the
incipient desire into a strong passion, and fanning it
into a consuming flame ; nurturing the feeble thought
into robust intelligence and all-conquering knowledge.
6. Trustworthiness. — Accuracy, truthfulness and
honesty ; so that so far as it was intended to go, the ipse
dixit may be conclusive, " The teacher said so ; that is
enough." The facts, the principles, well known and
truthfully delivered, the spirit of the learner rests with
satisfaction, and bounds from height to height with
vigor and joy.
7. Inspiration. — Selfhood, individuality, personal
earnestness, a moral and intellectual magnetism,
streaming forth from the very presence, the speech,
the tone, the question, the eye, the burning soul within ;
that it may enter into the learner and possess him, and
THE HOLV spirit's GUIDAJfCE. 49
restrain and incite him ; and instruct, impel, correct
and edify him ; till his own spirit catches the flame,
and he feels his own manhood, selfhood, worth, power,
and responsibility, and rises in a moral dignity, self-
reliance on truth, and vital connection with truth and
righteousness, in finer fibre and nobler stature, a man —
a wise and good man, after the pattern of the model
Man of all the ages.
On the side of the instructor, when the Holy Ghost
is the teacher, we certainly have all these ([ualifica-
tions in a pre-eminent degree ; yea, to the very perfec-
tion of every qualification ; and the full perfection of
the right and proper adjustment and combination of
all perfections. The Holy Spirit, blessed be His name
forever ! is unquestionably an infallible guide and
omniscient teacher. Does this insure, however, what
some understand by infallible guidance — no possibility
of sin, no sin ; no liability to mistake, no mistakes ;
the fruits of infinite knowledge, unerring rectitude
and absolute holiness ?
60 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
CHAPTER IX.
THE INSTRUMENT OF GUIDANCE.
O much for the agent, the teacher. Our next in-
quiry shall be as to the instrumentality of this
guidance ; whether that instrumentality be the
doctrine, the law, the covenant, the institutes and the
established principles of government as revealed in
the Holy Scriptures ; or the Divine Person Himself
by His acts, touches, inducements, encouragements,
intimations, or series of impression.s, or lines of
thought as He may choose to convey His lessons of
grace, love, peace, and power to the human mind.
There have been teachers who have put their doc-
trines down in books, and let us learn what they
taught from the books. There have been others that
never wrote a word to leave behind them ; yet we are
moved by their power through their declarations,
their scholars, their traditions and institutions. There
are others, again, who wrote books, inculcated prin-
ciples, founded societies, ordained government ; and
we interpret their doctrine by their deeds. And some
have lived in the midst of their schools, and explained
their written theses by word of mouth ; and in per-
son have led their disciples in the way of their doc-
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 51
trine as by the hand ; and with the kindling eye, the
uplift countenance or the gathering frown have
cheered even the blundering attempt, smiling their
pleasure, or refusing their assent.
In the ever blessed Spirit we have a teacher, a
guide that conveys an J confirms His doctrines by all
these means and in all these ways. He has a written
Word ; and it is final and decisive when we can say,
as said our Lord, "It is written," He has His govern-
ment and ordinances. His institutes and traditions.
He lives not only in the midst of His school (the
Church), but He lives in His doctrines and in the
hearts of His scholars, His learners ; on the one hand
to explain and enforce His doctrine, and on the other
to aid in receiving and applying it. Was there ever
beside so intimate and effective instruction ? Was
there ever other such need of it ? Is man otherwise
so stricken, blinded, wrecked, as in his moral nature
and in his relation to God ? Is there to any man
another so great a Avork as the salvation of his soul ?
Has any school a work approaching in importance
the work of the Church, the salvation of the world ?
Surely there is need of guidance.
1. For this instruction, so utterly indispensable, we
have, as the instrument of the Spirit, the Holy Scrip-
tures, the Bible. We set it above everything else.
We allow nothing for a moment to come into com-
parison with it. It is decisive of all controversies,
settling all doubts, the final court of appeal. Once
fixed, the Sible is of God ; there we are on the rock.
" But the Bible raises doubts and controversies." Yes,
52 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
and when we go to the Guide, the Teacher, it settles
them, and settles them forever. The multiplication
table is the instrument of the mathematician ; and the
mathematician must keep to his multiplication table,
the lotjician to his orcjanon, the grammarian to his
rules, and the Spirit of God (we speak it rever-
ently) must keep to the Bible. And we must keep to
the inspired Word. " The law of the Lord is perfect,
converting the soul." The apostles themselves held
its perpetual validity, its self-evidencing power above
the evidence of testimony and the evidence of sense.
They were the last men in the world to let intima-
tions or impressions for a moment becloud the bright
shining of the established Word of God. " For we
have not followed cunningly-devised fables, when we
made known unto you the power and coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ ; but were eye-witnesses of His
majesty. For He received from God the Father honor
and glory when there came to Him such a voice from
the excellent glorj^ This is my beloved Son, in whom
I am well pleased. And this voice which ctirae from
heaven we heard when we were with Him in the
holy mount. We have also a more sure word of pro-
phecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as
unto a light that shineth on a dark place, until the day
dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts." Oh,
that our people bad learned more the study of the
Word, that they might better understand the mind of
the Spirit ! This is, indeed, the only way, under the
Spirit's guidance, to learn the mind of the Spirit. No
wonder our candidates for the ministry in our solemn
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 53
ordination service are required to enter into the vows
to be " diliorent in reading the Holy Scriptures," " to
be ready with all faithful diligence to banish and
drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines con-
trary to God's Word," and " to be determined out of
the said Scriptures to instruct the people committed
to their charfje."
2. It is very positive and plain that what the in-
fallible Teacher, the Holy Ghost, teacheth, He will
teach within the compass of the Word of God, and
the principles therein immutably and indestructibly
laid dov/n. We saw off the limb on which we are
resting, betwixt ourselves and the tree, when we de-
grade the Bible to exalt the Holy ( Jhost ; when we
disparage or neglect the written Word to magnify
what we would like to call the voices, suggestions,
intimations or teachings of the Spirit. " To the law
and the testimony ; if tl.ey speak not according to
this Word, it is because there is no light in them."
The Bible gives us, reveals to us, the Holy Ghost, and
is given us by the Holy Ghost. Shall the King of
heaven violate His own constitution, dishonor His
own charter, and mar His own royal seal ? Shall the
teacher of order, fidelity, truth, and righteousness,
coming down to us from the skies, disgrace sacred,
supreme authority before our eyes, and disregard and
disown His own credentials ? The Holy Ghost Him-
self in the Word makes known His existence, which
otherwise we ha<l known nothing of, and lays down
the law and result of His operation and work. When
people then get outside of the Bible ; above it, or
54 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
below it ; say they do not read the Bible, do not study
the Bible, do not need the Bible, because they are
taught of the Holy Ghost by direct indwelling and
communication aside from the Bible, what shall we
do ? Shall we join the alarmists, and cry, " Danger
ahead ? " Those taught of the Spirit need not that
any man teach them to be sure ; but they need teach-
ing, nevertheless. And whence cometh that anoint-
ing, which is no lie, but is truth and teacheth us all
things, but within the limits and under the law of
the written Word of God ? When the mariner gets
on his way, can he throw his compass overboard and
steer by the winds and shooting stars ? How shall we
ourselves avoid the lie and keep to the truth as re-
gards this anointing, and possess it in its fulness and
fragrance ; how shall we escape being ourselves de-
ceived, and deceiving and misleading others, unless we
search in God's Word for His representation of our
nature, need, privilege and duty, and God's will, way,
and power concerning us, as a man digs in a field for
hid treasure ? Why should we leave the old, tried
multiplication table at hand, and say the teacher will
give us a better one ? We hold the teacher himself
to and by the multiplication table, and in coming
years will know him a fool and a cheat if he forsake
or change it. The multiplication table is plain and
easy ; so is the doctrine of spheres and triangles ; but
if we get outside of the multiplication table by the
least fraction, or outside of the doctrine of triangles, or
the principles of universal grammar, or the organon
of eternal logic, where are we / There are some
THE HOLY SPIRITS GUIDANCE. 55
things we cannot leave by the least line or shade
without leaving altogether. " Whosoever shall keep
the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty
of all."
3. Within this compass of the Holy Scripture, by
this law and doctrine and through them, the Holy
Spirit doth personally and actually instruct and guide
men, the men that are willing to be instructed and
guided, in the things of God. We do not by any
means deny or displace the instruction and guidance
of the providence of God for those who can gather its
lessons ; the instruction of the constitution and course
of nature ; of the moral instincts of men ; of social,
political or national movements and result-^ ; or of any
of the agencies by which natural religion nay indicate
the divine will and draw men nearer to truth and
virtue. But as religious instructors we place none of
them, nor all of them combined, alongside of, or any
where near on the same level with, the Spirit by the
Word, the Word through the Spirit ; the Spirit of God,
the promise of the Father, in the heart of a believer in
Jesus Christ. This a vantage-ground that natural
religion, important as it is, noble and useful as it is,
in any of its aspects or combinations, never dreamed
of ; and yet a vantage-ground that deists would pre-
sumptuously claim, and that the practical infidelity
inside the Church itself would often unwarrantably
concede. Natural religion, or conscience, or Provi-
dence does not, and all of them together do not, under-
take to guide a man into all truth. We certainly have
no promise of God to that effect. They do not even
56 THE GUIDING EYE ; OR,
lead a man up to the regeneration, the door of the
kingdom of heaven. They have had a long and varied
trial, and proved a complete and everlasting failure.
Even the guiding, providential hand is too physical,
too coarse, too much of the natural ; not sensitive or
intelligible enough for this work of showing the be-
liever the secret places of his safety, his highway of
triumph and the hidden sources of his power. What
is here wanted is "the guiding eye," and the responsive
eye of the believer ; eye to eye ; spirit to spirit under
the light of the Word : reason to reason, intelligence
to intelligence, thought to thought under the guidance
of the Spirit of Truth according to the standards of
eternal truth. " I will guide thee with Mine eye."
" As the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their
masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand
of her mistress, so our eyes wait upon the Lord our
God."
4. And if we will not admit as the competitors, or
in any sense the equals of this " guiding eye," in
directing the saint of God in his duties, privileges and
joys, the inferences of natural religion, the deductions
of human reason, the lessons of history or the indica-
tions of paternal Providence, what shall we say of the
coming and going impressions, suggestions and fancies
that eager, and sometimes honest souls would like to
call the voices, the teachings of the Spirit ? What
shall we say of them when heeded so hastily as to be
untested by the Word, or if tested, found to transcend
or e en contravene the Word ? It is our solemn duty
to " try the spirits : " and if one come to speak in the
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE.. 57
name of the Holy Ghost to detain him, at least long
enough to ask him some very straight questions and
get thereto square answers. Let him prove himself as
always in Scripture and in true scriptural experience.
It was not, ' I was sick, and I had a pain, and I didn't
take any dinner ; I got better, and I took a little ; and
I felt this way and that ; and the Lord told me ; and
I went here and there ; and I slept and I awoke, and
I heard it just as if it were a voice speaking to me ;
and the Lord said this or that ; " arrant nonsense and
balderdash — pardon, if we offend one of these little
ones — sometimes foisted upon a Christian assembly for
a religious experience ; which none but a Christian
assembly would have patience to bear. But to the
apostles it was : " This is that which was spoken by
the prophet Joel, It shall come to pass in the last days,
saith God." Again, '• They lifted up their voice to God
with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God which
hath made heaven and earth and the sea and all that
in them is." " Which by the mouth of thy servant
David hath said, Why did the heathen rage?" In
the vision of Peter and the providential coincident
direction of Peter and Cornelius, solid ground to rest
upon is found only in the Word : for, said the awak-
ened, liberalized Peter, '■ The Word which God sent
unto the children of Israel preaching peace by Jesus
Christ (He is Lord of all), that ivord, I say ye know,
. . . how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with
the Holy Ghost and with power, ... to Him
give all the prophets witness, that through His name
whosoever believeth on Him shall receive remission
58 THE GUIDING EYE ; OR,
of sins." So Paul reasoned out of the Scriptures,
opining and alleging that Christ must needs have
suffered, and risen again from the dead, and that " this
Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ." Christ and
His apostles never departed from the Bihle-base a
hair's breadth, or lost sight of it for a second. If it is
guidance we honestly seek, here is our guide. How
were the holy, mighty Bible characters instructed and
led ? How the faithful witnesses for Christ in all
the centuries of the Church ? Was it by their own
thoughts, impressions, notions, feelings ? Or was it
by the stable Word of the living God applied under
the instruction of the Spirit to the circumstances of
the life, to the work required of a consecrated soul in
perfect sacrifice and to the demands of the hour ?
Surely this was the light that shone upon the pathway
of Peter and Paul in all their argument and all their
action ; this was the law by which Christ held Himself
bound ; this was taken as their foundation, their
strength, their defence and their guide by Martin
\ Luther, John Wesley and John Knox. What have
we better ? /
5. It must be kept in mind that this " guiding eye,"
and the whole tenor of Scripture on this subject, carry
with them the rational process indeed ; mind to mind
and reason to reason ; but they carry, also, much more
than the merely rational process of mental illumina-
tion. The Holy Spirit guides by heart processes,
and soul impulses, affections, emotions and desires, as
well as by the cool, intellectual process. If it were the
cool intellectual process alone he would, perhaps, not be
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 59
a successful guide of most men. Like children, we
are often led better than we know or think of. But
the heart processes and soul impulses must come to the
rational, scriptural tests. The Spirit of God acts in
His personality and love, no question ; and He is ready
for the Scripture tests. It is we, and not He, that
are impatient under the rational, scriptural demands.
We are they that, once aroused, go off on fancies
and cannot wait. The father guides the child by
acts of confidence, by looks of expectation and desire,
by deeds of love, by incentives to energy au'l rewards
of success. It is a heart-to-heart and soul-to-soul
guidance. And .so the ever blessed Spirit in personal
heart guidance inflames our holy desire, chides our
dulness, stimulates our faith, lifts our expectation,
widens our view, redoubles our energy, brightens our
rewards, fires us with hope, and purifies and fills us
with joy and love. Here are signs enough, and feel-
ings enough, and impressions and impulses enough ;
but whether they be of the Spirit, and though they
be of the Spirit, they must abide the rational test,
the scriptural rule.
We have, then, the infallible Guide and the instru-
ment of instruction, the infallible Word ; we have the
infallible Spirit and His pure infallible doctrine and
act ; the holy testimony and the witness ever faith-
ful and true ; a scholar susceptible to kindness and a
teacher of infinite love. Does all this, however, imply
infallible guidance as .some understand it ; infinite
knowledge, absolute holiness ; no sin, no mistakes ?
60 THE GUIDING EYE; OB,
CHAPTBR X.
THE LEARNER, SCHOLAR.
^'HIS brings us to consider the third element in
"^ this guidance: the disciple, the scholar, the
learner.
A perfect tailor with a perfect scissors, needle and
thread, will not always make a perfect coat. Some-
thing depends on the cloth ; and it may be good, honest
cloth, too. The very grades mean imperfections ; and
as the world is, there are imperfections in the warp
and woof of things. A perfect miller and a perfect
mill will not always make perfect flour. Something
depends on the wheat ; and the miller all the time
may make the best selection he can. A perfect car-
penter with a perfect nail, saw, and hammer, may not
always make a perfect job. Something depends on the
lumber ; and he may use the best lumber he can get.
A perfect teacher with a perfect arithmetic may^ not
always make a perfect mathematician. Something
depends on the boy ; and of boys there is quite a
variety. And there will be many grades of coats, and
many grades of flour, and many grades of building
and many grades of scholarship while the world lasts.
And this very fact of grades with reference to an
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 61
absolute standard involves imperfections. Under such
a standard these imperfections are mistakes, and if the
moral element enter under such a standard, they are
sin. So that under an absolute standard to talk of
utter freedom from mistakes is to talk utter nonsense.
But they say, every one is perfect of its kind, every one
is a standard to itself. So there is, indeed, no standard ;
again, to talk of "no mistakes" is nonsense. The ex-
pediencies of life will come in in its commonest affairs ;
the wiser or the worse choice ; the better or worse
adaptation. And they certainly will not the less come
in the broad field of moral cultivation and religious
activity ; for in the very nature of things it is not a
moral cultivation, a religious activity, without the
exercise of the power of choice, the constant movement
of intelligence and will ; so that the nature, capability,
and spirit of its scholar must of necessity come into
the account.
The nature and capabilities of the scholar, no matter
who is the teacher, have, then, something to do with
this work of teaching, guiding, learning ; wherefore
correlative to the qualifications of the teacher and
guide, we shall expect of the disciple, learner, the fol-
lowing qualities : —
1. Respect for authority. — Respect for ♦^he authority
of truth for its own sake upon the conscience, heart
and life ; respect fur the authority of the teacher for
the truth's sake, his work's sake ; and for his own sake
as the representative and deliverer of the truth to the
forming mind and the growing knowledge.
2. Confidence in the teacher. — In his character, his
62 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
judgment, his knowledge, his truthfulness, his love of
learning and the learner ; his interest in his glorious
work ; such a confidence, so implicit a trust, as duly
justified, rises to a devotion, and invests the very doc-
trine and wisdom with the personality of the instruc-
tor; and crowns the instructor's personality with the
radiance of the wisdom.
3. Perfect obedience to the teacher's direction, search-
ing for his doctrine as he enjoins, and applying it
found as he instructs ; verifying his statements in ex-
perience and practice, and reaping the fruits of the
knowledge he imparts.
4. Patience of inquii'y, especially under failure,
mistake or rebuke. The good teacher knows the very
struggle to learn, the mental discipline is the chief
benefit ; whence often he allows faithful search to be
pushed to its limit, and examination and experiment
to be exhausted by the scholar's ingenuity and deter-
mination.
5. Eagerness for learning. — A soul more and more
enwrapt in the holy flame, so that thirst for knowledge
becomes as a fire shut up in the bones ; a sleepless in-
centive, a tireless activity, a devouring passion that
daily strengthens on its noble gratifications, and keeps
its possessor in fresh vigor, rejoicing like a strong man
to run a race. This is the love of learning for learn-
ing's sake ; the exhilaration of the search, the shout of
the chase, the gladness of the activity. Surely it
should not be less in spiritual matters under the guid-
ance of the Holy Ghost.
6. Labor for independence of character and thougld.
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 63
— The excitement of original investigation, the thrill
of original discovery ; the lordship of personal pro-
prietorship in the vast domain of knowledge, the regal
rank of personal power in the imperial realm of learn-
ing. God has given this right, this possibility, -this
rich inheritance to every man. The millions sell it
for less than a mess of pottage. True knowledge in
bringing God and the world to the man, brings the
man to his highest, noblest self.
7. Joy in the truth for the tilth's s<ihe. — A personal,
inalienable, imperishable, indestructible possession, and
yet the commonwealth of the brotherhood of man ;
that very possession which, communicating to others,
we enrich ourselves ; more liberally giving, the more
abundantly we get ; more copiously pouring out the
fruits into the laps of our fellows, the more plenteously
we receive into our own bosoms. This is the law of
our Heavenly Father's home and family, the political
economy of the kingdom of God ; everybody giving
to everybody, makes everybody rich. And even in
this poverty-stricken and sin-clouded world we can
make this law of the brightness of truth operative.
" Wisdom is more precious than rubies. Her fruit is
better than gold, yea, than fine gold ; and her revenue
than choice silver. Riches and honor are with her,
yea, durable riches and righteousness. Happy is the
man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth
understanding, for the merchandise of it is better than
the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than
fine gold Her ways are ways of pleasant-
ness, and all her paths are peace."
64 TBE OI^IDING EYE; OR,
8. Unfailing ftatUf action in the ff radical opening of
the truth. — What we have of it, and far as we have
gone in it, it is good, very good ; but the chief delight
is, there are more fertile fields and richer mountain
ranges, broader prairies and grander rivers in the vast
tracts yet unexplored. The wealth and glory of the
American continent did not burst in an instant on the
eye of Columbus, or its exhaustless treasures in a
moment fill his hands. Only one Moses had a miracu-
lous view of the promised land with one sweep of the
eye, from the Jordan to the sea. And it will not hurt
us to imjuire how he got that view, and whether it
was God's original and best plan. Was it not the
good mind of our God to take Moses into the land
promised to the fathers, and let him pass day by day
throughout its length and breadth in happy posses-
sion ? But he sinned ; and God gave him not the
gradual and intimate knowedge, the full and rich
and growing enjoyment in steady progress and final
and complete victory ; but in mercy to his child, to
prove the covenant fulfilled, and satisfy him for his
people's sake, notwithstanding his sin, afibr<]^d him one
glimpse of a heritage that might have been his pos-
session in glorious, gradual conquest all his days. And
this sudden rapture, " to feel good," is the most we
think off. We would rather sin and be with Moses
outside, than enter in with Joshua. We joy to sing —
" Could we but climb where Moses stood
And view the landscape o'er,"
rather than under the leadership of the mighty God go
THE HOLY spirit's GaiDANCE. 65
on from strenfjth to strength, and by learning know
by conflict win. It is about all the religion we have
to desire and get a nice place, and then look on. The
church is easily rocked to sleep in the lullaby of such
pretty poetry. Better sing with the advancing host,
" Could we but march willi Joshua's tread
And drive out hell and sin,"
We'd show the world life from the dead,
And bring salvation in."
Joshua's conquest and allotment was better than
Moses' sudden vision on Pisgah's height. All-achiev-
ing, all-conquering Paul boasts in grace: "I have
learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be con-
tent." He enjoyed content, but he had learned it. "For-
getting those things which are bebind, and reaching
forth unto those which are before, I press toward the
mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ
Jesus." Not everything at one bound ; but all things
of each stage in sure possession in his victorious march
from glory to glory. And so through the Spirit we
learn and possess the Christian graces ; we learn, pos-
sess, prove and enjoy the truth and power of God, not
in their compass and totality in an instant ; though
stages of progress are begun and completed in an
instant ; but we accept the revelation from faith to
faith. " To our faith we add courage ; to courage,
knowledge ; to knowledge, temperance ; to temperance,
patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, charity." The
eyes of our understanding being enlightened by the
spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of
5
66 THE GUIDING KYE ; OR,
Christ, we know what is the hope of His calling, and
what the riches of the glory of His Jaberitance in the
saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His
power to US-ward who believe, according to the work-
ing of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ
when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at
His own right hand in the heavenly places ; that every
man may come unto the measure of the stature of the
fulness of Christ — a perfect man in Christ J^sus.
Gradualism in human progress betwixt instantaneous
divine executive acts, and all of infinite almiirhtv
grace, is the divine plan.
9. IncrcasiiHf power frorn increasing knowledge by
due exercise. — The truth of to-day understood and
practised opens up new truth for to-morrow. The only
way to reach some truth is by knowledge and practice
of antecedent truth. What could a lad do with the
perplexities of trigonometrical analysis who could not
handle the multiplication table in common arithmetic?
" Yes, but the teacher could tell him," you say. " True
enough ; the teacher can tell him, and may tell him,
and does tell him, but the child does not, can not ap-
prehend what the teacher tells him ; he can neither
receive nor apply the results. The trouble is not in
the teacher, whose knowledge in the matter may be
perfect ; but it is in the power of apprehension and
stacre of advancement of the scholar." The teacher
may, in an emergency, for a purpose in a crisis give
the scholar an answer far ahead of his proficiency ; the
chemist may wisely give the .student a fact, a result
far in advance of his power of experiment ; and the
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 67
student may, in faith, receive the answer and use it
without ever taking the intermediate steps. But that
is not teaching, guiding : it may be cramming, leap-
ing, ballooning. It is not mental discipline ; it may be
demonstration of the teacher's power, or deliverance
from a danger ; it may be parade, show, or mere de-
ceit. For a sign, the apostles could speak foreign lan-
guages without learninii them, and Jesus could make
wine without growing the grapes. But that is not guid-
ing, teaching husbandry. It was done only once and for
a special purpose ; though souie people think they live
there all the time. Ever since, and now-a-days, if
men filled with the Holy Ghost need Latin or Greek,
they must learn it ; if they want wine, they must
raise the grapes. And this slowly learned Latin is,
to some at least, indispensable to the Spirit's guid-
ance. Steady teaching, graduul learning, is the divine
order. Having conquered multiplication by five, we
can try six as a multiplier. Reading well words of
two syllables, we can better go on to those of three.
" If any man will do His will, he shall know of the
doctrine." Having made one hundred dollars, by pro-
per use we can easier and better make two hundred.
Having peace by pardon, we better have access into
establishing grace, and thereby into comforting hope.
And by this initial faith and hope wo come into the
patience that not only endureth tribulation, but glori-
eth in tribulation ; because patience worketh experi-
ence, and experience the higher, firmer hope, and
broader, deeper, brighter, perfect love. This duty per-
formed, this temptation overcome, this burden borne,
68 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
this responsibility met, this sum worked out, this
problem solved, it may be through blunders and the
teacher looking lovingly on, there is greater strength
for the next, though it may be severer, heavier or
harder. And there is joy that it be so ; for if the
racer delight in the race, or the oarsman in the pull ; if
the scholar delight in the task, or the apprentice in the
opening beautj* and interest of the art, why shall not
the child of God delight in the activities of His service,
the opening of His Providence and the opportunities to
exercise all spiritual powers in all goodness and
grace? Why should increasing strength, agility, worldly
knowledge and skill be a joy, and increasing spiritual
knowledge and power, purity and goodness be a drag
and drudgery enforced, dull and wearisome ? Why
should not spiritual exercise and acquisition, spiritual
eating and drinking, spiritual leaping and running,
spiritual love and labor be a delight ? Our minds and
hearts must be quite wrong. The Bible must be quite
right in its description of our apathy and spiritual
death. The grandest exer'iises of the soul are in good-
ness and truth. The answered prayer of to-day makes
stronger prayer to-morrow. More patience, sweetness
and love to-day makes more to-morrow. Greater lib-
erality to-day, helps freer giving to-morrow. More
charity to-day more and easier to-morrow. These
learners, these laborers, go from strength to strength
passing through parched valleys and converting them
into water springs, filling even the deserts with wells
of living water.
Who shall .say, with an infallible guide and an infal-
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 69
lible text-book, how rapid and safe the progress of such
a scholar in knowledge and in consequent conduct may
not be ? Is it a wonder that such learners should be
at times a little extravagant, and in the transport of
the " eureka " imagine all is now possessed ? Is it a
wonder that in the exultation of pardon some should
say, " I have it all ; there can be nothing beyond this ? "
And again in the resplendency of purity by the Spirit
through the blood, the same persons should exclaim :
" Now the heaven is mine ; I can sin or fall or blunder
or be tempted no more ? " Is it a wonder that the
ecstatic, the enthusiastic, the ill-infonned, imitating
such lancjuaofe, touched or not, according to their
measure, with the holy Hame, should declare them-
selves to be no lonsjer themselves ; but tilled with the
Spirit, to be as God, perfectly infallible in judgment,
and absolutely holy in life ? And is it any wonder
that sober-minded, Bible-reading, evangelically holy
people should say such language is monstrous, such
pretensions are unbearable, and such extravagances
and escapades are to be attributed to reprehensible
ignorance, wilful perverseness, or swelling self-conceit ?
And is it any wonder, with assumptions or one side,
and censures on the other, the body of Chist should
be wounded in the house of His friends ?
70 THE GUIDING EYE ; OR,
CHAPTER XI.
RELIGION NATURAL IN THE KINGDOM
OF GOD.
OME one says, "This all looks like a natural process,
like human wisdom, learning earthly things. If
this be the way, where is the difference betwixt
grace and geometry ? It seems to leave God out of
the whole matter, and the Holy Ghost out. Why I
thought the Holy Spirit gave it all at once and finished
it all up ; and all I had to do was sit and sing myself
away to everlasting bliss. Or I thought God pushed it
through on predetermined lines, and I might attend to
other matters. I don't believe religion is learned like
arithmetic and grammar. You must work and plod to
get them ; but religion you get all at once by just ask-
ing for it. It is a supernatural divine gift and act,
and you don't have to toil for it or labor to develop
in it ; the Lord does all that."
Here is one of the ruinous drawbacks and sad discom-
fitures in this whole business. Religion, it is thought,
is so unlike everything else, so unnatural, so out of
the ordinary course of things, that it doesn't lie level
along human life and scarcely touches it at any point ;
in fact, has very little business with it. On the one hand,
THE HOLY SPIRITS GUIDANCE. 71
it is a constant intrusion, an imperturbable imperti-
nence. Its chief recommendation is its impudence, and
the only hold it has is in its brazen irregularities and
superhuman pretensions. It lives on miracles, on sur-
prises. On the other hand, it is more than super-
Alpine summits, and the gleaming heads and glittering
plateaus of cloud-land. So both sides would agree
it lives only on miracles, extraordinary junctures, and
surprises. Two very diverse classes of people seem to
be very much engaged in fostering this idea of the
unnaturalness of religion ; that is, its super-naturalness
in its own sphere. It is too high for humanity and
nobody can get it : or it is so lofty and transcendental
that it is the attainment of only a few ; and I am the
man that has it. The worldly man and the worldly-
minded professor of religion would have it altogether
supernatural, above and beyond man, to justifiy their
own evident and inexcusable deficiency and sinfulness.
The enthusiastic disciple, with perhaps more zeal than
knowledge, more assumption than humility — and there
are such — would have it so loftily supernatural in
this world under moral government, to magnify his
own distinction and asserted possession.
What better thing do the devil and an infidel philo-
sophy want than to keep up the idea, whencesoever it
comes, that religion is an outlaw, unnatural, abnormal,
and out of joint with this good world ? Perhaps it could
be admitted to be an ornament to put on a shelf, or a
curiosity to be arranged in a cabinet ; but it has no
claim on, or affinity to, common life and daily affairs.
And many Christian thinkers speak of it as unnatural,
72 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
thus conceding the whole ground to the devil and an
infidel philosophy ; just as though the supernatural
were unnatural in the supernatural, religious realm,
any more than gravitation is unnatural with clods,
flying with birds, or whizzing with insects. And some
Christian people help the devil and his philosophy
wonderfully, while they think they are honoring
God and doinu* Him service, bv claiminsf to live in
scorn of Christianity's regular procedure and normal
attainment and power, on its surprises, emergencies,
and miracles ; just as though a man could live on
tempests, explosions, earthquakes, and flaming vol-
canoes. Religion in its realm is just as natural as any
thing else in its realm. It is just as natural and normal
in its realm and work as the sprouting of the corn, then
the growth of the stalk to the putting forth of the ear,
and then the maturity of the grain. " First the blade,
then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear." We
err in two ways : because we will not do our own work ;
and are determined to attempt to do God's work.
God's decisive and immediate acts of conviction of sin,
the regeneration of the heart, and the sanctification of
the entire man, we can do so nicely and gradually by
education, training, ordinance, influence, example, cul-
ture ; and our own work, under grace of learning,
obeying, seeking guidance and following it, reaching
after the truth and getting it, up to the conditions and
stage of these divine decisive and instantaneous acts,
often gradual enough and slow enough in all conscience
through our own delinquency, we want and imagine
the Great God to do suddenly and by starts and sur-
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 73
prises. As though the corn must be weeks at the
article and instant of sprouting, and do all its growing
in less than a second ; and months at the joint and
time of shooting forth the ear, and then come to the
maturity of cob and grain <juicker than a flash. What
could please a iiend better than such an inversion and
destruction of God's beautiful and bountiful order ?
And what could please the devil and his philosophy
better than our so turning things upside down in the
classic Church of boasted culture, and the fanatic
Church of illiterate fanaticism ?
Let us keep with God, and religion is natural
enough, beautifully natural. Certain antecedent con-
ditions, a week or a month, and the corn sprouts.
Certain further conditions, a week or a month, and the
ear shoots forth. Certain conditions, sometimes, alas,
for years by our fault before perfected, and God par-
dons the sinner in an instant, and as quickly gives
him the new heart. Certain onward conditions, alas,
by us too long delayed, and the entire man is made
holy to God and by God. In the spiritual realm natur-
ally led on from truth to truth, stage to stage, and glory
to glory — and in this realm nothing else would be
natural — and with such a guide and the right fol-
lower, on beyond these initiatory stages into all truth.
It is supernatural to the tortoise that the eagle should
fly through the heavens. It is supernatural to the
oyster that the deer should dash through the forest or
bound over the hills. And it is supernatural to the
world and the flesh that a man should have a clean
heavt and rejoice evermore in the hope of the glory of
74 THE GUIDING EYE ; OR,
God. But who has the right to give a standard mean-
ing to words — God or the devil ? Which shall deter-
mine what is natural, what unnatural, what sub-and
what super-natural — Christianity or inlidelity ( It is
about time the kingdom of Heaven had a little to do
with the dictionaries, the language of earth. Why
may not Christian people, in their own domain and in
the Church of God at all events, think and talk as
though religion were natural, and sin and the dtvii
sub-natural, infima-nutural, subter-natural and .sub-
terraneously unnatural. At all events, let us not give
up the whole ground to inlidelity by conceding, even
in thought, that the religious facts, as good facts as
any other, to say the least of it ; and the religious pro-
cesses, as thorough processes as any other, are, in the
moral and religious domain, where we ought to live, if
we do not, unnatural. The moral law is supreme in
the physical realm ; but when it operates there, as say
in a miracle, or the normal results of a conversion
from sin to righteousness, men cry out, mightily super-
natural, or horribly unnatural. Not even Churches
claim it as natural to their sphere of action and the
work of God. All .spiritual, religious power must be
branded as r.nnatural, and the presumptive argument
so thrown against it, because sin and Satan and sinful
popular sentiment make the language, rule public opin-
ion, yea, the world. Oh, that the Spirit would put
another language, a more vigorous tonj^ue, even upon
the Church. The provincial law claims right-of-way
in the township, yea, by it the township li-.es. Who
disparages and defames the law of the province by
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 75
calling it unnatural, or even supernatural. The im-
perial law rules in the provinces. Who stiijmatizes
the imperial law as unnatural ? Yet the high law of
divine procedure, fundamental to all law and rule, is
called unnatural in the Church of God. People in the
Church of God do not, on the one hand, like God's sub-
lime, decisive, executive, instantaneous acts ; and, on
the other, His grand, steady law of probationary pro-
cesses and attainments betwixt those executive acts,
and even in this world from act to act of the divine
goodness and power, and from display to display of the
divine glory. There must be certain attainments
under grace before the divine executive act can come ;
and then the divine executive act must come before
higher attainments can be made. We speak it rever-
ently ; God Himself cannot, under covenant, bestow
upon the unregenerate, the unpardoned, the blessings
that belong to the justified and regenerate. Nor can
He bestow upon the unsanctified; nor can the unsancti-
fied receive the covenanted power and joy of the
wholly sanctified. Nor can the careless, the disobedi-
ent, in this kind of guidance, this education, any more
than in any other education, receive the light, the
sanctification and the power that come upon the care-
ful, the earnest, the obedient. Spiritual education is
the best education in the world, for ultimately it in-
cludes all other education ; and the Holy Ghost is the
best educator, guide ; but given the infinite efficiency
of the Holy Ghost, and the infinite expansibility and
adaptability of the human soul, it is still education,
guidance; a natural and normal process in the premises ;
76 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
by no means accidental, irregular or arbitrary, but
under law, rule, regular process, through probationary
requirements, conditions and stages; in all the sweet-
ness, strength and glory of the Christian's life upon
earth, and in the natural — let us not stumble at the
word natural — advances and improvements of the
unforfeitable life of heaven.
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 77
CHAPTER XII.
THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH.
^NE of the plainest and saddest evidences that this
is a fallen world, man a fallen being, alienated
from God in all moral and spiritual, which are
the central and vital relations, is the prevailing mis-
conception, where the human mind has been awakened
to study at all, of the nature of truth ; of what God is
to it, and it to God ; of what it has to do with man,
and what is man's interest in it ; of what force it has
in the world, and what is the world's dependence upon
it. Common thought, popular view on any subject,
though like public sentiment unexpressed, is ponder-
ous inertia or prodigious impulse, as the case may be.
Let it be in your favor, and you, without seeing what
is doing it, are borne onward as by the current of a
mighty river. Let it be against you, and without say-
ing anything to you or about you, it will make you
feel you are compelled to stem both wind and tide.
Let it be active, and you are on wheels and springs in
the open road ; let it be torpid, and you are flounder-
ing in a quagmire or a snow-drift.
This common thought, public sentiment, alienated
from God, has quietly yielded up about the whole world
78 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
to sin, Satan and unbelief ; tacitly conceded the ground
of arf]fument to infidelity, materialism, rationalism,
anything that presents itself ; thrown the omts pro-
bo ndi every time on the claims of God, Christ and
religion ; subverted the divine purpose and inverted
the divine order, makin;:; God's natural thinjjs un-
natural, God's rejjular and universal things to be
disorderly and exceptional, and God's inherent and
indispensable things to be accidental, superficial, tran-
sient. Original, fundamental rights are man's or
Satan's ; the Nazarene is an intruder. No wonder
Christianity makes way slowly and with diflftculty
among men. No wonder the Great Teacher from the
skies strove to arouse and correct public sentiment by
the persistent lesson, " Have faith in God." The devil
understood the state of aflfairs, and arrogantly enough
put his claim, which, by the way, was not denied, when
he took our Lord up into an exceeding high mountain
and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and
the glory of them, and said unto Him, "All these
things w''l I give Thee if Thou w^ilt fall down and
worship me." Paul the apostle clearly apprehended
the state of affairs and the hope of the world when
he wrote to the Ephesian Christians : " You hath He
quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins ;
wherein in time past ye walked according to the course
of this world, according to the prince of the power of
the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children
of disobedience ; among whom also we all had our
conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh,
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 79
were by nature the children of wrath, even as others."
And Christian ministers and moral reforms have ever
proved what a terrible hindrance or glorious help is
this common opinion, public sentiment. To quicken
it, to correct it, to purify, elevate and direct it ; this is
one great end of the Church of God, the household of
faith. And little as the Church perceives it, here is
one of her solemnest duties, her grandest opportunities,
her divinest energies. She must make a public senti-
ment of her own, revolutionize the diabolical order,
pluck from Satan his power, form opinion and lan-
guage, govern the conversation of men that it may not
be said to be unnatural or supernatural to be godly,
or superhuman to be honest, pure and righteous.
We call men to witness ; this common sentiment, if
it touch the question at all, deems truth to be an
undefinable something, wholly outside of God, separate
from God, independent of God, having an eternity of
its own, to which God is subject, and into the midst of
which He came in creation, and in the midst of which
He operates in science, law and government. What
is this but the atheism of the age ? Law does every-
thing ; force governs all. What do we want of a per-
sonal God ? And yet what is law but the exposition
of truth ? What is force but the exertion of prin-
ciple and truth ? What is scientific order but the
product of truth ? What is life in all nature but tl.e
truth carried from its inner abodes to its outer mani-
festations ? What more rational or philosophic than
that the same being should be the Way, the Truth and
the Life ? Still thousands, even of Christians, that
80 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
would reject with indignation and horror the atheist's
conclusions, accept in sentiment and popular idea his
premises. The multiplication table is outside of God,
independent of God. The doctrines of spheres and
triangles are outside of God, independent of God.
Grammar and logic, the laws of language, thought and
reasoning are outside of God. Ethical and oesthetical
principles are things of philosophy, science and art, and
wholly independent of God in their essence and opera-
tion, and so, of course have no affinity to religion. All
these were before God ; God is not necessary to them ;
and for that matter they may be after Him. This
common opinion, worldly sentiment, virtually reads
God out of His universe, because it di^ains it can form
and maintain the universe without Him. And dream-
ing is deep enough for a popular sentiment. It has
truth, science, law, force, life ; so it rec^uires no personal
God. And even Christians, so called, accept the dawn-
ing of such morning ; though after proud science and
haughty law's brief day they shudder at the abyss ( i
night into which their unguarded going has plunged
them. These things ought not so to be. We want a
new sentiment, a new language, a new common opinion,
so to speak, new instincts and popular conceptions, for
these are the producers of language. " Behold, I make
all things new." Oh, for the day when Ke will turn
to the people, all the people a right conception ; a cor-
rect, noble, lofty public sentiment ; a pure language !
What is truth ? This is an old question. The
Greek sophists were wont to ask it in ridicule, de-
nying there is any such thing as settled principles,
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 81
stable, eternal truth. In this sense, likely, Pilate
jeered at the Nazarene, when our Lord had declared,
" To this end was I born, and for this cause came I
into the world, that I should bear witness unto the
truth." What is truth ? It is but the expression of
the divine nature, person, life and character in any
realm into which that nature and life may pour itself,
or project itself ; the very realm, perhaps, as MiiU»>as
our poor language, can express it, being also embraced
in the divine omnipotence and immensity. Eternal
truth is inherent in God, co-existent and co-eternal
with Him ; fibre and factor of moral, spiritual and
intellectual being ; not before Him, not after Him ;
not outside of Him or independent of Him ; but in
Him and with Him as nature and essence from the
beginning. " The Lord possessed wisdom in the
beginning of His way, before His works of old. It
was from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the
earth was." And this wisdom is truth, religious truth,
moral truth, physical truth, scientific truth in its
personal activity and normal development. It is the
embodiment, the expression of the universal, absolute
and necessary principles inherent in Deity, on which,
under which, and within which the worlds were
created, and all relations, physical, metaphysical,
moral, religious, were constitutid. Urged to its home,
it is the Word in the beginning with God, by whom
all things were made and in whom are hid all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Contingent
truth there is, truth dependent on circumstances in
variable nature. But this is not all of truth, nor half
82 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
of truth, nor the basis of any truth. But there are
truths that no circumstances change, and principles
that no contingencies touch ; and these are the truths
and principles that make any other truths possible,
indwelling in God, co-existent and co-eternal with
Him, His very nature and essence, without which,
indeed, we could not conceive of such a God as we
worship.
We then may see very distinctly two things. First,
that God the Spirit, in His dispensation, is the Spirit
of truth — of all truth. Second, that there is in truth
a glorious, essential unity. It is worse than a mistake
to attempt to cnt truth otT from God, from a divine
source and energy. The divine energj'^ is in chemical
science, as is seen under the bleaching power of
chlorine, the explosion of dynamite, and the poison
of arsenic. The divine energy is in mathematical
science, as is seen in the regularity of the planets,
the succession of the seasons, the bound of swift
trains from the railway curves, and crash of insuffi-
cient railway bridges. Why should it seem a strange,
incredible thing to us that the divine energy should
prove itself in trihical and religious science ?
We talk of moral science, mental science, physical
science, because we cannot see truth all the way round,
or by any means deeply into it in all its connections,
or the tithe of a tithe of the way through. Truth pro-
ceeds from God with one purpose, and addresses moral
beings under Him with one aim ; the manifestation of
the divine goodness and glory, and the perfection of
the moral being. Like everything else, law itself,
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 83
principle itself, it is governed by principle, and is under
law. Secure goodness first, obedience first, purity
first, love and trust first ; then innumerable possibilities
and developments. Righteousness first ; then other
things added. Meekness first ; then the inheritance of
earth, yea, all things are yours. The meekness and
purity of wisdom first ; then the world is yours, and
life and things present and things to come. This is the
divine order, the open door, the royal road to
knowledge, power and fidelity ; and there is no other
way.
It is a fatal mistake to cut truth off" from God in
our conception of it, truth of any kind. It is equally
fatal to cut truth off from itself, one kind from
another ; to divorce truth, to set truth in array
against truth, to throw into opposition what we call
scientific truth and religious truth. They are astray
and equally astray who would exalt religious truth at
the expense of scientific truth, or glorify science, as
they call it, at the expense of religion. God cannot do
without either of them ; neither can we. Philosophers
make three great entities: God, man, and tl^e external
world ; and this classification will answer our purpose.
There is truth as to the nature and constitution of
each in itself, and truth equally in their relations one
to another. There is truth in God, original and
fundamental to all truth, and co-cternal with God.
And there is truth emanating from God, betwixt God
and man and betwixt God and the external world.
And there is truth in man, after the image of God,
and truth betwixt man and God, and man and the
84 TFIE ouii)[Nr. SYK; on,
physical nniver.se abont him. And there is trutli in
tliis physical nniverse ^'iven of (iod, its Creator, which
is that with which philosojOiers and sci(;ntists mostly
busy theinselvos, and of which as yet they know com-
paratively very little, thou;^li in sincere and honest
quest of it. And there is truth betwixt the physical
universe and God, and that same universe and man.
And tlu^re is truth all around the triari^le; {.^reat
im])f>rishable |)rinciples unitini^f all minor truttis to our
sifjht in one resplendent orb ; that trinity of universal
intelli<j;ence ; that supreme, radiant trianj^le sliinin*^
afar throu<:rh all a<;(!s and all worlds; whosf; vertices,
God, man and the world, arc; th(! royal cities of know-
ledge, and whose prim*; vertex. Deity, is the capital,
the imperial palace of et(!rnal reason, centre and source
of all wisdom, truth and knowledj.^c ; whoso sides are
the glorious highway of light betwixt these regal cities
of reason an<l knowledge ; and whose infinite area is all
ablaze with the efiulgence of truth and reason and
wisdom and knowledge. And with splendor above all
the palaces, and bi'ightness above all the highways, and
glory above all the royal domain, the Jloly Spirit
dwelleth in the midst of them, for He is the Si)irit of
Truth, He is its substance, an<l it is His j)Ower, excel-
lence and glory.
To man, of course, thi5 most important truth, the
most radiant and vital side of the triangh;, is the truth
betwixt (Jod and man, and this is religious truth.
This is the truth without which man cannot live and
obtain other truth. Religious truth was not designed
to accomplish what other truth — call it i)hysical,
TUK HOLY sniiiT's (arrDANCE. 85
philosophic or .scit^ntific — was intendcMl to do. Jlo-
lii^ious ti'uth operates on th<! man lii!(is(!H', and prej)ares
liim to lay trilmte on all other trutli. '\l\v reli^'ious
tniti» is th(! (germinal, oriranizin<,^ and vital trutli.
Otlier truth is the material triitli, the truth to Ijo
worked up into the or<^fanization, and one is just as
necessary as the other to vigorous and fruitful <rrowth.
There nnist he the life, the oivrani/in<^ force, and there
must he the niattirial for the or^anizinLj force to work
upon, to erect into oriranisms. Spiritual truth is that
vital force in the man and in society; other truth
physical or metapliysical, is the raw inat«!rial or<^an-
ized, ^rown into the entluring social and political
fabrics, inuriri<f to tin; advancement, an<l commanding'
the admiration of matd<ind. Or to clianire the (i'jin'e —
and l>y the way both the vine and huihling are
scri[)tura! fii^ures — spiritual trutli, reli<,dous truth is in
the main the cementinj^ of the foundation, the mortar,
the bond in the wall from chief corner-stone to top
stone. Physical truth is, for the most j)art, th(! brick,
the stone heM fiiiii in the walls of the structure, the
palace of humain'ty, the temple of (Jod. Tiie kini^doni
of God, in the scri[)tural I'epresentation of it, in nuis-
tard seed, or human body, spiritual liouse, holy nature,
royal priesthood, is a }j;rowth ; some truth f^rowin^ on
other trutli ; l)ranches, leaves and fruit d(;velopin<(
from enlarixintr trunks ; livini; sto'ies «;rowinir on a
livinj^ corner-stone ; increasing strength upward to the
unity and maturit}^ of the man, end of our humanity ;
the vital inn<;r truth incorporatin<i[ into itself al!
external truth to the <devation and ultimate perfection
of the ajjes.
86 THE GUIDING KYE ; OR,
Spiritual truth, we have said, is. in the main, the
cement, the bond of the wall ; physical truth, for the
most part, the brick, the stone, the material. These
expressions, in the main and for the most "part, are
used advisedly ; for all truth has in it some vitality ;
and all truth has in it some objectivity or mateiiality,
that is, any truth will do some growing ; and any truth
will provide some material for the organism. If this
were not so, men could not thrive on mere religious
truth, which is mainly the vital force ; nor could
enduring fabrics be reared of scientific, social, political
truth, which is mainly material for the vital force to
act upon.
If a man is a religious fanatic, trying to live alto-
gether on sentiment and feeling, besides the vital
force in true religion, he will find necessarily some
objective, or, so to speak, material truth; that is be-
side the life and with the life, truth enough for some
mental discipline. For as life does not subsist in the
tree without the body of the tree ; indeed is so in-
timately associated, that " no tree, no life " is nature's
decree ; so, without a body of divinity, a corporation
of doctrine, a system of moral and spiritual philosophy,
called theology and ethics, the spiritual life has no
subsistence, and cannot come even to the heart of the
believer, whetiier he appreciate it or not. Just as
" no tree, no life," so " no doctrine, no spiritual life ; "
but all life and truth forced back to their origin, God.
And if a man is a social or scientific fanatic, trying to
live altogether on the dry husks of phenomena,
without their origin or connection, and makes all
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCK. 87
truth material and objective, without spiritual life and
power, or carrying all its life in itself, independent and
underived, it is just as important that he remember, if
" no treC; no life ; " ecjually true, " no life, no tree."
Yea, more emphatically true ; for he is a philosopher,
a materialist, a positivist, and loves facts, and knows
the life precedes the tree : the energy somewhere pre-
cedes the phenomenon of the energy. In a great fact,
like the Chinese Empire, to the eye the material
truth chiefly presents itself ; but, if there be a God
and a moral government under Him, the life and
spiritual power of that Empire's wonderful existence
are somewhere connected with that moral government.
From one point of view, truth for mental discipline
predominates ; from the other point, truth for renova-
tion and preservation. The scientific fanatic seizes
the first ; the religious fanatic, the second.
Alas ! alas ! the unfortunate divorce of true religion
and true science ; for there are heights that man shall
never reach, treasures he shall never gain, without
their harmony and faithful co-operation.
The dereliction of men of science in this matter,
their pride, infidelity, and irreligion, terrible as all that
is, is not our present concern ; but the infatuations and
misconceptions of the men of religion are what now
trouble us. Some are saying, " Religion is all we want ;
Christianity is everything ; the Bible contains all
knowledge. We want nothing of proud science or
human philosophy or the learning of the schools. All
we want is to be converted, to be sanctified, to be
imbued with power, to get to heaven." These are, of
88 THE GUIDING EYS ; OK,
course, of prime importance, and to the Church of God
for the past, and for the time now present, well ni^fh
her only work. Other things avail only as they help
these things on. But why does God convert a man ?
Why does God organize a Christian Church ? Why
does He take us to heaven ? If conversion were the
ultimate, or just getting to heaven were the final goal,
it would be rather a tame affair. And because so
many professing Christians are governed by that
thought in this practical world — and the next, will
likely be more practical — they represent religion as a
very tame and hardly desirable affair. Whj' does God
convert a man ? Is it not to get him into the very
condition in which he may learn, may advance in
knowledge, may organize into his spiritual life all
possible knowledge and power, the condition in which
all obstructions are removed, and all incentives and
facilities are provided ? A.id why does God take His
people to the Heavenly Estate ? Is it not that they may
grow eternally in knowledge, righteousness, power, yea,
every perfection ; and that in a realm of every laud-
able inducement and everj' favoring circumstance ?
What does the Christian life here mean but to weave
these things into Christian character and consecrate
them to God ? What does th? Christian Church upon
earth, but with a pure heart and holy intent, with a
brotherly regard, a noble resoi've and intelligent aim,
so far as its Lord, anyway, is concerned, seek to purify
and bless society and establish a kingdom of ever-
lasting righteousness ? And how is it to do this, to
accomplish this noble purpose, uiiless it bring know-
THE HOLY .spirit's GUIDANrE. 89
ledge and learning, science and art, wealth and power
to the cross; unless it make wisdom and knowledge
the stability of the times and the strength of salvation ?
The Christian Church is responsible for working into
society these element><, that lift and cleanse it. It is
e> 'sted under God with the spiritual life of the
individual and society, that it may bring into them by
this organic force the new material of secular know-
ledge, physical and philosophic truth of every kind,
and so build up the man, the family., the social fabric,
the nation, and work them all into the glorious
universal kingdom of Jesus Christ. If this be so — and
who can deny it ? — which is the more astounding and,
perhaps, ludicrous spectacle : the man of learning say-
ing he does not want religion, or the man of relifjion
protesting he does not want learning ? Better in
full sight of the ocean's perpetual roll, and in
full hearing of its ceaseless roar : better in the midst of
the firmament, with waters above and waters beneath,
that oxygen should shout to hydrogen : " I have
no need of thee," and hydrogen to oxygen : "I have no
need of you." The rebellion would not be more ram-
pant and vicious. Better for the man in his own
body that his heart should .smite and deny his head,
and his head cur.se and pierce his heart. The schism
and suicide would not be more terribly or sharply
fatal than when science derides or defies religion, and
religion disowns and denounces science.
In the primal creation the Spirit of God moved
upon the face of the waters ; His brooding over the
aby.ss begat order, strength, and life ; He put strength
90 THE fJUIDlNG eye; Oil,
into acid and base, and i^ave them their affinity ; He
p)ut cfravitation into mountains, and rooted them firm
in everlasting rock ; He put chemical energy and cor-
relation of force into light, heat and electricity ; He
started the juices of growth, set throbbing countless
millions of pulses, and filled the earth with beauty and
song. He was at the fount of intelligence, for He
witnessed the covenant for man's creation, and sealed
with seven seals the redemption bond. He knows
more about chemistry than the chemists ; more about
geology than the geologists ; and more about astnmomy
than all the astronomers. The things of God He know-
eth as God Himself; and of man He knoweth more
than any man knoweth of himself. All science is open
in the clearness of His understanding ; all knowledge
is under the glance of His eye. All truth, and all
the principles of eternal truth, are the vigor of His
infinite mind ; and at His will, under their law, press
their divine energy into all departments of being.
Truth ffoeth forth from Him according to its nature
subsists in all the works of His hands according to
His appointment, and is apprehended to His delight
by all ranks of intelligence according to their constitu-
tion and power. The man seeth not as the angel, one
rank of angels not as another, and neither man nor
angel as God. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth.
In Him all truth subsists, and from Him emanates.
Its design is to exalt rational creation, increase its joy,
and bring it nearer to God.
In this rational creation goodness is the supreme
law. Goodness, righteousness, is the basis of happi-
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 91
ness, the source of power, the law of pro<j;re.ss. Wick-
edness is a complete estoppal ; sin, inicjuity an imme-
diate foreclosure, a universal forfeiture. Increase of
knowledge and attairunent of power must proceed
like the growth of a plant, or the formation of a
chemical compound, in the divine order. It is no
arbitrary, isolated enactment ; hut universal and ab-
solute constitution of thin<rs amongst moral beings.
" Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteous-
ness." Seek anywhere in the divine order and ob-
tain. " Seek and ve shall find." First, get goodness,
and then the infinite unfoldings of wisdom and know-
ledge are possible. First a pure heart; then all the
stores of divine wisdom are for our improvement.
With a wicked, rebellious heart, thus far and no
further ! With a pure heart, the infinities and eter-
nities are before us. One case is outer, uttermost dark-
ness ; the other case is boundless, everlasting light.
This, then, we understand, to be the work of the
Spirit : first to guide a man to a knowledge of God
and himself ; then if he accept that, out upon the
illimitable domain of tiuth. He is the Spirit of Truth.
He lives in it, and makes it for all His companions a
delight. First guide the man to saving knowledge :
first save the man, then guide him into truth, yea,
into all truth to his upbuilding individually, socially,
universally through all the centuries, and proving the
riches of divine grace through all the ages to come.
What a teacher! What capabilities in the scholar!
What possibilities of knowledge, happiness, and power!
What a loss to forfeit all this ! What shall it profit
92 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
a man if he gain the world sensually, materially, phy-
sically, and lose himself morally, intellectually, spirit-
ually ? " What shall it profit a man if he gain the
whole world and lose his own soul ? "
Two other points, at least, we feel constrained to
touch, as relative considerations, before closing this
chapter. First, there is much of our knowledge in
this state of being that is contingent and suited only
to this state. Such knowledge shall vanish away.
Other contingent knowledge, knowledge suited lo the
future state, knowledge of things as they are or may
become in the future estate, will take its place. But
under all the contingent knowledge there is immov-
able and immutable truth, the same in all worlds and
in aM developments of the human soul. Tongues
may cease, but language endureth for ever. The bab-
ble and clatter of contending nations and jarring sects
shall cease ; but still in high converse on the univer-
sal laws of language and thought shall man convey
thought to man, spirit to spirit, and hold communion
with God. The application of figures to calculations
on pine lumber or barley may cease, but the multi-
plication table endureth for ever. It is that deeper*
enduring truth on which especially the soul, the in-
telligence of a man, doth grow.
Our second point is, that there is some knowledge
in this world into which the Holy Spirit would never
guide a man ; that is to say, men know some things
they ought not to know, and would never have known,
but for sin. " God made man upright, but he hath
souirht out many inventions. ' Even as they did not
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 93
like to retain God in their isaowledge, God gave them
over to a reprobate mind to do those things that are
not convenient. " Having the understanding dark-
ened, being alienated from the life of God throujxh the
ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of
their heart ; who, being past feeling, have given them-
selves over to lasciviousness to work all uncleanness
into greediness." It is not mere knowledge the
Holy Spirit pledges to a man, knowledge irrespec-
tive of its character, knowledge of evil, familiarity
with error, acquaintance with all possible and even
prohibited combinations of good out of which evil
arises; but it is guidance into all truth. Had men
always submitted to that guidance, they now had
known vastly more truth, and been free from error.
Knowledge does not always assure us it is truth that
is known ; and thirst for knowledge is not by any
means always a love of the truth. Men are con-
d'3mned, overthrown, because they receive not the
truth in the love of it. There is a spirit of error and
darkness, as there is a Spirit of truth and light. The
promise and undertaking of the Holy Spirit is not to
secure all possible knowledge, but to guide into all
truth.
It is well to emphasize this thought ; the difference,
the divergence, even the opposition of very much of
human knowledge and truth. There is much confusion
of thought here, and terrible practif'al disaster. Strange
to say it, but knowledge and the love of knowledge are
often a hindrance to the truth, the peril and the defeat
of the truth. The pride of knowledge is a revolt
94 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
against the truth. The parade of knowledge is the
special disgust of the truth. Everything depends on
what a man knows, what he wants to know, what use
he is makinor of knowledofe, and what he wants it
for. The pride of knowledge is, after ell, only the
pride of ignorance. The schoolmen's pride of know-
ledge, of what little they did know, kept back the
discovery of America, and of the development of the
modern sciences. The pride of knowledge is the
stolidity and immobility of ignorance, as is not badly
illustrated in the attitude of hierarchies this very
hour. We cannot have it too forcibly impressed
upon our minds ; the promise is not that He, the
Spirit of knowledge will guide into all possible
knowledge ; but He, the Spirit of Truth, will guide
into all actual truth. The old problem is upon us,
upon every man. Eden and its probation are here
now. Are we content with the truth ? Or must
we take of the tree of knowledge of good and evil ?
Are we satisfied with the one-sided life of purity,
humility, truth, endless progress in good ? Or shall
we make the attempt at the two-sided life of good and
bad, which has always ended in failure, always at
length plunged into the one-sided life of darkness and
wickedness ? The opportunity is before every man.
He can have the trial of good and bad, till all is bad.
Or, under the covenant of the faithful God, he can
commit himself to the Spirit of Truth, to be guided
into all truth. The choice is ours.
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 95
CHAPTER XIII.
HEART-GUIDANCE vs. HEAD-GUIDANCE.
^l GAIN it is objected that reasoning of this character
(4^ upon this subject utterly ignores heart-guidance,
and makes us entirely over to head-guidance, to
the increase of knowledge, and so ultimately to the
pride of intellect ; " for only those of great mental
endowments can learn ; and we thought the smallest
intellectual capacity, the littlest mind knew most of
Christ." In such a conception of religion, and of God
and man, there are manifold, lamentable, and ruinous
mistakes. That there is such a thing as heart-guidance
for a humble, well-informed mind there can be no
doubt. But there are not two things in this world or
in all the universe, farther apart than a little, ignorant
mind, and a humble, teachable mind. If the little
mind be humble — which in all experience and demon-
stration it is not so apt to be as the magnanimous soul
is — it will learn according to its abilit}'^ ; and as in all
other matters, the prompting of affection and desire,
heart-guidance will be correlative to what it learns
If the little mind aspire to things too great for it,
where, then, is its humility ? Where its teachableness ?
Said the ancient model of religious character : " Lord,
96 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty ; neither
do I exercise myself in great matters, nor in things
too high for me. Surely I have behaved and quieted
myself, like a child that is weaned of his mother; my
soul is even as a weaned child." Even the holy Paul,
of gigantic intellect, recognized the excellency of the
divine administration in that there was given unto him
the messenger of Satan, the thorn in the flesh, lest he
should be exalted above measure at the abundance of
revelations ; so that he took pleasure and gloried in
infirmities, in weakness.
Knowledge of God and divine things is like any
other knowledge, and obtainable like knowledge of
chemistry or geometry on its own laws. And no man
learns geometry with crucibles and test-tubes. If
two minds are on the same plane of humility and
teachableness, they will learn of God, as they do of
other things, according to their capability ; which in
deepening humility and higher attainment will likely
put distances betwixt them ever increasing. On the
other hand, a humble soul of little power may far sur-
pass the mightiest intellect in knowledge of God, if
that mighty intellect shun the places and processes of
learning. And the grace of God can make little souls
under its culture great. These are men's opportuni-
ties and responsibilities. And the man is a unit. In
all normal conditions the heart keeps pace with the
head. To be governed by the impulse of the heart
without the guidance of truth and reason, is fanati-
cism; to obey only cold reason is to proceed upon
narrow, mistaken premises, and go out into stoicism,
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 97
necessarianism, fatalism. The Holy Ghost is not \. ro-
mised or given to the mind apart from the heart. We
are not believers in a theosophy any more than in a
purely human philosophy, which is an impossibility.
Nor is the Holy Ghost ijivcn to the heart apart from
the head, apart from reason, revelation and truth ;
which were lawless impulse, reckless, indistinguish-
able suggestion, strange notion and caprice, irrespon-
sible fancy or opinion, source of confusion and utter
disaster, as it has been again and again in human
society and in the Church of God.
The relation of heart to head, the sympathy, sym-
phony and unity of the entire man is worthy of con-
sideration in connection with this subject of the Holy
Sj).riL's guidance. The relation of emotions, impulses,
feelings, fancies, opinions, convictions to the intelli-
gence, instruction, knowledge from within or without,
is certainly heeded by the great God, and should not
be overlooked or disregarded by us. When God comes
to us in miracles— and what is the Christian religion
without its miracles, vast and glorious as it is when
including them — He comes to the sight of the eye, the
hearing of the ear, the tasting, the touching, the hand-
ling ; the very principles and processes that control
us in the commonest of life's affairs. And the same eye,
the same ear, the same hand are used here that are
employed in daily business ; and they are worth no
more here, have no other or stronger functions than
in ordinary seeing, hearing or handling. And when
the Holy Spirit brings us into the ^ '^ of conviction,
the bitterness of repentance, the pe. pardon, the
98 THE GUIDINO EYE ; OH,
joy of holiness, the glory of adoption, the quiet of faith,
He does it according to the strict philosophy of human
nature ; the emotion rises on the antecedent condition
and fact, and in proportion to the antecedent condition
and fact. And any other emotion or impulse is untrust-
worthy, deceptive, extravagant, wild and visionary ; a
thistle-down tossed by the wind; a Will-o'-the-wisp
dancing in the floating miasm, that surely no one
may follow. What could be more uncertain, absurd
and dangerous than that one, without staying to con-
sider related standards and lacts, should be led or
driven of his moods, feelings, tempers, impressions ?
Whither would such a mortal drift ? The Spirit of our
God does no such guidance whatever. In repentance
the man is sorry, because of the terrible antecedent fact
of sin, I'evealed to him by the Holy Ghost, always
more distinctly through the Word. In forgiveness and
adoption he is joyful, because of the glorious facts and
experiences of justification and reconciliation to God,
again made known by the Holy Spirit through the
Word. In holiness he is triumphant, because of his
happy condition and the mighty work ^f evident puri-
fication wrought in him by the Holy Ghost again, as
instructed by the word. These emotions do not pro-
ceed upon nothing. They spring, as in common lilo,
out of facts, yea, the deepest, solidest facts. No more
do the impulses to duty, and the directions in the dis-
charge of duty, arise out of nothing, and proceed upon
nothing, or go no whither. The last thing in the world
to be foundationless, aimless, uninstructed, untaught,
is duty ; and it is as well the last thing in the world
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 99
r some emotional, fantastic, fanatical Christians seek
after. Feeling, feeling ; being happy, feeling good is
all they desire ; and they are very slow to tako the
way that leadeth to the peace that floweth as a river,
the joy unspeakable, and the righteousness that
aboundeth as the waves of the sea. The dischargre of
duty; the intelligent discharge of duty intelligently
ascertained in the love of God and the .spirit of
Christian self-sacritice is that way of peace and joy.
There can be no doubt the Spirit of our God shows
( a man his proper line of life, when our paths are com-
' mitted to His direction ; as for instance, the distinct
' j call to preach the Gospel ; or the cler.r intimation of
an appropriate secular vocation ; also that He is ready
both in superintending providence and the inner per-
ception at the turn of the ways to indicate the better
course; also that He cleanses the heart, emboldens the
spirit and instructs the understanding of all in every
line of life that we are willing to be taught of God.
. And further, when the will is surrendered to God in an
intelligent obedience, and the heart in a pure love,
• that is, when all the powers of the man are yielded
,j up in their offices, who will question that the ever
1 blessed Spirit constantly filleth the mind with light
and the whole being with His presence, so that again
every faculty of the man in all its functions and exer-
'j cises will honor God. That is, the feet will walk to
j His glory, the eyes see and the ears hear to His praise.
j The Holy Spirit will not do the walking, or seeing or
j hearing ; but will make the feet like hind's feet, and
j aid in keeping the eye single and the eai from spirit-
100 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
ual dulness. Yet possibly the man may stumble, may
take the echo for the original voice, or think a straight
stick crooked because of its refraction in the water.
The Holy Spirit will not do the remembering, though
He may bring to remembrance ; which only shows the
man himself must have used his faculties, read,
studied, compared, remembered. The Holy Spirit does
not introduce a new multiplication table or strange
rules of grammar, but uses the same old multiplication
table, the same old grammar and the same old Bible
all the generations through. And does all that, and
the same common faculties, with the same old stand-
ards with infinite love from age to age.
Heart-direction without head -guidance, feeling im-
pulse without mind-light, has no proper place in nature
and grace. We do not, we cannot so divide the u)an.
The loving mother tells the child, " Go straight to
town, and straight return." She does not carry it all
the way, lift its feet for it and put them down, do its
breathing, its watching, its listening. Yet she loves it
enough to do all ; but knows the very proof of love,
the only way to the fruit of love is to leave the beloved
child in the exerci.se of its powers. If in danger, she
runs to protect it; if it fall, she hastens to pick it up
and cherLsh it. But love lets the child do its own
stumbling, strengthen by its own weakness, and learn
straight paths by its own crookedness. The Holy
Spirit loves us enough to do everything for us ; no
doubt, does everything for us that is possible consistent
with our own good ; whispers to us the lessons of wis-
dom, beckons us to peace, warns us from danger; by
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 101
His own indwellini; fills us with comfort and light ;
yet by no means makes His loving guidance an inter-
ference, an oppression, a source of weakness, truth-re-
jection, self-repudiation, and ultimate reproach and
defeat,
" Ah ! but," rejoins some devout soul, " you leave out
that self-repudiation, self-rejection, self-abandonment
that is indispensable to this whole guidance, the very
essence of Christianity. We give ourselves up, we
put ourselves in the hands of the Spirit, and the Spirit
leads us, yea, everything we do is by the Spirit ; we
think no thought, study no truth, learn no doctrine, read
no Bible l>at wait for the Spirit, and so we commit no
sin, and fall into no mistakes." " Ah ! " in turn rejoins
this writer, " what grievous mistake is this, and unto
what fearful, presumptuous sin it may lead." This self-
repudiation, self-contradiction, self -rejection, self-anni-
hilation, and the self-sacrifice, self-denial. Christian con-
secration of the Bible are, in a good sense, diametrically
opposed. Nothing can be more unlike than this self- re-
pudiation on the one hand, and presenting our bodies a
living sacrifice on the other. The one is reckless drift-
ing, careless Hoating on the current tuat sweeps away to
despair, to suicide ; it is mental and moral suicide ; the
other is the highest po.ssible act of self-assertion, self-
possession and devotion ; the gathei ing up of all our
powers, and the p'o^entation of them in one solemn
act to God ; our eyes to see for Him, our feet to run in
the way of His commandments, our hands to do His
bidding, our hearts to love Him, our faith to trust
Him, our memory to remember for Him, our reason to
102 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
reason for Him, our intellect to calculate for Him ;
every power in its own sphere, and every power with
increasing efficiency and satisfaction under His direc-
tion, and every power in its co-operation with all our
powers in the happy harmony of a holy manhood.
" Yes, but the Holy Spirit enters the mind, thinks
the thought, argues up 'to or flashes forth the conclu-
sion, suggests, prompts the duty, forms the purpose,
ensures, compels, so to speak, the obedience, performs
the act." Then where is the Christian's freedom, his
responsibility ? What standard of morality could you
not justify on that theology ? What acts of violence
and wrong have not been cloaked by such pretexts ?
Where is that better than Jesuitism for morality, or
rank fatalism ? The spirits of the prophets are sub-
ject to the prophets ; and the Holy Spirit Himself is
amenable to the Holy Scripture. Men that profess to
be governed by the Spirit must judge themselves by
some standard, as they certainly will be judged by
their fellows, whether they bring forth the fruits of
the Spirit. We may talk of ]ove as we please, and
light as we please, and delight in the love, and triumph
in the light ; we are still responsible, and still fallible,
and still liable to fall into sin.
When so great is the power of God to keep us, so
grand are our opportunities of progress, s > noble are
the attainments of many humble teachable souls, it is
too bad by the extravagance of a few ill-a ivised breth-
ren, and the error and danger of their extreme doc-
trines, to be compelled to argue for the side of human
nature in religion, and demonstrate, notwithstanding
THE HOLY Sl'lKITS GUIDANCE. 103
all high pretensions, we are not yet in heaven. While
we keep in mind our liability to mistake, our danger
of falling into sin, our constant need of the merit of
the blood applied by the Spirit through unfailing, un-
remitting, increasing faith ; our perpetual dependence
upon the active aid and guidance of the Holy Spirit,
our opportunity of growing up into Christ, our Living
Head in all things, of adding to our faith virtue ; to
virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness and
charity; our glorious privilege of walking in the Spirit,
being led by the Spirit, taught by the Spirit, fiiled
with the Spirit ; temples of the Holy Ghost, having the
Spirit of God dwelling in us, receiving power by the
Holy Ghost, who dares place a limit to what the
Spirit of the Holy God may uo in and through a teach-
able, obedient soul ? Who has reached that limit ?
Who would think of placing a limit, if sometimes, yea
often, highest professions were not conjoined with
lowest attainments ? It is likely, on the one hand, our
safety that the very brethren that claim to have risen
above the human, yet best prove they are human ; and,
on the other hand, our rebuke, our incitement and the
prize of our high calling's glorious hope that in the
Spirit, with the Spirit, by the Spirit, we may attain to
the ever-enlarging Christian perfection, the pledge of
illimitable glory, knowing the love of Christ that pass-
eth knowledge, and filled with all the fulness of God.
104 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
HAPTER XIV.
INFALLIBILITY AND CERTAINTY.
^ VERY Htting iiKjuiry now is, " Is there, tlieii,
l\ with head and heart, with outer truth and in-
^ dwellinj^ Holy Spirit, with enli<^}itened mind
and approvinj^ conscience, is there then, after all, no
realm of certainty, no domain of safe infallible know-
ledjre and j^nidance to a human soul ? " Some say,
" Yes, there is a certainty, an infallibility," and lodge
it in the councils and tlie pope. Some say " Yes," and
lodge it in their impressions and feelings, prodiiced,
they think, by the Spirit. Some would lodge it in the
Spirit witliout the Word ; some in the Word, by their
own judgment, without the Spirit. Some in the expe-
rience and testimony of others ; some in their own
views and experience, co^Toborated by the experience
of others ; some in an undefined and indefinite sacred
authority, they know not where ; some in the church
at large without focalization ; and some in a canon, a
decree, a council, a pope. On the other hand, in the
moral and religious life, some scout the idea of its
existence, and leave us all afloat in unknown seas, and
all adrift in uncertain currents, in froth and dashing
wave and eddy and whirl. Even some good people
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 105
and some in the churches accept it, that we are driven
hither and thither by the winds of uncertainty, and
left on varying tides to make our way throuf^h mist
and storm. Now the <(uestion is, " Is there a realm of
certainty — infallibility ? If so, whore is it, and how is
it reached ^ "
An (f j)ri<)rl consideration or two may bo of some
value here, as in other important incjuiries
First. — There is surely an intense and universal
longint^ for this certainty, this fruit of infallibility of
judgment. Tnis is true in all departments of know-
ledge and action, and very especially true in the moral
and religious sphere. " Oh, that I knew where I
might Hnd Hinj ! " Men are very anxious in their
spiritual interests, and through all the ages have been
looking, sighing for some solid ground to lest upon.
Second. — If religious knowledge is anything like
other knowledge — and there are some of us that will
not readily give up the idea that religion is based, not
on feeling, fiction, fancy, fanaticism, but on knowledge
and permeated with it — then there is an element of
certainty at the foundation, so to speak, a scientific
basis ; which certainly enlarges its field, multiplies its
supports, broadens and deepens its sovereignty, as the
mind widens its scope and enlarges its dominion in
the empire of truth. Nor is this fact affected by the
manner of our coming into possession of truth, whether
by personal experience and investigation, or by guid-
ance, instruction, and superior illumination. Nor is it
affected by the celerity of our conquests, whether wo
master the problem in an hour, or possibly in an in'
106 THE GUIDING EYE ; OR,
stant with the aid of a teacher, or in days of toilsome
profjress alone.
Third. — In the religious life, especially, there is need
of certainty — of infallibility — upon some points, at
least. Religion is relation to God. Religion is the
moral, spiritual condition within the man. Religion
is relation to man. Religion is relation to the world.
Religion is actual, present experience; important con-
nections with the marvellous past ; solemn problems
for the tremendous future. And yet no such thing as
certainty ! No infallible guidance ! It cannot be, and
God be God, and man man ; God our Father, and we
His children. We are speaking to men of Christian
belief. If all be chance, chaos, eternal flux, atheistic
evolution ; no order, no law, no beginning, no end, no
aim, no consequence ; no moral government, no moral
element in conduct, no moral responsibility; no pur-
pose, no inspiration, no hope ; why ! what need of
certainty ? What need of knowledge, intelligence,
thought ? But the very desire of knowledge, the very
existence of intelligence and thought give the lie to
the fears and the shadows, and proclaim there is cer-
tainty somewhere. Descartes had glorious victory in
philosophy when he stood on the immovable moun-
tain, "I think, therefore, I am." Paul had grander
victory in philosophy, and in religion's clearer altitudes
as well, " By the grace of God I am what I am."
" Hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God
is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given
unto us." Our heavenly Father does not leave us to
chase shadows over bogs, through mists, but gives us
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 107
a sure path for our feet, a real object to gain, and a
true li<j;ht to the understanding. How sad our state,
indeed, were we left to doubt and feai ! But it is not
so ; there is certainty.
Fourth. — In the constantly recurring circumstances
and conditions of iiuman life there is need of certainty.
God is our Father, Christ our loving Saviour, the
Holy Spirit our Comforter. Sometimes the children
of God are compelled to bear great losses and griefs ;
what, then, if there be no certainty ! Sometimes they
are sorely afflicted in body ; what, then, if there be no
certainty ! Friends prove unfaithful, or are stricken
down by death at our side ; what, then, if there be no
certainty! The sick room calls for certainty. The
prisoner's cell, for virtue's cause, calls for certainty.
The martyr's stake demands certainty. Life's tough
and tedious moral conflict re(|uires certainty.
Fifth. — What could be more unreasonable than that
with such a God and such a world we should be given
over to constant agitations and unsettled ways ? Is
God a spirit — an intelligence ( Is man a responsive
spirit — an intelligence ? Is there such a thing as
truth ? Is God a God , of truth ? Is man capable of
apprehending truth i Must we know everything in
order to know anything at all ? Cannot a feeble mind
be well assured of what it does know ? Is there not
as much solidity to our apprehension that one and one
are two, as to a mightier intellect that one trillion and
one trillion are two trillions ? Are our moral and reli'
gious relations our least important concerns ? Is there
a Bible to instruct us ? Is there a Holy Spirit to give us
108 * THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
clear views of its doctrines and strong, yea, infallible
assurance of its faiths ? Are we to have certainty in
minor, in earthly matters, and all be doubt, uncertainty,
in the vaster concerns — all fear in spiritual and heavenly
matters ? If man may guide and instruct man, may
not the Divine Spirit, also mind, lead into all truth ?
And how shall that be done except by certainty as we
pass on from stage to stage ? The fundamentals of
our Holy Christianity being granted, what can be
more reasonable than that with regard to our relation
to God and our own moral condition, at all events, we
should have absolute certainty ^ If God hath not
given us certainty He hath subjected us to doubt and
fear. Would that be like a God of wisdom and love ?
Having these presumptive gi'ounds of some kind of
certainty — infallibility, somewhere— ^we may the bet-
ter examine what are its actual foundations and its
positive claims. (1) Holy Writ in some matters makes
doubt and fear, and always ignorance of God and His
law, sin against God. (2) No text-book in the world
insists so much upon knowing, and proceeding upon
certain knowledge, as the Bible : " Hereby we do
know that we know Him." " We know that we have
passed from death unto life, because we love the
brethren." " We know that we are in Him." " We
know we are of the truth." " Ye know all things."
" Now v/e have received, not the spirit of the world,
but the spirit which is of God ; that we might know
the things that are freely given to us of God." Know-
ledge is made both our privilege and our duty : "Add
to your faith knowledge." " My people are destroyed
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 109
•
for lack of knowledge " " This I pray, that you may
abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all
judgment." " That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ
may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revela-
tion in the knowledge of Him ; the eyes of your under-
standing being enlightened ; that ye may know what
is the hope of His calling." We are, therefore,
well enough assured that some things we may know.
(3) The testimony of the holy men of the Bible, the
personal experience of Christians, and the promises
and doctrine of the Word of God combine to assure
us there is a certain knowledge, there is an infallible
judgment, touching some things, at least, belonging to
the people of God.
It is a necessity in the relation of God to His
Church and of the Church to God in building up the
character of individual believers, and in extending the
work of God throughout the earth. (1) Doubts must
give place to assurance, uncertainties to certainties, in
the progress of the believer. Faith is the substance
of things hoped for. When realized, it comes into the
realm of knowledge ; for what a man seeth why doth
he yet hope for ? The righteousness of God is revealed
from faith to faith. We rise upon the new eminence
of knowledge, and then have the broader, higher out-
look of faith, which again lifts u.s into new realms of
knowledge .and these into the wider sweep of faith.
This is Christian discipline and growth : perfecting
holiness — adding to faith knowledge. (2) Some
have not had per.sonal instructors, but have had the
word of God. God hath so made His word light and
110 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
knowledge, assurance and infallibility to the soul.
Bible students all alone have reached solid ground.
(3) Some are secluded and much alone, and, perhaps,
hardly have the Scriptures; 'as invalids and prisoners,
and those out upon the sea. How should there be
growth in happiness and power it" there were not cer-
tainty, infallibility upon such things as their relation
to God and acceptance with Him ? (4) Again, what
could be done in great moral conflicts, and in the
struggles of the ages, it' men like Ridley, Latimer,
Knox, Luther, Wesley, could not be sure of the truth
they had ; certain of their own personal acceptance,
condition and relation ; infallible in their convictions
and conclusions, that God is their Father, their light
and their shield :* This certainty, this infallibility is
the basis of moral courage, and the unfailing incentive
of moral and religious enterprise. It gave Elijah his
ruggedness of character and impetuosity of zeal. He
knew in very deed he was right. The slightest doubt,
the slighest suspicion of fallibility in his relation to
God would have destroyed his whole work. It gave
to Paul his solidity of conviction and irresistibleness
of evangelism : " Paul an Apostle, by the will of God."
No mistake about that ! Just as many preachers of the
Gospel can say to-day, with reference to their call to
this ministry. No mistake about that ! (5) All true
believers settle down upon the strong foundations of
undisturbed peace. There can be no perfect peace
where there is the least chance for suspicion, doubt or
fear. " Perfect love casteth out fear." To make peace
flow as a river there must be something livelier than
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. Ill
the multiplication table or the argument of logic, and
at least as solid. Here, then, is the invaluable pro-
perty of the universal Church. How dare any part
of the Church claini it all for itself ? How dare any
part of the Church disown it for itself, and deny it to
another ? Because it is misunderstood, misdirected,
misplaced, and misapplied.
Thus is this certainty, this infallibility, this positive
knowledge a doctrine, experience and possession of the
Church of God for all time. It is naturally to be
expected in the relation of God and His people. His
people need it ; and it is to be presumed the Father
of Lights would be pleased to bestow it. It is
reasonable, and is certainly assured to us by the
Word of God, and experience and attestation of
God's children in all ages. Whatever some may have
done in the name of infallibility, however it may
have been abused, let us neither abandon, deny nor
depreciate it; for it is the sacred heritage and right
o( the people of the Most High God, a precious purchase
of the blood, a precious gift of the Spirit, and a precious
and enduring possession in the midst of the Church.
What is it ? Where is it located ? What is its extent ?
How is it directed and applied ? These questions w^e
shall consider in another chapter.
112 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
CHAPTKR XV.
WHAT IS IT ?
'-^■'"^E have hitherto used the terms " certainty " and
"infallibility" much as though they mean the
same thing ; but while they are very closely
related, there are some important differences Certainty
applies more to knowledge; infallibility more to the
judgment and act. Infallibility of judgment is one of
the helps, and only one of the helps, to certain know-
ledge. And, on the other hand, certainty of antecedent
knowledge is one of the stepping-stones, and only one of
the stepping-stones, to a subsequent infallible judgment.
Men are using their knowledge and reaching their
judgments, conclusions, every day in all life's affairs,
and are testing and applying their judgments, and
broadening, deepening and extending their knowledge,
without examining the relation of one to the other ;
but none the less surely compas "ing infallible judg-
ment and certain knowledge in many things. Cer-
tainty of knowledge is quite compatible with mistakes
in the application of the knowledge ; that is, with
fallibility of judgment in the use of knowledge, or
failure in the instrument of application, even when
the knowledge, reasoning and judgment are perfect
THE BOLV spirits GUIDANCE. 113
and utterly without fault. The lad may know his
multiplication table perfect!}', and yet make mistakes
in multiplying ; or his hand or eye or pencil may fail
him on figures and pat him on altogether wrong
tracks and false premi.s:*^s. And all that may be,
while the competent and thoroughly appreciative
teacher is looking on, and against his sympathies
deciding that the best way is to let the boy tind out
his own mistake and work his way through it to solid
ground.
Certainty belongs to knowledge, and knowledge is
of facts, principles and relations. A man may settle
down upon his knowledge with solid satisfaction. He
may have undisturbed assurance and satisfaction in
the knowledge, while there is not so much ground for
pleasure in the facts or relations he knows. And
when man has done the best he can do, he may have
and does have, unspeakable satisfaction in that
assurance, even though every instant aware his best
doings are marked with imperfections. And if it be a
case in which his own best efforts must fall short of
perfection, but a friend intervenes and more than
makes up his defects, then he will have the triple
satisfaction that he himself has done his best, that his
friend in love aided, and that his friend succeeded in
his behalf. Now the intensest satisfaction, the highest
delight in such case by no means argues perfection or
infallibility or any such thing in the person so satisfied.
His satisfaction, perhaps his joy, is none the less
that after honest effort he may discover mistakes
for which friendship has atoned. Is not this tho
8
114 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
Christian's case ? He knows he is God's child ;
assurance, certainly, number one. Then he knows of a
surety his works, though imperfect, through Christ
are fully acceptable to God, and God approves ;
assurance number two. And, therefore, notwithstand-
ing his unworthiness, he knows in the covenant of
grace there is for him ready, and in course of enjoy-
ment, all gospel blessings ; a.ssurance, certainly, number
three. It is the knowledge, the certainty, the infalli-
bility of his judgment by the Spirit on the relation,
that gives the satisfaction, the joy ; by no means the
knowledge of a perfection that does not exist. Here
is the mistake often made ; because there is assurance
of personal acceptance and acceptance of the effort and
work through the blood, there is inference that the
work is perfect, then an inference on this wrong
inference that the judgment, the instrument, is in-
fallible, that brought about this perfect acceptance.
A^d so by wrong inference on wrong inference the
honor uf Christ is in pride transferred to the boaster,
and the acceptance, unless amendment intervene, is
lost.
Certainty of knowledge by no means involves
infallibility of judgment, or certainty of act. But
certainty of knowledge is, within the premises of
the knowledge, a great corrective of failures of
judgment and irregularity or uncertainty of act. Per-
mit us now to introduce the Holy Spirit as guide, not
because it is His first instruction of the man, but
because the man is in better mood and higher
capability for instruction. Here is the Christian with
THE HOLY SPmiT*S GUIDANCE. 115
sure knowledge of God, so far as it goes, very limited
indeed, and with sure knowledge of himself, also very
limited, and with sure knowledge of his acceptance
with God and of the acceptance of his unworth}-
service. This certain knowledge, though very, very
limited, brings him unbounded satisfaction and joy.
It is solid ground to stand upon, and to travel on. He
wants to know more of God, more of himself, more of the
Bible, more of th covenant of grace, and more of the
way of duty, and the Holy Ghost undertakes to teach
him. Let him be a faithful student, an honest learner.
Within that range he will have certainty of knowledge
of every new fact or revelation brought to his under-
standing, and infallibility of judgment, safe and
correct judgment, when, under the guidance of the
Spirit, he has settled down to the new judgment, the
new knowledge, the new purpose ; and when he has
applied the judgment and purpose to action, and under
the Holy Ghost tested the lines of action, he will be
brought, through patience and obedience, to an in-
fallible judgment and safe decision as to the best line
of action ; that is, possibly, that will best cultivate his
spiritual growtli and be therefore best acceptable to
God, whether or not it be the line of action going
most directly to the desired result. And so he settles
down again upon the positive and satisfactory know-
ledge of his relation to God in the covenant of grace,
and the certainty of the perfect acceptability of even
his imperfect works in Jesus Christ. *
" Ah, but," say the flash-and-hurry people, " this is
altogether too confined and too slow. The Holy
116 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
Spirit leaps to conclusions and carries us with the
bound." He does sometimes, if it be necessary, and
you are the right kind of people to take the bound.
But men cannot very well sprinj^ off of nothing ; they
are very apt to land nowhere. The Spirit of our God)
be it reverently spoken, goes upon no such vain and
profitless excursions ; and He sends none of His schol-
ars upon them. The question under study is God,
His will ; my privilege and duty ; and under the
direction of the ever-blessed Spirit I can reach certain
knowledge and infallible judgment in every one of
them as I grow in knowledge and spiritual power.
But to teach that He drives me here or there with this
or that impression; sends me off this way or that on
every irrational impulse ; settles whether I am to buy
apples or oranges ; whether I am to eat this or that
article of food, or dress in this or that unexceptionable
garment ; or do any of a thousand little matters about
daily life, or let them alone, so long as, to my best
knowledge, whether I eat or drink, or whatever I do,
I do all to the glory of God, is a caricature of our
Christian doctrine, and a degradation of our Strength
and Guide. The certainty of knowledge, and the
infallibility of judgment under the guidance of the
Holy Spirit are not to be complicated with these
thousand vain notions, or the ten thousand exercises
of an idle curiosity stirring worldly minds, or even the
laudable inquiries of generous souls after scientific
truth. Man is left under truth to the best exercises
of his understanding and the wisest determinations of
his judgment, and to the improvement of the under-
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANC'fi. 117
standing and judgment by lawful use, as he is left
under air, exercise and food to the strongest opera-
tions of his digestion and the directest fcco of assimi-
lation. And both reason and health improve upon
proper use, and fail and lose by abuse. The Holy
Spirit will work to better advantage through a well-
ordered than throuijh a disordered understandinjr,
ether things being equal, and we have to do by the
rational processes, by our acceptance and application
of truth, and the government of our faculties with the
ordering of the understanding;.
].^8 THE GUIDING EYE ; OR,
CHAPTER XVi.
WHAT IS ITS EXTENT?
EARING in mind that certainty relates to truth
and fact, an 1 infallibility more to judgment and
act, our inquiry now is within what realm the
Holy Scriptures place this certainty, this infallibility,
so clearly the rightful heritage and perpetual posses-
sion of the people of God. And it is an inquiry of
primary importance ; for (1) ceaseless error and con-
fusion must result from all attempts to force certainty
and infallibility beyond their bounds ; or, on the other
hand, to relinquish any of their indisputable territory.
(2) Even graver consequences ensue in the moral and
religious life thereby than in scientific pursuits, for
the former involves the character and destiny of the
man and the race. (3) The Bible, man's spiritual
text-book, promises him all truth, either within a
restricted signification, or absolutely without restric-
tion, ovet the entire domain of truth. (4) The Holy
Spirit, the all-wise God, undertakes to be our guide
our teacher, and to lead us, shall we say, without
reference to mental power, scholastic discipline or
natural ability, into all truth. (5) The progress of the
individual believer and of the true Church of God,
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 119
the body of Christ, like the progress of each man in
the nation, and the nation at large, or each man in
society, and society at large, depends upon knowledge,
certainty, infallibility, just application of truth and
right use of posver; so chat, as society advances by
scientific truth, settled, established, extended and em-
ployed, the Church of God, and each member of that
Church, from height to heijjht and from ajje to age,
may come into broader fields, clearer light and larger,
richer possessions. So that when the Holy Spirit
undertakes to lead us into all truth, and engasfes His
ability and character to do it, we should know among
the rest of the truth what is the all truth, how far it
extends in the realms of truth, and who is so to be
led into all truth, the believer, or the entire Church of
God, corporately considered, or both.
A treatise on chemistry undertakes to teach only
chemistry ; a treatise on geography only geography ;
yet likely each v/ill speak of "all the elements," "all
the forces," " all the countries," because each propo.ses
to cover its own ground A lecturer on geology or
political economy would urge upon his scholars to
gain all truth, the whole truth, when likely he meant
the truth of his particular science, and its correlative
truth. The all truth of a science, is the central, vital,
essential truth of that science, together with the truth
having especial affinity thereto. A geography may
not teach much geometry, but no man will understand
geography without some geometry. The same remark
applies in an extended sense to astronomy. Geology
will not necessarily teach much chemistry ; yet one
120 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
will make but little proficiency in geology without
chemistry. So the all truth of geography has some
geometry, and the all truth of geology some chemistry.
The Bible was not written to teach political economy,
sociology, geology or astronomy ; but the all truth of
the Bible will find some of its affinities in these
sciences, and the discovery will widen with the ages.
But even as a man will not take his geology from the
chemistry, or his geometry from the astronomy, so we
will not turn aside the Bible, and the Holy Spirit, the
divine teacher, from their steady aim, the moral and
spiritual condition and relations of man before God.
Grammar may make rhetoric or logic collateral, and so
the Bible may make geology or sociology. But in the
first case, the all truth is language, and rhetoric must
bear on it ; and in the second case, all truthis religion,
and geology illustrates and enforces it. " All right !
All right ! " says the station master when the train is
ready, though there be much in the world that is
wrong. " All aboard ! " says the conductor, when he
means only all that intend to go with his train.
^iXamining the Holy Scriptures, we shall readily dis-
cover the range and intent of this knowledge, certainty,
infallibility. "This is life eternal, that they might
know Thee, the only true God." " Every one that
loveth is born of God and knoweth God." " Ye shall
know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and
I in you." " That I may know Him and the power
of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His suffer-
ings." " Know the love of Christ, which passeth
knowledge : " which sweep from the rudiments through
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 121
infinity is true also of our knowledge of the multiplica-
tion table. So far as we know, we kn)W ; and there is
intinitel y more to know. " He will reprove the world
of sin and of righteousness and of judgment." " The
Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that
we are the children of God." " Hereby know ye
the Spirit of God." " Hereby know we the Spirit
of truth and the spirit of error." " Hereby know
we that we dwell in Hiui and He in us, because
He hath given us of His Spirit." " Ye know Him : for
He dwelleth with you and shall be in you." "By this
we know that we love the children of God, when we
love God and keep His commandments." " The anoint-
ing which ye have received of Him abideth in you,
and ye need not that any man teach you ; but as the
same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is
truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you,
ye shall abide in Him." " We know that we are of
God." " He shall teach you all things, and bring all
things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said
unto you." "Prove all things. Hold fast that
which is good." " And the Lord said, I am Jesus
whom thou persecutest." " And the Lord said, Arise
and go into the street which is called Straight, and
inquire for Saul of Tarsus, for behold he prayeth."
" But the Lord said unto Ananias : Go thy way, for he
is a chosen vessel unto me." " Now when they had
gone throughout Phrygia, and were forbidden of the
Holy Ghost to preach the Word in Asia, they assayed
to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit suffered them not
. . A vision appeared to Paul in the night : there
122 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
stood a man of Macedonia, sayinjy, Come over into
Macedonia." "Peter went up upon the house-top to
pray. A certain vessel descended, wherein were all
manner of beasts, fowls and creeping things. There
came a voice to him, saying. Rise, Peter, kill and eat.
This was done thrice. While Peter doubted what the
vision should mean, behold the men who were sent
from Cornelius stood before the gate." "The Holy
Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and
afflictions abide me." " Watch ye, stand fast in the
faith." " Quit ye like men ; be strong." " For it seemed
good to the Hcly Ghost and to us to lay upon you no
greater burden than these uecessary things." " And
we are witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy
Ghost whom God hath given to them that obey Him."
'•' I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago :
whether in the body I cannot tell, or out of the body
I cannot tell : God knoweth." " Give a portion to
seven and also to eight ; for thou knowest not what
evil will be upon the earth." " In the morning sow
thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand ;
for thou knowest not whither shall prosper, either this
or that, or whither both shall be alike good." " That
which we have heard, which we have seen with our
eyes ; which we have looked upon and our hands have
handled of the Word of Life ; that which we have seen
and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have
fellowship with us."
From these passages of God's Holy Word and the
hundreds of others of like positive intent and un-
mistakable character; yea, from the entire tenor of
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 123
divine revelation, ten thousand oracles of Almighty
God speaking with one voice to the thoughtful, candid
mind, the positions now to be stated are clear and
undeniable. (1) There could be no book, system or
doctrine demanding more uncompromisingly actual
knowledge, or proceeding more exclusively and boldly
upon it than the Bible. And it goes for its knowledge
to the fountain to which profoundest human phi-
losophy toils to go ; that is, to the inner being, the
ultimate principles, the primal, intellectual and
spiritual intuitions and cognitions, the real facts of
human consciousness. The thoughts and words of the
Bible, "humanity's book, the burden of every con-
cordance, and the soul of every religion ; humanity's
best effort to express itself, to rise to God, are God and
man; good and sin; redeem and receive; know and live;
come, go and do ; peace, love, light and hope. Are not
these the words and thoughts of human life, the
human heart, the human race ? Knowledge, assurance,
certainty, infallibility, is the central, vital idea of the
Bible, as of no other book, because the Bible is God's
sure response to man's best effort. In others, you
may speculate, doubt, inquire, experiment, venture
out on excursions soon to return; imagine, theorize and
falteringly demonstrate ; but here you must know,
always know, truly know. And you must know at
the very root and foundation of all knowledge, self-
consciousness, and must verify by the keenest and
safest of all tests personal, spiritual experience.
(2) What the man may know, by the Spirit of God
under the Word, does know, infallibly know, is
124 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
absolutely certain of — if there be any certainty in the
universe of God — is his character of sinfulness, his
state of guilt, his relation as under condemnation, and
his utter helplessness to deliver himself from the
power, nature and consequences of his transgressicm.
Here are four tremendous facts in the man's natural
and spiritual relation and condition of which the truly
convicted sinner has positive, unmistakable know-
ledge through the Word by the Holy Ghost. Even
the heathen has a grlimmering of light, some know-
ledge, but more uncertainty of these things — enough of
each to drive to superstition and despair. And this
knowledge, this personal conviction of sin peculiar to
the Christian system, and yet so imperfectly under-
stood and so little enforced by many Christian
teachers, is fundamental and indispensable to the
subsequent, and we may say, consequent knowledge
of the Christian life. For, in the second place, just as
the man may know, absolutely know, his sinfulness,
his guilt, his condemnation and his helplessness, so
absolutely and certainly he may know, and when he
comes into the proper relation, he does know, his
pardon, his adoption, his obedience, his purification
and the omnipotence of his Deliverer. Through the
Spirit by the word he does know he has passed from
death unto life, he does know God reconciled and
Christ in him the hope of glory. There is no mistake
about it to the right-minded man, taught of the Spirit.
Here is infallible judgment and certain knowledge:
" My God is reconciled,
Hia pardoning voice I hear,
* THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 125
He owns me for his child,
I can no longer fear ;
With conficlence I now draw nigh,
And Father, Abba, Father, cry I
What was the great Wesleyan revival but cleansing
these grand truths of the rubbish that had gathered
over them, and demonstrating their power ? Know-
ledge, absolute knowledge, positive knowledge, in-
fallible judgment in these things is through the Spirit
assured to the Christian believer, and thus judgment
and knowledge are the very foundation and strength,
the invincibleness and the irresistibleness of the
Christian character.
In the third place, this infallible judgment and cer-
tain knowledge accompany the believer throughout
his life as to the acceptableness of himself, his
thoughts and ways and works to God. Let him keep
the single eye; humble, watchful, teachable; his
thoughts and ways and works by faith in Christ con-
stantly under the blood ; himself the temple of the
Holy Spirit ; and he will positively know every
moment he pleases God, every moment he is a child of
God ; and though he may be conscious of imperfection
in word and work ; or word and work may be
defective without his being aware of it, he will in-
fallibly judge and certainly know God his Father
will use his weaknesses for His own great glory. It
does not follow that because a prayer is ungrammatical,
an interpretation unscholarly, an inference illogical,
that it will bring condemnation to the man or be void
of spiritual power ; and yet who will say that every
126 THE GUIDING EYE; OR, *
sincere worshipper is fully apprised of his ungram-
roatical or illogical utterances, or that on the rule of
absolute and universal perfection there is no mistake
in beincj unfjrammatical or illoofical. God can endure
unperceived violations of grammatical rule infinitely
better than wilful perversions of truth or hypocritical
assumptions of piety, however correctly or accurately
phrased.
In the fourth place, this certain knowledge and
infallible judgment may be brought to bear by the
Spirit through the word in the providences of God on
the pathway of duty. In instances given in the pas-
sages quoted, and in many more cases of Sacred Writ,
how sure the men were they were right and in the
right way by the concurrences of the Holy Spirit's
intimations and the providences of God ! The Spirit
sent Peter down from the house-top, and the Provi-
dence of God had the three men at the gate. The
Spirit declared Paul's way closed up in Asia, and the
Providence of God gave him open way into Europe.
The Lord sent Ananias into a street called Straight, to
the house of Judas, and there he finds Saul awaiting
instruction and baptism. The Spirit directs Philip to
the chariot of the eunuch, who is anxiously studying
the word ; and Philip begins at the same scripture and
preaches unto him Jesus. It is not buying apples or
oranges, runoing to this shop or that, on this whim or
that ; but it is the concurrence of the Spirit, the Word
and the Providence of God ; and he who has this
threefold direction in the solemn ways of duty will
not err or fail.
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 127
In the fifth place, though men may feign piety and
deceive for a little, perhaps the very elect, there are
spirits in the world, organizations, systems, doctrines,
men, that we infallibly judge and certainly know are
not of God. There are certainties here as safe as the
mathematical, and demonstrations as clear and judg-
ments as infallible as in any of the abstract and
fundamental sciences.
In the sixth place, it is to be noted that when corpo-
rate judgment is proclaimed by the Church and given
as infallible guidance for conduct, it is clearly based
upon and derived from the Holy Scripture, and in no
way transcends the limits set in Holy Scripture ; it is,
indeed, simply Holy Scripture collated and declared.
In the seventh place, outside of the region of
the certain and the infallible, there is a broad ter-
ritory of the contingent, probable and uncertain in
human affairs, where the judgment may play in its
fullest exercise, and its.honest determination, this way
or that, be alike acceptable to God and equally woven
into His inscrutable purposes and wise and sucf ^ssful
plans, for we know not which shall prosper, this or
that.
The sum, then, of this whole matter seems to be
there is broad enough ground of certainty of know-
ledge and infallibility of judgment through the guid-
ance of the Spirit and under the Word of God to claim
all the allegiance and employ all the energies of
Christian men. There are some things we can be sure
of, each man for himself and none for another ; and we
need not go wrangling about the doubtful and uncer-
128 THE OlTlniNO RYK; OR,
tain to impose our notions thereof upon others. T can
be sure of my sin, my salvation, and my duty ; of my
weakness and the source of my strenj^th ; of my moral
condition and my present ndation to God ; of my
acceptableness in the fulness of my consecration and
the acceptableness of my works, and all through
Christ ; and that the (Jlod of hope Mils me with all
joy and peace in believing that I may abound in liope
by the power of the Holy Ghost. t]irou;.fh whom the
joy of the Lord is my stren<^th. I may know that I
increase in knowledge and power ; in knowled<^e of
God, His W( rd and works, His will and ways; am
rooted and grounded in love, know tlie love of Christ
which passeth knowledge, and am perfecting holiness
in the fear of God. On such certainties we need not
that any man should teach us, should assure us : we
have an unction of the Holy One. What a blessed,
holy certainty, infallibility betwixt God and my soul!
What an unutterable joy ! • What an immovable
foundation !
THE HOLY SFMKIT's (llflDANCK. 120
CHAPTKR XVII.
WIIEIIK LOCATED.
f'HAT Is it; betwixt {jIo<1 and n)y soul, on the
' warrant of His Word and by His Holy Spirit,
and on the matters and transactions betwixt
God and my soul. How could we admit man here, or
a council of men ^ How could we a<lmit the testimony
of nu n, valuable as it is in the historic relations of
relit^ion, or the judj^ment or decrees of men, im-
portant as they are in secular government, into the
personal and immediate knowledge of salvation ?
Would that not at once be an element of weak-
ness ard doubt? How could we admit any pope or
priestly absolution here ? How could we accept it as
coming of human origin or human transmission across
the sea ? Might there not come in mistake or distrust
or doubt, any of which is fatal to assurance ? How
could we take it as the utterance of a man ? What
the soul of man longs for is the voice of God ; absolute
trust in God and absolute assurance from God. What
we long to be indubitably assured of, positively certain
of, is (1) Each for himself, his own personal salvation ;
reconciliation with God ; actual personal possession of
eternal life. (2) Correct growing knowledge of God
9
130 THE GUIDING EYK; OR,
and of the doctrine of God ; walkinf]^ in the Spirit and
thereby coming forth all the time into clearer light,
';^^eater power, richer spiritual enjoyment. There are
some things a man can be sure of in the shades of the
thickest night; more in the starlight; much more in
the moonlight ; and much more still, and probably all he
needs to know, in the high light of noon. (3) The path-
way of duty in his relation to God and to his fellow-
men ; his provii^ential path and the direction of his
steps therein. This, as we understand it, is the field
of Scriptural certainty and infallibility to the man
that meets the conditions of that certainty and infalli-
bility. " If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in
the Spirit." And surely we tind certainty nowhere,
not even in the mathematics, unless we meet the con-
ditions of that certainty.
This field of Scriptural certainty, sure knowledge
and infallibility, to the true believer positively excludes
many things, as well as positively includes the few ;
yea, excludes very many things that ardent and care-
less or proud and tyrannical Christians — if, indeed,
such can be — would like to dragr into the field over the
boundaries set by God, or ruthlessly break through
those boundaries. And this is immense, indescribable
damage to a precious doctrine, and great loss and
injury to the Church of God. For the doctrine of
certainty and infallibility has been so handled from
two opposite and erroneous points of view, that many
even of the Church of Christ have discountenanced
and discarded it ; and thus abandoned the strongest
position of experimental and practical Christianity,
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 131
marred a priceless heritage and dimmed and darkened
the glorious central light. On the one hand, rash
spirits have loaded this doctrine with their whims and
conceits as to a thousand ^things God has provided for
in other ways ; as in the directions of His providential
government, expecting men to study and heed that
which they are often too indifferent or idle to do ; as
in our moral and natural instincts, volumes of vast
knowledge ; as in the demands of our primitive physi-
cal nature, a book of laws worth regarding; and
especially as in His written Word, given for our
prayerful thought and study, our improving know-
ledge and application. And in all these there is much
to be learned. We grow by the learning and the applica-
tion, and can grow no other way in them than by the
proper and purposed use of our faculties. The Spirit
of God in many regards loaves us to the employment
of these faculties and the results of that employment.
Personal fidelity here has its trial and its reward. On
the other hand, very dignified and scholarly spirits
have departed from the right way of the living God,
by forcing this Divine assurance and human certainty
out of its decreed line of action betwixt God and the
individual believer, and out of the appointed province
of its operation in guiding humble believers into all
truth. Men in these matters, in the name of Christ
and His Church, have actually usurped the place of
Jehovah Himself over the consciences of men ; have
attempted to dethrone the Great God our Saviour, and
set up in His stead the " Man of Sin, who opposeth and
exalteth himself above all that is called God and that
132 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
is worshipped ; so that he as God sitteth in the temple
of God, showing himself that he is God." The great
Apostasy, the Antichrist, the Papacy, has come at
length, through forsaking the original and proper
ground of infallibility, of absolute certainty in moral
relation and knowledge, as between the living God
and each believing soul under the written Word by
the Holy Ghost, and through lifting this infalli-
bility, this certainty from its Scriptural sphere, the
individual relationship, and diffusing it first through
the body corporate, the Church, and then gathering
it up into councils and then finally concentrating it
upon and in the Pope — through this forsaking first,
and afterward in the long ages through this misdirec-
tion, has this large portion of Christendom come
to such a misunderstanding, such a distortion and mis-
application of the glorious doctrine of certainty, the
rich heritajje of the individual believer within its
proper limit of infallibility, that the very name of the
thing has become hateful ; the very heritage itself
thrust aside, because as presented, it had been covered
*up in such darkness of error and again loaded with so
dangerous consequences, with such enormities and
frightful absurdities. This is not the only time or
the only case, in the history of the world, in which the
Devil has succeeded in clouding and hinderinj; the
truth ; in temporarily, at least, defeating the purposes
of our Lord by caricaturing and distorting His doc-
trine, and making the very energies of the Gospel
weak, and the very beauties of the Gospel hideous in
the sight and mind of the sons of men. And it is hard
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 133
to say which will more effectually serve Satan in this
regard, to put infallibility in the Church an<l the Pope
in matters that God never handed over to either
Church or Pope; or to put infallibility in the individual
man in matters that God never designed to come
under the rule of certainty and infalliiiility. In the
first case, it is put in the wrong place, as by the
Romish hierarchy ; in the second, it is spread over the
wrong territory, as by weaklings and fanatics. Both
are errors, egregious assumptions, and lead to the ruin
of souls.
It is interesting to note, in passing, how the Papal
claim of corporate and ecclesiastical infallibility, as
opposed to the Wesleyan and Scriptural doctrine of
assurance, and the spiritual and personal infallibility
of the believer on certain conditions and within certain
limits, usurps the very place of God in this relation-
ship, actually dethrones the great God before the
world, and attempts to sit in His high and holy seat.
This appears especially, as affecting this discussion, in
the two points of absolution from sin and attestation
thereof, and the enactment of laws and rules of faith
and conduct. Both these the Church of Rome affects
to do as a Church through her ordinances and instru-
mentalitits. Even to assume to do them she is com-
pelled, of course, to put her own construction on the
authority of the Scriptures of God as related to the
canons of councils and the traditions of men ; and her
own interpretation and scope upon sacraments and
ordinances, originall}'^ made subservient to the truth
and helpful to salvation. And thus, to build up and
134 THE GUIDING EVE; OR,
consolidate her syHteiii, she puts cloud and coloring
upon all the brij^ht and clear doctrinjis of our holy
reliirion. The foriiiveness of sin and the attestation
thereof are absolutely and exclusively of God, reserved
of God to Himself in hiifh prerogative; and communi-
cated directly by (iod to the believer, so that as the
believer goes din^ctly to (jod through Christ, God
returns to the believer as directly by the Holy Ghost.
To let in man here, upon these matters, as a third
party, or any combination of men, were to let in the
Hood tides of uncertainty, it is impossible; it is un-
scriptural and d(;structive of the covenants. God is
infallible, and on these things will make Himself
infallibly under^^tood. Rome would leap into His
throne, propose to forgive th(5 transgressor of His
supreme law, and then attempt to satisfy the con-
science of the votary. By such assumption the grand
scriptural doctrine of the certaint}' of salvation, and
sure advancement in the truth of God is trampled in
the dust. Keep infallibility to its place, and it is a
power ; throw it off its base, and it crushes the work
of truth. Let the Church of God keep to her place
as the pillar and the ground of the truth ; the deposi-
tory and propagator of truth ; a mutually helpful
association of godly men, believers in Jesus and travel-
ling to the skies ; having the pure word, the holy
ordinance, the true doctrine, the purifying fire by the
Holy Ghost; inheriting high honor, dignity and
privilege, and great spiritual power, not of the princes
of this world, but in the relationship to God ; then
shall she be, indeed, not divided, contentious and weak,
THE HOLY SPIUITS (UIFDANCE. 135
but one army of tlie living God, clear as the sun, fair
as the moon, and terrible as an army with })anners.
Who shall estitnate the ruin of souls Rome is working
by her perversicms of truth and her abominable and
utterly unjustiHable pretensions?
Not less wicked and unwarrantable is the attempt
at the enactment of laws (jf life and moral conduct
over and above the Holy Scripture as necessary to
salvation, and so binding on th<j hearts and consciences
of men ; or, on the other hand, the attempt to remove
the obligations the i^Ioly Scriptures do actually and
universally impose. The Scriptures of God are the
only and the all-sufficient rule of faith and practice.
They are tlie infallible word of God. Papal infalli-
bility claims the right of interpretation, enlargement
or depletion of said Scriptures. While there may be
liuman helps and guides to an easier or better under-
standing of Holy Scriptures, as of other books, when
it comes to the ultimate responsibility of tlie candid,
faithful student of the Word of God under the Holy
Ghost, and the honest ])eliever in Christ as to the pur-
port, province and power of a sacrament ; tlie office
and function of the ministry ; the relation of the indi-
vidual member to the Church, and the Church to the
state ; what things ujay be essential to .salvation, and
wfiat not ; wlio shall pardon sin and who attest the
pardon ; how the communications of divine grace and
comfort shall come to the soul, whose is then the final
and supremo accountability ? How can we let man
or combination of men, Church or Pope, in here ?
Here is the divine arena of liberty of conscience and
136 THE GUIDING EYE ; OR,
personal responsibility. A man can know, certainly
know, whether he is honest with his conscience and
the Word of God. He can positively know he is
following the best lip^ht he has. He can assuredly
know his works please God. He can intallibly know
he is a child of God, pardoned, accepted. And he can
be certain he is ready for all the perfect will of his
God. Pope, priest, council, cannot help him in these
things. To admit them or their authority, as colla-
teral or supreme, for a moment, is to admit confusion
and darkness. We cannot make this doctrine of in-
fallibility over to Pope, Church or council. It is the
voice of God within the appointed sphere to the soul
of man.
" But is it not even greater presumption, on the
other side, so to claim for the individual believer what
is denied to many associated believers, that is, to the
Church ? Is there not likely to be more wisdom and
higher authority in the body of believers than in each
believer for himself ? And so ought not their enact-
ments to be better for him and absolutely binding
upon him ? "
To these very natural, and, in this discussion, proper
questions, we have several answers to give. Will I
be sure that two and two are four because Conference
Parliament, or Council votes that two and two are four?
In the first place.the Bible answerto these questions is —
should be taken to be, and must be — all-authoritative
all-satisfactory, and settle all these things. And
what is that Bible answer ? The Bible deals with the
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 137
individual, and always on the principle of .personal
responsibility. "I know in whom I have believed,"
says Paul. " He that believeth on the Son of God
hath the witness in himself." " We know that we
have the petitions that we desired of Him." "We
know that we are of Goil." " We know that the Son
of God is come, and hath given us an understanding,
that we may know Him that is true ; and we are in
Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ." "To
him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden
manna ; and will give him a white stone, and in the
stone a new name written which no man knoweth
saving he that receiveth it." " But the anointing
which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and
ye need not that any man teach you ; but as the same
anointing teacheth 3uu of all things, and is truth, and
is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide
in Him." " The Spirit itself beareth witness with our
spirit that we are the children of God." All this, most
distinctly, is personal knowledge, personal action, per-
sonal possession ; by no means corporate knowledge,
corporate posses.sion, transmitted through man or body
of men, but direct, well-defined and exclusive personal
knowledge of God, spiritual condition, relation and
duty, gained, as is our other knowledge, by immediate
and appropriate impact with the Being, facts, condi-
tions and relations known. As it is God that is
known, it is positive and direct impact of God and the
soul. As it is one's self, his own condition that is
known, what can be nearer to a man than himself, his
nature, his con.sciousness ? What does he need any
138 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
Pope or council in here for ? How dares he admit
them ? Better let them in to dispute with the sight
of his eyes, or the hearing of his ears, and to argue
with his palate. And that is the very thing they
attempt to do when they are let in ; unman the man,
and play his personal responsibility for him to the
damnation of his soul. What can be nearer the man,
more within him and clearer to him, than his guilt or
his pardon under the light of the Holy Ghost i What
can more concern him, or be plainer, than his duty by
the Word and the Spirit ? Is not the Word of God as
good a guide as God's logic or multiplication table, if
we as faithfully verify it and as constantly apply it ?
Mathematics places certainty and the possibility of
ultimate infallibility from stage to stage in one sphere
of life ; but it is done on the laws and conditions of
the growing knowledge of mathematics. And those
laws and conditions surely do not involve Pope, priest
or councils. God's Holy Word places certainty and
possible infallibility in another sphere of life ; and no
more here in this sphere of personal religious know-
ledge and individual responsibility is Pope or council
acquired or admissible.
In the second place, whether a man is the truly
saved of the Lord ; and whether he has such a know-
ledge of his salvation as shall give peace to conscience
and in consciousness, and vigor to his life, is not, from
the very nature of the case, the very necessity of the
relations, a matter of human wisdom, a question of
vote, or the decision of a corporate body ; but is the
decision of divine authority upon certain conditions of
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 139
which the man alone can be cognizant, and the direct
communication of a divine enersry, wliose transmission
God hath reserved to Himself, and whose operation
the man alone can receive and know. " Son, be of
good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee." And He said
unto her, " Thy sins are forgiven." " Him hath God
exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a
Saviour, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness
of sins." " God hath, from the beginning, chosen you
to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and
belief of the truth." " Elect accordinjj to the fore-
knowledge of God the Father, through sanctification
of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the
blood of Jesus Christ." " Grace and peace be multi-
plied unto you through the knowledge of God and of
Jesus our Lord, according as His divine power hath
given unto us all things that pertain unto life and
godliness through the knowledge of Him that hath
called us to glory and virtue." Where is any need of
Pope or council in here ? Where is any room for
them ?
In the third place, it is not a matter of what God is
going to say; but what He has said. Popes and
councils may hold the people in open-eyed wonder-
ment and open-mouthed expectancy of some new and
startling announcement of dogma, some hitherto
unknown article of faith or rule of life and conduct ;
but the reason and conscience of man demand, and the
government and inspiration of God have bestowed, the
"Thus saith the Lord." And the canon of Holy Scrip-
ture is complete. Who is this that addeth anything to
140 THE GUIDING EYE ; OR,
or taketh anything from, the Holy Scriptures ? Who is
this, that as God sitteth in the temple of God showing
Himself that He is God ? " If any man shall add unto
these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that
are written in this book." Surely history has vindicated
this prophecy. There has been infallibility here. "And
if any man shall take awa}' from the words of the
book of this prophecj^ God shall take away his part
out of the Book of Life, and out of the holy city, and
out of the things that are written in this book." And
surely again, so far as we can judge from past and
passing events, and can foresee the future, this state-
ment is justified. It must be so : for God is God. Is
it not, indeed, strange, and one of the anomalies and
revenges of history, that the loftiest assumptions and
proudest proclamations of immutability, infallibility,
belons to those who oftenest change their doctrines
and chase novelties of dogma and belief ? Is there not
an infatuation ? To-day it is the ignis fatuus of
a purgatory ; to-morrow the will-o'-the-wisp of an
infallibility of council or Pope, or the immaculate con-
ception of the Virgin. Who can keep up with this
crazy race ? Is it any wonder the masses are befooled
and benighted ? How does it happen that the change-
less Church is as to essentials most fickle and change-
ful ? " To the law and the testimony ! " If they
apeak not according to this Word, it is because there
is no light in them ! What need of Pope or council,
of assumed corporate infallibility here ? What room
for them ? Is it a wonder the Spirit and the Word
are crowded out of such a body ?
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 141
In the fourth place, in any example we have of the
New Testament Church corporately enunciating lav;^ of
life or rule of conduct to bind the conscience and govern
the faith, such enunciation is the simple declaration,
summary or repetition of inspired Scripture already in
existence ; as for instance, the decisions of the Council
at Jerusalem : " It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and
to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these
necessary things : that ye abstain from meats offered
to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled,
and from fornication : from which if je keep your-
selves, ye shall do well." Here is a distinct appeal to
the standard of " necessary things." There can be no
doubt the Church, the body of Christ, is in Scripture
invested with disciplinary and governing powers in
many regards, as affecting rules of society, forms of
worship, administration of ordinances and the like, in
which matters there are the powers of binding and loos-
ing ; and what in harmony with the Word of God is so
bound or so loosed on earth shall be bound or loosed
in heav'en. But these mattters of form, order, govern-
ment and administration are vastly different from the
faiths that are necessary to salvation and the holy
ordinances appointed of God Himself. Of course,
while the Church proceeds clearly upon the lines of
Holy Writ, and keeps within Scriptural bounds, she
may claim and enjoy the infallibility of the inspired
Word. But off" these lines and beyond these bounds,
she certainly has no right to go ; much less to claim
infallibility for her decisions and decrees that plainly
contravene the Word of God. What a spectacle is this
142 - THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
before the nations and centuries ; in the name of
immutability and infallibility, forsaking the eternal
foundations, abandoning the lines proved and attested
from the beginning of the world, setting up unauthor-
ized dogmas and proclaiming novel faiths, and then
turning with bitterness and with blood upon those that
hold to the inalienable rights and irrevocable duties
of conscience, and the incontestable obligation and
sovereignty of the Scriptures of Divine truth.
How clearly and emphatically is the Bible the book
of the distinct personality and complete responsibility
of each and every man. A temple of the Holy Ghost
is the body of every believer; and every man shall
give account of himself to God. It is the book of the
dignity of manhood against the tyranny of any and
every system. " The Sabbath was made for man, not
man for the Sabbath." In the olden time the Church
exceeded the record, teaching for doctrines the com-
mandments of man ; and He that came from heaven
expressed His estimate of such example and instruc-
tion in the denunciation of the blind guides : " Ye
fools and blind." If Protestantism be free Bible for
free men, free Church in free State, Jesus Christ was
an incorrigible Protestant, and died for His Protes-
tantism. Priestly domination and hierarchical assump-
tion were the deadliest foes He encountered. The
ancient, compact and mighty Jewish Church — even
that venerable theocracy did not claim to be infallible
in its corporate character — had fallen to binding
heavy burdens and laying them on men's shoulders ;
but the sturdy protests of the Nazarene and of the
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 143
fearless apostle to the Gentiles, in the name of both
divinity and humanity, burst a thousand bonds,
opened a thousand prison doors, wrecked the schemes
of men for the enslavement of conscience, and nerved
the arm of liberty for the conflicts of the centuries.
What a manner to address priests and ecclesiastical
dignitaries : " Woe unto you. Scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites ! Ye serpents. Ye generation of vipers,
how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" And what
was their fault, their crime ? They had removed the
Scriptures and substituted traditions, casuistry and
churchly ceremony and formulary. It was not the
law of God laid on the conscience, but the inventions
and requirements of man. How could there be any-
thing like certainty, assurance in such a religious
relationship ? Why must not such a religion, putting
in man betwixt God and the soul, be weak and worth-
less ? It was then ; it is now. The man must touch
the God to be strong. The God must fill the man to
lead him on in truth. What a Protestant appellant
was Paul before Felix and Festus: "This I confess
unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy,
so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all
things which are written in the law and in the
prophets. And herein do I oxercise myself, to have
always a conscience void of offence toward God, and
toward men." Festus said, " Wilt thou go up to
Jerusalem and there be judged of these things before
me ? Then said Paul, I stand at Caesar's judgment
seat where I ought to be judged." What a demand to
stand or fall by the acknowledged Scriptures was
144 THK GUIDING EYE; OR,
here ! What an assertion of rijjht to the exercise of
personal freedom in well-doing ! What a declaration
of the independence of citizenship, and the proper and
absolute separation of the functions of Church and
State ! There is not much temporal power of the
hierarchy in all this, any more than elsewhere in Holy
Scripture. Christ knew, Paul knew, and maintained
that there is a realm in the spirit of man that none
but God can enter. And both knew and taught that
when God so enters there is positive knowledge, as-
surance and capability of proceeding infallibly to
further positive knowledge and assurance, as the
Spirit of God leads the heart and understanding of
man onward in truth. And all this but shows the
absolute necessity of keeping the truth of God un-
clouded ; and the conscience, heart and spirit of man
free to its acceptance, increase and use. This is the
perpetual battle of spiritual religion against the lusts
of the flesh, the desires of the carnal mind, and the
devices of the adversary, against all errors of doctrine,
i\]\ claims and attempts of false religion, all indifference
to the tremendous issues and responsibilities involved.
Is it a wonder the New Covenant thunders in louder
tones than Sinai, " every man shall give account of
himself to God ? " Is it a wonder these rolling
thunders are drowned and hushed in the multitudi-
nous voices of mercy and peace : " Awake, thou that
sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall
give thee light." " If we walk in the light as He is in
the light, we have fellowship one with another; and
the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 145
all sin ?" Is it a wonder infinite grace with trumpet
tone proclaims: " As many as are led by the Spirit of
God they are the sons of God." " Because ye are
sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into
your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." " Walk in the
Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the fiesh."
" But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom
the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you
all things and bring all things to your remeuibrance,
whatsoever I have said unto you ? "
In the fifth place, this responsibility and dignity of
the individual in the religious sphere, the pre-e.ninence
in the very nature of the case, given the personality
in the spiritual realm, is plainly shown in the com-
munications of Almighty God with the sons of men
through all the ages, in the entire history of revela-
tion and the production and establishment of the canon
of Holy Scripture, as now received among us. In the
religious realm, we say, for it makes all the difference
in what realm our investigation is conducted, and in
what aspect the object of search is viewed. If we are
seeking primary elements, a grain of sand is better
than the mountain of granite ; a drop of water, than
the heaving ocean ; a nodule of coal or chalk than the
deep bed or towering cliff; a spire of grass or a flower
seed, than the broad and blooming prairie. But if we
would fill the valley, or float the ship, ^r drive the
furnace, or feed the countless herd ; if mass and mo-
mentum, force, fuel and food are required, we must
have the mountain, the ocean, the coal-field and the
prairie. Matter in the mass, force in the volume, fuel
10
146 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
and food in the bulk, are, of course, of great impor-
tance — are, indeed, the common way of estimating and
using these things ; hence physics and dynamics are
the great sciences to those that get far enough beyond
the gross materiaLs to ascertain at all a science in them.
But who will say chemistry is of no importance —
chemistry is of no worth, is not a science ? We all
know that it is a delicate, exquisite, genuine, noble,
profound and useful science, the very scienfia sc'wn-
tiarum, so far as matter and force are concerned. It
is that science that deals with the individual, the
ultimate element, the hidden force, that deals, so to
speak, with the personality and affinity of the particles
of matter, the component elements and their relations,
the very religion of physics. There could be nothing
more refined, impalpable, subtle, delicate, unless there
be a spiritual realm. And this is the spiritual realm ;
the unit, God, and the unit, man, and their moral
affinity ; the unit, man, and the unit, man, ultimate
moral elements, and their relations, and spiritual)
intellectual and moral forces. Politics, sociology, gov-
ernment in Church or State, commercial regulations,
ethnology and history may handle man in the mass,
the society, the league, the nation, the race ; but reli-
gion, the human and divine chemistry, must handle
men apart, man by man, and man with God, the ulti-
mate elements and spiritual and moral units. And
the Church that attempts to interfere in this spiritual
realm, this domain of the ultimates as given in divine
revelation, is as much astray, and far more seriously
and injuriously astray than the school of chemistry
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE, 147
that, instead of studying matter as it is, would set
itself about creating new elements and rudiments
unknown to nature or its Author.
With so profound and consistent a philosophy the
I Bible deals with individual men, and makes its revela-
tions and laws, not to councils, senates, or parliaments,
but to men ; exalts the man and holds him responsible ;
inspires and instructs the one man, and proclaims the
universal law ; lays the obligation on the one con-
science, and maintains universal freedom. God spake
to Abraham, not to a council of patriarchs ; to Moses,
and not to a parliament of legislators ; to Samuel, and
not to a bench of judges; to Elijah and Elisha, and
not to a school of prophets ; to Daniel and Ezra, and
not to a convocation of scribes ; to Paul and to Peter,
and not to a college of apostles. It was the man, not
the assembly, that was inspired ; the man, not the
synod, or congregation, or college or council, is the
temple of the Holy Spirit ; holy men of old spake as
each was moved by the Holy Ghost. This is an im-
portant and conclusive consideration, when we come to
the question of corporate infallibility. Corporate
infallibility is a delusion and a snare, and has no
sanction or countenance in the Word of God or the
history of His true and living Church. It is a baseless
assumption, a fatal error, and has proved the ruin of
, many souls. It is the fruitful mother of errors, and
; has covered the earth with a progeny of darkness and
I sin. It is the abandonment of the scriptural ground
■ and priceless heritage of the believer in Christ, know-
ledge, assurance, certainty, yea, infallibility within the
148 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
personal and proper range, under the guidance of the
Holy Ghost, and instructed by the Word and the
gracious providence of the living God. The indivi-
dual and personal inspiration laid down the law, and
the corporate ambition, assumption and enterprise may
not go beyond it. The individual and personal guid-
ance and obedience receive the law, keep the law of
the New Covenant in the spirit and grace of that
covenant, know assuredly that God is a Father, that
sin is pardoned, that holiness is enjoyed, thai: love
reigns, that power is conferred, that heaven is begun
in the fruits of the Spirit, that the resurrection is
assured in the eternal life actually possessed ; and
judge infallibly the right way, the path of duty, the
meaning of the Holy Word, and the lessons of divine
providence to the faithful disciple in the school of
Christ.
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 149
CHAPTER XVIII.
WHEREIN APPLIED.
'E hav> restricted this certainty of knowledge,
this assurance of moral and spiritual condition
and relation," this infallibility of personal and
moral judgment to the individaal in his acquaintance
with himself, his acquair. ance with God, and with his
relation to God and duty. A narrow sphere of know-
ledge some may deem this; but it is central, all-sufficient,
all-pervasive, omnipotent and vital. This takes for
granted that the Christian disciple use all proper and
possible means to gain and increase this knowledge ;
that he seek it as directed and employ it as designed ;
that he live indeed within the provision and purport
of revealed religion ; that is, that he walk in the
Spirit. We say advisedly and intentionally " the
disciple of Christ : " for this assurance, this certainty,
this infallibility belongs to no other than the Christian
system, and in that system to none other than the
genuine disciple and believer. This is the safe founda-
tion of the settled rest of soul peculiar to this
system. Further, the restriction stated abov^e excludes
all associated assurance, all shared and composite
knowledge ; so that part of it is with one man and
150 THE JUIDING eye; OR,
part with another, to render it necessary to bring to-
gether the different findings to complete the sum of
the Icnowledge and assurance. God has no divided
convictions of sin, no divided pardons, no divided
regenerations and sanctifications, and no divided
responsibilities. If part were with one man and part
with another, where is the responsibility ? Who, then,
is responsible ? God communicates the iinowledge in
its entirety. One man can receive the whole know-
ledge ; yea, as much salvation, as much assurance and
certainty as two men, or ten, or a thousand. It is not
a question of numbers, but of unity and completeness.
And to know God, and to know his own sin, and know
he is saved through the blood by the Spirit ; and to
know the doctrine, the duty, the indwelling, the abiding,
the comforting, the strengthening, the leading is the
privilege and work of each for himself and not for
another, and is a perfected knowledge in every true
believer as he advances in the truth of God. Divided
knowledge or assurance were a divided responsibility,
and that were an end of all moral action and moral
accountability. One man can be as sure that one and
one are two, as can a million men. The one man
has that entire and perfect knowledge, and is account-
able for its use.
The restriction further excludes all corporate and
representative assurance ; that it should be necessary
for a body of men to come together and vote on the
question and decide the doctrine, the condition, the
relation ; and then appoint an oracle as spokesman
to declare it ; an embassy, a messenger to convey
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 151
it. It is a direct communication from God to the
soul, no vote, no embassy intervening. WHat we
must guard is the certainty of the knowledge, the
infallibility of the conveyance ; and we can let no
Pope or council in here. Likely the Pope himself, and
every member of the council will have enough to do
to attend to this matter for himself. We cannot help
him particularly any more than he can help us.
His needs are as our needs, and his abilities and
privileges in these matters, as are our abilities and
privileges. There are no proxies, substitutes, vicars
or representatives in these solemn and eternal spiritual
concerns. It would not do through the everlasting
ages for one man to have another to blame that he
did not bring in his share of the conviction or regenera-
tion ; or another to praise alongside of God, or equal
or superior to Him. We may be humble instruments
in His hand ; but there are some things God hath kept
to Himself, the sovereignty of His own acts, and the
communication of the knowledge of those personal
acts to the souls of men.
These are restrictions as affecting the possession and
conveyance of this certainty, this assurance, this know-
ledge. There are still others as to the fields in which
the believer must seek this certainty, this infallibility.
The believer alone may seek it ; not an assembly, not
a council ; not a wicked man or a worldling. The sin-
ful or the worldly are not entitled to it. The assembly,
the council may not need it ; the believer and the
prophet or apostle does. The assembly, the council,
much as it needs direction, wisdom, may not need
152 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
certainty, infallibility, for its work ; for the council
is not entitled to proclaim new doctrines of faith. The
council may have to do not with personal salvation>
but with external forms, rules of order, the expediency
of ordinances, politics and government — matters that
ma3^ be one way or an other. But the inspired pro-
phets and apostles declare the will of God, and the
believer must accept and assuredly know the will of
God. Hence he must seek it for himself and not for
another. Now the question is, where he may seek it.
And first, he will not find it in the quest or posses-
sion of speculative truth. This field of inquiry is
given us for the exercise of our faculties, which is
as necessary for a saint as for a sinner, and may be as
appropriate in heaven as on earth. Observing,
rertecting, remembering, comparing and combining are
holy activities when properly directed, and good enough
for the angel of God. Widening and deepening the
search, collecting the facts, discerning the principles,
pressing downward and outward upon the broader and
solider foundations, passing from the shade of theory to
the light of science, from the uncertain ground of pro-
bability to the firm footing of ascertained knowledge ;
these things are designed of God for the good of men,
jj They are neither the pride of opinion, the " knowledge
that puffeth up," nor " the science falsely so called ; "
but they are the grandest employments and richest
attainments of humble, earnest and well formed minds.
I Some of Christ's meekest disciples under the direction of
i the Holy Ghost have done these very things to their own
I improvement and the great benefit of mankind. And
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 153
i they have done them as sinners have done them ; just
as the godly eat, breathe, walk, and digest, as do the
vile and profane. Not in the same thought and
temper, to be sure, or with the same end in view ; but
with the same liability to strangling or breaking a
tooth, the same liability to stumbling or slipping, or
the same exposure to indigestion or disorder. Who
has not seen the pallid saint, and a round, ruddy,
plump, healthy sinner ? And yet God rules the world.
And who that has looked has not seen the devout and
faithful disciple of Jesus as keenly tried by knotty
problems and honest research as the proud and the
prayerless ? His faculties are worth as much to the
world, and he has the same need of intellectual disciu-
line and the same right to it. And if the saint is to
know anything of language, lo^ic, metaphysics ; that is,
to know himself intellectually and the human race, he
must learn these things just as the sinner does. There
is no help for it ; let us say, praise the Lord ! He
must apply himself, study, develop himself, increase
his power, prove there is in him something worthy
Christ's suffering and death ; prove there is something
in him worthy of purification and the companionship
of the Holy Ghost. Infallibility at any special point
may not be here. Certainly there often is as to the
ground passed over ; infallibility there may not be as
to the ground yet to be traversed. But though failures
here and failures there, excursions here and investiga-
tions there, men climb to solid foundations at last. And
as God intended, they are all the better for the climb-
I ing. And as God intended, they will climb with a
154 THE GUIDING EYE ; OR,
surer, fleeter foot, if they keep within the limit of
certainty and infallibility in their relations to God.
Nor, secondly, will he find this infallibility, this
steady, uninterrupted certainty, and the consequent
composure of mind even in scientific truth and its
applications. After theory has come to science, and
speculation to knowledge, there is certainly enough
for the ongoing of human affairs ; but, do the best we
can, there are always mists and clouds hanging around
our earthly knowledges, our knowledges of external
things. Our greater inrnorances will darken our dawn-
ing certainties, and thro\^ a shadow over the mind.
We cannot bring external 'ihings into immediate con-
sciousness; as we can ourselves, our condition, our
relation to God.
This is sound philosophy, fundamental, incontrover-
tible science, yea, the root of all science and philosophy ;
nothing is nearer the man's self than himself; so
within the clear light of his consciousness as himself,
his condition, his relation to that other most intimate
self within him. And, admitting that that other in-
terior self, God, is also an intelligence, perfect intelli-
gence, — light, in whom is no darkness at all — how
could there be anything brighter or surer than clear,
pure, perfect intelligence, shining upon the conscience,
the consciousness, the moral nature, to disclose to that
moral consciousness, not external things, which it
must perceive through sense, which it must learn by
study, but itself, its condition, and by very apposition
in the light, its relation. Scientific certainties are of
a widely different character. They are not perfect and
completed knowledges in the consciousness, but are
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. l.')5
the results of our investigations, applying the rational
principles of the consciousness to the outer world, to
its facts, system, and order. In the spiritual know-
ledge both poles of the consciou.sness, the perceiver
and the perceived, are within ; tho .subject perceiving
is also the object perceived. The Holy Spirit is not
promised to give certainty and infallibility in mere
outward things, nor does His special operation tend
thereto, further, perhaps, than that the well-ordered,
pious mind, other things being equal, may advance
more rapidly and more .securely in truth, and shall
escape the foreclosure of darkness that must come
upon all sinful investigation. Certainty, then, is in
science to saint and sinner as the mind advances in
knowledge. The swearer is as sure as the devout and
prayerful soul that the three angles of a triangle are
equal to two right angles. Old and fanatic saints
did not help religion much with theosophy, when they
put upon the Holy Ghost, divine illumination, to teach
men science. Spiritual, revealed religion has its range,
and philosophy has its range, and between them there
is not much room for theosophy. There is a strict
domain, the domain of spiritual, eternal life, of moral
consciousness, in which God has given to man cer-
tainty, infallibility ; all beyond this is investigation —
historic, philosophic, scientific verity. It must come
to rational tests and laws, as must even the historic
and theological domain of Christianity itself; and
while the Holy Spirit will help a man in these sublime
pursuits. He will never unman the man, or do his
work for him. He ennobles the man by guiding him
156 THE (iUipiNG EYE; OR,
ultimately in the exercise of his faculties throuo^h many
experiments, examinations, reflections, and even mis-
takes and their correction, into absolutely all truth.
To use foreign terms for school and Heaven : Elysium
is eternal gymnasium.
Nor, thirdly, will the believer find this certainty,
this infallibility, in his secular pursuits, his practical
knowledge and business affairs. He will not find it
there, because the Holy Ghost, by the Word of God,
does not put it there. This is not within the all truth
specially intended. He will have providential guid-
ance, fatherly blessing and protection, spiritual com-
fort and aid, to be sure ; but he will find there the
very way God takes to discipline, instruct and
strengthen him, is through what men often call adver-
sity, misdirection, and mistake. Tribulation worketh
patience ; patience, experience ; and experience, hope.
He will find that wicked men will sometimes be
shrewder in business within the bounds of honesty
itself, see further, and go more vigorously to the
summit of success. " No chastening for the present
seemeth to be joyous, but grievous ; nevertheless,
afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteous-
ness unto them who are exercised thereby." How true
is it that God's loved ones are full of blunders after
business standards, and fail, where practical, worldly-
minded men note their folly ! And how true is it
that this very failure and folly worketh out often
the richest spiritual blessing ! It does not follow that
a man is imbecile and impotent in bu.siness because
spiritually minded, but it does follow that they are
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 157
very wide of the mark that make the certainty of
knowledge and infallibility of judgment belonging to
the child of God in his religious, moral and spiritual
life, the life of conscience and consciousness, extend to
all the movements of his body, all the natural and
proper desires of flesh and spirit, all the processes of
his reasoning and all the conclusions of his under-
standing. While the man is tilled with the Holy
Ghost, the Holy Ghost worketh with the rational
understanding, and sensitive and mobile frame ; as,
while the ocean bed is filled with water, the rising,
sweeping tides press into the natural bays and along
the natural shores, conforming themselves to the head-
lands, angles and sweeping curves of the continent*
all the time gradually forming anfl shaping the same
headlands and curves after thei. own force and
motion.
Nor, fourthly, will he find this absolute certainty,
this infallibilty in truth related to personal interest
merely, or employed in the pursuit of selfish aims.
Here is to be strictly and vigorously applied the great
and central doctrine of self-sacrifice and entire conse-
cration to God. And, possibly, nowhere are Christian
believers more exposed to hurtful misleading, preju-
dice and error, than in the desire and fancy that the
Holy Ghost be and is of our opinion, that He will help
our party ; that, as He is kind, He will indulge our
whims, pamper our weaknesses, fondle our vain
thoughts, iinpressions, and impulses, do about as we
wish He should do ; that is, gratify us, flatter us,
countenance our ways, lead us in our own paths, and
158 THE GUIDING EYE; OK,
quiet our minds in our own chosen comforts. Even
as we can readily discover our own theories and con-
ceptions of divine truth in the Bible, we can find our
own whims and wishes in the leadings of the Spirit.
As error and danger lurk here, hidden and disguised
beyond the power of human detection, the Spirit
grant His disclosing light ! There is selfish truth ;
that is, such is the nature of our selfishness, that we
would use the very spiritual truth of God for selfish
and worldly purposes. Sin would not have done all
its work, would have been a comparative failure, if it
had not set us attempting to use the purest truth of
God for discriminating advancement, for selfish pre-
ference and aggrandizement. The devout soul seeks
the Spirit's guidance in duty ; desires the providential
way opened up to success in life, to accumulate sub-
stance, to win the far-reaching fame, to gain the prizes
in earthly competition. What for ? Is there any harm
in honestly getting wealth and using it for God ? Is
there harm in a good natne or great influence when
with Christ ? Ought not a man to seek these things ?
Again, we ask, What foi { ' Well, I would use wealth,
influence, power, for Christ's cause and the advance-
ment of His kingdom." Then, my friend, perhaps you
can do more for that kingdom with your name cast
out as evil for Christ's sake, and amid the struggle of
poverty than you would with great fame and estate.
In which case you will a million fold prefer the re-
proach and the penury ; you will have, by divine
recognition, more quiet of mind, more joy in them
than in all substance and affluence. " You seek in-
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 159
fallible, divine guidance, do you ? " Then be ready
for all these things ; in riches and honor to use them
wholly and solely for God; in privation and scorn to
behold God employ them mysteriously and amazingly
to His praise. Since it is the kingdom of Jesus Christ
you would advance, and since that is your one anxiety
and thought, what difference to you whether it be
want and pain and tribulation, or abundance, rank
and ease. You have your eye honestly and intelli-
gently on one thing, the kingdom of Jesus Christ, the
kingdom of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy
Ghost, and the present and everlasting reign of right-
eousness ; you have the single eye and seek first the
kingdom of God ; are you to fail of infallible guidance
to that end ? Are you to fail of reaching that end ?
Not till the covenants of the Eternal God, the blood-
sealed covenants witnessed by the Holy Ghost are
prevented or nullified. Here let the soul rest ; with
such a consecration, such an obedience, such a spiritual
intelligence, patience and faith, with such an aim, the
heart and soul, the whole life and being, all the
energies, efforts and results shall go steadily to that
end. There is here infallible guidance, infallibility.
Then, says the minister of God, " I shall surely have
it alway in the acquisition of knowledge, and in
preaching the gospel of the kingdom." If God could
not have done something in the world with the In-
fallible Word without infallible ministrations, there
would not have been much of the Christian religion
known among us to-day. And, on the other hand,
perhaps, the potent reason there is so little of it in the
160 THE GUIDING EYE ; OR,
world is that there has been so little infallible preach-
ing — preaching in which the preacher knows he is
laying the doctrine of God on the conscience and
reason of men, and in which men know it is the doc-
trine of God, that Gcd is in the preacher of very truth.
Alas ! alas ! that the pulpit should have ever been
given over to speculation, to dreaming, to theorizing,
to painting, to controversy, to pandering to sin, and
proclaiming self ! No wonder " the Gospel has not
won its widening wav to earth's remotest bounds."
As a rule the preaching is better than the preacher,
and there is a gulf-wide difference betwixt an in-
fallible preacher and infallible preaching. Likely the
only case in which the two ever were conjoined in
human body was in Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God.
A fallible preacher may preach infallible doctrine in-
fallibly, for that is the channel in which his infalli-
bility is to run. It is bis course of duty in the " all-
truth " guidance under the special direction of the Holy
Ghost. " Then I will get up a grand sermon, a learned
sermon, a mighty sermon." Let us tarry. Often as wide
apart as the poles are "grand" sermons and "mighty"
sermons. Indeed, seriously may it be questioned
whether what are sometimes known as "great" ser-
mons, " learned " sermons, are preaching the Gospel at
all, and whether some of the fathers did not do the
Church and the world infinite and remediless damajje
by putting out homilies and expository preaching, and
bringing in what we call "great sermons." Not by
any means that learning is to be neglected, or power-
ful preaching, convincing the judgment, and moving
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 161
the heart thought of no account. Learning is to be
sought and power obtained, and no preacher should
be without them in the highest possible degree. But
both oi them toi^ether will not make the infallible
preaching. With an infallible preacher we have no-
thing to do ; we seek the infallible preaching. And
likely we are on the track of it in our hymn :
" What we have felt and seen,
With confidence we tell ;
And publish to the sons of men
The signs infallible."
We, hence, insist upon conversion, experimental
religion, personal knowledge, and positive, attested and
demonstrated experience in our ministers. Further,
as to this scriptural demand for infallible preaching,
we insist upon a ministerially entire and complete con-
secration to God and His w^ork. Perhaps there is
more in a ministerial than in an ordinary consecra-
tion. Perhaps God expects more of him and gives
him more. Perhaps he must renounce some things
that other men properly enjoy, that he may possess
and enjoy some things that other men cannot obtain.
If a man will preach Christ, how forgetful he umst be
of self. How solidly and certainly he must know his
own sin, his own pardon, his own cleansing, his own
divine call and qualification, his own insufficiency, and
his sufficiency as of God ! How fully he must know
the power of Christ to save, the majesty and excel-
lency of the holy doctrine, the sovereignty of the law,
and the sufficiency of grace, the love of God to all, the
11
162 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
universal call to salvation, the efficacy of the atoninsj
blood, and the omnipotence of the Holy Ghost. There
can be no mistake or possibility of mistake in these
things. He can admit no shadow or mist of doubt.
Here is indubitable certainty, infallible judgment and
sure personal experience.
Add to this that he keeps Christ, always Christ,
only Christ, before him ; that if tempted to learn for
self, he saith, "Get thee behind me, Satan;" if tempted
to preach to please men, to draw the crowd, to make
sin easier, to lower the Biblical standards of righteous-
ness and true holiness, to win personal favor, advan-
tage or fame, or, in other regards, interrupt the com-
munion of the Holy Spirit, or the fulness of the
divine baptism, he .saith, quickly, positively and con-
clusively, "Get thee behind me, Satan;" that by the
same spirit he bui'neth with the love of the souls of
men, and is consumed with the zeal of God's house '■>
that he con.^tantly seeks unto God for help and guid-
ance, and faithfully follows the teachings of the Word
and the guidance of the Holy Spirit — and who of us,
as ministers of the Gospel, should not do all these
things — and can there be any doubt that he will
preach infallibly, that he will lay the doctrines of God
infallibly on the consciences and intelligence of men ?
And can there be a doubt that holy men have done
this even with blundering speech, defective syntax
and faulty rhetoric ? Infallible preaching does not
demand infallibility in evirything, or in anything out-
side the scriptural range.
Selfishness, mere self-interest, as in any degree lift-
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 163
ing self, discriminating as against others, or against
the kingdom of Christ, must be kept out of the quest,
and the possession of spiritual truth, if we expect
certainty, infallibility to come in. The eye must be
kept single to the glory of God, either in our own
salvation or the salvation of others, if we would have
the body full of light. " With Thee is the fountain of
life. In Thy light shall we see light." Contradictory
as it may appear, the most unseltish self-surrender is
the surest way to self-knowledge and self-possession.
When the prodigal came to himself he said, " I will
arise and go to my father." How Jesus knew the
laws of the human mind ; " what is in man I " Entire
consecration to God is the portal, perfect obedience to
Him the corridor of this resplendent temple of light
and truth. " If any man will do His will, he shall
know the doctrine." Can a man know his sin for-
given ? Bow before God, do His will and learn. He
can know it certainly, infallibly. Can a man be holy
and live holy '' Bow and learn. Can a man have
eternal life within him now, and assurance of its
future and perpetual enjoyment ? Bow and learn-
These things a man may know certainly and indubi-
tably. He may know the doctrine; not speculation,
not all external truth, not even all truth relating to
his own body or mind, but the doctrine ; not all things
about God or heaven, this world or the next, but the
doctrine; what God has revealed in His Word, and is
pleased to make plainer to teach, certainly, positively,
clearly, unmistakably, experimentally by His Spirit.
The doctrine, knowledge of sin, of sin forgiven, of
164 THE GUIDIN(} EYE; OR,
personal holiness and power; knowledge of our own
condition and relation to God, for that has to do with
the condition, and is part of it ; knowle<lge of God,
His will ; our need, His supply ; the doctrine, this is
what we may know infallibly, certainly. Here is a
spiritual paradox : the greediest selfishness loses every-
thing, knows nothing ; the most willing self- surrender
to God gains everything, knows certainly everything
that is vital to know, and central and essential to
eternal increase in knowledjje. Life and lifjht qo
together. " In Him was life, and the life is the light
of men."
Nor, fifthly, is this infallibility, certainty, given
to the noble doctrines of sociology, philanthropy
and patriotism. These have to do with the highest
doctrines of philosophy, indeed, but then it is human
philosophy. Nor can such certainty be given by
worldly wisdom, as developed in commerce, politics,
diplomacy, and the triumphs of art. We certainly are
not speaking against these things ; nor would we, for
a moment, disparage or underestimate them. Even in
their beginnings they were the splendor of the ancient
civilizations, as they are the material to be wrought
by life divine into the grandest attainments of
humanity. They are indispensable to the progress of
nations, and the ennoblement and happiness of the
human race. Permeated with spiritual religion they
are capable of infinite expansion, and live on principles
that must preserve and govern society in Heaven it-
self. These things are not overlooked nor underrated ;
but we are now speaking of the certainty, the sure,
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 165
infallible and indispensable knowledge that belongs
personally to the Christian believer ; and this i^ not
found here in philosophy, science, art, or common or
public affairs. There is a realm that is all light, all
assurance, all glory — knowledge of personal salv^ation
and knowledge of God — and from that realm life and
liglit should go forth into all the pursuits of men.
Of this very difference betwixt the positive and
saving knowledge of the believer, and the achieve-
ments of human science, and the triumphs of human
philosophy, especially so far as Greeks and Romans
had gone, the apostle to the Gentiles is speaking in his
wonderfully graphic and incisive utterances to the
Corinthian Church : " The preaching of the cross is to
them that perish, foolishness ; but unto us who are
saved, it is the power of God Hath not God
made foolish the wisdom of this world ? For after
that, in the wisdom of God, the world, by wisdom,
knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe. But the natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for
they are fooli.shness unto him ; neither can he know
them, because they are spiritually discerned. But
God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit."
Nor, sixthly, will the believer tind this certainty in
all things pertaining to religion itself, nor even to the
Christian religion, important as it is, to have absolute
knowledge whenever in this relation we can obtain
it. Theology, outside the direct personal and spiritual
realm, is a philosophy, and subject to the tests, failures
and growths of other philosophies. Christianity has a
166 THE GUIDING EYE ; OR,
history that must stand probing Hke other histories.
Ethics is a science dealing with the moral nature ot*
man and of God, and their general relations outside of
immediate revelation, though much aided by that
revelation ; and there is advancement, imperfection,
improvement, as in other sciences and on scientific
principles. Religion has its metaphysical and logical
basis, connections and relations ; and in these there
may be much investigation, many comings and goings
of opinion and system, many mistakes and constant
proficiency, settling many disputed points, rising from
knowledge to knowledge, and from satisfaction and
strength to higher grounds of light and power. But
the certainty, the infallibility under the direct leader-
ship of the Holy Spirit is not here.
But, secondly, it is, as all along maintained, in the
perfected knowledge of personal experience under the
light of the Spirit. To know God, to know my sin,
to know my salvation, to know my peace, to know my
duty, these are given to me. And these are enough.
In other things the believer must calculate with the
mathematician, sail with the sailor, and plough with
the ploughman. Knowing God and salvation will be
a great comfort and help in all right pursuits, but will
not save us from the pursuits, even were that desirable.
These things being so, and this sphere of positive
knowledge to the believer being so distinct, bright,
clear, well defined, and evident ; so separate, in the
nature of the case, from all other knowledges, so com-
pletely sufficient for its glorious purpose. (1) Is
not that believer greatly at fault that lives below
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 167
this duty, privilege, birthright, and dignity of his
adoption and son.ship ; that is careless whether or not
he indeed knoweth God and hath assurance of salva-
tion ? (2) Is not that believer at fault that maketh
his feelings the sole basis and witness of his know-
ledge, stops there, and does not press onward to know
the doctrine, and know the love of God that passeth
knowledge ? (8) Is not that minister greatly at fault
who attempts to speak of what he does not know, and
testify of what he hath not seen ? How can he teach
the people infallible doctrine who knows nothing of
certain assurance and immovable foundations ? (4) Is
not that Church sadly at fault that mars or beclouds
the doctrine of the assurance of faith and the witness
of the Spirit, and positive personal knowledge of God
and duty by the Spirit, whether it be done by shifting
infallibility all to God, by discriminating purposes and
decrees, or all to other men than the believer inter-
ested, by handing it over to councils or popes ? (5) Is
not that believer greatly at fault, yea, deeply in sin,
that abandons so plain and accessible knowledge,
absolute certainty as to so vital points, that makes his
own right and heritage over to priest, council, or Pope,
as though he could do any such thing ? (6) Is not that
believer far astray that attempts to crowd this cer-
tainty out of its prescribed field, and make it opera-
tive, apply it in matters and places where neither God
nor His Word allows it to act ? (7) Since this know-
ledge of God and salvation is so plain, easy, near at
home, simple, positive, unmistakable, and satisfactory,
the easiest thing in the world to learn, and the solidest
168 THE GUIDING EYE ; OR,
to know, is any man justified in neglecting this know-
led<j;e, in saying he cannot come unto it ? Since it is
so important, is any man justified in despising it ?
Would even our Father, God, have been justified to
infinite, eternal, and universal reason, if He had not
made this indispensable knowledge of life and salva-
tion just so plain, easy, certain, indubitable, infal-
lible ? This is the eternal wisdom, hidden from the
worldly wise, revealed unto babes. (S) Is it any
wonder the Church has been weakened and often
defeated by giving up, misdirecting and perv^erting
this doctrine of certainty and infallibility ? How
could her members be strong unless they are sure ?
And is it enough to be sure through man ? Or must
they be sure in God ? (9) Is it any wonder Chris-
tians are worldly minded, fearful, joyless, — neither
looking for the Kingdom of Christ, nor desiring eter-
nal glory, when such a doctrine as personal know-
ledge and assurance of eternal life goes out of their
testimony and their experience ? The Spirit must
abide in us that sings :
" I know that iny Redeemer lives,
And ever prays for me ;
A token of His love He gives —
A pledge of liberty.
' • We feel the resurrection near,
Our life in Christ concealed ;
And with His glorious presence have
Our earthen vessels tilled."
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 169
CHAPTKR XIX.
HOW CONVEYED.
MN Scripture doctrine, wo are much more coii-
f^ cerned with the fact than the manner of the fact.
And this is equally true in science or philosophy.
It is bad philosophy and bad ethics to deny or distort
the fact, or to attempt to color it or explain it away
Ascertain and accept the fact. Vain curiosity or idle
inquiry as to the mode of Divine operation is fruitless
and unprofitable, and has often engendered strife and
division in the Church of God. Our Lord Himself, in
His instruction on the doctrine of the new birth, did
not gratify Nicodemus by answ^ering his question :
" How can these things be ? " but held His student
firmly to the fact, " Ye must be born again." As to
the manner of the fact. He referred Nicodemus to His
mode of reasoning on other matters, and to nature and
the winds for satisfaction. " Thou hearest the sound
thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither
it goeth : so is every one that is born of the Spirit."
Y^'ou have no doubts on the fickle, shifting winds ; you
can surely give consciousness, experience, observation^
testimony, the Abrahamic covenant, the law and the
prophets, and the records of the ancient church as good
a chance, and as ready evidence and acceptance.
170 THE GUIDING EYE ; OR,
While we may not settle, or even discuss at
length, how the Holy Ghost brings knowledge, assur-
ance, certainty to the believer, we may at least note in
passing that God, in His condescending revelation, has
not left us without intimation that this religious
knowledge, this personal, spiritual ini illibility, is not —
the existence of God, and His gracious offices being
gn.nted — an irrational, or superrational or unnatural
work ; but one that in the religious and spiritual realm
lies naturally along the lines of human life. The
ordinary faculties are brought into play, the normal
intellectual processes duly pursued, so that human
nature is not lifted off its feet, but goes steadily on^
when it may apply the appropriate tests and justify
the ways of God to man. All this will the better
appear from a few Scripture c'tations. " Thou shalt
guide me with Thy counsel." " Teach me, O Lord, the
way of Thy statutes." " O how I love Thy law : it is
my meditation all the day." " Thy Word is a lamp
unto my feet, and a light unto my path." " Give me
understanding that I may learn Thy commandments."
" Teach me good judgment and knowledge." " The
Proverbs of Solomon ; to know wisdom and instruc-
tion ; to procure the words of understanding ; to receive
the instruction of wisdom, justice and judgment and
equity ; to give subtility to the simple, to the young
man knowledge and discretion." " Hear instruction
and be wise." And why not the proverbs of Solomon
as well as the Fables of ^sop, the Epic of Virgil, or
the Precepts of Seneca ? Because God gave the former,
and man the latter. And God must give a thousand
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 171
to one for man ; and God is able. " That which
is born of the Spirit is Spirit." " But the Comforter,
which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send
in My name. He shall teach you all things and bring
all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said
unto you." " And when He is come, He will reprove
the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment."
" When He th^ Spirit of Truth is come. He will guide
you into all truth ; whatsoever He shall hear, that
shall He speak." " On My servants and on My hand-
maidens I will pour out in those days of My Spirit,
and they shall prophesy." " Therefore, having received
of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath
shed forth this which ye now see and hear." " And we
are His witnesses of these things; and so also is the Holy
Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey Him."
" Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven
men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and
wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business."
" While Peter thought on the vision, the Spirit said
unto him, Behold, three men seek thee. Arise there-
fore, and get thee do\vn and go with them, nothing
doubting, for I have sent them." '" They assayed to
go into Bithynia, but the Spirit suffered them not."
" Take heed, therefore, unto yourselves, and to all the
flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you over-
seers." " As many as are led by the Spirit of God,
they are the sons of God." " The Spirit itself beareth
witness with our spirit that we are the children of
God." " Likewise, also, the Spirit helpeth our in-
firmities." " Which things also we speak, not in the
172 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the
Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with
spiritual." And why shiuld not spiritual religion
enrich the lanjinaijo with some new words and new-
found facts as well as chemistry or geology ? " All
these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, divid-
ing to every man severally as He will." " The fruit of
the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." " Ye were
sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the
earnest of our inheritance." " Grieve not the Holy
Spirit of God, whereby ye are scaled unto the day of
redemption." " If there be, therefore, any consolation
in Christ, any fellowship of tiie Spirit, fulfil ye My
joy." " Not by works of righteousness which we have
done, but according to His mercy He saved us by the
washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy
Ghost." " That which we have seen and heard declare
we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us,
and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with
His Son Jesus Christ." "For the prophecy came not in
old time by the will of man ; but holy men of God
spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." " Now
the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in be-
lieving, that ye may abound in hope by the power of
the Holy Ghost."
This collation of passages — and many more could be
added — will satisfy us: (1) That there is a realm, large
or small, that the Holy Scriptures consider a realm of
light, assurance, certainty, infallibility, comfort, and
unfailing, uninterrupted joy. (2) That this realm of
THE HOLY spirit's (illlDANC'E. 173
joy is the rij^htful possession of the heliever in Christ
on earth. (JJ) That this reahn is the moral and spirit-
ual condition of each man, and his relation under divine
light to his own knovvledj^e and consciousness. (4)
That the ever blessed Holy Spirit bringeth this assur-
ance and certainty to the believer. (5) That in con-
veying this knowledge and establishing this certainty
and sense of security, the Holy Spirit addeth no new
faculties, but dealeth with man as man, and in posses-
sion of his natural and rational faculties. (G) That
the external and physical faculties of seeing, hearing,
and the like, are never clouded, perverted or lessened,
distracted or thrown under a glamor or spell, when
brought into exercise in relati(m to spiritual truth, but
are normal and effective as in any of life's concerns.
(7) That the Spirit of God is an intelligence and acts
as an intelligence, ready that the doctrine should stand
or fall by light and truth, by the laws of conscious-
ness and reason, by which other knowledges are
gained and other issues determined. (8) That this
divine intelligence guides into truth and brings in
the positive assurance by recalling facts, sayings,
principles and doctrines to memory ; by suggesting,
directing and strengthening thought and reason ; by
communicating new and positive knowledge, which is
to be verified as all knowl Iges are verified ; by quicken-
ing the understanding itself, as is evidenced by the
unfolding doctrines of Paul's irresistible logic in his
epistles, and leading it upward to intenser, higher
action, keener investigation, and clearer light ; and by
preoccupying the mind and expelling from it what
174 THE OUIDINfJ EYE ; OH,
hinrlers access to truth and increase of knowlodj^e. (0)
Tliat the Holy Spirit is as active in the emotional as
the intellectual nature;, and awakes tlie certainti«.'s of
love, joy, peace, ^''ntleness, ooodness, luiniility, purity,
patience, courage and power as vi(^f)rously, to say the
hast of it, as they are stirred to declare thciniselves in
any liurnan experience, or as any passions or emotions
make themselves infallil)ly known in any of life's
att'airs. (10) Tlwit tlie Sj)irit of (lod riever shuns the
test v^f the positivist, tlie outc^r senses ; hut, true to the
higliest philosophy, appeals ultimately to tlie keener
perceptions of the soul. (II) That eomnuuiications of
new and hroader truth, inspirations to proclaim doc-
trine, fact and law, have always been devolv<!d upon
individual men who could die; in attestation of tlieir
declarations, and n< ipon councils with a divi(h.'d re-
sponsihility ; and tliese individual men have di(!d in
attestation of their assurance and «loctrine. (12) That
the Holy .Spirit always moved in hannony with the
Provichjnce of Ood, and that careful study of outward
event, the coincidences and correspondences of Provi-
dence, confirmed the certainty at every stage of
advancement, even as it is proved over and ov(!r uf^ain,
and comes up to the; mind in many shapes that two
and two are four. (I'i) That everywhere and always
the Spirit r»;<^ajds the written VV^ord, the canon of
Scripture existin<^ at the time, and is governed by it;
till He has empowered and commissioned men to speak
again for (iod, and through the written Word, the
Holy Scriptures, leadeth men into all truth. " Sanc-
tify them through Thy trutli, Thy Word is truth."
THE'^^HOLY spirit's fJUIDANC'E. 17')
What moancth all tliis, }>ut that man is as propriily
an obi<!Ct of knowh'df^o to himself as is the dumh
liord, the (h^ep mirx!, the r-oad sc^a, tlie lofty tirma-
m<!nt ? What a sp(!etaclc is here, pliilosophy running
away from the source of all philosophy, man himself !
Even as reli<(ion sometimes i iins avvriy from the source
of all Telij^ion, (iod Hiinself ; Man is surely Jis n^'ar
to himself, as coi^ni/ahie t{; liimself, as valuahle to
himself, as is the horse, th(! }iippo[)otainus, or the
star. And this is th<j eternal wisdom ; first, know
yourself — easiest known, and lost unhiss known ; and
known in the; most pr(;cious and vital relations;
that is, the relations to Ood, truth, virtue, and right-
eousness, I'hon, around this livinfj centre j^ather all
knowled<(e. in the livin;^ c(!ntre may he li<^ht, know-
ledf^e, ahsolut(! certainty, infallihility ; for this is (iod
in the conscience, an<l the consciousnesv tlu; knowled^'e
of (jfod. llun^. we liave the splendors of the Loj^os,
the eternal Word, the unclouded ray f the indwcdlin^
(jiod. Kor in Him dwclleth all th(! fulness of the Oof;-
h(!ad, hodily ; in Him was life, and the lif(! is tno
li^ht of men. H(! is the brightness of the Father's
^f'ory, and the express ima<fe of His Person; and He
ahid(!th in us, as l)eli(!vers >n Him, and is in us the
]\()[)o. of ^lory ; "and we all, with open facc^ beholdiuf^
as in a ^lass tlie jjlory of the Lord, are chanj^ed into
the same image, from glory to glory, even as hy the
Spirit of the Lord. Now, the Lord is that Spirit."
Can there he such a work going on within us in the
clear light of the Spirit, under the open eye of con-
sciousness, and we know nothing of it? Nay, ver-
176 THE GLTIDING EVE ; OR,
ily, we are sure of these things — we know them.
Hero, pre-eminently, we have certainty ; and, in our
conclusions on these conditions and relations under the
Word, by this same Spirit we have infallibility. What-
ever doubts, mistakes, unrest we have elsewhere, here
we have assurance, absolute certainty, the ([uiet mind ;
for God has so purposed and provided.
" Faith lends its realizing liglit —
The clouds disperse, the shadows fly ;
The invisible appears in siglit,
And God is seen ])y mortal eye."
Why sing such thoughts, admit such sentiments in
our worship, if they be not true, and if W3 do not be-
lieve thom. But they are true, though we often
forget to believe them, and fail to apprehend them.
Well may we pray, " Cleanse thou the thoughts of our
hearts by the inspiration of Thy Spirit, that we may
perfectly love Thee and worthily magnify Thy holy
name."
This supreme and eternal wisdom, the knowledge
of God and ourselves, and of the mutual relations of
God and ourselves, centre and life of all other know-
ledge, is the one aim, the entire tenor and purport of
Holy Scripture. Enough other science it has and
employs, but to teach what we call human science is
by no means its scope or design. To keep God in our
knowledfje is its ijreat thou<];ht and effort. " Because
they did not like to retain God in their knowledge,
God gave them over to a reprobate mind. Here is the
ane and tlie rain of the nations and the ages ; and
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 177
here lost Edens all along our pathway, yea, the original
forfeiture of Eden, seeking the power of knowledge
without the preservative energy of the indwelling
God, the true light, the saving knowledge, the eternal
wisdom ; for it is rending God from His creation, and
divorcing God from Himself to exclude Him from
the living principles on which He made the world,
with which He upholds the world and vitalizes all
things. No wonder they seek a Brahma retired and
shut up in himself, a Jupiter in the clouds of Olympus,
or a deity in a scarecrow of a fetich.
Yet let none say the Bible despises or decries human
science truly so-called ; for what is human science but
the best thought, apprehension and knowledge man
can obtain — not of God, for who, by searching, can find
out God, but of His way of working in the universe.
And herein the difference betwixt science and revela-
tion, and the certainties within their respective spheres.
In science, man searches ; in religion, God reveals. In
science, man searches everywhere midst doubts, and
ignorance and growing knowledge. In religion, God
reveals definitely and conclusively within a very
narrow sphere, gives a bright, central, unmistakable
point of light, whose ray is to be diffused through the
entire being. Science the Bible employs, and makes
it the means and channel of revelation. And with the
definition here given, knowledge of God's way of
working, how else shall there be demonstration and
instruction than in God's way of working to suit the
case in hand, whether it be in the stars of heaven, the
strata of earth, the laws of mind, or the requirements
12
178 THE guidt:^g eye ; OR,
of divine revelation ? Hence no other book touches
human science at so many points directly as the Bible,
as indirectly it must touch it at every point ; for
science, ordinarily so-called, is of man, and the funda-
mental science, the eternal wisdom, is in man as in
God, and must go forth through all his legitimate in-
vestigations and acquisitions.
In the Bible we have the best cosmogony, the most
ancient history, the most trustworthy chronology.
We have the primitive ethnology, the original philo-
logy, and the unquestionable biology. We have gram-
mar, logic and rhetoric, politics, ethics, social economy,
and theology. We have the starting points of botany,
comparative anatomy, astronomy, geology, and all
their various subdivisions. It had been strange if
God had left nothing for man to do. It had been
strange if He had shown man all the possible varia-
tions and combinations of flowers, all the miscegena-
tions and types of animals, and all the modifications
and adaptations of minerals, and all the relations of
all these kingdoms one to another, and to the multi-
form forces of nature all about us. Yet, because God
has not shown us everything, we are apt to say He
has shown us nothing. Because God, with a father's
love and a teacher's skill, has given us the exercise
and the triumph of finding out one or two things, we
are apt to claim the honor of knowing all things, and
finding all, and, perhaps, producing all. How easy for
proud, rebellious man to expel God from His own
universe. But God has given us to investigate in
some cases, yea, in infinitely the majority of cases: and
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 179
in tlie few cases where we had perished while investi-
gating, He has graciously, certainly, positively made
known that narrow area of truth indispensable continu-
ally to our life. We cannot live without God, with-
out love, truth and righteousness, without knowing
and correcting our relations to God; so these things
are made clearly, indubitably known, and we can wait
for the rest, and are waiting, laboring, and plodding
on. Science is coiled up in nature, and we are ever
winding off the thread. Theology permeates the
ethnology of Ezra, the logic of Paul, the philology
and institutes of Moses, and we are all the time open-
ing up the hidden, reviving streams. In the mean-
time it is given us, even the most unlearned of us, to
know ourselves, to know God, and to know God our
Father and friend perpetually, constantly, infallibly.
180 THE GUIDING EYE ; OR,
CHAPTKR XX.
SUMMARY CATECHISM.
IKELY we cannot better close this treatise than
with question and answer as follows :
Q. Why is the Holy Spirit called the " Spirit
of Truth ? "
A. (1) As opposed to the spirit of error that
worketh in the children of disobedience, by which
they love darkness rather than light, and wax worse
and worse, deceiving and being deceived. (2) Because
in Him all essential truth inheres ; is of His very con-
stitution and essence ; co-eternal with Him and in
Him, Some truth, like the basal principles of all the
sciences, and the necessary truths of ethics and meta-
physics, is absolute and eternal ; and this absolute and
eternal truth inheres in the universal and eternal mind,
the Holy Ghost. (8) Because He is the Great
Revealer and Teacher ; in the providence of God dis-
closing physical truth, as suits the mind of God
in the moral government of the world ; but more par-
ticularly revealing Go*^! Himself to the family of man;
the nature of God, the thonglits of God, the will of
God, the moral government of God, and the nature
and duty of man in the works of God, the providence of
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. • 181
God, the human conscience, in personal intercourse
with men, but especially in His inspired Word, by
which Himself is revealed and known, and all other
lines of communication are to be understood and
interpreted.
Q. What is meant by the " all-truth " of the text ?
A. Primarily and especially this entire range of
moral and religious truth as set forth in the Holy
Scriptures, which contain all things necessary to salva-
tion, truth pertaining to God, to the moral govern-
ment of the world, to the soul of man, and man's
relation to the world and to God. It is the field of
the clear, sure and decisive knowledge God gives man
of his Creator, of himself, of his nature, duty, and
destiny ; a limited field, indeed, comparatively speak-
ing, but first in importance, easiest of attainment,
strongest in assurance, and keenest in intensity. The
contents of other fields a man may or may not possess.,
and live and thrive ; but the contents of this field of
spiritual and personal religious knowledge he must
possess or die. He can have them for honest effort,
and is inexcusable for neglect. Secondar'ly, all use-
ful knowledge of all arts and sciences, as the genera-
tions grow thereunto and advance therein through
spiritual life and moral obedience. Only so can the
Spirit lead on.
Q. To whom is this promise of the guidance of the
Spirit of truth pledged ? To every kind of man indis-
criminately ? To every believer in Christ, regardless of
his fidelity ? To the obedient and faitliful believer
individually ? To the Church corporately ? Any of
182 THE GUIDING EYE; OK,
them is possible in conception, to whom is the promise
given ? What is the fact ?
A. The context must settle the bounds of this
promise of the Spirit's guidance into all truth. In
this His final discourse, just preceding His media-
torial prayer, His arrest, trial and passion, our
Lord is discoursing with His apostles — the twelve
— on the clearer light and infinitely greater pri-
vileges of the New Dispensation, and the resplen-
dent agency of its accomplishment ; and is instructing
them in their sublime opportunities, not merely as
ministers — though He is preparing them, fortifying
them, arming them for their great work — not as apos-
tles, not as a body of instructors, or a college of disci-
pline, doctrine and government, but as individual
believers, humble and faithful disciples ; and, therefore.
He is unfolding relationships and friendships, incul-
cating duties, unveiling spiritual intimacies, disclosing
movements and energies, and promising joys and
rewards that never before had been known in the
world, and were henceforth to be equally open to all
His faithful disciples in all ages. As to the character
of that discipleship. He said, " Love one another as I
have loved you," " As the Father hath loved Me, so
have I loved you," " If ye love Me, keep My command-
ments." Could the man of the vrorld, or even the
careless disciple, live in that circle of love ? " If ye
love Me, keep My commandments ; and I will pray
the Father and He shall give you another Comforter,
that He may abide with you forever, even the Spirit
of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it
THK HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 183
seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him. But ye know
Him, for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you."
Was this Spirit of Truth for a corporation, a society,
or for the individual ? " Jesus answered and said
unto him. If a man love Me he will keep My words,
and My father will love him ; aijd we will coii«e unto
Him and make our abode with Him." H^inly
enoujrh, and indisputably, then, the promise of guid-
ance into all truth is not for the world, or for corpora-
tions, however much one man may help another, or all
may help all, or for slack and careless followers ; but for
the humble, obedient learner, the true disciple, the
faithful follower of Jesus, that realizes in his experi-
ence, and verifies in his life — " If ye abide in Me, an J
My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and
it shall be done unto you." That man and no other
can, by the po' ^er of God, work his way into all truth,
can travel forth under the guidance of the Holy
Spirit into all truth ; and there is no use for any other
to try. You may try to be that man, but to attempt
" all truth " in time or eternity without being that
man is vain and useless. That man, the Spirit of
truth, can lead into all truth, and He can in time or
eternity lead no other through all that bright and
broad domain. It is not a flash of light in the mind
that is wanted ; it is the reception, the acceptance of
light as fast as we can take it in, as fast as the mind
opens and we can stand it. A blaze of heavenly glory
would kill most of us, and we will do well to be ready
for it when it comes. God does not undertake contra-
dictions, or do violence to the works of His own hand.
184 THE (ajii)iN(i eyp:; oh,
There are some thin<;s God cannot do. He cannot,
because it is wron<^ ; and He will not. The moral
impossibility to moral bein^^^s is the mi^litiest impossi-
bility. It is impossible that (iod shouM lie; and it is
impossible, too, tliat He sliould pour the fulness of
celestial radiance, tlie splendors of His bein<^ and the
hij^him exercise of His lioly attributes, the inefFaVjle
glories of His throne and kin<.^dom and government,
into our poor, weak, dark souls, in some instant of
thought, some gush of feeling, .some rhapsody of ex-
pression, or rush of even pure de.sire ; for He hath pur-
posed and jiromisod and covenanted with ('hrist to
take the " ages to come " to .show the exceeding riches
of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ
Jesu.s. A spark, a ray, is as much as we can stand ;
and in His providence, in our souls, when touched
from on high, we get the illuminating spark, and in
His Holy Word, under the briglit .shining of His
Spirit, we get the clear, stejuly, (juiding ray. And
for this we .should be very thankful, and follow it
with all earnestness and humility. The very life
depends upon it. Like the one match in the tinder
box on the prairie, it is the only hope. But pursued
with eagerness and meekness, it broadens out into all-
encompassing brightne.ss, so that we walk in the light.
The hemisphere to our horizon is resplendent, and
there is a plain path for our feet. " But did we not
feel an ecstacy, a glory, when the light burst upon us ?
Was it not the f ulne.ss of the eternal glory ? We were
so happy ! " Yes. You got all you could stand, and
a great deal more than you deserve. The sun is all
THE IIOI.Y SI'IltlT's (MIDANCE. 185
in every ray, and a ray divine touc cm you, A man
will jiHiip toi a fire-fly in a swamp on a dark nijflit.
He will .scream w itli deli<flit ior tlie <;ift of a dull candle
or a fUcUerini; taper in the dread dungeon at midni^dit.
But wliat are your candles and tiipers to the splendors
of hiLjh noon ^ And with eye adjusted to the taper
and the ^doom, what couhl you see usliere<l into tlie
meridian hlaze ? It is enoui^li for us that we take the
lii^'ht <;iven us, and f<»ll(jvv the lea<ier, the Spirit of
Truth, into all truth. He will s(!e to it that we <^et
tliere soon enough. Even holy apostles thought there
is something better than voices, impressions and sur-
prises, and they lik«dy received as gocjd of that kind
as we ever did. Says Peter: "And this voice wliich
came from heaven we heard when we were witli Him
on the Holy Mount." We have also a more sure word
of prophecy : " Whereunto ye do well that ye take
heed, as unto a li^dit thatshineth in a dark | lace until
the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts
. . , for the proi)hecy came not in old time by
the will of man ; but holy men of God spake as they
were moved by the Holy Ghost." Note this clear and
steady ray given us. How dare we for an instant
darken or color it with our impressions, or say we
scarcely need it, as we have other light ? Isaiah
saith : " Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass
yourselves about with sparks ; walk in the light of
your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This
shall ye have of mine hand ; ye shall lie down in
.sorrow, ' The humble and obedient walk in the li<;ht of
life. Even in heaven the Lamb shall lead them ; and
186 THE GUIDING EYE ; OR,
lead them throuofh the infinite ages amid the blessings
enwombed in this promise. Th's precious promise
then is given, not to any and all indiscriminately, not
to the worldling, not to the careless believer, not to
the Church corporately, but to individual, faithful,
earnest believers in Christ, true disciples, waiting on
the Master and following the guide in all meekness,
teachableness and obedience : and it is realized accord-
ing to our growing ability in the attainment of
spiritual knowledge, our willingness to learn, to receive
the lessons and their consequences.
Q. If it is such a progression can a soul get what is
definite and satisfactory here ? Is there certain light ?
A. The knowlege given in this estate of being is tho
" all truth " tor this estate ; is pefectly equal to all its
demands and perfectly satisfactory to mind and soul.
The scholar knows as well as the teacher that one
and one are two ; yet he may not sweep out so far in
mathematical analysis. A common sailor may know as
well as Livingstone or Bi.shop Taylor that there is
such a land as Africa ; but may never have penetrated
the Dark Continent, or traced out its rivers and trav-
ersed its plains. About all truth and knowledge there
is this, that what a man knows, be it ever so little, he
knows; and he is a fool that gives up the little he knows
because there are millions of things he doesn't know.
There is sure guidance ; safe and certain light. The
wayfaring man, though of simple mind, need not err.
Conviction, knowledge of sin, by the Holy Ghost is
certain light. On regeneration, the witness of Sonship
is certain light. On entire consecration, the consciou.s-
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 187
ness of purity, the single eye, the perfect love, in that
Sonship attested by the Holy Spirit, is certain light ;
for the Spirit of truth not only deolareth we are sons,
but what manner of sons ; for the fruit of the Spirit is
Jove, joy and peace. There is sure . light on our
own condition and relation to God, and there is
steady light on the pathway of duty. One of the
weaknesses of the Church of God has been admitting
doubt and uncertainties where God has placed the
most positive assurance, and the solidest certainty. It
is a progression of constant a'^surance, and ever-
brightening certainty ; for the path of the just shineth
more and more to the perfect day. There are cer-
tainties in the star-light ; and certainties in the
moonlight ; and certainties in the gloaming of the
morning ; and certainties of the rising sun ; all but
the brighter, better understood certainties, in their
own shapes and colors, and in their relation to other
certainties, in the clear light of noon. On a pathway
of certainties, a highway of unclouded splendors, the
faithful, humble, obedient soul travels on to God, to
comprehend with all saints what 'is the length and
depth and breadth and height, to know the love of
Christ that pa.sseth knowledge, to be tilled with all the
fulness of God.
Q. Then amid all these clear certainties, under the
guidance of the Spirit, do we commit sin ? Are we
liable to mistakes ? " Do we make no mistakes ? "
A. Everything depends on what you call " mis-
takes," what standard of conduct you set up and by
what law you judge. Nowhere is there more loose-
188 THE GUIDING EYE ; OR,
ness, more indefiniteness, more cp^relessness of language,
than in talking about mistakes and sin. People that
simply make the broad stateme. »t, "under the guid-
ance of the Spirit, I make no mistakes, I commit
no sin," either do not know the use of language, the
meaning of their terms, or are, to say the least, very
heedless, if not very tantalizing and very exaspei'-
ating in their application of it ; and we have to feel
annoyed and offended ; or in charity be silent and vait
the turn of things ; or cry, " Humph ! " and go off and
let the man alone. For generally it is very hard to get in
such pretenders the quiet soul and patient ear to listen
to the better way. And when you get the quiet soul and
the patient ear, who in meekness, gentleness, and love
shows the better way ? I am of Paul ; thou of Apollos ;
he of Cephas; but, who verily, fully and alway of
Christ ?
The.se terras " mistake " and " sin " so much bendied
about now among our Methodist people, because we
trust all are struggling up out of the fog for the clear
light, plainly have reference to some standard, some
law, that the accuser, the critic, the judge, often the
self -constituted umpire, has in mind when he shouts
" mistake " or denies " mistake," imputes charges of
'• bin," or claims or pronounces " sinless." We use
these two terms "mistake" and "sin" together here, not
because v/e think a mistake is a sin, or a sin is a mere
mistake ; for in the moral category they are as far
apart as the poles; but because they are both liable to
the misconception we are now examining, and are
both used aniiss in the ceaseless discussions, if we
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 189
should not say wrangling and jangling, with which
the Church is in many places disturbed. True, some
disturbance is better than death ; but the Bible stands,
not for the stillness of death, but for peace, the peace
of light and knowledge, of life, love, and righteous-
ness ; the peace of the proper use and direction of the
mightiest forces in the universe of God.
Sin is the transijression of the law — the least trans-
gression. A mistake is a digression, a deflection from
the line of wisdom and prudence, the very least de-
flection. Now, what law ? for there are several laws
to which conduct and intent are and have been amen-
able, and by which they are and shall be judged and
pronounced upon. What line or course of wisdom
and prudence ? for there are several standard lines of
prudence, and each with its own umpire.
To speak first and mainly of law, there is, (1) The
original law, the positive expression of the very mind
and character of God, demanding in us absolute recti-
tude and perfect purity. (2) The gracious mitigation of
this law of absolute rectitude shadowed down through
a Mediator toward atonement, and modified in negative
statement, as on Sinai. (3) The law of rite, sacrifice,
and ceremony, manifest in the outward observance;
still further shaded in type and external form, but
filled with the spirit of the first law, which economy
was ffiven for the grovernment of the Jewish Church
and people. (4) The law of repentance, the law of
the preaching of John the Baptist. (5) The law of
the Spirit of Life, of the state and intent of the heart
manifest in the life, which is the law of perfect love :
190 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
710^ perfect original obedience, nor perfect ritual
obedience, but perfection of love in its existence and
best possible fruits, evancelical perfection, which is
the law given the Christian dispensation ; the law
under which we are now living. Not to particularize
further, the first law is in all these, is the life and
soul of all, is the purport and intent of all ; each law
has its own guilt for transgression, its own penalty,
its own atonement. Christ, the High Priest of the
first and central law, dying under that law, put efficacy
into all the atonements, swept away all penalties and
guilt. No man can live before the first law and be
justified ; nor before the second law, in its spiritual
intent. This is Paul's argument in the Epistle to the
Romans. The Epistle to the Hebrews has more to do
with the third law mentioned. On the first law,
which is as much in force as ever, for it is the eternal
law of God, though a moral probationer may be placed
under an easier requirement, Paul saith, " there is none
righteous — no not one." John srith, "If we say we
have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not
in us." And this first law is on us all ; for this is the
life-law, or perhaps we should say the death-law, of
all dispensations. Looking on the fourth law — the
law of evangelical perfection, perfect love — Paul saith,
" There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them
who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit : for the law of the Spirit of Life
in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of
sin and death ; for what the law could not do, in that
it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 191
Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, con-
demned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the
law, even the f.rst law, might be fulfilled in us who
walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit,"
Now, if I say I am not sinning, or I have not sinned,
I am living without sin, do not look at me cross-eyed.
Do not look at one law, and judge me by that law,
while I am living under, and living up to, and think-
ing of another. Under the first law I need constant
atonement, or I should be constantly crushed with a
sense of my guilt, if not wholly indifierent to God
and moral claims — and that is hell — and that constant
atonement through faith in Jesus thereto is uncon-
sciously applied. Even under the flashing light of
heaven on that first law, under the atonement, I see
no spot, I feel no guilt, though oflf the atonement I
am slain instantly. The slightest intermission of
faith and there is the lightning of condemnation ; for
under that law who is there liveth and sinneth not ?
When I say I am not sinning, I likely mean I am
consciously doing nothing contrary to the perfect law
of love in the heart ; but as to God's absolute law of
utmost perfection in action as well as aSection, I
tremble, yet, under the atoning blood, rejoice, not be-
cause sinless before that law, but washed in the blood.
If unconsciously I am doing anything contrary to the
perfect law of love in heart and life, by faith I feel
the blood applied, and there is no sensible guilt ; under
the fourth form of law, as stated, no sin ; though
under the central, vital law I am a transgressor. Be-
lievers have, therefore, on the one hand, great need
192 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
of constant humility and godly fear ; while, on the
other hand, by the very knowledge of the higher,
purer law, and by its very flashing indignation against
sin, they the more magnify Christ and the more
triumph in His salvation, His cleansing from all sin.
Bless Him forever !
If, then, people talk about being sinless, in the
proper sense of that word, they talk w'orse than non-
sense. They talk their criminal ignorance of the law of
God, of the heinousness of sin, the ruin wrought in man
by sin, and of the plan of salvation in Jesus Christ.
I know when they talk that way we ought to be kind
and patient and charitable, but this is a free country,
and we have a free Gospel, and they ought to be still,
and not abuse their freedom. If they say they love
God with all the heart, I can understand it. If they
say the blood cleanseth now^, I can understand it. If
they say the very God of peace sanctifies them wholly,
I can understand it, and pray they go forth and prove
it in the life. If they say, I am as perfect as God
would have me be, and in this world can, by grace,
make me, and that is saying a great deal, I can under-
stand it. But if they say they are sinless with refer-
ence to the law of absolute perfection, that they are
pure and sinless as Jesus Christ, that they have no
more danger of falling into sin and need not watch-
fulness, that they live by the Holy Ghost, and do not
require the word, or the worship, or the ordinances,
that they do not, in view of the law of absolute per-
fection, need the prayer, " forgive us our trespasses,' I
confess I cannot understand it, except that some very
THE HOLY" SPIUIT's GUIDANCE. 193
good people need more light on some very important
subjects ; and some other people that are better than
they are will have an opportunity to let their light
shine and teach them the way of God more perfectly ;
and instead of hitting them on the head, will, with a
Christlike skill in instruction by the guidance of the
Holy Ghost, find a way into their hearts.
To discuss at any length whether the true disciple of
Jesus, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost is liable
to any mistakes, great or small, in life, would lead us
to much the same line of argument and a similar con-
clusion to that reached in the case of the question on
liability to sin. Again, what is your standard ? The
best teaching, the safest guiding is done by correcting
mistakes, and showing how to correct them. Imper-
fect knowledge, inferior discretion, must incur mis-
takes. The very grades of inferiority and imperfec-
tion imply mistakes to the superic r and more nearly
perfect. " But the Holy Ghost guides." Yes, and the
Holy Ghost is a better teacher than to anticipate all
mistakes. " But the Spirit shows when to buy, when
to sell." When no moral question is involved, no
special spiritual end gained, the Holy Spirit may care
very little when you buy, and when you sell. What
right have men to urge the Holy Spirit out of His
covenanted line and province of action, and then claim
His guidance there ? He undertakes to lead into, to
instruct in all spiritual, Biblical truth, in all doctrines
necessary to salvation ; to lead to infallible knowledge
of sin, pardon, peace, and holiness, certain knowledge
of God, and infallible judgments and assurance in
13
194 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
duty. He undertakes to put us all right centrally
with ourselves, and with God, that we may work out
from this centre in the wisdom He communicates, and
the spirit He bestows. But does that say He under-
takes to put us on the best of two or ten alternatives
in life's common afl'airs, that may have little or no
relation to, or bearing upon, that central life ? That
He decides whether we eat more bread or potatoes,
more flesh or fish ; whether we sleep on strati or hair,
or ride in a buggy or a democrat ? He may be with us
equally in any or all these things, assuring us we are the
Lord's, making His Word plain and precious, guiding
us through our mistakes to greater wisdom, and help-
ing us keep our Heaven in view. But He leaves us
to settle betwixt the bread and potatoes. " But noth-
ing in a Christian's life is unimportant, and so he does
nothing without the Holy Ghost. Whether we eat or
drink, or whatsoever we do, we do all to the glory of
God." And nothing in an illuminated palace, in the
company of the honorable, is unimportant; and what-
ever we do, whether we eat or drink, or walk or talk,
or labor or rest, we do all to the honor of the Lord of
the palace, and in the open light he supplies. But it
is not the light that does our eating and drinking, our
walking and talking at pleasure ; nor is it the honor-
able company that decides all, else we were under
constraint and without pleasure ; nor is it even the
Lord of the palace. He provides the light, the associa
tion, the food, and it is His joy to behold us in this or
that or any choice or manner at our pleasure to His
honor. And the more freedom of choice within the
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 195
laws of the palace the greater his honor and joy. We
are the temple of the Holy Ghost, and filled with the
light of the Spirit, but it is not the light that makes
our choice, does our acts, nor is it the Holy Ghost; but
w^e honor the Holy Ghost with greatest freedom of
righteous choice and act.
Q. If, then, we so speak, shall we not make the
perfect guidance of the perfect Guide of Htle worth ?
What is this guidance worth any way ?
A. Fiy^st. Consider the contrast betwixt the heathen
who is without the Spirit's guidance, and without the
Word with which He guides ; and the Christian, the
man who has been led to pardon and peace. This
will not be pondered, and a man say the Spirit's guid-
ance is naught.
Second. Consider the contrast betwixt the heedless,
unfaithful Christian, and the humble, earnest, docile
Christian ; betwixt the tin)id itnd the valiant, and say
not Thy guidance is naught.
Third. Consider the promises of God's Word, the
need of every Christian in sanctifying, illuminating
power, and salvation from temptation and sin ; also
the needs of the world and the progress of Christian
work, and say not this guidance is naught.
This guidance has already proved itself of inestim-
able worth ; and if we be teachable, obedient, not
hasty, extravagant, or fanatical, we shall find the utmost
of this glorious guidance.
Q. What, then, shall we after all understand by this
guidance ? How far does it go ? What does it do for
us ?
196 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
A. This fjuidance is like all other teaching and guid-
ance, only with a perfect Teacher and Guide. But this
by no means insures infallibility in everything, or
equality or exemption from mistakes in all regards in
the scholars. In the first place, the Holy Spirit pro-
ceeds, like any other instructor, upon the principles
and truth furnished and to hand. In the second place,
like any other teacher, He may give problems and
make declarations of His own ; but they mu.st still
proceed upon those same principles. In the third
place, the capacity and condition of the learner are
elements the Divine Teacher, as well as other teachers,
must take into the account.
In the fourth place. He, like any other teacher— for
Himself hath so appointed — finds experience indis-
pensable and of immense value to His scholar ; and, in
the fifth place, He gathers in the subsidiary helps of
reason, conscience, providential direction and govern-
ment ; indeed, all powers and processes that discipline
the learner, and impress the truth upon the mind.
Here is a perfect teacher in mathematics, perfect so
far as his scholar is concerned, and here a perfect
multiplication table. Does that say, because the
teacher knows it all, and the standard, the truth is
perfect; that the learner will never, or can never,
make a deflection from perfect accuracy. With all
care on the part of the teacher, the scholar will make
the mistake; and a good teacher will let him make
the mistake, and conduct him to its correction by the
table. Only so can he instruct him to work without
mistakes, and rise to the higher tables. If the teacher
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 197
steps in before the scholar has a proper mental opera-
tion of his own, forms his own ju<lgement, he weakens
the scholar, disiiwns the power of the truth and dis-
honors it, and unfits the mind of the scholar for its
proper action and processes in the hii^her spheres of
thouujht and life. The business of the teachinof is to
enable the learner to form an independent, accurate
judgment in the presence of the truth. Only so can
any kind of truth be properly apprehended, incor-
porated, and applied. The Holy Ghost has the truth
of God. We are disciples tryinr; to learn it. We want
always to do perfectly ri<,dit. We desire also to com-
mit no blunders on mere matters of choice or expedi-
ency. If we say a mistake is no mistake, because it is
a i^ood opportunity for the teacher and a discipline
for tin; scholar, all ri^^ht; then the earnest, obedient
scholar makes no mistakes, for he will be led aright
and come out riijht. But if mistakes mean deflection
from the straight line of perfect accuracy, which cer-
taiidy it does mean, then the best scholar makes many
mistakes. And so in many regards does the most
faithful and obedient disciple of Jesus Christ and
scholar of the Holy Ghost. But the lower mistakes
are ceasing, and the developing powers are rising into
higher spheres of action, solving deeper problems and
doing grander work. A man reaches a point where
he does not make any more mistakes in arithmetic, or
in words of one or two syllables ; but he might even
yet, and does even yet, in trigonometry, technology,
nomenclature, and analysis. A man gets where he
doesn't make any mistakes about going to meeting
198 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
or family prayers, and has great joy in the duty; under
the guidance of the Holy Ghost, let him try the advanced
lessons, the consecration of his substance to God, the
tithing of his income for the Divine Successor in the
Order of Melchizedek. The personal guidance of the
Holy Ghost is given for such work, leading on from
strength to strength ; the light of the Spirit of Truth
shines on the Word for such a duty, and makes our
duty sure. Not as I feel ; not as I am impressed, but
vv^hat saith the Lord.
Let us try the "feeling" solution on the multiplication
table, as many people do on the Bible : — " 3 bushels
barley at 80c. per bush. — I feel so good,' says the
buyer — ' come to $1 .50.' ' I feel so good,' says the seller,
' I have an impression it comes to $5.' To the mul-
tiplication table ! to the multiplication table ! if they
speak not according to this word, there is no life
in them. Try it on grammar : — " The good old way,
the way I feel at home in, is to say, ' Whose is the
horses ? The horses is his'n ; ' or, ' Who done it ?
John done it ' It seems so stiff and uppish to say,
' Whose are the horses ? John did it.' " Uneducated
people are the most obstinate in their miseducation ;
and superficial and fanatical religionists are the most
obstinate in their prejudices ; on the principle, possibly,
that the less a man has the harder he will tight for it
It is the fight he delights in, and not the possession.
This light of the Holy Spirit has the inner, central,
vital ground of assurance, certainty, infallibility, as
affecting the fundamentals of personal and experi-
mental religion. Some questions — questions of the
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 199
first importance — it settles quickly, conclusively, and
satisfactorily ; and, to the faithful learner, keeps them
settled. Then from the clear, sure, central light on
our knowledge of sin and sin forsriven, our knowledge
of God and our legal and spiritual relations to Him,
this blessed guidance leads the humble, teachable, illu-
minated soul forth into the enlarging and multiplying
relations of human life, our varying relations to man,
and our expanding relations to God, always, through
better understanding of the Word, teaching higher
and higher duties, and leading on the soul in greater
knowledge, felicity and power. With this we ought
to be content. Pressing beyond this we rush into
extravagances, and hinder the cause of God. As
scholars must stick to their tables, and hold their
teachers to the tables, grammarians to their rules,
logicians to their organon, so must we cleave to the
Bible — the Bible, the truth of God. Electricity is to
be taken into account in electric science ; seismic power
in treatises upon earthquakes ; affinity in chemistry ;
gravitation in physics, and the life-force in all organ-
isms. How, then, can we reasonably exclude divine
power from ethics and religion, which surely are as
decided facts and as great facts as the shooting forth
of the leaf, the sweep of the air, or the flowing of the
water? " Physical causation," " vital causation," shouts
a gross philosophy the world round and the ages
through. Why not, then, a n.oral causation, a spirit-
ual causation under the laws of personality and spirit,
as well as a physical causation under the laws of air
and water ? And if a life force can enter and inter-
200 THE GUIDING EYE ; OR,
fere with the affinities of chemistry or the attractions
of physics, and counteract and control them, why can
not a reason force, intelligence force, mind force, spirit
force, under its laws control all other force, and, if
need be, even life force ? .A.nd why cannot this
Supreme Spirit, author of all, undertake for moral and
religious beings, and accomplish what He undertakes ?
And why cannot He declare His organon, the Holy
Scriptures, in every way worthy of God in our highest
conceptions of the intinitely wise, good, and holy God
— firmer than the foundations of the mountains, and
stronger than the bands of the physical universe ?
And when these Scriptures are established the Word of
God, why shall they not be our law ? And when the
supreme mind in this eternal truth and with this truth
would lead us into all vital and essential spiritual
truth, if we follow on to know the Lord, why should
we not find this truth as He hath appointed it, certain,
indubitable, infallible ?
Q. Is the Church of God availing herself of this
guidance ?
A. The strangest history under heaven is the his-
tory of the rejection and perversion of this very
guidance ; of the misdirection of doctrine, the aban-
donment of the few divine essentials in Christianity,
the adoption of the many human vagaries and addi-
tions, and the consequent loss of light, life and power
by the Church of God, Of this, al.-is, are too many
witnesses ; we speak now only of the doctrine in
hand ; personal, spiritual knowledge in the Church by
God the Holy Ghost, and guidance by God the Eternal
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 201
Spirit into all truth. But this is a central, vital doc-
trine. Behold the wanderings ! The Holy Spirit not
a person, not God ; not co-equal and co-essential in the
Trinity of persons in the Godhead ; but an influence, a
function, an emanation ; how could this giv^e assur-
ance, lead into truth ? Was there ever a more material-
istic philosophy, to say nothin^j; of spiritual religion?
This guidance, not in the individual and responsible
believer, according to the inspired infallible Word, but
in the irresponsible body of believers, thence in coun-
cil, thence concentrated in popes. This guidance not
a free and loving intelligence with divine truth upon
reason and conscience, leading a free and loving dis-
ciple, but all fixed by stern decree from the eternal
ages ; that is, this guidance is not a guidance at all, but
a predetermined and irresistible compulsion. Infalli-
bility gone from the Word, the Spirit gone from the
heart ; then, of course, take the Word from the people,
give them outer ointment for inner spiritual an-
ointing and power ; what a night of darkness was
that to settle down upon the world. Personal assur-
ance gone from the heart of the believer ; knowledge
of sin forgiven, pardon sealed, witness of adoption,
assurance of cleansing, infallible judgment and blood-
bought, Spirit-attested claim that God is reconciled,
and is known as reconciled, not simply to the world,
but to me personally, all combated, all renounced ;
what a surrender of strong, impregnable, spiritual,
scriptural, rational and experimental positions ; what
a circumvallation of dogma and metaphysical subtlety
built up by human art and device to take the place of
202 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
the mighty towers and impregnable fortresses of the
eternal God. How could such a belief go forth to the
conquest of the world for Jesus ? What dancing lights
of disquisition, what unsteady guidance of scholastic
acumen is substituted for the steady ray of the Spirit
and the leading of the responsible soul by the com-
petent and gracious Divine Teacher ! What effort by
some means to destroy the individuality, the personal
accountability, the moral freedom of each man, each
believer ; to deprive him of his power with God, and
to marshal men in the mass, either by sacraments or
decree, into acceptance of dogma and into heaven.
Somehow or other the Church must do it all,
whether by the power of the Pope or by the strength of
Almighty God, in discriminatory and arbitrary decree ;
the Church must do it all, the man under the Spirit do
nothing ; the Church knows it all, appoints it all ; the
man k^^ows nothing. Hence, under the decree or under
the sacrament, it is not a concern of the individual
man. He may wander abroad in darkness ; he can
know nothing of these vital, spiritual matters any way.
What knowledge there is, is in the priest.; or God has
reserved to Himself iE iascrutable purpose. Either
the priest will see us through, or the living God will
predestinate us through ; and what have we to do
with the mat^^'^r ? What can a man — a common man
— do in things so high, awful and mysterious ? He
may stumVjle on in sin, and blunder on in error; but
to think or to teach that he may know God, or know
his sin forgiven, or read his title clear to mansions in
the skies, is really dreadful. Why should the Church
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 203
itself bring in superstition, doubt, and dread, either
in the name of purpose or Pope, where God has placed
religion, knowledge, light, confidence, and love ? Be-
twixt Himself and the individual soul, God, by the
Spii't through the Word, has set these things — the
possibility of these things, Mght, knowledge, assurance,
certainty, love for every man. Why should the Church
step in here — the Church corporately, the Church
officially, the Church dogmatically ? Why the Church
keep God from the man, or the man from God ? Out-
side this central life and power the Church, in her
work of government, administration, instruction, is all
right and doing God's will ; but putting herself be-
twixt the soul and God in the very knowledge, experi-
ence, acts, and exercises that, through the blood, by
the Spirit, make a man a true member of the true
Church, is all wrong. It may be infinitely better, less
harmful and liable to abuse, to invade that spiritual,
personal realm with the doctrine of divine sovereignty
than the doctrine of papal supremacy ; as, likely, that
former doctrine, in its most rigid interpretation, was a
corollary of the latter as the opposite extreme, and an
effective tower and hammer to resist its onset and
break its grip. But while divine sovereignty, and
Church government and law, are both glorious in their
realm, and indispensable to piety and power when
properly understood and related, neither of them in
theit rigid and anomalous interpretation is authorized
of God and His Word to step in betwixt God and the
soul. Every man is complete in Christ without any
dogma, and Christ perfects Himself in every true
204 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
believer without any human vicar, priest, or Pope.
When will the Church learn this : that she degrades
religion and denies God by denying manhood and
degrading God ? Systems, when right, are mighty to
help and defend ; when wrong, mighty to oppress and
crush. And so far in the world's history they have
done more oppressing and cru.'shing than defending and
helping.
What is the Church ? The redeemed under cov-
enant, the body of believers. Is it, first believe with
a .saving faith, and thereby abide in Christ ? Or is it,
abide in Chri.st, in order to believe with a savinn; faith ?
To infants incapable of knowing God, their salvation
is unconditionally, on their part, under the covenant ;
and their first liberty is to reject the knowledge of
God or accept Him forever. Wh3n capable of know-
ing, and as they are capable, they must know. To
know is to be saved. To refuse knowledge is to be
lost. And knowledge is not in masses, but in every
man for himself. An infant, if a non-hellever, is by
no means an unbeliever, voluntarily rejecting Christ,
life, and the knowledge of salvation. Even in this
realm of the salvation of infants the Church has
affected to do what God never put into the body cor-
porate to do ; that is, to deliver and convert by bap-
tism ; thus again exalting Church and priest to b3 in
the place of God, and rearing a system of baptismal
regeneration, with all its dogmatic enormities of » tac-
tual succession backward, and its horrid deformitios of
unconverted Christians and baptized infidels forward,
till all around, through metaphysical subtlety, hier-
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 205
archical assumption, or papal infallibility, the world
by wisdom knows not God.
What shall we say then ? We must say the Church
of God has sadly lost track in this whole most import-
ant matter. Forsaking; the fountains of living: water,
it has hewn out to itself cisterns, broken cisterns, that
can hold no water. Is it not yet true : " Ignorant of
God's righteousness, and going about to establish their
own righteousness, they have not submitted themselves
to the righteousness of God ? " If this be true in any
sense or degree in the elements of our faith, how much
more in the advanced lessons, attainments, and experi-
ence. If it be true in our acceptance through Christ,
how much more in our guida ace by the Spirit ? And
how are we accepted througa Christ ?— individually,
or cjrporately ? personally by faith, or sacramentally
and officially by human mediation and priesthood ?
" There is one God and one Mediator between God and
man, the Man, Christ Jesus." And how are we led of
the Spirit ? — spiritually and personally, or assembled
in council, directed in vote, consolidated in creed, canon
or decree ?
Is it not unaccountable that it should almost con-
stitute the history of the Church, that it has abandoned
the position of certainty, knowledge, infallibility where
God planted it, and on the foundations on which He
fixed it forever ; namely, spiritual knowledge of sin
and self, personal knowledge of God and salvation, and
assurance of relation and duty, and should have
handed over that infallibility to other domain and
entirely other offices ? Is it not unaccountable that
206 THE GUIL»ING EYE; OR,
there should be so much, papacy and priestism even in
o'l Protestantism ; that the paramount moral relation
between the individual man and his God should be so
ignored ; that personal, experimental religion should
be kept in the background ; and dogma and ceremony,
metaphysics and mummery, urged to the front ? And
yet, was not this the very prophecy that some power
as God should sit in the temple of God showing him-
self that he is God ? And, after all, is it wonderful
the Church of God, misapprehending her mission and
inverting the divine order, really abandoning her con-
stitution, relation and work as a Church, composed of
justified and sanctified believers, and brought into this
fellowship because they are sanctified to God, because
they know God personally and salvation individually
and fully ; and, as a Church, maintaining the com-
munion of brethren in love, governing and instructing
in all truth and righteousness, and really placing her-
self on other foundations, and attempting other oflBces
and work ; is it wonderful, after all, that not a quarter
of the world is truly converted to God ? Would it not
be wonderful if it were ?
What has been the eflfort and way of the past ?
What is the true Bible plan and intent ? " The mani-
festation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit
withal." This may lead us to the question.
Q. What is the Church's privilege and duty in this
matter ?
A. The citation of some Scriptures will best answer
this question : " I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed ;
one shall say I am the Lord's; and another shall
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 207
call himself by the name of Jacob ; and another shall
subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname
himself by the name of Israel." " A new heart also
will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within
you ; and I will take away the stony heart of your
flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will
put My Spirit v*'ithin you and cause you to walk in
My statutes ; and ye shall keep My judgment.', and do
them." " Create in me clean a heart, O God ; and
renew a right spirit within me." " That which is born
of the flesh is flesh ; and that which is born of the
Spirit is Spirit. Ye must be born again," " Walk in
the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh."
" As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are
the sons of God." " Because ye are sons, God hath sent
forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying
Abba, Fathei." " Whensoever shall speak a word
against the Son of man it shall be forgiven him ; but
unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, it
shall not be forgiven." " If ye love Me, keep My
commandments ; and I will pray the Father and He
shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide
with you forever ; even the Spirit of truth, whom the
world cannot receive because it seeth Him not, neither
knoweth Him. But ye know Him ; for He dwelleth
with you and shall be in you." " Howbeit when He
the Spirit of truth is c6rae. He shall guide you into
all truth." " But ye shall receive power after that the
Holy Ghost is come upon you ; and ye shall be wit-
nesses unto Me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea
and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the
208 THK GUIDING EYE; OU,
earth." " And Peter said unto them, Repent and be
baptized evf^ry one of you in the name of Jesus Christ
for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the j^ift
of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and
to your children, and to all that are afar off; even as
many as the Lord our God shall call." '' In whom
also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed wi^h that
Holy Spirit of promise which is the earnest of our
inheritance." " That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ
the Father of glory, may give unto you the Spirit of
wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the
eyes of your understanding being enlightened, ^hat
you may know what is the hope of His calling,
and what the riches of the glory of His inherit-
ance in the saints, and what is the exceeding great-
ness of His power to us ward who believe according to
the working of His mighty power which he wrought
in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set
Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places."
" That He would grant you according to the riches of
His glory to be strengthened with might, by His
Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith, that ye being rooted and grounded in
lo ., may be able to comprehend with all saints, what
is the breadth and depth, and length and height, and
to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge,
that ye might be filled with *all the fulness of God."
" Be renewed in the spirit of your mind ; and that ye
put on the new man which after God is erected in
righteousness and true holiness." " Be not drunk with
wine, but be filled with the Spirit." " Not by works
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 209
of righteousness which we have done, but according to
His mercy He saved us by the washing of regenera-
tion and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed
on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour.'
" For this is the covenant that I will make with the
House of Israel after those days, saith the Lord : I will
put My laws into their mind, and write them in their
hearts, and they shall not teach every man his neigh-
bor, and every man his brother, saying, know the
Lord ; for all shall know Me, from the least to the
greatest." " Elect according; to the foreknowledgre of
God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit,
unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus
Christ." "Ye also as lively stones are built up a
spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual
sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." " For
through Him we both (Jews and Gentiles) have access,
by one Spirit, unto the Father. Now, therefore, ye
(Gentiles) are built upon the foundation of the apostles
and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief
corner-stone; in whom all the building fitly framed
together groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord, in
whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of
God through the Spirit." " Other foundation can no
man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Now, if any man build upon this foundation gold,
silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man's
work shall be made manifest. Know ye not that ye
are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God
dwelleth in you. If any man defile the temple of
God, him shall God destroy, for the temple of God
14 _ .^
210 THE GUIDING EYE; OH,
is holy, which temple ye are." " The Spirit of the
Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed
me to preach good tidings unto the meek ; He
hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to pro-
claim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the
prison to them'that are bound." " And the Spirit and
the Bride say come. And let him that heareth say
come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of
life freely." " And He gave some apostles ; and some
prophets ; and some evangelists ; and some pastors
and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints ; for the
work of the ministry ; for the edifying of the body of
Christ." " The Gentiles shall come to Thy light, and
kings to the brightness of Thy rising." " Thy people
also shall be all righteous : they shall inherit the land
forever." " He shall have dominion also from sea to
sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth."
" Of the increase of His government and peace there
shall be no end." " And the kingdom and dominion,
and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole
heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the
Most High ; whose kingdom is an everlasting king-
dom, and all dominions shall serve and obey Him."
"The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but
righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost."
" The meek shall inherit the earth." " Now there are
diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. But the mani-
festation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit
withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of
wisdom ; to another, the word of knowledge by the
same Spirit. To another, faith by the same Spirit ; to
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 211
another, the gifts of healing by the same Spirit ; to an-
other, the working of miracles ; to another, prophecy ;
to another, discerning of spirits ; to another, divers
kinds of tongues ; to another, the interpretation of
tongues. But all these worketh that one and the self-
same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He
will." " Dare any of you, having a matter against
another, go to law before the unjust, and not before
the saints ? Do ye not know that the saints shall
judge the world ? And if the world shall be judged
by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters ?
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the
kingdom of God ? And such were some of you. But
ye are washed ; but ye are sanctified ; but ye are
justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the
Spirit of our God. Know ye not that your bodies are
the members of Christ ? Know ye not that yo' body
is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you ? If
we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged."
" Master, speak to my brother that he divide the in-
heritance with me. And He said unto him, Man, who
made Me a judge or a divider over you ? Take heed
and beware of covetcusness." "Is it lawful to give
tribute to Caesar or not ? And He saith unto them.
Whose is this image and superscription ? And they
said unto Him, Caesar's. And Jesus answering said
unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are
Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." " The
powers that be are ordained of God. Wherefore ye
must needs be subject not only for wrath, but also for
conscience' sake. Render therefore to all their dues ;
212 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
tribute to whom tribute is due ; custom to whom
custom." " Ye know that they who are accounted to
rule c . er the Gentiles exercise lordship Qver them ;
and their great ones exercise authority upon them.
But so shall it not be among you. Whosoever of you
will be the chief shall be the servant of all." " Verily
I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the king-
dom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein."
From these Scriptures, and many others by which
they are explained, corroborated and enforced, we draw
the following conclusion in regard to the Church of
God and the individual members thereof in their
relation one to the other, and to the world and to God.
These fruitful themes open many tempting doors of
disquisition; but we keep our eye upon the one
direction of thought, the guidance of the Spirit.
1. The Church of God is a Divine organization,
of which Christ is the life and centre — a spiritual
buildinor of living stones, of which Christ is the chief
corner-stone — a compact body of living members, of
which Christ is the head. It is a real corporation — a
spiritual corporation — with energies, functions, govern-
ment, mission instrumentalities, rights and privileges
peculiar to itself. It is supreme in its own sphere, and
loses power if it moves out of its place. It has a
great work to accomplish, which it alone can perform,
and which it can perform only by fidelity to its own
character, spirit and appointed agencies.
2. Our Lord and His apostles drew clear lines
between the power of the Church and the State — the
civil or temporal and the spiritual power — and con-
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 213
fined the Church definitely to the religious sphere
and to spiritual functions and operations. Within
this domain the Church has full powers of govern-
ment, discipline and instruction, so that she may
preserve her doctrines in purity, and the life of
her membership in consistency, and may appoint
su(jh aorencies and enact such regulations as shall aid
to secure riijht livinof, sound think inj; and ricjorous
action. But these appointment^ atid enactments shall
never transcend, disregard, pervert or overleap the
written Word.
3. This Church is composed of members : " Ye are
the body of Christ and members in particular." These
members, under the eternal covenant, are they that
having heard the word of truth, responsible, intelli-
gent, and free — and only they that are potentially or
a(itually such can meet the conditions of membership
— have trusted in Christ ; in whom also, after that
they have believed, they have been sealed with the
Holy Spirit of promise : chosen to salvation, through
sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.
To these members of the body of Christ, cleansing
themselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit,
are given exceeding great and precious promises,
whereby they become partakers of the divine nature,
according as divine power hath given them all things
that pertain to life and godliness, through the know-
ledge of Him that* hath called them to glory and
virtue. The Bible, especially the New Testament, is
lai'gely made up of an unfolding of the exhaustless
provisions of infinite wisdom, goodnesSj and power,
214 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
for the benefit of the believer. It would seem that
God cannot promise too much, and language is bur-
dened to convey the divine ideas of riches, love, mercy
and peace to our souls. The beiiever may know God
in His spiritual nature, and learn more of His char-
acter and excellency from day to day ; know God as
he knows, aye, better than he knows his most intim-
ate friend ; may know God as a pardoning God and
a loving Father; may know the love of God that
passeth knowledge ; may know his own need and the
infinite supply ; his own poverty and the infinite
riches ; his own ignorance and the infinite wisdom ;
his own weakness and the infinite strength. He may
know his cleansing, the kingdom of God established
within him, Christ in him, the hope of glory. Fie
may know himself, his God, his relation to God, his
duty to God and to man. He may know his accep-
tance of God, and the acceptance of his humble obedi-
ence througli Christ. He may know he is sanctified
by the Spirit, and emboldened and empowered from
on high foi nis work. He may know that God giveth
him the victory, and that he bath within him the
I earnest of his resurrection from the dead and of his
eternal inheritance and glory. Is not this a contrast
' with a man in darkness — dead in trespasses and sin ?
" We know that we are of God. And we know that
' the Son of God is come and hath given us an under-
standing, that we may know Him that is true, and
we are in him that is true, even in His Son Jesus
i Christ. This is the true God and eternal life." " And
) this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 215
only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou has sent."
Life, peace, love, joy, power, now ; and eternal life,
light, love, and joy to them who, by patient continu-
ance in well-doing, seek for glory, honor, and immor-
tality.
4. All this, aye, infinitely more than we can tell, for
the individual believer. " For eye hath not seen, nor
ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man,
the things which God hath prepared for them that
love Him ; " not even in this dark world ; then how
much less for the eternal glory ? All this for the be-
liever ! Is there anything beside ? Can the Church
do anything ? Does it add anything ? Yea, verily,
if it keep to its sphere, and leave the believer to his
sphere. Forsaking its place, transgressing its bounds,
violating individual liberty on one hand, or domestic
or social or civil liberty on the otlier, it becomes a
hindrance and a harm. Has not the Church at times
even crushed out vital godliness and true religion ?
But within her sphere she gives us the communion of
saints, spiritual government, to the restraint of evil
and encouragement of the good ; security of doctrine,
and perpetuity and efficiency of .the ministerial office
and work ; increase and power of spiritual agencies ;
formation and direction of public opinion on great
moral and religious questions ; unity of the brother-
hood, and happy and vigorous co-operation in spread-
ing the Gospel and establishing the kingdom of Jesus
Christ.
Within a sphere of this nature, and the believer
keeping to his sphere there la harmonious action
216 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
l>otwixt the Church and the believer, and each is help-
ful to the other. The Church does not make the
believer, thouorh sometimes she takes the notion she
does, and can annihilate him too ; but the body of
believers compose the Church. There might be a
believer, and even believers, without a Church, cer-
tainly especially as some people understand it ; but
there can be no Church without believers. The believer
is the spiritual integer, the Bible unit, indivisible,
responsible and free. Given the believer with his
knowledge of God, duty, himself and salvation ; this
certainty, this positive assurance, with his love, meek-
ness, forbearance and faith, and you have that for
which Christ died ; sin conquered, righteousness de-
monstrated, love enthroned. Put that man alongside
another man of the same spirit and sort. How their
lives flow together, their thoughts, sympathies, know-
ledges, purposes and aims ! What a free and blessed
fellowship! Add another, and yet another; and the
love of Christ constraineth them. Can they help each
the other ? Is there a man they should seek and save
with like precious salvation. The Holy Ghost giveth
each of them power, and they combine their power ;
each of them wisdom and grace, and they combine
wisdom and grace. They may not make new doc-
trines one for the other, for Holy Writ is complete.
They may not bind heavy burdens to lay one on the
other, for their hearts are filled with love ; and they
can do nothing contrary to love. They abide in Christ
and dwell in the unity of the Spirit, in the bonds of
peace. The Holy Spirit fills each believer, perfects
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 217
each believer in love, and spiritual knowledge, and
faith ; and stirs, and prompts, and guides them, one and
all, to unite their faith, and love, and labor. The pro-
vidence of God co-works with the Spirit of God ; and
confirms the intimations of the Spirit and the instruc-
tion of the Word as to the mind of God. The pro-
vidence of God and the Spirit of God explain, make
the Word of God ; and the Word of God reconciles
and determines the providences of God, and limits,
a^^sures and confirms what is the mind of the
Spirit. And the moral government of God, His
direction of the affairs of the world, markinjT out
the course of and deciding the destiny of nations, sets
before His Church, His people the open door of effort
and success. And so Word, and Spirit, and pro-
vidence, and government lead the body of believers,
the Church of God, in a safe way of Christian enter-
prise, sacrifice, find labor to His glor\'.
Does not this fill up the Bible measure of Christian
growth and procedure ? And what is there in all this
of new dogmas or doctrine, of hierarchy lording it
over the heritage, of ceremonial pomp, tactual succes-
sion, legislative or papal infallibility, or priestly virtue
and grace in water, wafer, wine or oil ? Wh}'- will
men take God's work out of His own hands, and then
renounce the very privilege He has given them to
enjoy, and reject the very work He has allotted them
to do ? How can they but forfeit Divine presence and
power ? "I am the vine ; ye are the branches," said
our Lord. " Abide in Me and I in you. If ye abide
in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what
218 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
ye will, and it shall be done unto you." Born again,
sanctified, wholly filled with the Spirit, perfecting
holiness, abiding in Christ with love made perfect,
with faith overcoming the world, strengthened with
all might by the Spirit, guided by the Spirit into all
truth ; conscious, assured, certain of all these things,
tried, proved, indubitable ; the knowledge and judg-
ment of the condition and relation, these personal,
spiritual facts, infallible ; comforted with a steadfast
hope, rejoicing with a joy unspeakable and full of
glory, bringing forth the fruits of the Spirit, always
having all sufficiency in all things, and abounding in
every good work, praying without ceasing, in every-
thing giving thanks ; heirs and joint-heirs with Christ,
made heirs, according to the hope of eternal life, to an
inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth
not away, having the earnest of the Spirit, the pledge
of the glorious resurrection. This, then, is the indi-
vidual believer, the humble disciple, the eye single to
the glory of God, quick to discern the movements of
His " guiding eye."
Therefore, men in Jesus Christ are not to be herded
by either churchly ceremony or sacrament, or human
dogma. Nor is this the way to gather the moral and
spiritual force ; the force of holy example, holj'
livinof, the ligrht of truth, the virtue of faith and love
inextinguishable, with which to conquer the world.
They may be associated in lovii g fellowship, under the
authority of the Word of God, by the guidance of the
Holy Spirit. And thus is the Church of God, " all
coming in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 219
of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the meas-
ure of the stature of the fulness of Christ ; henceforth
no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about
with every wind of doctrine, but speaking the truth
in love, and growing up into Him in all things, which
is the bread, even Christ."
" Happy the souls that first believed,
To Jesus and each other cleaved ;
Joined by the unction from above,
In mystic fellowship of love.
"Meek, simple followers of the Lamb,
They lived and spake and thought the same ;
They joyfully conspired to raise
Their ceaseless sacrifice of praise.
' ' With grace abundantly endued,
A pure, believing multitude,
They all were of one heart and soul,
And only love inspired the whole.
' ' O what an age of golden days !
O what a choice, peculiar race !
Washed in the Lamb's all-cleansing blood,
Anointed kings and priests to God 1 "
Had we not better hasten back to that simplicity
and power? Such people, led of the Spirit, would
readily associate themselves for the common joy, the
common strength, and the common good. They would
be readily urged outward and prove mightily that
God is in them of very deed, in preaching the Word,
in the demonstration of the Spirit and power. They
would readily take such authorities as God for provi-
220 THE GUIDING EYE; OR,
dential development set in the Church, acting within
the limit of His Holy Woru ; apostles, prophets,
teachers, miracles, gifts of healings, helps, govern-
ments, diversities of tongues: covet earnestly, under the
Spirit and the Word, the best gifts, and find the more
excellent way. In their discipline, in love for the
maintenance of purity of doctrine, and rectitude of
life, what they bound on earth through the Spirit
would be bound in Heaven. Dwelling together in
love, having received the Holy Ghost, hating sin
with a perfect hatred, yet with tears recovering the
offender, whom they forgave, he would be forgiven in
Heaven ; forbearing to the utmost with the offender in
a Christlike forbearance, whom they pronounced in-
corrigible. Heaven would condemn. " Whosesoever sins
ye remitted, they are remitted unto them, and whose-
soever sins ye retain, they are retained;' remitted
and retained, not as an arbitrary and judicial act, but
remitted and retained as the last effort of their Christ-
like brotherhooil under the direction of the Holy
Ghost ; a brotherhood. Christlike, in hatred of sin, in
love of the sinner, in patience of instruction and warn-
injr, and in willinsfness of sacrifice if the transjjressor
may thereby be brought back to rectitude, fellowship
and God.
Where is this Church ? What has become of. it on
the earth ? With what diligent search may we find
it ? And yet this is the Church of the Lord Jesus,
whom we think we love. Surely His visage is so
marred more than any man, and His form more than
the sons of men. How great the privilege, the oppor-
THE HOLY spirit's GUIDANCE. 221
tunity, of the Church of God, and how sadly hath it
been cast away ! How tenible the responsibility that
souls are perishing that a faithful Church would
have saved ! Let the Church again return ; let it
obey the Word of the Lord ; let it put light where
God puts it; assurance, certainty, infallibility, where
God places them ; making them positive and strong,
clear and bright, within the divine limits, and not
shading a hair's breadth beyond these limits of per-
sonal knowledge of God and salvation ; let it place
itself in its individual membership under the guidance
of the Holy Spirit by the authority of the Word ;
then who shall stand before these men of God ? " One
shall chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to
flight." This age, thanks be to God, hath more heart-
searching, Bible searching, Berean inquiry, godly fel-
lowship and brotherly investigation on this and kind-
red themes than possibly any age preceding it. The
light is spreading ; charity is widening and deepening ;
Christianity is returning to the apostolic type : " This
Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are wit-
nesses. Therefore let all the house of Israel know
assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom
ye crucified, both Lord and Christ. Then they that
gladly received His word were baptized. And they
continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fel-
lowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers."
To them was the promise fulfilled: " Ye shall receive
the gift of the Holy Ghost."