%^ ^. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) & ^0 :/. f/. :/. 1.0 I.I 1.25 ■^32^8 |2.5 ■50 ■^" !!■■ Wteu U III 1.6 PhotogTdphic ^Sciences Corporation iV ^v lO' \\ ^ signlfie "A SUIVRE ", le symbols V signlfie "FIN". ■ire Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagra: -*s illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent Atre tiimis A des taux de reduction dlff^rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul ciichA, il est filmi d partir de I'angle supirieur gauche, de gauche A droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images nAcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mAthode. by errata led to ent une pelure, Fapon A 1 2 3 32X 1 2 3 4 5 6 THE CHRISTIAN'S OP A SHCR. HAPPY T.TFK BY 1 ■ * t_ "VsT- S. WITH INTRODUCTIONS BY JOHN rOTTS, D D., AND H. M. PARSONS, D.D. TORONTO, CANADA: TORONTO WILLARI) TRACT DEPOSITORY. METlIODIbT BOOK AND PUBLISHING HOUSE. BVHSOl Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand eight hi; ndred and eiffhty-nine, by The Toronto Willard Tract Depository, Ltd., in the ofhce ot the Minister ei Agriculture, nt Ottawa. A PEEFAOE. This is not a theological book. I frankly confess I have never studied Theology, and do not understand its methods or its terms. But the Lord has taught me experimentally and practically, certain lessons out of His Word, which have greatly helped me in my Christian life, and have made it a very happy one. And I want to tell these lessons, in the best way I can, in order that some others may be helped into a happy life also. I cannot bear to keep the secret to myself. I do not want to change the theological views of a single individual. I dare say most of my readers know far more about Theology than I do myself, and, perhaps, you may discover abundance of what will seem to you to be theological mistakes. But let me beg of you not to mind these. Try, instead, to get at the experimental part of that which I have tried to pay, and if that is practical and helpful, forgive the blundering way in which it is expressed. Throw over IV PREFACE. it all the mantle of Christian love. Say, if you choose, " Well, she is only a woman, and cannot be expected, therefore, to understand Theology ; " — but r smember that God sometimes reveals, even to babes, secrets that He has hidden from the wise and prudent. I have committed my book to the Lord, and have asked Him to counteract all in it that is wrong, and to let only that which is true find entrance into any heart. It is sent out in tender sympathy and yearn- ing love for all the struggling, weary ones in the Church of Christ, and its message goes right from my heart to theirs. I have given the best I have, and could do no more. May the blessed Holy Spirit use it to teach some of my readers the true secret of a happy life I H.W. S. INTBODUCTIOIT it' REV. JOHN POTTS, D.D. Several years ago, I wrote an introduction to Mrs. Pearsall Smith's book known as "The Chris- tian's Secret of a Happy Life." Another edition is demanded by Canadian readers, who are hungering and thirsting after righteousness. With greater con- fidence than I expressed before, do I now recommend this previous volume to all who wish to feast at the King's table, and travel on the King's highway, " with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads." Under the charm of Mrs. Smith's pen, wo are made ashamed of our wilderness wanderings, and are led to wonder at the simplicity of the way into the higher life — the life of " Holiness unto the Lord." The writer deals, with sanctified sagacity, with the daily diificulties of Christian life, until, in spite of all obstacles, the voice of the Spirit is heard, saying, " Speak unto the chil- dren of Israel that they go forward," and, as they go forward in obedient faith, doubt and fear and difficulty dep'^.rt, and the Divine Joshua leads them out of the VI INTRODUCTION. desert of unbelief into the land c* rest and inheritance in the Lord. I know of few books more helpful in opening up the new covenant privileges of believers, and encouraging the most timid of Christ's followers to enter ^to the blessed experience of habitual trust and " Perfect Love," and " The peace of God which passeth all understanding." Let the readers of this book be many, and let it be recommended by all who read it to many more, until a great multitude in all sections of the Church shall learn the happy art of living in the region where they *' Serve the Lord with gladness and come before His presence with singing" — with the melody of praise and adoration and thanksgiving. Such will be the hallowed effect of this unpretentioti.^,, but valuable, book upon all who follow this elect lady, as she leads them into " Heavenly places in Christ Jesus." JOHN POTTS. Toronto, Januaby, 1889. •«ae INTRODUCTION. A BOOK that has reached its seventy-fifth thousand needs no introduction, '• The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life " has helped many to realize the truth they have always known, but never appropriated. Still more ?t the present day are longing for some- thing solid and satisfying in their experffence of Christ. They do not find it in their present use of the Word. This little book deals with some difficulties many experience, in a way to lead those in trouble to the true Source of Relief. Many dear children of God will hear the voice of the gifted authoress of this treatise who do not hear the voice of Christ in His words. If this new edition may lead increasing numbers to so abide in Christ as always to hear His voice, through His own words, and to recognize the great office of the Holy Spirit in revealing Christ, through all the words of Holy Scripture, I am sure the great aim of the authoress will be fulfilled ; and if the many who are under vows of service will heed the voice of Christ to this Laodicean age : •* Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man will hear My voice, I will both open the door, and come in to him, and sup with him, and he with Me,"* the great diffi- culties which beset many in the Church — like lions in the way — would be all removed, and the Gospel speedily be published to every creature. H. M. PARSONS, D.D., Pastor, Knox Church, Toronto. Reading of Sinaitic Manuscript. E D I> Di Is 6i SB CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Page. Introduotort — God's Side and Man's Side 9 CHAPTER n. The Sobiftubalness of This Life 20 CHAPTER m. The Life Defined 81 CHAPTER IV. How TO Enteb In 89 CHAPTER V. Difficulties Concerning Consecration 49 CHAPTER VI. DimouLTiES Concerning Faith 68 CHAPTER VIL Difficulties Conoebnino the Will ..*.... 67 CHAPTER VIIL Is (}0D IN EVERYTniNG ? 78 CHAPTER IX. Growth 89 CHAPTER X. Sbbyior 101 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XI. Page. Difficulties T , TCKR^nNO Guidance , 113 CHAPTER XII. Concerning Temptation 124 CHAPTKR XIII. Failures 133 CHAPTER XIV. Doubts 147 CHAPTER XV. Practical Remults in tuk Daily Walk and Conversation . . 167 CHAPTER XVI. The Joy of Obedience 167 CHAPTER XVII. The Joy of Union 173 CHAPTER XVIII. Bondage and Liberty 186 CHAPTER XIX. The Chariots of God 197 CAHPTER XX. The Life on Wings .... 20G The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life. -♦•^•►•♦— CHAPTER I.— Introductory. N introducing this subject of the life and walk of faith, I desire at the very out- set to clear away one misunderstanding which very commonly arises in refer- ence to the teaching of it, and which eftectually hinders a clear apprehension of such teaching. This misunderstanding comes from the fact that the two sides of the subject are rarely kept in view at the same time. People see distinctly the way in which one side is presented, and dwelling exclusively upon this, without even a thought of any other, it is no wonder that distorted views of the whole matter are the legitimate consequence. 10 THE christian's SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. Now there are two very decided and distinct sides to this subject, and like all other subjects, it cannot be fully understood unless both of these sides are kept constantly in view. I refer, of course, to God's side and man's side ; or, in other words, to God's part in the work of sanctification and man's part. These are very distinct and even contrastive, but are not con- tradictory ; though to a cursory observer they some- times look so. This was very strikingly illustrated to me not long ago. There were two teachers of this higher Christian life holding meetings in this same place at alternate hours. One spoke only of God's part of the work, and the other dwelt exclusively upon man's part. They were both in perfect sympathy with one another, and realized fully that they were each teaching different sides of the same great truth ; and this also was under- stood by a large proportion of their hearers. But with some of the hearers it was different, and one lady said to me in the greatest perplexity, " I cannot understand it at all. Here are two preachers undertaking to teach just the same truth, and yet to me they seem flatly to contradict one another." And I felt at the time that fhe expressed a puzzle which really causes a great deal of difficulty in the minds of many honest inquirers after this truth. Suppose two friends go to see some celebrated build- ing, and return home to describe it. One has seen only the north side, and the other only the south. The first says, " The building was built in such a man- ner, and has such and such stories and ornaments." " Oh, no," says the other, interrupting him, " you are altogether mistaken ; I saw the building, and it was built in quite a different manner, and its ornaments and stories were so and so." A lively dispute would pro- god's side and man's side. 11 bably follow upon the truth of the respective descrip- tions, until the two friends discover that they have been describing different sides of the building, and then all is reconciled at once. I would like to state as clearly as I can what I judge to be the two distinct sides in this matter ; and to show how the looking at one without seeing the other will be sure to create wrong impressions and views of the truth. To state it in brief I would just say that man's part is to trust, and God's part is to work ; and it can be seen at a glance how contrastive these two parts are, and yet not necessarily contradictor3\ I mean this : There is a certain work to be accomplished. We are to be delivered from the power of sin, and are to be made perfect in every good work to do the will of God. " Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lorc^," we are to be actually " changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." We are to be " transformed by the renewing of our minds, that we may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." A real work is to be wrought in us and upon us. Besetting sins are to be conquered. Evil habits are to be overcome. Wrong dispositions and feelings are to be rooted out, and holy tempers and emotions are to be begotten. A positive transformation is to take place. So at least the Bible teaches. Now somebody must do this. Either we must do it for ourselves, or another must do it for us. We have most of us tried to do it for our- selves at first, and have grievously failed ; then we discover from the Scriptures and from our own experi- ence that it is f\ worlv we are utterly unable to do for ourselves, but tnat the Lord Jesus Christ has come on purpose to do it, and that He will do it for all who 12 THE christian's SECKET OF A HAPPY LIFE. put themselves wholly into His hand, and trust Him to do it. Now, under these circumstances, what is the part of the believer, and what is the part of the Lord ? Plainly the believer can do nothing but trust ; while the Lord, in whom he trusts, actually does the work entrusted to Him. Trusting and doing are certainly contrastive things, and often contradictory ; but are they contradictory in this case ? Manifestly not, be- cause it is two different parties that are concerned. If we should say of one party in a transaction that he trusted his case to another and yet attended to it him- self, we should state a contradiction and an impossi- bility. But when we say of two parties in a transac- tion that one trusts the other to do something, and that that other goes to work and does it, we are stating something that is perfectly simple and harmonious. When we say, therefore, that in this higher life man's part is to trust, and that God does the thing entrusted to Him, we do not surely present any very difficult or puzzling problem. The preacher who is speaking on man's part in the matter cannot speak of anything but surrender and trust, because this is positively all the man can do. We all agree about this. And yet such preachers are constantly criticized as though, in saying this, they had meant to imply there was no other part, and that, therefore, nothing but trusting is done. And the cry goes out that this doctrine of faith does away with all realities, that souls are just told to trust, and that it is the erd of it, and they sit down thenceforward in a sort of religious easy-chair, dreaming awfiy a life fruit- less of any actual results. All this misapprehension arises, of course, from the fact that either the preacher has neglected to state, or the hearer has failed to hear, the other side of the matter, which is, that when we god's side and man's side. 18 trust, the Lord works, and that a great deal is done, not by us, but by Him. Actual results are reached by our trusting, because our Lord undertakes the thing trusted to Him, and accomplishes it. We do not do anything, but He does it ; and it is all the more effectually done because of this. The puzzle as to the preaching of faith disappears entirely as soon as this is clearly seen. On the other hand, the preacher who dwells on God's side of the question is criticized on a totally different ground. He does not speak of trust, for the Lord's part is not to trust, but to work. The Lord does the thing entrusted to Him. He disciplines and trains tho ooul by inward exercises and outward pro- vidences. He brings to bear all the resources of His wisdom mid love upon the refining and purifying of that soul He makes everything in the life and cir- cumstaxiRos of such an one subservient to the one great purpoa^ of making him grow in grace, and of conform- ing nim, day by day and hour by hour, to the image of Christ. He carries him through a process of trans- formation, longer and shorter, as his peculiar case may require, making actual and experir ental the results for which the soul has trusted. We have dared for instance, according to the command in Rom. vi. 11, by faith to reckon ourselves dead unto sin. The Lord makes this a reality, and leads us to victory over self, by the daily and hourly discipline of His providences. Our reckoning is available only because God thus makes it real. And yet the preacher who dwells upon this practical side of the matter, and tells of God's processes for making faith's reckonings experimental realities, is accused of contradicting the preachinr of '«T/'ish it to be when the years of maturity shall come. The apple in June is a perfect apple for June. It is the best apple thai June can produce. But it is very different from the apple in October, which is a per- fected apple. God's works are perfect in every stage of their growth. Man'.s works are never perfect until they are in every respect complete. All that we claim then in this life of sanctificatioji 18 THE christian's SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. ito the p t the good is, that by a step of faith we put ourse^" hands of the Lord, for Him to work in us pleasure of His will, and that by a continuous exercise of faith we keep ourselves there. This is our part in the matter. And when we do it, and while wo do it, we are, in the Scripture sense, truly pleasing to God, although it may require years of training and discipline to mature us into a vessel that shall be in all respects to His honor, and fitted to every good work. Our part is the trusting, it is His to accomplish the results. And when we do our part He never fails to do His, for no one ever trusted in the Lord and was confounded. Do not be afraid, then, that if you trust, or tell others to trust, the matter will end there. Trust is only the beginning and the continual foundation ; when we trust, the Lord works, and His work is the important part of the whole matter. And this ex- plains that apparent paradox which puzzles so many. They say, " In one breath you tell us to do nothing but trust, and in the next you tell us to do impossible things. How can you reconcile such contradictory statements ? " They are to be reconciled just as we reconcile the statements concerning a saw in a carpen- ter's shop, when we say at one moment that the saw has sawn asunder a log, and the next moment declare that the carpenter has done it. The saw is the instru- ment used, the power that uses it is the carpenter s. And so we, yielding ourselves unto God, and our mem- bers as instruments of righteousness unto Him, find that He works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure, and we can say with Paul, " I labored ; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." In this book I shall of course dwell mostly upon man's side in the matter, as I am writing for man, and i god's side and man's side. 19 in the hope of teaching believers how to fulfil their part of the great work. But I wish it to be distinctly understood all through, that unless I believed with all my heart in God 'a effectual working on His side, not one word of this book would ever have been written. CHAPTER II. HEN I approach this subject of the true Christian life — that life which is hid with Christ in Gad — so many thoughts struggle for utterance that I am almost speechless. Where shall I begin ? What is the most important thing to say ? How shall I make people read and believe ? The subject is so glorious, and human words seem so powerless ! But something must be said by some one. The secret must be told. For it is one concerning that victory which overcometh the world — that promised deliverance from all our enemies, for which every child of God longs and prays, but which seems so often and so generally to elude their grasp. May God grant me so to tell it, that every believer to whom this book shall come may have his eyes opened to see the truth YHfe SC^IPTt^RALNfeSS O^ THIS LtFE. 2i as it is in Jesus, and may be enabled to enter into pos- session of this glorious life for himself. For sure I am, that every converted soul longs for victory and rest, and nearly every one feels instinc- tively at times that they are his birthright. Can you not remember, some of you, the shout of triumph your souls gave when you first became acquainted with the Lord Jesus; and had a glimpse of His mighty saving power ? How sure you were of victory, ,then ? How easy it seemed to be more than conquerors, through Him that loved you ! Under the leadership of a Cap- tain who had never been foiled in battle, how could you dream of defeat ? And yet, to many of you, how difierent has been your real experience ! The victories have been too few and fleeting, the defeats many and disastrous. You have not lived as you feel children of God ought to live. There has been a resting in a clear understanding of doctrinal truth, without pres«iing after the power and life thereof. There has been a rejoicing in the knowledge of things testified of in the Scriptures, without a living realization of the things themselves, consciously felt in the soul. Christ is believed in, talked about and served, but He is not known as the soul's actual and very life, abiding there forever, and revealing Himself there continually in His beauty. You have found Jesus as your Saviour from the penalty of sin, and you have tried to serve God, and advance the cause of His kingdom. You have carefully studied the Holy Scriptures, and have gath- ered much precious truth therefrom, which you have endeavored faithfully to practice. But notwithstand- ing all your knowledge and all your activities in the service of the Lord, your souls are secretly starving, and you cry out again and again for that bread and water of lifr which you see promised in the Scriptures u\ 22 THE CHRISTIAN'S SECRET OP A HAPPY LIFE. to all believers. In the very depths of your hearts, you know that your experience is not a scriptural experience ; that, as an old writer says, your religion is " but a talk to what the early Christians enjoyed, possessed, and lived in." And your souls have sunk within you, as day after day, and year after year, your early visions of triumph have seemed to grow more and more dim, and you have been forced to settle down to the conviction, that the best you can expect from vour religion is a life of alternate failure and victory; one hour sinning, and the next repenting, and beginning again, only to fail again, and again to repent. But is this all ? Had the Lord Jesus only this in His mind when He laid down His precious life to de- liver you from your sore and cruel bondage to Satan ? Did He propose to Himself only this partial deliver- ance ? Did He intend to leave you thus struggling along under a weary consciousness of defeat and dis- couragement ? Did He fear that a continuous victory would dishonor Him, and bring reproach on His name ? When all those declarations were made concerning His coming, and the work He was to accomplish, did they mean only this that you have experienced ? Was there a hidden reserve to each promise that was meant to deprive it of its complete fulfilment ? Did " deliv- ering us out of the hand of our enemies " mean from only a few of them ? Did " enabling us always to triumph" mean only sometimes ? or being " more than conquerors through Him that loved us " mean constant defeat and failure ? No, No, a thousand times No ! God is able to save us to the uttermost, and He meant to do it. His promise, confirmed by His oath, was that " He would grant unto us, that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without THE SCRIPTURALNESS OF THIS LIFE. 28 I fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him, all the days of our life." It is a mighty work to do, but our Deliverer is able to do it. He came to destroy the works of the devil, and dare we dream for a moment that He is not able or not willing to accomplish His own purposes ? In the very outset, then, settle down on this one thing ; that Jesus came to save you fully, now, in this life, from the power and dominion of sin, ahd to deliver you altogether out of the hands of your enemies. If ou do not think He did, search your Bibles, and col- ect together every announcement or declaration con- cerning the purposes and objects of His death on the cross. You will be astonished to find how full they are. Everywhere and always His work is said to bo to deliver us from our sins, from our bondage, from our defilement ; and not a hint is given, anywhere, that this deliverance was to be only the limited and partial one with which the Church so continually tries to be satisfied. Let me give you a few texts on this subject. When the angel of the Lord appeared unto Joseph in a dream and announced the coming birth of the Saviour, he said, " And thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins." When Zacharias was "filled with the Holy Ghost" at the birth of his son, and " prophesied," he declared that God had visited His people in order to fulfil the promise and the oath He had made them, which pro- mise was, " That He would grant unto us, that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him, all the days of our life." When Peter was preaching in the porch of the Temple to the wandering Jews, he said, " Unto you 24 THE christian's SEcHlfii OF a HAFPV LIFE. i i I ii first, God, having raised up His Son Jesus, sent Him to bless you in turning away every one of you from his iniquities." When Paul was telling out to the Ephesian Church the wondrous truth that Christ had loved them so much as to give Himself for them, he went on to de- clare that His purpose in thus doing was " that He might sanctify and cleanse it by the washing of water by the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing ; but that it should be holy and without blemish." When Paul was seeking to instruct Titus, his own son, after the common faith, concerning the grace of God, he declared that the object of that grace was to teach us " that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world ; " and adds, as the reason of this, that Christ " gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify us unto Himself a pecu- liar people, zealous of good works." When Peter was urging upon the Christians, to whom he was writing, a holy, and Christ-like walk, he tells them that " even hereunto were ye called be- cause Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that ye should follow His steps; who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth ; " and adds, *' who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteov"*ness ; by whose stripes ye were healed." When i'aul was contrasting in the Ephesians the walk suitable for a Christian, with the walk of an un- believer, he sets before them the truth in Jesus as being this — "that ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according TEE SCRIPTURALNESS OP THIS LIFE. 25 to the deceitful lusts ; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind ; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holi- ness." And when, in Romans vi., he was answering for- ever the question as to continuing in sin, and showing how utterly foreign it was to the whole spirit and aim of the salvation of Jesus, he brings up the fact of our judicial death and resurrection with Christ as an un- answerable argument for our practical deliyerance from it, and says, "God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein ? Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death. Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death ; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." And adds " Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." Dear Christians, will you receive the testimony of Scripture on this matter ? The same questions that troubled the Church in Paul's day are troubling it now : first, ** Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" And second, "Do we then make void the law through faith ? " Shall not our answer to these be Paul's emphatic " God forbid," and his triumphant assertions that instead of making it void " we establish the law ; " and that *' what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh ; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit ? " Can we suppose for a moment that the holy God, r 26 THE christian's secret op a happy life. f who hates sin in the sinner, is willing to tolerate it in the Christian, and that He has even arranged the plan of salvation in such a way as to make it impossible for those who are saved from the guilt of sin, to find de- liverance from its power ? As Dr. Chalmers well says, "Sin is that scandal, which must be rooted out from the great spiritual household over which the Divinity rejoices. . . . Strange administration, indeed, for sin to be so hateful to God as to lay all who incurred it under death, and yet when readmitted into life, that sin should be per- mitted ; and that what was before the object of de- stroying vengeance, should now become the object of an upheld and protected toleration. Now that the penalty is taken off, think you is it possible that the unchangeable God has so given up His antipathy to sin, as that man — ruined and redeemed man — may now perseveringly indulge under the new arrangement in that which under the old destroyed him ? Does not the God who loved righteousness and hated Iniquity six thousand years ago, bear the same love to right- eousness and hatred to iniquity still ? . . . I now breathe air of loving-kindness from Heaven, and can walk before God in peace and graciousness ; shall I again attempt the incompatible alliance of two prin- ciples so adverse as that of an approving God and a persevering sinner? How shall we, recovered from so awful a catastrophe, continue that which first involved us in it ? The cross of Christ, by the same mighty and decisive stroke wherewith it moved the curse of sin away from us, also surely moves away the power and the love of it from ovtr us." And not Dr. Chalmers only, but many other holy men of his generation and of our own, as well as of generations long past, have united in declaring that THE SCRIPTURALNESS OF THIS LIFE. 27 now can kll I the redemption accomplished for us by our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary, is a redemption from the power of sin as well as from its guilt, and that He is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by Him. A quaint old divine of the seventeenth century says: " There is nothing so contrary to God as sin, and God will not suffer sin always to rule His masterpiece, man. When we consider the infiniteness of God's power for destroying that which is contrary to Him, who can believe that the devil must always stand and prevail ? I believe it is inconsistent and disagreeable with true faith for people to be Christians and yet to believe that Christ, the eternal Son of God, to whom all power in heaven and earth is given, will suffer sin and the devil to have dominion over them. " But you will say no man by all the power he hath can redeem himself, and no man can live without sin. We will say Amen to it. But if men tell us that, when God's power came to help us and redeem us out of sin, that it cannot be effected, then this doctrine we cannot away with ; nor I hope you neither. " Would you approve of it if I should tell you that God puts forth His power to do such a thing, but the devil hinders Him ? That it is impossible for God to do it because the devil does not like it ? that it is im- possible that any one should be free from sin because the devil hath got such a power in them that God can- not cast him out ? This is lamentable doctrine, yet hath not this been preached ? It doth in plain terms say, though God doth interpose His power, it is impos- sible, because the devil hath so rooted sin in the nature of man. Is not man God s creature, and cannot He new make him, and cast sin out of him ? If you say sin is deeply rooted in man, I say so too ; yet uot go I 28 THE christian's secret of a happy life. deeply rooted but Christ Jesus hath entered so deeply into the root of the nature of man that He hath received power to destroy the devil and his works, and to recover and redeem man unto righteousness and holiness. Or else it is false that ' He is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him.' We must throw away the Bible if we say that it is impos- sible for God to deliver man out of sin. " We know," he continues, " when our friends are in captivity, as in Turkey or elsewhere, we pay our money for their redemption ; but we will not pay our money if they be kept in their fetters still. Would not any one thi ik himself cheated to pay so much money for their redemption and the bargain be made so that he shall be said to be redeemed and be called a redeemed captive, but he must wear his fetters still ? How long? As long as he hath a day to live. " This is for bodies ; but now I am speaking of souls. Christ must be made to me redemption, and rescue me from captivity. Am I a prisoner anywhere ? Yes ; verily, verily, he that committeth sin, saith Christ, he is a servant of sin, he is a slave of sin. If thou hast sinned, thou art a slave, a capjiive that must be re- deemed out of captivity. Who will pay a price for me ? I am poor ; I have nothing ; I cannot redeem myself ; who will pay a price for me ? There is One come who hath paid a price for me. That is well ; that is good news ; then I hope I shall come out of my cap- tivity. What is His name ? Is He called a Redeemer? So, then, I do expect the benefit of my redemption, and that I shall go out of my captivity. No, say they, you must abide in sin as long as you live. What ! must we never be delivered ? Must this crooked heart and perverse will always remain ? Must I be a believer, ^nd yet have no faith that reacheth to sanctificatioq THE SCRIPTURLLNESS OF THIS LIFE. 29 he and holy living ? Is there no mastery to be had, no getting victory over sin ? Must it prevail over me as long as I live ? What soi t of a Redeemer, then, is this, or what benefit have I in this life, of my redemption ?" Similar extracts might be quoted from Marshall, Romaine, and many others, to show that this doctrine is no new one in the Church, however much it may have been lost sight of by the present generation of believers. It is the same old story that has filled with songs of triumph the daily lives of many saints of God throughout all ages ; and it is now afresh being sounded forth to the unspeakable joy of burdened and weary souls. Do not reject it, then, dear reader, until you have prayerfully searched the Scriptures to see whether these things be indeed so. Ask God to open the eyes of your understanding by His Spirit, that you may " know what is the exceeding greatness of His power to usward 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." And when you have begun to have some faint glimpses of this power, learn to look away utterly from your own weakness, and, putting your capse into His hands, trust Him to deliver you. " When thou goest out to battle against thine enemies, and seest horses, and chariots, and a people more than thou, be not afraid of them : for the Lord thy God is with thee, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And it shall be when ye are come nigh unto the battle, that the priest shall approach, and speak unto the people, and shall say unto them. Hear, 0, Israel; ye approach this day unto battle against f V I 30 THE christian's SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. your enemies ; let lot your hearts faint ; fear not and do not tremble, ne.'ther be you terrified because of them ; for the Lord yoi'r God is He that goeth with you to fight for you aijainst your enemies, to save you.'* I CHAPTER III. She f We §tttmA. - N my last chapter I tried to settle the question as to the Scripturalness of the experience sometimes called the Higher Christian Life, but which to my own mind is best described in the words, the " life hid with Christ in God." I shall now, therefore, consider it as a settled point that the Scriptures do set before the believer in the Lord Jesus a life of abiding rest and of continual victory, which is very far beyond the ordinary line of Chris- tian experience ; and that in the Bible we have pre- sented to us a Saviour able to save us from the power of our sins ; as really as He saves rs from their guilt. The point to be next considered is as to what this hidden life consists in, and hov: it differs from every other sort of Christian experience. And as to this — it is simply letting the Lord carry i I I * i THE christian's SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. our burdens and manage our affairs for us, instead of trying to do it ourselves. Most Christians are like a man who was toiling along the road, bending under a heavy burden, when a waggon overtook him, and the driver kindly offered to help him on his journey. He joyfully accepted the offer, but when seated continued to bend beneath his burden, which he still kept on his shoulders. " Why do you not lay down your burden ? " asked the kind- hearted driver. " Oh," replied the man, " I feel that it is almost too much to ask you to carry me, and I could not think of letting you carry my burden too." And so Christians who have given themselves into the care and keeping of the Lord Jesus, still continue to bend beneath the weight of their burden, and often go weary and heavy-laden throughout the whole length of their journey. When I speak of burdens, I mean everything that troubles us, whether spiritual or temporal I mean first of all ourselves. The greatest burden we have to carry in life is self. The most diflficult thing we have to manage is self. Our own daily liv- ing, our frames and feelings, our especial weaknesses and temptations, and our peculiar temperaments — our inward affairs of every kind — these are the things that perplex and worry us more than anything else, and that bring us oftenest into darkness and bondage. In laying off your burdens, therefore, the first one you must get rid of is yourself. You must hand yourself and all your inward experience, your temptations, your temperaments, your frames and feelings, all over into the care and keeping of your God, and leave them there. He made you, and, therefore. He understands you and knows how to manage you, and you must trust Him to do it. Say to Him, " Here, Lord, I aban- exi be( THE LIFE DEFINED. 33 that ir ,your into them tands must [ aban- don myself to Thee. I have tried in every way I could think of to manage myself, and to make myself what I know I ought to be, but have always failed. Now I give it up to Thee. Do Thou take entire pos- session of me. Work in me all the good pleasure of Thy will. Mould and fashion me into such a vessel as seemeth good to Thee. I leave myself in Thy hands, and I believe Thou wilt, according to Thy promise, make me into a vessel unto Thine honor, ' sanctified, and meet for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good work.' " And here you must rest, trusting your- self thus to Him continually and absolutely. Next, you must lay off every other burden ; your health, your reputation, your Christian work, your houses, your children, your business, your servants — everything, in short, that concerns you, whether inward or outward. Christians always commit the keeping of their souls for eternity to the Lord, because they know without a shadow, of a doubt, that they cannot keep themselves. But the things of this present life they take into their own keeping, and try to carry on their own shoulders, with the perhaps unconfessed feeling that it is a great deal to ask the Lord to carry them, and that they can- not think of asking Him to carry their burdens too. I knew a Christian lady who had a very heavy temporal burden. It took away her sleep and her appetite, and there was a danger of her health break- ing down under it. One day, when it seemed especially heavy, she noticed lying on the table near her a little tract called " Hannah's Faith." Attracted by the title, she picked it up and began to read it, little knowing, however, that it was to create a revolution in her whole experience. The story was of a poor woman who had been carried triumphantly through a life of unusual ■''■ f 34 THE christian's SECRET OP A HAPPY LIFE. sorrow. She was giving the history of her life to a kind visitor on one occasion, and at the close the visitor said, feelingly, " Oh, Hannah, I do not see how vou could bear so much sorrow." " I did not bear it," was the quick reply; "the Lord bore it for me." " Yes," said the visitor, *' that is the right way. You must take your troubles to the I^ord." " Yes," replied Hannah, " but we must do more x^an that ; " we must leave them there." "Most people," she continued, " take their burdens to Him, but they bring them away with them again, and are just as worried and unhappy as over. But I take mine, and I leave them with Him, and come away and forget them. And if the worry comes back, I take it to Him again ; I do this over and over, until at last I just forget that I have any worries, and am at perfect rest." My friend was very much struck with this plan, and resolved to try it. The circumstances of her life she could not alter, but she took them to the Lord, and handed them over into His management ; and then she believed that He took it, and she left all the respon- sibility and the worry and anxiety with Him. As often as the anxieties returned she took them back ; and the result was, that although the circumstances remained unchanged, her soul was kept in perfect peace in the midst of them. She felt that she had found out a blessed secret, and from that time she never again tried to carry her own burdens, nor to manage anything for herself. And the secret she found so effectual in her outward affairs she found to be still more effectual in her in- ward ones, which were in truth even more utterly unmanageable. She abandoned her whole self to the Lord, with all that she was and all that she had, and, believing that He took that which she had committed w a fu lef ai fe( iail orr THE LIFE DEFINED. 85 to Him, she ceased to fret and worry, and her life be- came all sunshine in the gladness of belonging to Him. And this was the " higher Christian life ! " It was a very simple secret she found out — only this : that it was possible to obey God's commandment contained in these words, " Be careful for nothing ; but in every- thing by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God ; " and that, in obeying it, the result would inevitably be, according to the promise that the " peace 6f God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." There are many other things to be said about this life hid with Christ in God, many details as to what the Lord Jesus does for those who thus abandon them- selves to Him. But the gist of the whole matter is here stated, and the soul that has got hold of this secret has found the key that will unlock the whole treasure-house of God. . And now I do trust that I have made you hungry for this blessed life. Would you not like to get rid of your burdens? Do you not long to hand over the management of your unmanageable self into the hands of One who is able to manage you ? Are you not tired and weary, and does not the rest I speak of look sweet to you? Do you recollect the delicious sense of rest with which you have sometimes gone to bed at night, after a day of great exertion and weariness ? How delight- ful was the sensation of relaxing every muscle, and letting your body go in a perfect abandonment of ease and comfort. The strain of the day had ceased for a few hours at least, and the work of the day had been laid off. You no longer had to hold up an aching head or a weary back. You trusted yourself to the bed in 11 Hf I I 36 THE CHRISTIAN'S SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. an absolute confidence, and it held you up, without effort, or strain, or even thought on your part. You rested ! But suppose you had doubted the strength or the stability of your bed, and had dreaded each moment to find it giving way beneath you and landing you on the floor ; could you have rested then ? Would not every muscle have been strained in a fruitless effort to hold yourself up, and would not the weariness have been greater than not to have gone to bed at all ? Let this analogy teach you what it means to rest in the Lord. Let your souls lie down upon His sweet will, as your bodies lie down in your beds at night. Relax every strain and lay off every burden. Let yourself go in a perfect abandonment of ease and com- fort, sure that when He holds you up you are perfectly safe. Your part is simply to rest. His part is to sustain you, and He cannot fail. Or take another analogy, which our Lord Himself has abundantly sanctioned — that of the child-life. For " Jesus called a little child unto Him, and set him in the midst of thenv, and said. Verily, I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Now, what are the charactiristics of a little child,, and how does he live ? He lives b;' faith, and his chief est characteristic is though tlessr ss. His life is one long trust from year's end to year's end. He trusts his parents, he trusts his caretakers, ho trusts ]Ab teachers, he even trusts people often who are utterly unworthy of trust, because of the confidingness of his nature. And his trust is abundantly answered. He provides nothing for himself, and yet everything is [Tovided. He takes no thought for the morrow, and THE LIFE DEFINED. 87 forms no plans, and yet all his life is planned out for him, and he finds His paths made ready, opening out to him as he comes to them day by day and hour by hour. He goes in and out of his father's house with an unspeakable ease and abandonment, enjojnng all the good things it contains, without having spent a penny in procuring them. Pestilence may walk through the streets of his city, but he regards it not. Famine and fire and war may rage around him, but under his father's tender care he abides in utter uncon- cern and perfect rest. He lives in the present moment, and receives his life without question as it comes to him day by day from his father's hands. I was visiting once in a wealthy house, where there was only one adopted child, upon whom was lavished all the love and tenderness and care that human hearts could bestow or human means procure. And as I watched that child running in and out day by day, free and light-hearted, with the happy carelessness of childhood, I thought what a picture it was of our wonderful position as children in the house of our Heavenly Father. And I said to myself. If nothing could so grieve and wound the loving hearts around her, as to see this little child beginning to be worried or anxious about herself in any way — about whether her food or clothes would be provided for her, or how she was to get her education or her future support — how much more must the great loving heart of our God and Father be grieved and wounded at seeing His children taking so much anxious care and thought ! And I understood why it was that our Lord Had said to us so emphatically, " Take no thought for yourselves.** Who is the best cared for in every household ? Is it not the little children ? And does not the least of all, the helpless baby, receive the largest share ? As a late 38 THE christian's secret of a happy life. lit writer has said, the baby " toils not, neither does he spin ; and yet he is fed, and clothed, and loved, and rejoiced in, and none so much as he." This life of faith, then, about which '1 am writing, consists in just this — being a child in the Father's house. And when this is said, enough is said to trans- form every weary, burdened life into one of blessed- ness and rest. Let the ways of childish confidence and freedom from care, which so please you and win your hearts in your own little ones, teach you what should be your ways with God ; and leaving yourselves in His hands, learn to be literally careful for nothing ; and you shall find it to be a fact that "the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep (as in a garrison) your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." ** Trust in the Lord and do good ; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. " Delight thyself also in the Lord ; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart. " Commit thy way unto the Lord ; trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass : " And He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noon-dary. " Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him. " And the work of righteousness shall be peace ; and the eflfect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever. " And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habita- tion, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting-places." r CHAPTER IV. ^m U (^wUv ftl. it JW, Mn \ r.^ \ • AVING tried to settle the question* as to the Scripturalness of the experience of this life of full trust, and having also shown a little of what it is, the next point is as to how it is to be reached and realized. And first I would say that this blessed life must not be looked upon in any sense as an attainment, but as an obtainraent. We cannot earn it, we cannot climb up to it, we cannot win it ; we can do nothing but ask for it, and receive it. It is the gift of God in Christ Jesus. And where a thing is a gift, the only course left for the receiver is to take it, and thank the giver. We never say of a gift, " See to what I have attained," and boast of our skill and wisdom in having attained it ; but we say, " See what has been given me," and boast of the love and wealth and generosity of the giyer. And everything in our salvation is a gift. From 40 THE christian's SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. beginning to end, God is the giver, and we are the receivers ; and it is not to those who do great things but to those who " receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness," that the richest promises are made. In order, therefore, to enter into a realized experi- ence of this interior life, the soul must be in a recep- tive attitude, fully recognizing the fact that it is to be God's gift in Christ Jesus, and that it cannot be gained by any efforts or works of our own. This will sim- plify the matter exceedingly, and the only thing left to be considered then will be to discover upon whom God bestows this gift, and how they are to receive it. And to this I would ansv/er in short, that He bestows it only upon the fully consecrated soul, and that it is to be received by faith. Consecration is the first thing. Not in any legal sense, not in order to purchase or deserve the blessing, but to remove the difficulties out of the way and make it possible for God to bestow it. In order for a lump of clay to be made into a beautiful vessel it must be entirely abandoned to the potter, and must lie passive in his hands. And in order for a soul to be made into a vessel unto God's honor, " sanctified and meet for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good work," it must be entirely abandoned to Him, and must lie pas- sive in His hands. This is manifest at the first glance. I was once trying to explain to a physician who had charge of a large hospital, what consecration meant, and its necessity, but he seemed unable to understand. At last I said to him, " Suppose, in going your rounds among your patients, you should meet with one man who entreated you earnestly to take his case under your especial care in order to curehim, but who should at the same time refuse to tell you all the symptoms HOW TO ENTER IN. 41 or to take all your prescribed remedies ; and should say to you, * I am quite willing to follow your direc- tions as to certain things, because they commend them- selves to my mind as good, but in other matters I prefer judging for myself, and following my own directions.' What would you do in such a case ? " I asked. " Do ! " he replied with indignation, " Do ! I would soon leave such a man as that to his own care. For of course," he added, " I could do nothing for him, unless he would put his whole case into my hands without any reserves, and would obey my directions implicitly." " It is necessary, then," 1 observed, " for doctors to be obej^^ed, if they are to have any chance to cure their patients ? " " iTnpliciily obeyed ! " was his emphatic reply. "And that is consecration," I con- tinued. " God must have the whole case put into His hands without any reserves, and His directions must be implicitly followed." " I see it ! " he exclaimed, " I see it! And I will do it. God shall have His own way with me from henceforth." Perhaps to divine minds the word abandonment might express this idea better. But whatever word we use, we mean an entire surrender of the whole being to God — spirit, soul, and body placed under His absolute control, for Him to do with us just what He pleases. We mean that the language of our souls under all circumstances, and in view of every act, is to be " Thy will be done." We mean the giving up of all liberty of choice. We mean a life of inevitable obedi- ence. To a soul ignorant of God this may look hard. But to those who know Him, it is the happiest and mo^^t restful of lives. He is our Father, and He loves us, and H(; knows just what is best, and therefore, of course, His will is the most blessed thing that V 42 THE christian's secret of a happt lifk. can come to us under all circumstances. I do not understand how it is that Satan has succeeded in blinding the eyes o£ the Church to this fact. But it really would seem as if God's own children were more afraid of His will than of anything else in life — His lovely, lovable will, which only means loving kind- nesses and tender mercies, and blessings unspeakable to their souls ! I wish I could only show to every one the unfathomable sweetness of the will of God. Heaven is a place of infinite bliss because His will is perfectly done there, and our lives share in this bliss just in proportion as His will is perfectly done in them. He loves us — loves its — and the will of love is always blessing for its loved one. Some of us know what it is to love, and we know that could we only have our way, our beloved ones would be overwhelmed with bless- ings. All that is good, and sweet, and lovely *n life would be poured out upon them from our lavish hands, had we but the power to carry out our will for them. And if this is the wav of love with us, how much more roust it be so with our God who is love itself. Could we but for one moment get a glimpse into the mighty depths of His love, our hearts would spring out to meet His will, and embrace it as our richest treasure. And we would abandon ourselves to it with an enthu- siasm of gratitude and joy, that such a wondrous pri- vilege could be ours. A great many Christians actually seem to think that all their Father in Heaven wants is a chance to make them miserable, and to take away all their bless- ings ; and they imagine, poor souls, that if they hold on to things in their own will they can hinder Him from doing this. I am ashamed to write the words, and yet we must face a fact which is making wretched hunaiuds of lives. ' c K V ■ c o o p d HOW TO ENTER IN. 48 nk to A Christian lady who had this feeling was once expressing to a friend how impossible she found it to say, " Thy will be done," and how afraid she should be to do it. She was the mother of one only little boy, who was the heir to a great fortune, and the idol of her heart. After she had stated her difficulties fully, her friend said, " Suppose your little Charley should come running to you to-morrow, and say, * Mother, I have made up my mind to let you have your own way with me from this time forward. I am always going to obey you, and I want you to do just whatever you think best with me. I know you love me, and I am going to trust myself to your love.' How would you feel towards him ? Would you say to yourself, * Ah, now I shall have a chance to make Charley miserable ; I will take away all his pleasures, and fill his life with every hard and disagreeable thing I can find ; I will compel him to do just the things that are the most dif- ficult for him to do, and will give him all sorts of im- possible commands ? ' " " Oh, no, no, no ! " exclaimed the indignant mother ; " you know I would not. You know I would hug him to my heart, and cover him with kisses, and would hasten to fill his life with all that was sweetest and best." "And are you more ten- der and more loving than God ? " asked her friend. " Ah, no," was the reply ; " I see my mistake, and I will not be any more afraid of saying, * Thy will be done,* to my heavenly Father, than I would want my Charley to be of saying it to me." Better and sweeter than health or friends, or money, or fame, or ease, or prosperity, is the adorable will of our God. It gilds the darkest hours with a divine halo, and sheds brightest sunshine on the gloomiest paths. He always reigns who has made it His king- dom ; and nothing can go amiss to Him. Surely, then. I « 44 THE christian's secret of a happy life. it is nothing but a glorious privilege that is opening before you, when I tell you that the first step you must take in order to enter into the life hid with Christ in God is that of entire consecration. I cannot have you look at it as a hard and stern demand. You must do it gladly, thankfully, enthusiastically. You must go in on what I call the privilege side of conse- cration ; and I can assure you, from a blessed experi- ence, that you will find it the happiest place you have ever entered yet. Faith is the next thing. Faith is an absolutely necessary element in the reception of any gift ; for let our friends give a thing to us ever so fully, it is not really ours until we believe it has been given, and claim it as our own. Above all, this is true in gifts which are purely mental or spiritual. Love may be lavished upon us by another without stint or measure, but until we believe that we are loved, it never really becomes ours. I suppose most Christians understand this principle in reference to the matter of their forgri^eness. They know that the forgiveness of sins through Jesus might have been preached to them forever, but it would never really have become theirs until they believe this preaching, and claimed the forgiveness as their own. But when it comes to living the Christian life, they lose sight of this principle, and think that, having been saved by faith, they are now to live by works and efforts ; and instead of continuing to receive, they are now to begin to do. This makes our declaration that the life hid with Christ in God is to be entered by faith, seem perfectly unintelligible to them. And yet it is plainly declared, that " as we have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so we are to walk in Him." We re- ceived Him by faith, and by faith alone ; therefore we HOW TO ENTER IN. 46 and are ihat by yet irisb le- we are to walk in Him by faith, and by faith alone. And the faith by which we enter into this hidden life is just the same as the faith by which we were translated out of the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of God's dear Son, only it lays hold of a different thing. Then we believed that Jesus was our Saviour from the guilt of sin, and accordiug to our faith it was unto us. Now we must believe that He is our Saviour from the power of sin, and according to our faith it sh&ll be unto us. Then we trusted Him for our justification, and it be- came ours ; now we must trust Him for our sanctifica- tion, and it shall become ours also. Then we took Him as a Saviour in the future from the penalties of our sins ; now we must take Him as a Saviour in the present from the bondage of our sins. Then He was our Substitute ; now He is to be our Life. Then He lifted us out of the pit ; now He is to seat us in heav- enly places with Himself. 1 mean all this of course, experimentally and prac- tically. Theologically and judicially I know that every believer has everything the minute he is converted. But experimentally nothing is his until by faith he claims it. " Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you." God " hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in hea- venly places in Christ," but until we set the foot of faith upon them they do not practically becorrie ours. " According to our faith," is always the limit and the rule. But this faith of which I am speaking must be a present faith. No faith that is exercised in the future tense amounts to anything. A man may be- lieve forever that his sins will be forgiven at some future time, and he never will be converted. He has to come to the now belief, and say by faith, " My sins 46 THE CHRISTIAN S SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. ; I are now forgiven," before he can know the new birth. And similarly, no faith which looks for a future deliverance from the power of sin will ever lead a soul into the life we are desiribing. Satan delights in this future faith, for he knows it is powerless to accomplish any practical results. But he trembles and flees when the soul of the believer dares to claim a present deliverance, and to reckon itself now to be free from his power. To sum up, then. In order to enter into this blessed interior life of rest and triumph you have two steps to take. First, entire abandonment ; and, second, abso- lute faith. No matter what may be the complications of your peculiar experience, no matter what your difficulties, or your surroundings, or your associations, these two steps definitely taken and unwaveringly persevered in, will certainly bring you out^ sooner or later into the green pastures and still waters of this higher Christian life. You may be sure of this. And if you will let every other consideration go, and simply devote your attention to these two points, and be very clear and definite about them, your progress will be rapid, and your soul will reach its desired haven far sooner than now you can think possible. Shall I repeat the steps, that there may be no mis- take ? You are a child of God, and long to please Him, You love your precious Saviour, and are sick and weary of the sin that grieves Him. You long to be delivered from its power. Everything you have hitherto tried has failed to deliver you ; and now in your despair you are asking if it can indeed be, as these happy people say, that Jesus is able and willing to de- liver you. Surely, you know in your very soul that He is. That to save you out of the hand of all your enemies is in fact iust the very thing He came to do. HOW TO ENTER IN. 47 IIS- Lim, land to lave in Ihese de- Ithat rour do. Then trust Hira. Commit your case to Him in an absolute abandonment, and believe that He undertakes it ; and at once, knowing what He is and what He has said, claim that He does even now fully save. Just as you believed at first that Ho delivered you from the guilt of sin because He said so, so new believe that He delivers you from the power of sin because He says so. Let your faith now lay hold of a new power in Christ. You have trusted Him as your dying Saviour, now trust Him as your living Saviour. Just as much as He came to deliver you from future punishment, did He also come to deliver you from present bondage. Just as truly as He came to bear your stripes for you, has He come to live your life for you. iTou are as utterly powerless in the one case as in the other. You could as easily have got yourself rid of your own sins, as you could now accomplish for yourself practical righteousness. Christ, and Christ only, must do both for you, and your part in both cases is simply to give the thing to Him to do, and then believe that He does it. A lady, now very eminent in this life of trust, when she was seeking in great darkness and perplexity to enter in, said to the friend who was trying to help her, " You all say abandon yourself and trust — abun- don yourself and trust — but I do not know how. 1 wish you would just do it out loud, so that I may see how you do it." Shall I do it out loud for you ? " Lord Jesus, I believe that Thou art able and will- ing to deliver me from all the care, and unrest, and bondage of my Christian life. I believe Thou didst die to set me free, not only in the future, but now and here. I believe Thou art stronger than Satan, and that Thou canst keep me, even me, in my extreme 48 THE christian's secret of a happy life. weakness, from falling into his snares, or yielding obedience to his commands. And, Lord, I am going to trust Thee to keep me ; I have tried keeping myself, and have failed, and failed most grievously. I am absolutely helpless. So now I will trust Thee. I give myself to Thee. I keep back no reserves. Body, soul and spirit I present myself to Thee, a worthless lump of clay, to be made into anything Thy love and Thy wisdom shall choose. And now I am Thine. I believe Thou dost accept that which I present to Thee ; I be- lieve that this poor, weak, foolish heart has been taken possession of by Thee, and that Thou hast even at this very moment begun to work in me to will and to do of Thy good pleasure. I trust Thee utterly, and I trust Thee now." Are you afraid to take this step ? Does it seem too sudden, too much like a leap in the dark ? Do you know that the steps of faith always " fall on the seem- ing void, but find the rock beneath ? " ^f ever you are to enter this glorious land flowing with milk and honey, you must sooner or later step into the brimming waters, for there is no other path. And to do it now may save you months, and even years, of disappoint- ment and grief. Hear the word of the Lord : — " Have not I commanded thee ? Be strong and of a good courage ; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed ; for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest" I CHAPTER V. I giffkultieisi (K0ttavttitt0 (f^ji^imcaiimu T is very important that Christians should not be ignorant of the devices of Satan ; for he stands ready to op- pose every onward step of the soul's progress. And especially is he busy when he sees a believer awakened to a hunger and thirst after righteousness, and seeking to reach out to apprehend all the fulness that is in the Lord Jesus Christ for him. One of the first difficulties that he throws in the way of such an one is concerning consecration. The seeker after holiness is told that he must consecrate himself, and he endeavors to do so. But at once he meets with a difficulty. He has done it, as ho thinks, and yet does not feel differently from before ; nothing seems changed, as he has been led to expect it would be, and he is completely baffled, and asks the question almost despairingly, " How am I to know when I am consecrated?" 60 THE christian's SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. The one grand device of Satan which has met such a soul at this juncture is one which he never fails to employ on every possible occasion, and generally with marked success, and tl.it is in reference to feeling. Tho soul cannot believe it is consecrated until it feels that it is ; and because it does not feel that God has taken it in hand, it cannot believe that He has. As usual, it puts feeling first and faith second. Now, God's invariable rule is, faith first and feeling second, in everything, and it is striving against the inevitable when we seek to mak'> it different. The way to meet this device of Satan, then, in refer- ence to consecration, is simply to take God's side in the matter, and to put faith before feeling. Give yourself to the Lord definitely and fully, according to your present light, asking the Holy Spirit to show you all that is contrary to God, either in your heart or life. If He shows you anything, give it to the Lord imme- diately, and say in reference to it, " Thy will be done." If He shows you nothing, then you must believe that there is nothing, and must conclude that you have given Him all. Then you must believe that He takes you. You positively must not wait to feel either that you have given yourself, or that He has taken you. You must simply believe it, and reckon it to be the case. If you were to give an estate to a friend, you would have to give it, and he would have to receive it, )y faith. An estate is not a thing that can be picked up and handed over to another ; the gift of it and its re- ception are altogether a mental transaction, and there- fore one of faith. Now, if you should give an estate one day to a friend, and then should go away and wonder whether you really had given it, and whether he actually had taken it and considered it his own, i DIFFICULTIES CONCERNINQ CONSECRATION. 51 you. ) the and should feel it necessary to go next day and renew the gift ; and if on the third day you should still feel a similar uncertainty about it, and should again go and renew the gift ; and on the fourth day go through a like process, and so on, day after day for months and years, what would your friend think, and what at last would be the condition of your own mind in reference to it ? Your friend certainly would begin to doubt whether you ever had intended to give it to him at all, and you yourself would be in such hopeless perplexity about it, that you would not know whether the estate was yours or his, or whose it was. Now, is not this very much the way in which you have been acting toward God in this matter of con- secration ? You have given yourself to Him over and over daily, perhaps for months, but you have invari- ably come away from your seasons of consecration wondering whether you really have given yourself after all, and whether He has taken you ; and because you have not felt any differently, you have concluded at last, after many painful tossings, that the thing has not been done. Do you know, dear believer, that this sort of perplexity will last forever, unless you cut it short by faith ? You must come to the point of reck- oning the matter to be an accomplished and settled thing, and leaving it there, before you can possibly expect any change of feeling whatever. The very law of offerings to the Lord settles this as a primary fact, that everything which is given to Him becomes by that very act something holy, set apart from all other things, and cannot witnout sacrilege be put to any other uses. " Notwithstanding, no devoted thing that a man shall devote unto the Lord of all that he hath, both of man and beast, and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed ; every devoted 52 THE christian's SECRET OP A HAPPY LIFE. nt thing is most holy unto the Lord." Having once given it unto the Lord, the devoted thing henceforth was reckoned by all Israel as being the Lord's, and no one dared to stretch forth a hand to retake it. The giver might have made his offering very grudgingly and half-heartedly, but having made it, the matter was taken out of his hands altogether, and the devoted thing by God's own law became " most holy unto the Lord." It was not the intention of the giver that made it holy but the holiness of the receiver. " The altar sanctifies the gift." And an offering once laid upon the altar, from that moment belonged to the Lord. I can imagine an offerer who has deposited a gift be- ginning to search his heart as to his sincerity and honesty in doing it, and coming back to the priest to say that he was afraid after all he had not given it right, or had not been perfectly sincere in giving it. I feel sure that the priest would have silenced him at once with saying, " As to how you gave your offering, or what were your motives in giving it, I do not know. The facts are that you did give it, and that it is the Lord's, for every devoted thing is most holy unto Him. It is too late to recall the transaction now." And not only the priest, but all Israel, would have been aghast at the man who, having once given his offering, should have reached out his hand to take it back. And yet. day after day, earnest-hearted Christians, who would have shuddered at such an act of sacrilege on the part of a Jew, are guilty in their own experience of a simi- lar act, by giving themselves to the Lord in solemn consecration, and then through unbelief that which they have given. liocause God is not visibly present to the eye, it is difficult to feel that a transaction with Him is real. I suppose if, when we made our acts of consecration, we taking back DiPFICULTIteS CONCERNING CONSECRATION. 63 IS could actually see Him present with us, we should feel it to be a very real thing, and would realize that we had given our word to Him and could not dare to take it back, no matter how much we might wish to do so. Such a transaction would have to us the binding power that a spoken promise to an earthly friend always has to a man of honor. And what we need is to see that God's presence is a certain fact always, and that everj' act of our soul is done right before Him, and that a word spoken in prayer is as really spoken to Him as if our eyes could see Him and our hands could toucli Him. Then we shall cease to have such vague con- ceptions of our relations with Him, and shall feel the binding force of every word we say in His presence. I know some will say her \ " Ah, yes ; but if He would only speak to me, and say that 1 took me when I gave myself to Him, I would have no trouble then in believing it." No, of course you would not, but He does not generally say this until the soul has first proved its loyalty by believing what He has already said. It is he that believeth, who has the witness, not he that doubteth. And by His very com- mand to us to present ourselves to Him a living sacri- fice. He has pledged Himself to receive us. I cannot conceive of an honorable man asking another to give him a thing which, after all, he was doubtful about taking ; still less can I conceive of a loving parent acting so towards a darling child. " My son, give me thy heart," is a sure warrant for knowing that the moment the heart is given it will be taken by the One who has commanded the gift. We may, nay we must, feel the utmost confidence, then, that when we sur- render ourselves to the Lord, according to His own command, He does then and there receive us, and from that moment we are His. A real transaction hath taken 54 THE christian's secret oe a happy life. place, which cannot be violated without dishonor on our part, and which we know will not be violated by Him. In Deut. xxvi. 17, 18, 19, we see God's way of work- ing under these circumstances. " Thou hast avouched the Lor^ this day to be th-"- God, and to walk in His ways, and to keep His statutes, and His commandments, and His judgments, and to hearken unto His voice : and the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be His peculiar people, as He hath pro- mised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all His com- mandments ;" . . . " and that thou mayest be an holy people unto the Lord, as He ^ath spoken.** When we avouch the Lord to be our God, and that we will walk in Ilis ways and keep His command- ments, lie avouches ua to be His, and that we shall keep all His commandments. And from that moment He ta^'es possession of us. This has always been His principle of working, and it continues to be so. " Every devoted thing is most holy to the Lord." This seems to me so plain as scarcely to admit of a question. But if the soul still feels in doubt or difficulty, let me refer you to a New Testament declaration which approaches the subject from a different side, but which settles it, I think, quite as definitely. It is in 1 John V. 14, 16, and reads, "And this is the confidence We have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will. He heareth us ; and if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the peti- tions that we desired of Him." Is it according to His will that you should be entirely consecrated to Him ? There can be, of course, but one answer to this, for He has commanded it. Is it not also according to His will that He should work in you to will and to do of His good pleasure ? This question also can have but DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING CONSECRATION. 55 us, one answer, for He has declared it to be His purpose. You know, then, that these things are according to His will, therefore on God's own word you are obliged to know that He hears you. And knowing this much, you are compelled to go further, and know that you have the petitions that you have desired of Him. That you have, I say, not will have, or may have, but have now in actual possession. It is thus that we " obtain Eromises " by faith. It is thus that we have " access y faith " into the grace that is given us in our Lord Jesus Christ. It is thus, and thus only that we come to know our hearts "purified by faith," and are enabled to live by faith, to stand by faith, to walk by faith. I desire to make this subject so plain and practical that no one need have any further difficulty about it, and therefore I will repeat again just what must be the acts of your soul in order to bring you out of this diffi- culty about consecration. I suppose that you have trusted the Lord Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, and know something of what it is to belong to the family of God, and to be made an heir of God through faith in Christ. And now you feel springing up in your soul the longing to be conformed to the image of your Lord. In order for this you know there must be an entire surrender of yourself to Him, that He may work in you all the good pleasure of His will ; and you have tried over and over to do it, but hitherto without any apparent success. At this point it is that I desire to help you. What you must do now is to come once more to Him in a sur- render of your whole self to His will, as complete as you know how to make it. You must ask Him to re- veal to you by His Spirit any hidden rebellion ; and if He reveals nothing, then you must believe that there is nothing, and that the surrender is complete. This 66 THE christian's secret op a HAPPSr LIFE. must, then, be considered a settled matter ; you have abandoned yourself to the Lord, and from henceforth you do not in any sense belong to yourself ; you must never even so much as listen to a suggestion to the contrary. If the temptation comes to wonder whether you really have completely surrendered yourself, meet it with an assertion that you have. Do not even argue the matter. Repel any such idea instantly, and with decision. You meant it then, you mean it now, you have really done it. Your emotions may clamor against the surrender, but your will must hold firm. It is your purpose God looks at, not your feelings about that purpose ; and your purpose, or will, is therefore the only thing uhat you need attend to. The surrendei, then, having been made, never to be questioned or recalled, the next point is to believe that God takes that which you have surrendered, and to reckon that it is His. Not that it will be at some future time, but is now ; and that He has begun to work in you to will and to do of His good pleasure. And here you riiust rest. There is nothing more for you to do ; for you are the Lord's now, absolutely and entirely in His hands, and He has undertaken the whole care and management and forming of you, and will, according to His word, " work in you that which is well pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ." But you must hold steadily here. If you begin to question your surrender, or God's acceptance of it, then your wavering faith will produce a wavering experience, and He will not work. But while you trust He works, and the result of His working always is to change you into the image of Christ, from glory to glory, by His mighty Spirit. Do you then, now at this moment, surrender your- self wholly to Him ? You answer, Yes. Then, my DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING CONSECRATION. 57 dear friend, begin at once to reckon that you are His ; that He has taken you, and that He is working in you to will and to do of His good pleasure. And keep on reckoning this. You will find it a great help to put your reckoning into words, and to say over and over to yourself and to your God, " Lord, I am Thine ; I do yield myself up to Thee entirely, and I believe that Thou dost take me. I leave myself with Thee. Work in me all the good pleasure of Thy will, and I will only lie still in Thy hands, and trust Thee.'* Make this a daily definite act of your will, and many times a day recur to it, as being your continual attitude before Him. Confess it to yourself. Confess it to your God. Confess i\ to your friends. Avouch the Lord to be your God continually and unwaveringly, and declare your purpose of walking in His vrays and keeping His statutes ; and you will find in practical experience that He has avouched you to be His peculiar people, and that you shall keep all His commandments, and that you will be " an holy people unto the Lord, as He hath spoken." ';\ i CHAPTER VL HE next step after consecration in the soul's progress out of the wilderness of Christian experience into the land that floweth with milk and honey, is that of faith. And here, as in the first step, Satan is very skilful in making difficul- ties and interposing obstacles. The child of God, having had his eyes opened to see the fulness there is in Jesus for him, and having been made to long to appropriate that fulness to himself, is met with the assertion on the part of every teacher to whom he applies, that this fulness is only to be received by faith. But the subject of faith is involved in such a hopeless mystery in his mind, that this assertion, in- stead of throwing light upon the way of entrance, only seems to make it more difficult and involved than ever. "Of course it is to be by faith," he says, "for I know that everything iu the Christian life is by faith. DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING FAITH. 69 But then that is just what makes it so hard, for I have no faith, and I do not even know what it is, or how to get it." And, baffled at the very outset by this insu- perable difficulty, he is plunged into darkness, and almost despair. This trouble all arises from the fact that the subject of faith is very generally misunderstood ; for in reality faith is the simplest and plainest thing in the world, and the most easy of attainment. Your idea of faith, I suppose, has ' been something like this. You have looked upon it as in some way a sort of thing, either a religious exercise of soul, or an inward gracious disposition of heart, something tan- gible, in fact, which, when you have got, you can look at and rejoice over, and use as a passport to God's favour, or a coin with which to purchase His gifts. And you have been praying for faith expecting all the while to get something like this, and never having re- ceived any such thing, you are insisting upon it that you have no faith. Now faith, in fact, is not in the least this sort of a thing. It is nothing at all tangible. It is simply believing God, and, like sight, it is nothing apart from its object. You might as well shut your eyes, and look inside and see whether you have sight, as to look inside to discover whether you have faith. You see something, and thus know that you have sight. You believe something, and thus know that you have faith. For as sight is only seeing, so faith is only be- lieving. And as the only necessary thing about seeing is, that you see the thing as it is, so the only necessary thing about believing is, that you believe the thing as it is. The virtue does not lie in your believing, but in the thing you believe. If you believe the truth, you are saved ; if you believe a lie, you are lost. The be- jving in both cases is the same ; the things believed 60 THE CHRISTIAN'S SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. in are ex.ictly opposite, and it is this which makes the mighty difference. Your salvation comes not because your faith saves you, but because it links you on to the Saviour who saves ; and your believing is really noth- ing but the link. I do beg of you to recognize, then, the extreme sim- plicity of faith, that it is nothing more nor less than just believing God when He says He either has done something for us, or will do it ; and then trusting Him to do it. It is so simple that it is hard to explain. If any one asks me what it means to trust another to do a piece of work for me, I can only answer that it means letting that other one do it, and feeling it per- fectly unnecessary for me to do it myself. Every one of us has trusted very important pieces of work to others in this way, and has felt perfect rest in thus trusting, because of the confidence we have had in those who have undertaken to do it. How constantly tlo mothers trust their most precious infants to the care of nurses, and feel no shadow of anxiety ? How continually we are all of us trusting our health and our lives, without a thought of fear, to cooks and coachmen, engine drivers, railway conductors, and all sorts of paid servants, who have us completely at their mercy, and could plunge us into misery or death in a moment, if they chose to do so, or even if they failed m the necessary carefulness ? All this we do, and make no fuss about it. Upon the slightest acquaint- *ance often, we thus put our trust in people, requiring only the general knowledge of human nature, and the common rules of human intercourse ; and we never feel as if we were doing anything in the least remark- able. You have done all this yourself, dear reader, and are doing it continually. You would not be able to live DIFFICULTIES CONCERNINa FAITH. 61 in this world and go through the customary routine of life a single day, if you could not trust your fellow- men. And it never enters into your head to say you cannot. But yet you do not hesitate to say continually, that you cannot trust your God ! I wish you would just now try to imagine yourself acting in your human relations as you do in your spir- itual relations. Suppose you should begin to-morrow with the notion in your head that you could not trust anybody, because you had no faith. When you sat down to breakfast you would say, " I cannot eat any- thing on this table, for I have no faith, and I cannot believe the cook has not put poison in the coffee, or that the butcher has not dent home a diseased ham." So you would go starving away. Then, when you went out to your daily avocations, you would say, " I cannot ride in the railway train, for I have no faith, and therefore I cannot trust the engineer, nor the con- ductor, nor the builders of the carriages, nor the man- agers of the road." So you would be compelled to walk everywhere, and grow unutterably weary in the effort, besides being actually unable to reach many of the places you could have reached in the train. Then when your friends met you with any statements or your business agent with any account, you would say, " I am very sorry that I cannot believe you, but I have no faith, and never can believe anybody." If you opened a newspaper, you would be forced to lay it down again, saying, "I really cannot believe a word this paper says, for I have no faith ; I do not believe there is any such person as the Queen, for I never saw her; nor any such country as Ireland, for I was never there. And I have no faith, so of course I cannot be- lieve anything that I have not actually felt and touched 62 THE CHRISTIAN'S SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. myself. It is a great trial, but I cannot help it, for I have no faith." Just picture such a day as this, and see how disas- trous it would be to yourself and what utter folly it would appear to any one who should watch you through the whole of it. Realize how your friends would ieel insulted, and how your servants would re- fuse to serve you another day. And then ask yourself the question, if this want of faith in your fellow-men would be so dreadful, and such utter folly, what must it be when you tell God that you have no power to trust Him nor to believe His word ; that it is a great trial, but you cannot help it, for you have no faith ! Is it possible that you can trust your fellow-men and cannot trust your God ? That you ca^ eceive the " witness of men," and Cannot receive the " witness of • God ?" That you can believe man's records, and can- not believe God's record ? That you can commit your dearest earthly interests to your weak failing fellow- creatures without a fear, and are afraid to commit your spiritual interests to the blessed Saviour who shed His blood for the very purpose of saving you, and who is declared to be "able to save you to the uttermost ?" Surely, surely, dear believer, you, whose very name of believer implies that you can believe, you will never again dare to excuse yourself on the plea of having no faith ; for when you say this, you mean of course that you have no faith in God, for you are not asked to have faith in yourself, and you would be in a very wrong condition of soul if you had. Let me beg of you, then, when you think or say these things, always to complete the sentence, and say, " I have no faith in God, I cannot believe God ;" and this I am sure will soon become so dreadful to you, that you will not dare to continue it DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING FAITH. 63 fori But, you say, I cannot believe without the Holy Spirit. Very well ; will you conclude, then, that your want of faith is because of the failure of the blessed Spirit to do His work ? For if it is, then surely you are not to blame, and need feel no condemnation, and all exhortations to you to believe are useless. But, No I Do you not see that, in taking up this position — that you have no faith and cannot believe — you are noi only " making God a liar," but you are also manifesting an utter want of confidence in the Holy Spirit. For He is always ready to help our infirmities. We never have to wait for Him, He is always waiting for us. And I for my part have such absolute confidence in the blessed Holy Ghost, and in His being always ready to do His work, that I dare to say to every one of you, that you can believe now at this very moment, and that if you do not it is not the Spirit's fault but your own. Put your will, then, over on to the believing side. Say, " Lord, I will believe, I do believe," and continue to say it. Insist upon believing, in the face of every suggestion of doubt which Satan may bring. Out of your very unbelief, throw yourself headlong on to the word and promises of God, and dare to abandon your- self to the keeping and saving power of the Lord Jesus. If you have ever trusted a precious interest in the hands of any earthly friend, I conjure you, trust yourself now and all your spiritual interest, in the hands of your Heavenly Friend, and never, never, NEVER, allow yourself to doubt again. And remember, there are two things which are more utterly incompatible than even oil and water, and these two are trust and worry. Would you call it trust, if you should give something into the hands of a friend to attend to for you, and then should spend your nights 64 THE christian's secret of a happy life. and days in anxious thought and worry as to whether it would be rightly and successfully done ? And can you call it trust, when you have given the saving and keeping of your soul into the hands of the Lord, if day after day and night after night you are spending hours of anxious thought and questionings about the matter? "When a believer really trusts anything, he ceases to worry about that thing which he has trusted. And when he worries it is a plain proof that he does not trust. Tested by this rule, how little real trust there is in the Church of Christ ! No wonder our Lord asked the pathetic question, " When the Son of man Cometh, shall He find faith on the earth ? " He will find plenty of activity, a great deal of earnestness, and doubtless many consecrated hearts ? But shall He find faith — the one thing He values more than all the rest ? It is a solemn question, and I would that every Chris- tian heart would ponder it well. But may the time f)ast of our lives suffice us to have shared in the unbe- ief of the world, and may we every one, who know our blessed Lord and His unspeakable trustworthiness, set to our seal that He is true, by our generous aban- donment of trust in Him. I remember very early in my Christian life, having every tender and loyal impulse within me stirred to its depths by an appeal I met with in a volume of old sermons, to all who loved the Lord Jesus, that they siiould show to others how worthy He was of being trusted, by the steadfastness of their own faith in Him. And 1 remember my soul cried out with an eager long- ing that I might be called to walk in paths so dark, that an utter abandonment of trust might be my blessed and glorious privilege. " Ye have not passed this way heretofore," it may be ; but to-day it is your happy privilege to prove, as i DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING FAITH. 65 never before, your loyal confidence in Jesus by starting out with Him on a life and walk of faith, lived moment by moment in absolute and childlike trust in Him. You have trusted Him in a few things, and He has not failed you. Trust Him now for everything, and see if He does not do for you exceeding abundantly above all that you could ever have asked or thought, not according to your power or capacity, but according to His own mighty power, that will work in you all the good pleasure of His most blessed will. You find no difficulty in trusting the Lord with the management of the universe and all the outward crea- tion, and can your case be any more complex or diffi- cult than these, that you need to be anxious or troubled about His management of it ? Away with such un- worthy doubtings! Take your stand on the power and trustworthiness of your God, and see how quickly all difficulties will vanish before a steadfast determina- tion to believe. Trust in the dark, trust in the light, trust at night, and trust in the morning, and you will find that the faith, which may begin by a mighty effort, will end sooner oi later by becoming the easy and natural habit of the soul. All things are possible to God, and "all things are possible to him that believeth." Faith has, in times past, " subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, ob- tained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of aliens ;" and faith can do it again. For our Lord Him- self says unto us, "If ye have faith as a grain oi mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Re- move hence to yonder place ; and it shall remove ; and nothing shall be impossible unto you." If yea are a child of God at all, you must have at 66 THE christian's secret OF A HAPPY LIFE. least as much faith as a grain of mustard seed, and therefore you dare not say again that you cannot trust because you have no faith. Say, rather, " I can trust my Lord, and I will trnst Him, and not all the pow rs of earth or hell shall be able to make me doubt < ay wonderful, glorious, faithful Redeemer !" Of all the worships we can bring Him, none is so sweet to Him as an utter self -abandoning trust. Let your faith then " throw its arms around all God has told you," and entreat Him to give you more to believe. And in every dark hour remember that " though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heavi- ness through manifold temptations," it is in order that " the trial of your faith, being much more preciov^« than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried wi%h tire, might be found unto praise, and honor, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ" > S^>yj^. CHAPTER VII. HEN the child of God has, by the way of entire abandonment and absolute trust, stepped out of himself into Christ, and has begun to know something of the blessedness of the life hid with Christ in God, there is one form of dif- ficulty which is very likely to start up in his path. After the first emotions of peace and rest have some- what subsided, or if, as is sometimes the case, they have never seemed to come at all, he begins to feel such an utter unreality in the things he has been passing through, that he seems to himself like a hypocrite when he says or even thinks they are real. It seems to him that his belief does not go below the surface — that it is a mere lip-belief, and therefore of no account, and that his surrender is not a surrender of the heart, and therefore cannot be acceptable to God. He is afraid to say he is altogether the Lord's, for fear ha 68 THE christian's secret of a happy life. will be telling an untruth, and yet he cannot bring himself to say he is not, because he longs for it so in- tensely. The difficulty is real and very disheartening. But there is nothing here which will not be very easily overcome, when the Christian once thoroughly understands the principles of the new life, and has learned how to live in it. The common thought is, that this life iiid with Christ in God is to bt lived in the emotions, and consequently all the attention of the soul is directed towards them, and as they are satis- factory or otherwise, the soul rests or is troubled. Now, the truth is that this life is not to be lived in the emotions at all, but in the will, and therefore the vary- ing states of emotion do not in the least disturb or affect the reality of the life, if only the will is kept steadfastly abiding in its centre — God's will. To make this plain, I must enlarge a little. Fen/jlon says, somewhere, that " pure religion resides in the will alone." By this he means that, as the will is the f(ov- erning power in the man's nature, if the will is set straight, all the rest of the nature must come into har- mony. By the will I do not mean the wish of the man, nor even his purpDse, but the choice, the deciding power, the king, to which all that is in the man must yield obedience. It is the man, in short — the *' Ego" — that which we feel to be ourselves. It is sometimes thought that the emotion's are the governing power in our nature. But as a matter of practical experience, I think we all of us kno\s that there is something within us, behind our emotions, and behind our wishes — an independent self — that after fJl decides everything, and controls everything. Oar emotions belong to us, and are suffered and enjoyed by us, but they are not ourselves ; and if God is to take possession of us, it must be into this central will or ■ I DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING THE WILL. 69 personality that He shall enter. If, then, He is reign- ing there by the power of His Spirit, all the rest of our nature must come under His sway ; — and as the will is, so is the man. i The practical bearing of this truth upon the diffi- culty I am considering is very great. For the decisions of our willare often so directly opposed to the deci- sions of our emotions that, if we are in the habit of considering our emotions as the test, we shall be very apt to feel like hypocrites in declaring those things to be real which our will alone has decided. But the moment we see that the will is king, we shall utterly disregard anything that clamors against it, and shall claim as real its decisions, let the emotions rebel as they may. I am aware that this is a difficult subject to deal with ; but it is so exceedingly practical in its bearing upon the life of faith, that I beg of you, dear reader, not to turn from it until you have mastered it. Perhaps an illustration will help you. A young man of great intelligence, seeking to enter into this new life, was utterly discouraged at finding himself the slave to the inveterate habit of doubting. To his emotions nothing seemed true, nothing seemed real; and the more he struggled the more unreal did it all become. He was told this secret concerning the will — that if he would only put his will over on to the believing side , if he would choose to believe ; if, in short, he would, in the Ego of his nature say, " I will believe 1 I do believe!" he need not trouble about his emotions, for they would find themselves compelled, sooner or later, to como into harmony. "What!" he said, "do you mean to tell me that I can choose to believe it in that way, when nothing seems true to me ; and will that kind of believing be real ? " " Yes," was the answer, ^- 1 70 THE christian's SECRET OP A HAPPY LIFE. " yonr part was only this — to put your will over on God's side in this matter of believing ; and when you do this, God immediately takes possession of it, and works in you to will of His good pleasure, and that you will soon find that He has brought all the rest of your nature into subjection to Himself." " Well," was the answer, " I can do this. I cannot control my emotions, but I can control my will, and the new life begins to look possible to me if it is only my will that needs to be set straight in the matter. I can give my will to God, and I do!" From that moment, disregarding all the pitiful clamoring of his emotions, that continually accused him of being a wretched hypocrite, this young man held on steadily to the decision of his will, answer- ing every accusation with Jv^ continued assertion that he chose to believe, he meant to believe, he did believe ; until at the ' id of a few days he found himself trium- phant, with every emotion and every thought brought into captivity to the mighty power of the blessed Spirit of God, who had taken possession of the will thus put into His hands. He had held fast the profession of his faith without wavering, although it had seemed to him, that as to real faith itself, he had none to hold fast. At times it had drained all the will-power ho possessed to his lips to say that he believed, so contrary was it to all the evidence of his senses or of his emo- tions. But he had caught the idea that his will was, after all, himself, and that if ho kept that on God's side, he was doing all he could do, and that God alone could change his emotions or control his being. The result has been one of the grandest Christian lives I know of, in its marvellous simplicity, directness and power over sin. The secret lies just here. That our will, which is the spring of all our actions, was in the fall handed DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING THE WILL. 71 over into the control of Satan, and he has been working it in us to our utter ruin and misery. Now God says, "Yield yourselves up unto Me, as those that are alive from the dead, and I will work in you to will and to do of My good pleasure." And the moment we yield ourselves, He of course takes possession of us, and does work in us " that which is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ," giving us the mind that was in Christ, and transforming us into His image. (See Rom. xii. 1, 2.) Let us take another illustration. A lady, who had entered into this life hid with Christ, was confronted by a great prospective trial. Every emotion she had within her rose up in rebellion against it, and had she considered her emotions to be her king, she would have been in utter despair. But she had learned this secret of the will ; and knowing that, at the bottom, she her- self did really choose the will of God for her portion, she did not pay the slightest attention to her emotions, but persisted in meeting every thought concerning the trial, with the words, repeated over and over, " Thy will be done ! Thy will be done !" asserting, in the face of all her rebelling feelings, that she did submit her will to God's, that she chose to submit it, and that His will should he and was her delight ! The result was, that in an incredibly short space of time every thought was brought into captivity, and she began to find even her every emotion rejoicing in the will of God. Again, there was a lady who had a besetting sin, which in her emotions she dearly loved, but which in her will she hated. Having believed herself to be necessarily under the control of her emotions, she had therefore thought she was unable to conquer it unless her emotions should first be changed. But she learned 72 THE christian's secret of a happy life. 11 t t this secret concerning the will, and goinQ[ to her knees she said, " Lord, Thou seest that with one part of my nature I love this sin, but in my rt'd central self I hate it. And now T put my will over on Thy side in the matter. I will not do it any more. Do Thou deliver me." Immediate V Go<^ took possession of the will thus surrendered < l^ self, and began to work in her, so that His will iu v.. > -ter gained the mastery over her emotions, and si i'oaj^r^ herself delivered, not by the power of an outward cuL-mandment, but by the inward power of the Spirit of God working in her that which was well pleasing in His sight. And now, dear Christian, let me show you how to apply this principle to your difficulties. Cease to con- sider your emotions, for they are only the servants ; and regard simply your will, which is the real king in your being. Is that given up to God ? Is that put into His hands ? Does your will decide to believe ? Does your will choose to obey ? If this is the case then you are in the Lord's hands, and you decide to believe, and you choose to obey ; for your will is your- self. And the thing is done. The transaction with God is as real, where only your will acts, as when every emotion coincides. It does not seem as real to you ; but in God's sight it is as real. And when you have got hold of this secret, and have discovered that you need not attend to your emotions, but simply to the state of your will, all tlie Scripture commands — to yield yourself to God — to present yourself a living sacrifice to Him — to abide in Christ — to walk in the light — to die to self — become possible to you ; for you are conscious that, in all these, your will can act, and can take God's side : whei' as, if it had been your emo- tions that must do it you would sink down in despair knowing them to be utterly uncontrollable. DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING THE WILL. 73 jmo- When, then, this feeling of unreality or hypocrisy comes, do not be troubled by it. It is only in your emotions, and is not worth a moment's thouglit. Only see to it that your will is in God's hands ; that your inward self is abandoned to His working ; that your choice, your decision, is on His side ; and there leave it. Your surging emotions — like a tossing vessel, which, by degrees, yields to the steady pull of the cable — finding themselves attached to the mighty power of God by the choice of your will, must in- it- ably come into captivity, and give in their allegL:n(: to Him, and you will verify the truth of the f ying that, " If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine." The will is like a wise mother in a nursery ; the feelings are like a set of clamoring, crying ildren. The mother decides upon a certain course of action, which she believes to be right and best. The children clamor against it, and declare it shall not be. But the mother, knowing that she is mistress and not they, pursues her course calmly, unmoved by their clamors, and takes no notice of them except that of command- ing them to be quiet. The result is that the children are sooner or later compelled to yield, and fall in with the decision of the mother. Thus order and harmony are preserved. But if that mother should for a mo- ment let in the thought that the children were th mistresses instead of herself, confusion would remain unchecked. Such instances have been known in family life. And in how many souls at this very moment is there nothing but confusion, simply because the feelings are allowed to govern, instead of the will. Remember, then, that the real thing in your experi- ence is what your will decides, and not tlie venlict of your emotions ; and that you are far more in danger o I 74 THE CHRISTIAN'S SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. of hypocrisy and untruth in yielding to the assertions of your feelings, than in holding fast to the decision of your will. So that, if your will is on God's side, you are no hypocrite at this moment in claiming as your own the blessed reality of belonging altogether to Him, even though your emotions may all declare the contrary. I am convinced that, throughout the Bible, the ex- pressions concerning the "heart" do not mean the emotions — that which we now understand by the word heart — but they mean the will, the personality of the man, the man's own central self ; and that the object of God's dealings with man is that this " I " may be yielded up to Him, and this central life abandoned to His entire control. It is not the feelings of the man God wants, but the man himself. Have you given Him yourself, dear reader ? Have you abandoned your \yill to His working ? Do you consent to surrender the very centre of your being into His hands ? Then — let the outposts of your nature clamor as they may — it is your right to say, even now, with the Apostle, "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me : and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." After this chapter had been enclosed to the printer, the following remarkable practical illustration of its teaching was presented by Pasteur T. Monod, of Paris. It is the experience of a Presbyterian minister, which this Pasteur had carefully kept for many years. DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING THE WILL. 75 • IHewbvkqh, September S6th, I842. Deab Brother, — I take a few moments of that time which J have devoted to the Lord, in writing a short epistle to you Hia servant. It is sweet to feel we are wholly the Lord's, that He has received us and called us His. This is religion — a relin- quishment of the principle of self ownership, and the adoption in full of the abiding sentiment: "I am not my own ; I am bought with a price. " Since I last saw you, I have been press- ing forward, and yet there has been nothing remarkable in my experience of which I can speak ; indeed, I do not know that it is best to look for remarkable things ; but strive to be holy, as God is holy, pressing right on toward the mark of the prize. I do not feel myself qualified to instruct you : 1 can only tell you the way in which I was led. The Lord deals differently with different souls, and we ought not to attempt to copy the experi- ence of others, yet there are certain things which must be at- tended to by every one who is seeking after a clean heart. There must be a personal consecration of all to God, a cove- nant made with God, that we will be wholly and forever His. This I made intellectually without any change in my feelings — with a heart full of hardness and darkness, unbelief and sin, and insensibility. I covenanted to be the Lord's, and laid all upon the altar, a living sacrifice, to the best of my ability. And after I rose from my knees I was conscious of no change in my feelings ; I was painfully conscious that there was no change. But yet I was sure that I did, with all the sincerity and honesty of purpose of which I was capable, make an entire and eternal consecration of myself to God. I did not then consider the work as done by any means — but I engaged to abide in a state of entiro devotion to God — a living perpetual sacrifice. And now came the effort to do this. I knew that I must believe that God did accept me, and did come in to dwell in my heart. I was conscious I did not believe this, and yet 1 desired to do so. I read with much prayer John's first Epistle, and endeavored to assure my heart of God's love to me as an individual. I was sensible that my heart was full of evil. I seemed to have no power to overcome pride, or to repel evil thoughts which I abhorred. But Christ was manifested to destroy the works of the devil, and it was clear that the sin of my heart was the w ork of the devil. I was enabled, therefore, to believe that God was working in me, to will and to do, while 1 was working out my own salvation with fear and trembling. |l i ,.i 76 THE christian's secret of a happy life. I was convinced of unbelief, and that it was voluntary and criminal. I clearly saw that unbelief was an awful sin — it made the faithful God a liar. The Lord brought before me my beset- ting sins which had dominion over me, especially preaching my- self instead of Christ, and indulging self-complacent thoughts after preaching. I was enabled to make myself of no reputation, and to seek the honor which cometh from God only. Satan struggled hard to beat me back from the Rock of Ages, but thanks to God, I finally hit upon the method of living by the moment, and then I found rest. I trusted to the blood of Jesus already shed, as a sufficient atonement for all my past sins, and the future I conmiittcd wholly to the Lord, agreeing to do His will under all circum- stances as He should make it known, and I saw that all I hud to do was to look to Jesus for a present supply of grace, and to trust Him to cleanse my heart and keep me from sin at the present moment. I felt shut up to a momentary dependence upon the grace of Christ. I would not permit the adversary to trouble me about the past or future, for I each moment looked for the supply for that moment. I agreed that I would be a child of Abraham and walk by naked faith in the Word of God, and not by inward feel- ings and emotions — I would seek to be a Bible Christian. Since that time the Lord has given me a steady victory over sins which before enslaved me. I delight in the Lord, and in His Word. I delight in my work as a minister— my fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. I am a babe iiftDhrist ; I know my progress has been small compared with that made by many. My feelings vary, but when I have feeling, I praise God, and 1 trust in His Word, and when I am empty and my feelings are gone, I do the same. I have covenanted to walk by faith and not by feelings. The Lord, I think, is beginning to revive His work among my people. "Praise the Lord," May the Lord fill you with all His fulness and give you all the mind of Christ. O be faithful ! Walk before God and be perfect. Preach the Word. Be instant in season and out of season. The Lord loves you. He works with you. Rest your soul fully upon that promise, *' Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Your fellow-soldier, William Hill. DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING THE WILL. 77 There may be some who will object to this teaching that it ignores the work of the blessed Holy Spirit. But I must refer such to the introductory chapter of this book, in which I have fully explained myself. I am not writing upon that side of the subject ; I am considering man's part in the matter, and not the part of the Spirit. I realize intensely that all a man can do or try to do would be utterly useless if the Holy Spirit did not work in that man continually. And it is only because I believe in the Spirit as a mighty power, ever present and always ready to do His work, that I can write as I do. But, like the wind that bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth, the operations of the Spirit are beyond our control, and also beyond our comprehen- sion. The results we know, and the steps on our part which lead to those results, but we know nothing more. And yet, like a workman in a great manufactory, who does not question the commands of his employer, and is not afraid to undertake apparent impossibilities, because he knows there is mighty unseen power, called steam, behind his machinery, which can accomplish it all, so we dare to urge upon men that they shall simply and courageously set themselves to do that which they are commanded to do, because we know that the mighty Spirit will never fail to supply at each moment the necessary power for that moment's act. And we boldly claim that we who thus write, can say from our very heart, as arnestly and as solemnly as any other Christians, We believe in the Hbly Ghost. I I il ii ^1 CHAPTER VIIL NE of the greatest obstacles to living un- waveringly this life of entire surrender, is the difficulty of seeing God in every- thing. People say, " I can easily submit to things which come from God ; but I cannot submit to man, and most of my trials and crosses come through human instrumen- tality." Or they say, " It is all well enough to talk of trusting ; but when I commit a matter to God, man is sure to come in and disarrange it all ; and while I have no difficulty in trusting God, I do see serious difficulties in the way of trusting men." This is no imaginary trouble, but it is of vital importance, and if it cannot be met, does really make the life of faith an impossible and visionary theory. For nearly everything in life comes to us through human instrumentalities, and most of our trials are the reuults of somebody's Tailure, or ignorance, or care- IS GOD IN EVERYTHING? 79 lessness, or sin. We know God cannot be the author of these things, and yet unless He is the agent in the matter, how can we say to Him about it, " Thy will be done ? " Besides what good is there in trusting our affairs to God, if, after all, man is to be allowed to come and disarrange them ; and how is it possible to live by faith, if human agencies, in whom it would be wrong and foolish to trust, are to have a predominant influ- ence in moulding our lives ? Moreover, things in which we can see God's hand always have a sweetness in them which consoles while it wounds. But the trials inflicted by man are full of bitterness. What is needed then, is to see God in everythiwf, and to receive everything directly from His hands, with no intervention of second causes. And it is just to this that we must be brought, before we can know an abiding experience of entire abandonment and per- fect trust. Our abandonment must be to Oocl not to man, and our trust must be in Him, not in any arm of flesh, or we shall fail at the first trial. The question here confronts us at once — " But is God in everything, and have we any warrant from the Scripture for receiving everything from His hands, without regarding tUe second causes which may have been instrumental in bringing it about ? " I answer to this unhesitatingly. Yes. To the children of God everything comes directly from their Father's hand, no matter who or what may have been the apparent agents. There are no " second causes " for thetn. The whole teaching of Scripture asserts and implies this. " Not a sparrow falls to the ground without our Father. The very hairs of our head are all numbered." We are not to bo careful about anything, bucau.se our I 80 THE christian's SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. Father cares for us. We are not to avenge ourselves, because our Father has charged Himself with our defence. We are not to fear, for the Lord is on our side. No man can be against us, because He is for us. We shall not want, for He is our Shepherd. When we pass through the rivers they shall not overflow us, and when we walk through the fire we shall not be burned, because He will be with us. He shuts the mouths of lions, that they cannot hurt us. ' He delivereth and rescueth." " He changeth the times and the seasons ; He recnoveth kings and setteth up kings." "A man's heart is in His hand, and, as the rivers of water, He turneth it whithersoever He will." He ruleth over all the k' ngdoms of the henthen ; and in His hand there is power and might, " so that none is able to withstand Him." " He ruleth the raging of the sea : when the waves thereof arise He stilleth them." He " bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought , He maketh the devices of the people of none effect." " Whatsoever the Lord pleaseth that does He in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and in all the deep places." " If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter ; for He that is higher than the highest regardeth ; and there is higher than they." " Lo, these are a part of His ways ; but how little a portion is heard of Him ? But the thunder of His power who can understand ?" " Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary ? There is no searching of His un- derstanding." And this " God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though tlio earth be removed, and though the mouu- LIFB. IS GOD IN EVERYTHING? 81 re ourselves, if with our d is on our He is for us, d. When we irflow us, and ot be burned, le mouths of elivereth and the seasons ; ." *< A man's of water, He fuleth over all is hand there e to withstand 3ea : when the He "bringeth le maketh the " Whatsoever n, and in earth, )or, and violent in a province, is higher than ler than they." ut how little a huiider of His lou not known, sting God, the ,h, fainteth not, ing of His un- trength, a very ill not we foar, ough the moun- tains be carried into the midst of the sea ; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled ; though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof." " I will say of the Lord He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in Him will I trust. Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust. His truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, and for the arrow- that flieth by day, nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand ; but it shall not come nigh thee." " Be- cause thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation, there shall be no evil befrll thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways." To my own mind, these Scriptures, and many others like them, settle forever the question as to power of second causes in the life of the children of God. They are all under the contv'ol of our Father, and nothing can touch us except with His knowledge, and by His permission. It may be the sin of man that originates the action, and therefore the thing itself cannot be said to be the will of God ; but by the time it reaches ua, it has become God's will for us, and must be accepted as directly from His hands. No man or company of men, no power in earth or heaven, can touch that soul which is abiding in Christ, without first passing through Him, and receiving the seal of His pennis.sion. If God be for us, it matters not who may be against us ; nothing can disturb or harm us, except He shall see tluit it is best for us, and shall stand asi le to let it pass. :l ,•'1 li 82 THE CHRISTIAN S SECRET OF A HAFPY LIFE. An earthly parent's care for his helpless child is a feeble illustration of this. If the child is in its father's arms, nothinj^ can toucli it without that father's con- sent, unless he is too weak to prevent it. And even if this should be the case, he suffers the harm first in his own person, before he allows it to reach his child. And if an earthly parent would thus care for his little helpless one, how much more will our Heavenly Father, whose love is infinitely greater, and whose strength and wisdom can never be baffled ? I am afraid there are some even of God's own children who scarcely think that He is equal to themselves in tenderness, and love, and thoughtful care ; and who, in their secret thoughts, charge Him with a neglect and indifference of which they would feel themselves incapable. The truth really is, that His care is infinitely superior to any possibilities of human care ; and that He who counts the very hairs of our heads, and suffers not a sparrow to fall without Him, takes note of the min- utest matters that can affect the lives of his children, and regulates them all according to his own sweet will, let their origin be what they may. The instances of this are nu:^ ! viiss. Take Joseph. What could have appeared mor.' H.^cirently on the face of it to be the result of sin, and utterly contrary to the will of God, than his being sold into slavery ? And yet Joseph in speaking of it said, " As for you, ye thought evil against me ; but God meant it unto good." " Now, therefore, bo not grieved nor angry with your- selves, that ye soU? me hither, for God did send me before you to preserve life." To the eye of sense it was surely .lo.seph's wicked brethren who had sent him into Egypt ; and yet Joseph, looking at it with the eye of fait! > 3()uld say, "God s(Mit mc." It had been un- doubtedly a grievous sin in his brethren, but, by the •f,^. '^L^ IS GOD IN EVI-KYTFiNG? 83 time it had reached Joseph, it had become God's will for him, and was in truth, thouo;h at first it did not look so, the greatest blessing of his whole life. And thus we see how the Lord can make even the wrath of man to praise Him, and how all things, even tlie sins of others, shall work together for good to them that lo^e Him. I learned this lesson practically and experimentally long years before I knew the Scr iptiiral truth concern- ing it. I was attending a piayer-meeting held for the promotion of Scriptural holiness, when «i strange lady rose to speak, and I looked at her, wondering who she could be, little thinking she was to bring a message to my soul which would teach me such a grand lesson. She said she had great difficulty in living the life of faith, on account of the second causes that seemed to her to control nearly everything that concerned her. Her perplexity became so great that at last she began to ask God to teach her the truth about it, whether He regally was in everything or not. After praying thus for a few days, she had what she described as a vision, She thought she was in a perfectly Jark place, and that there advanced toward her from a distance a body of light, which gradually surrounded and enveloped her and everything around her. As it approached, a voice seemed to say, " This is the presence of God — this is the presence of God." While surrounded with this presence, all the great and awful things in lite seemed to pass before her — fighting armies, wicked men, raging beasts, storms and pestilence, sin and suf- fering of every kind. She shrank back at first in terror, but she soon saw that the presence of ( od so surrounded and enveloped each one of these, that not a lion could reach out its paw, nor a bullet fly through the air, except as His presence moved out of the way it;? ii < i if I! 1 u I ' i 84 THE CHRISTIAN S SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. to permit it. And she saw, that let there be ever so thin a sheet, as it were, of this glorious presence be- tween herself and the most terrible violence, not a hair of her head conld be ruffled, nor anything touch her, un- less the presence divided to let the evil through. Then all the small and annoying things of life passed before her, and equally she saw that these also were so envel- oped in this presence of God, that not a cross look, nor a harsh word, nor petty trial of any kind, could reach her unless His Presence moved out of the way to let it. Her diflSculty vanished. Her question was answered forever. God was in everything ; and to her hence- forth there were no second causes. She saw that her life came to her day by day and hour by hour directly from His hand, let the agencies which should seem to control it be what they might. And never again had she found any difficulty in an abiding consent to His will, and an unwavering trust in "^is care. If we look at the seen things, we shall not be able to understand the secret of this. But the children of God are called to look " not at the things which are seen ; for the things which are seen are temporal ; but the things whicl; are not seen are eternal." Could we but SCO with our bodily eyes His unseen forces sur- i^ounding us on every side, we would walk through this world in an impregnable fortress, which nothing could ever v verthrow or penetrate, for " the angel of the Lor'l encruupeth round about them that fear Him, and dc-!i/oretb Viem." We have a striking illustration of this in the history of Elisha. Tl'u i ing of Syria was warring against Israel, but l'i.4 ovli designs were continually frustrated by the proplict, and at last he sent his army to the Ero|)b/it'H owr city for the express purpose of takin hi\ captive. We read, " He sent thither horses, an IS GOD IN EVERYTHING? 85 chariots, and a great host ; and they came by nigl.i; and compassed the city about." This was the seei* thing. And the servant of the prophet, whose eyes had not yet been opened to see the unseen things, was alarmed. And we read, "And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, be- hold an host compassed the city, both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master ! how shall we do ? " But his master could see the unseen things, and he replied, " Fear not ; for they that be with us are more than they that be with them." And then he prayed, saying, "Lord, I pray Thee, open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man ; and he saw : and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha." The presence of God is the fortress of His people. Nothing can withstand it. At His presence the wicked perish ; the earth trembles ; the hills melt like wax ; th<, cities are broken down ; "the heavens also dropped, and Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God." And in the secret of this presence He has promised to hide His people from the pride of man, and from the strife of tongues. " My presence shall go with thee," He says, " and I will give thee rest." I wish it were only possible to make every Christian see this truth as plainly as I see it. For I nm con- vinced it is the only clue to a completely restful life. Nothing else will enable a soul to live only in the pre- sent moment as we are commanded to do, and to take no thought for the morrow Nothing else will take all the risks and "supposes" out of a Christian's life, and enable him to say, " Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." Abiding in t i: i w I 86 THE christian's secret op a happy life. God's presence we run no risks, triumphantly say — And such a soul can •* I know not what it is to doubt, My heart is always gay ; I run no risks, for, come what will, God always has His way." I onte heard o?. a poor colored woman, who earned a precarious living oy daily labor, but who was a joyous, triumphaiit Christian. " Ah, Nancy," said a gloomy Christian lady to her one day, who almost disapproved of her constant cheerfulness, and yet envied it, " Ah, Nancy, it is all well enough to be happy now ; but I should think the thoughts of your future would sober you. Only suppose, for instance, that you should have a spell of sickness, and be unable to work ; or suppose your present employers should move away and no one else should give you anything to do; or suppose — " "Stop!" cried Nancy, "J never supposes. De Lord is my Shepherd, and I knows I .ball not want. And honey," > 'oe added to her gloomy friend, " It's all dem supposes as is makin' you so mis'able. You'd better give dem all up, and just trust de Lord." There is one text that will take all the " supposes " out of a believer's life, if only it is received and acted on in childlike faith : it is Heb. xiii. 6, 6 — " De con- tent, therefore, with such things as ye have ; for He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we mi^ht boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I WILL NOT FEAR WHAT MAN SHALL DO UNTO ME." What if dangers of all sorts shall threaten you from every side, and the malice or foolishness, or ignorance of men shall combine to do you harm ? You may take every possible contingency with these triumphant words, " The Lord is my helper, and I wilT not fear IS GOD IN EVERYTHING? 87 what man shall do unto me." If the Lord is your helper, how can you fear what man may do unto you ? There is no man in this world, nor company of men, that can touch you, unless your God in whom you trust, shall please to let them. " He will not suffer thy foot to be moved : He that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper ; the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil : He shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out, and thy coming in, from this time forth for evermore." Nothfng else but this seeing God in everything will make us loving and patient with those who annoy and trouble us. They will be to us then only the instru- ments for accomplishing His tender and wise purposes toward us, and we shall even find ourselves at last in- wardly thanking them for the blessings they bring us. Nothing else will completely put an end to all mur- muring or rebelling thoughts. Christians often feel a liberty to murmur against man when they would not dare to murmur against God. But this way of receiving things would make it impossible ever to murmur. If our Father permits a trial to come, it must be because that trial is the sweetest and best thing that could happen to us, and we must accept it with thanks from His dear hand. The trial itself may be hard to flesh and blood, and I do not mean that we can like or enjoy the suffering of it. But we can and must love the will of God in the trial, for His will is always sweet, whether it be in joy or sorrow. In short, this way of seeing our Father in every- thing makes life one long thanksgiving, and gives a rest of heart, and more than that, a gaiety of spirit I 88 TUE CHRISTIAN S SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. that is unspeakable. Some one says, " God's will on earth is always joy, always tranquillity." And since He must have His own way concerning His children, into what wonderful green pastures of inward rest, and beside what blessedly still waters of inward re- freshment is the soul led that learns this secret. If the will of God is our will, and if He always has His way, then we always have our way also, and we reign in a perpetual kingdom. He who sides with God cannot fail to win in every encounter ; and whether the result shall be joy or sorrow, fail- ure or success, death or life, we may, 'inder all cir- cumstances, join in the apostle's shout, of victory, " Thanks be unto God which always causeth us to triumph in Christ ! " '''ir "■^:.// ^^>5^>^ii^t^feb^. ^^'^^^^^€^ \ CHAPTER IX. HEN the believer has been brought to the point of entire surrender and perfect trust, and finds himself dwell- ing and walking in a life of happy communion and perfect peace, the ques- tion naturally arises, " Is this the end ?" I answer emphatically, " No, it is only the beginning." And yet this is so little understood, that one of the greatest objections made against the advocates of this life of faith is, that they do not believe in growth in grace. They are supposed to teach that the soul ar- rives at a state of perfection beyond which there is no advance, and that all the exhortations in the Scrip- ture which point toward growth and development are rendered void by this teaching. As exactly the opposite of this is true, I have thought it important next to consider this subject carefully, that I may, if possible, fully answer such if ' . f' ' if f IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I ^ US, u 12.5 2.2 2.0 1.25 1.4 II 1.6 ^ 6" ^ ^ ^l s O 7 Photographic Sciences Corporation V '^ ^ ■1>' \\ 'O ?^>A ^ <^.V ;\ 93 WIST MAIN STRUT WHSTIR.N.Y. MStO (716) 173-4903 '^ to W^i^ 90 THE CHRISTIAN S SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. objections, and may also show what is the Scriptu- ral place to grow in, and how the soul is to grow. The text which is most frequently quoted is 2 Pet. iii. 18, " But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." Now this text exactly expresses what we believe to be God's will for us, and what also we believe He has made it possible for us to experience. We accept, in their very full- est meaning, all the commands and promises con- cerning our being no more children, and our growing up into Christ in all things, until we come unto a per- fect man, unto the measure of the stature of the ful- ness of Christ. We rejoice that we need not continue always to be babes needing milk, but that we may, by reason of use and development, become such as have need of strong meat, skilful in the word of righteous- ness, and able to discern both good and evil. And none would grieve more than we at the thought of any finalty in the Christian life, beyond which there could be no advance. But then we believe in growing that does really produce maturity, and in a development that, as a fact, does bring forth ripe fruit. We expect to reach the aim set before us, and if we do lot, we feel sure there must be some fault in our growing. No parent would be satisfied with the growth of his child, if day after day and year after year, it remained the same helpless babe it was in the first months of its life. And no farmer would feel comfortable under such growing of his grain, as should stop short at the blade, and never produce the ear, nor the full corn in the ear. Growth, to be real, must be progressive, and the days, and weeks, and months must see a develop- ment and increase of maturity in the thing growing. But is this the case with a large part of that which is ' I? GROWTH. 91 called growth in grace ? Does not the very Christian who is the most strenuous in his longings and in his efforts after it, too often find that at the end of the year he is not as far on in his Christian experience as at the beginning, and that his zeal, and his devoted- ness, and his separation from the world, are not as whole-souled, or complete, as when his Christian life first began ? I was once urging upon a company of Christians the privileges and rest of an immediate and definite step into the land of promise, when a lady of great intelligence interrupted me with what she evidently felt to be a complete rebuttal of all I had been saying, exclaiming, "Ah! but my dear friend, I believe in growing in grace." " How long have you been grow- ing ?" I asked. " About twenty -five years," was her answer. " And how much morr^ unworldly and de- voted to the Lord are you now than when you began your Christian life ? " I continued. " Alas ! " was the answer, " I fear I am not nearly so much so ; " and with this answer her eyes were opened to sed that at all events her way of growing had not been success- ful, but quite the reverse. The trouble with her, and every other such case, is simply this — they are trying to grow into grace, in- stead of in it. They are like a rosebush which the gardener should plant in the hard, stony path with a view to its growing into the flower-bed, and which would of course dwindle and wither in consequence, instead of flourishing and maturing. The children of Israel wandering in the wilderness are a perfect pic- ture of this sort of growing. They were travellinff about for forty years, taking many weary steps, ana finding but little rest from their wanderings, and yet, at the end of it all. were no nearer the promised land i 92 THE cheistian's secret of a happy life. than they were at the beginning. When they started on their wanderings at Kadesh Barnea they were at the borders of the land, and a few steps would have taken them into it. When they ended their wander- ings in the plains of Moab they were also at its bor- ders ; only with this great difference, that now there was a river to cross which at first there would not have been. All their wanderings and fightings in the wilderness had not put them in possession of one inch of the promised land. In order to get possession of this land it was necessary first to be in it. And in order to grow in grace, it is necessary first to be planted in grace, but when once in the land their con- quest was very rapid, and when once planted in grace the growth of the soul in one month will exceed that of years in any other soil. For grace is a most fruit- ful soil, and the plants that grow therein are plants of a marvellous growth. They are tended by a Divine Husbandman, and are warmed by the Sun of Right- eousness, and watered by the dew from Heaven, Surely it is no wonder that they bring forth fruit, " some an hun Jred-fold, some sixty-fold, some thirty- fold." But, it will be asked, What is meant by growing in grace ? It is difficult to answer this question, because so few people have any conception of what the grace of God really is. To say that it is free, unmerited favor, only expresses a little of its meaning It is the won- drous, boundless love of Q-^d, poured out upon us with- out stint or measure, not according to our deserving, but according to Eis infinite heart of love, which passeth knowledge, so unfathomable are its heights and depths. I sometimes think we give a totally dif- ferent meaning to the word love when it is associated with God, from that we so well understand in its human GROWTH. 93 application. But if ever hum .^n love was tender, and self-sacrificing and devoted ; if ever it could bear and forbear; if ever it could suffer gladly for its loved ones ; if ever it was willing to pour itself out in a lavish abandonment for the comfort or pleasure of its objects; then infinitely more is Divine love tender, and self- sacrificing, and devoted, and glad to bear and forbear, and to suffer, and to lavish its best gifts and blessings upon the objects of its love. Put together all the tenderest love you know of, dear reader, the deepest you have ever felt, and the strongest that has ever been poured out upon you, and heap upon it all the love of all the loving human hearts in the world, and then multiply it by infinity, and you will begin perhaps to have some faint glimpses of what the Ion^ of God in Christ Jesus is. And this is grace. And to be planted in grace is to live in the very heart of this love, to be enveloped by it, to be steeped in it, to revel in it, to know nothing else but love only and love always ; to grow day by day in the knowledge of it, and in faith in it, to entrust everything to its care, and to have no shadow of a doubt but that it will surely ordci* all things well. To grow in grace is opposed to all self-dependence, to all self-effort, to all legality of every kind. It is to put our growing, as well as everything else, into the hands of the Lord, and leave it with Him. It is to be satisfied with our Husbandman, and with His skill and wisdom, that not a question will cross our minds as to His modes of treatment, or His plan of cultiva- tion. It is to grow as the lilies grow, or as the babes grow without a care and without anxiety ; to grow by the power of an inward-life principle that cannot help but grow ; to grow because we live, and therefore must 94 THE CHRISTIAN S SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. grow; to grow because Ho who has planted us has planted a growing thing, and has mado us to grow. Surely this is what our Lord meant when He said, "Consider the lilies, how they grow, they toil not, neither do they spin : and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." Or, when He says again, " Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature ? " There is no effort in the growing of a child, or of a lily. They do not toil nor spin, they do not stretch nor strain, they do not make any effort of any kind to grow ; they are not conscious even that they are growing; but by an inward life-principle and through the nurturing care of God's providence, and the fostering of caretaker or gardener, by the heat of the sun, and the falling of the rain, they grow and grow. And the result is sure. Even Solomon, our Lord says, in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Solomon's array cost much toiling and spinning, and gold and silver in abundance ; but the lily's array costs none of these. And though we may toil and spin to make for ourselves beautiful spiritual garments, and may strain and stretch in our efforts after spiritual growth, we shall accomplish nothing ; for no man by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature, and no array of ours can ever equal the beautiful dress with which the great Husbandman clothes the plants that grow in His garden of grace, and under His fos- tering care. If I could but make each one of my readers realize how utterly helpless we are in this matter of growing, I am convinced a large part of the strain would be taken out of many lives at once. Imaoinc a child possessed of the monomania that he would not grow LIFE. OROWTH. 95 nted us has i to j^row. hen He said, hey toil not, ito you, that arrayed like 1, " Which of ibit unto his ing of a child, 1, they do not r effort of any ven that they principle and rovidence, and f, by the heat they grow and )mon, our Lord ke one of these. I spinning, and iily's array costs toil and spin to , garments, and \ after spiritual for no man by his stature, and beautiful dress othes the plants i under His fos- ly readers realize atter of growing, strain would be Imagine a child would not grow unless he made some personal effort after it, and who should insist upon a combination of ropes and pulleys whereby to stretch himself up to the desired height. He might, it is true, spend xAh days and years in a weary strain, but after all there would be no change in the inexorable fiat, " No man by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature ; " and his years of labor would be only wasted, if they did not really hinder the longed-for end. Imagine a lily trying to clothe itself in beautiful colors and graceful lines, stretching its leaves and stems to make them grow, and seeking to manage the clouds and the sunshine, that its needs might be all judiciously applied. And yet in these two pictures we have, I conceive, only too true a picture of what many Christians are trying to do, who, knowing they ought to grow, and feeling within them an instinct that longs for growth, yet think to accomplish it by toiling and spinning, and stretching and straining, and pass their lives in such a round of self-effort as is wearisome to contem- plate. Grow, dear friends ; but grow, I beseech you, in God's way, which is the only effectual v/ay. See to it that you are planted in grace, and then let the Divine Husbandman cultivate you in His own way and by His own means. Put yourselves out in the sunshine of His presence, and let the dew of heaven come down upon you, and see w \at will come of it. Leaves and flowers and fruit must surely come in their season ; for your Husbandman is a skilful one, and He never fails in His harvesting. Only see to it that you oppose no hindrance to the shining of the Sun of Righteousness, or of the falling of the dew from Heaven. A very thin covering may serve to keep off =333= ,.iJi'Y LIFE. On J dear Christian expressed it once to me in this ■vcy : " When I was first converted," she said, " I was . o V.1I of joy and love that I was only too glad and iiiunkful to be allowed to do anything for my Lord, and I eagerly entered every open door. But after a while, as my early joy faded away, and my love burned less fervently, 1 began to wish I had not bpen quite so eager ; for I found myself involved in lines of service which were gradually becoming very dis- tasteful and burdensome to me. I could not very well give them up, since I had begun them, without excit- ing great remark, and yet I longed to do so increas- ingly. 1 was expected to visit the sick, and pray beside their beds. I was expected to attend prayer- meetings, and speak at them. I was expected to be always ready for every effort in Christian work, and the sense of these expectations bowed me down con- tinually. At last it became so unspeakably burden- some to me to live the sort of Christian life I had entered upon, and was expected by all around me to live, that I felt as if any kind of manual labour would have been easier, and I would have preferred infi- nitely scrubbing all day on my hands and knees to being compelled to go through the treadmill of my daily Christian work. I envied," she said, " the ser- vants in the kitchen, and the women at the wash- tubs.'] This may seem to some like a strong statement ; but does it not present a vivid picture of some of your own experiences, dear Christian ? Have you never gone to your work like a slave to his daily task, know- ing it to be your duty, and that, therefore, you must do it, but rebounding, like an indiarubber ball, back into your real interests and pleasures the moment your work was over ? steRVicfi. 103 Of course you have known this was the wrong way to feel, and have been ashamed of it from the bottom of your heart, but still you have seen no way to help it. You have not loved your work, and could you have done so with an easy conscience, you would have been glad to have given it up altogether. Or, if this does not describe your case, perhaps another picture will. You do love your work in the abstract ; but in the doing of it you find so many cares and responsibilities connected with it, so many mis- givings and doubts as to your own capacity and fitness, that it becomes a very heavy burden, and you go to it bowed down and weary, before the labor has ever begun. Then also you are continually distressing yourself about the results of your work, and greatly troubled if they are not just what you would like, and this of itself is a constant burden. Now from all these forms of bondage the soul is entirely delivered that enters fully into the blessed life of fttith. In the first place, service of any sort be- comes delightful to it, because having surrendered its will into the keeping of the Lord, He works in it to will and to do of His good pleasure, and the soul finds itself really wanting to do the things God wants it to do. It is always very pleasant to do the things we want to do, let them be ever so difficult of accomplish- ment, or involve ever so much of bodily weariness. If a man's will is really set on a thing, he regards with a sublime indifiference the obstacles that lie in the way of his reaching it, and laughs to himself at the idea of any opposition or difliculties hindering him. How many men have gone gladly and thankfully to the ends of the world in search of worldly fortunes, or to fulfil worldly ambitions, and have scorned the thouclits of any cross connected with it 1 How many mothers I ( 104 THE christian's SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. have congratulated themselves and rejoiced over the honor done their sons in being promoted to some place of power and usefulness in their country's service, although it has involved perhaps years of separation, and a life of hardship for their dear ones I And yet these same men and these very mothers would have felt and said that they were taking up crosses too heavy almost to be borne, had the service of Christ re- quired the same sacrifice of home, and friends, and worldly ease. It is altogether the way we look at things, whether we think they are crosses or not. And I am ashamed to think that any Christian should ever put on a long face and shed tears over doing a thing for Christ, which a worldly man would be only too glad to do for money. What we need in the Christian life is to get believers to want to do God's will as much as other people want to do their own will. And this is the idea of the Gospel. It is what God intended for us; and it is what He bos promised. In describing the new covenant in Heb. viii. 6-13, He says it shall no more be the old covenant made on Sinai — that is, a law given from the out- side, controlling a man I y force — but it shall be a law written within, constraining a man by love. " I will put my laws," He says, " in their mind, and write them in their hearts." This can mean nothing but that we shall love His law, for anything written on our hearts we must love. And putting it into our minds is surely the same as God working in us to " will and to do of His good pleasure," and means that we shall will what God wills, and shall obey His ^weet commands, not because it is our duty to do so, but because we ourselves want to do what He wants us to do. Nothing could po.ssibly be conceived more effectual than this. How oiten have we thought when dealing SERVICE. 105 with our children, " Oh, if I could only get inside of them and make them ivant to do just what 1 want, how easy it would be to manage them ! " And how often practically in experience we have found that, to deal with cross-grained people, we must carefully avoid suggesting our wishes to them, but must in some way induce them to suggest them themselves, sure that then there will be no opposition to contend with. And we, who are by nature a stiff-necked people, always rebel more or less against a law from outside of us, while we joyfully embrace the same law springing up within. God's plan for us, therefore, is to get possession of the inside of a man, to take the control and management of his will, and to work it for him ; and then obedience is easy and a delight, and service becomes perfect free- dom, until the Christian is forced to exclaim, "This happy service! Who could dream earth had such liberty ? " What you need to do then, dear Christian, if you are in bondage, is to put your will over completely in the hands of your Lord, surrendering to Him the entire control of it. Say, " Yes, Lord, yes ! " to everything, and trust Him so to work in you to will, as to bring your whole wishes and affections into conformity with His own sweet, and lovable, and most lovely will. I have seen this done over and over, in cases where it looked beforehand an utterly impossible thing. In one case, where a lady had been for years rebelling fearfullv against a thing which she knew was right, but which she hated, I saw her out of the depths of despair and without any feeling, give her will in that matter up into the hands of her Lord, and began to say to Him, " Thy will be done ; Thy ivill he done ! " And in one short hour that very thing began to look sweet t: r !l 106 THE christian's SECIIET OF A HAPPY LIFE. and precious to her. It is wonderful what miracles God works in wills that are utterly surrendered to Him. He turns hard things into easy, and bitter things into sweet. It is not that He puts easy things in the place of the hard, but He actually changes the hard thing into an easy one. And this is salvation. It is grand. Do try it, you who are going about your daily Christian living as to a hard and weary task, and see if the blessed Jesu," will not transform the very life you live now as a bondage, into the most delicious liberty I Or again, if you do love His will in the abstract, but find the doing of it hard and burdensome, from this also there is deliverance in the wonderful life of faith. For in this life no burdens are carried nor anxieties felt. The Lord is our burden- bearer, and upon Him we must lay off every care. He says, in fact, " Be careful for nothing," but just make your requests known to Me, and I will attend to them all. Be care- ful for noth mg, He says, not even your service. Above all, I should think, our service, because we know our- selves to be so utterly helpless in this, that even if we were careful it would not amount to anything. What have we to do with thinking whether we are fit or not ? The Master-workman surely has a right to use any tool He pleases for His own work, and it is plainly not the business of the tool to decide whether it is the right one to be used or not. He knows, and if He chooses to use us, of course, we must be fit. And in truth, if we only knew it, our chiefest fitness is in our utter helplessness. His strength can only be made perfect in our weakness. I can give you a splendid illustration of this. I was once visiting an idiot asylum and looking at the children goinc: through the dumb-bell exercises. SERVICE. 107 IS in our exercises. Now we all know that it is a very difficult thing for idiots to manage their movements. They have strength enough, generally, but no skill to use this strength, and, as a consequence, cannot do much. And in these dumb-bell exercises this deficiency was very apparent. They made all sorts of awkward movements. Now and then, by a happy chance, they would make a move- ment in harmony with the music, and the teacher's directions, but, for the most part, all was out of har- mony. One little girl, however, I noticed, who made perfect movements. Not a jar nor a break disturbed the harmony of her exercises. And the reason was, not that she had more strength than the others, but that she had no strength at all. She could not so much as close her hands over the dumb-bells, nor lift her arms, and the master had to stand behind her and do it all. She yielded up her members as instruments to him, and his strength was made perfect in her weakness. He knew how to go through those exer- cises, for he himself had planned them, and, therefore, when he did it, it w(-s done right. She did nothing but yield herself up utterly into his hands, and he did it all. The yielding was her part, the responsibility was all his. It was not ner skill that was needed to make harmonious movements, but only his. The question was not of her capacity, but of his. Her utter weakness was her greatest strength. And if this is a picture of our Christian life, it is no wonder that Paul could say, " Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." Who would not glory in being so utterly weak and helpless, that the Lord Jesus Christ should find no hindrance to the perfect working of His mighty power through us and in us ? Then, too, if the work is His, tho responsibility i& jrtl I ( .-^r^ f f i 108 THE christian's SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE, His, and we have no room left for worrying aboiifi it. Everything in reference to it is known to Him, and He can manage it ell. Why not leave it all with Him then, and consent to be treated like a child and guided where to go? It is a fact that the most effectual workers I know are those who do not feel the least care or anxiety about their work, but who commit it all to their dear Master, and asking Him to guide them, movement by movement, in reference to it, trust Him implicitly for each moment's needed supplies of wis- dom and of strength. To see such, you would almost think, perhaps, that they were too free from care, where such mighty interests are at stake. But when you have learned God's secret of trusting, and see the beauty and the power of that life w'lich is yielded up to His working, you will cease to condemn, and will begin to wonder how any of God's workers can dare to carry burdens, or assume responsibilities which He alone is able to bear. There are one or two bonds of service from which this life of trust delivers us. We find out that we are not responsible for all the work in the world. The commands cease to be general, and become personal and individual. The Master does not map out a general course of action for ue, and leave us to get along through it by our own wisdom and skill as best we may, but He leads us on step by step, giving us each hour the especial guidance needed for that hour. His blessed Spirit dwelling in us, brings to our remem- brance at the time the necessary command. So that we do not need to take any thought ahead, but simply to take each step as it is made known to us, following our Lord whithersoever Hj? leads us. " The etepa of a good man are ordered of the Lord," not his way only, ut each separate step in that v/ay. Many Christians ' remem- SERVICE. 109 make the mistake of expecting to I'tceive God's com- mands all in a lump, as it were. They think because He tells them to give a tract to one person in a railway train, for instance, that He means them always to give tracts to everybody, and they burden themselves with an impossible command. There was a young Christian once, who, because the Lord had sent her to speak a message to one soul whom she met in a walk, took it as a general command for always, and thought she must speak to everyone she met about their souls. This was of course impossible, and as a consequence she was soon in hopeless bondage about it. She became absolutely afraid to so outside of her own door, and lived in perpetual condemnation. At last, she disclosed her distress to a friend who was instructed in the ways of God with His servants, and this friend told her she was making a great mistake ; that the Lord had His own especial work for each especial workman, and that the servants in a well regu- lated household, might as well each one take it upon themselves to try and do the work of all the rest, as for the Lord's servants to think that they were each one under obligation to do everything. He told her just to put herself under the Lord's personal guidance as to her work, and trust Him to point out to her each particular person to whom He would have her speak, assuring her that He never puts forth His own sheep without going before them, and making a way for them Himself. She followed this advice, and laid the burden of her work on the Lord, and the result was a happy pathway of daily guidance, in which she was led into much blessed work for her Master, but was able to do it all without a care or a burden, because He led her out and prepared the way before her. Putting ourselves into God's hands in this way 1 110 THE christian's SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. seems to me just like making the junction between the machinery and the steam engine. The power is not in the machinery, but in the steam. Discon- nected from the engine, the machine is perfectly use- less. But let the connection bia made, and the machinery goes easily and without effort, because of the mighty power there is behind it. Thus the Chris- tian life becomes an easy, natural life, when it is the development of the Divine life working within. Most Christians live on a strain, because their wills are not fully in harmony with the will of God — the connec- tion is not perfectly made at every point, and it re- quires an effort to move the machinery. But when onct'i the connection is fully made, and the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus can work in us with all its mighty power, we are then indeed made free from the law of sin and death, and shall know the glorious liberty of the children of God. Another form of bondage as to service from which the life of faith delivers the soul, is in reference to the after reflections which always follow any Chris- tian work. These are always of one of two kinds. Either the soul congratulates itself upon its success, and is lifted up ; or it is distressed over its failure, and is utterly cast down. One of these is sure to come, and of the two I think the first is the most to be dreaded, although the last causes at the time the greatest suffering. But in the life of trust neither will trouble us. For, having committed ourselves in our work to the Lord we will be satisfied to leave it to Him, and will not think about ourselves in the matter at all. Years ago I came across this sentence in an old book : — " Never indulge, at the close of an action, in any self -reflective acts of any kind, whether of self- SERVICE. Ill congratulation or of self-despair. Forget the things that are behind the moment they are past, leaving them with GcJ." It has been of unspeakable value to me. When the temptation comes, aa it always does, to indulge in these reflections, either of one sort or the other, I turn from them at once, and positively' refuse to think about my work at all, leaving it with the Lord to overrul: the mistakes, and to bless it as He chooses. To sum it all up, then, what is neepled for happy and effectual service is simply to put your work into the Lord's hands, and leave it there. Do not take it to Him in prayer saying, " Lord guide me, Lord give me wisdom, Lord arrange for me," and then arise from your knees, and take the burden all back, and try to guide and arrange for yourself. Leave it with the Lord, imd remember that what you trust to Him you must not worry over nor feel anxious about. Trust and worry cannot go together. If your work is a burden, it is because you are not trusting it to Him. But if you do trust it to Him, you will surely find that the yoke He puts upon you is easy, and the burden He gives you to carry is light, and even in the midst of a life of ceaseless activity you shall find rest to your soul. And if our dear Lord only had a band of such workers as this, there is no limit to what He might do with them. Truly, one such would " chase a thou- sand, ixnd two would put ten thousand to flight," and nothing would be impossible to them. For it is noth- ing with the Lord " to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power." May God raise up such an army speedily! And may you, my dear reader, enrol your name among this il j'' >««wli-^ bseEr I , 112 THE christian's SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. band of helpless, trusting o*^' nd, yielding yourself unto God as one who is t . o from the dead, may every one of your members be also yielded unto Him as instruments of righteousness, to be used by Him as He pleases. tl CHAPTER XL iUftntltifj^ (Simmninq (6MM(t. OU have now begun, dear reader, the life of faith. You have given your- self to the Lord to be His wholly and altogether, and He has taken you and has begun to mould and fashion you into a vessel unto His honor. Your one most earnest desire is to be very pliable in His hands, and to follow Him whithersoever He may lead you, and you are trusting Him to work in you to will and to do of His good pleasure. But you tind a great difficulty here. You have not learned yet to know the voice of the Qood Shepherd, and are, therefore, in great doubt and perplexity as to what really is His will concerning you. Perhaps there are certain paths into which God seems to be calling you, of which your friends utterly disapprove. And these friends, it may be, are older than yourself in the Christian life, and seem to you il Kg 114j the christian's secret of a happy life. 1 also to be much further advanced. You can scarcely bear to differ from them or distress them ; and you feel also very diffident of yielding to any seeming oppressions of duty of which they do not approve. And yet you cannot get rid of these impressions, and you are plunged into great doubt and uneasiness. There is a way out of all these difficulties to the fully surrendered soul. I would repeat fvXly surren- dered, because if there is any reserve of will upon any point, it becomes almost impossible to find out the mind of God in reference to that point ; and, there- fore, the first thing is to be sure that you really do 'purpose to obey the Lord in every respect. If, how- ever, this is the case, and your soul only needs to know the will of God in order to consent to it, t!ien you surely cannot doubt His willingness to make His will knowr and to guide you in the right paths. There are many very clear promises in reference to this. Take, for instance, John x. 3, 4 : " He calleth His own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when He putteth forth His own sheep. He goeth be- fore them, and the sheep follow Him, for they know His voice." Or, John xiv. 26 : " But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name. He shall teach you in all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." Or, James i. 6, 6 : " If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not ; and it shall be given him." With such passages as these, and many more like them, we must believe that Divine guidance is promised to us, and our faith must confidently look for and expect it. This is essential, for in James i. 6, 7, we are told, " Let him ask in faith, nothing waver- ing. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea^ DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING GUIDANCE. 115 driven with the wind and tossed. For let not such a man tbiuk that he shall receive anything of the Lord." Settle this point, then, first of all, that Divine guid- ance has been promised, and ihat you are sure to have it, if you ask for it ; and let no suggestion of doubt turn you from this. Next, you must remember that our God has all knowledge and all wisdom, and that, therefore, it is very possible He may guide you into paths wherein He knows great blessings are awaiting you, but which to the short-sighted human eyes around you seem sure to result in confusion and loss. You must recognize the fact that God's thoughts are not as man's thoughts, nor His ways as man's ways ; and that He who knows the end of things from the beginning, alone can judge of what the results of any course of action may be. You must, therefore, realize that His very love for you may perhaps lead you to run counter to the loving wishes of even your dearest friends. You must learn from Luke xiv. 26-33, and similar passages, that in order — not to be saved, but — to be a disciple or fol- lower of your Lord, you may perhaps be called upon to forsake all that you have, and turn your backs on even father or mother, or brother or sister, or husband or wife, or it may be your own life also. Unless the possibility of this is clearly recognized, the soul will be very likely to get into difficulty, because it often happens that the child of God who enters upon this life-obedience is sooner or later led into paths which meet vnth the disapproval of those he best loves ; and unless he is prepared for this, and can trust the Lord through it all he will scarcely know what to do. All this, it will of course be understood, is perfectly in harmony with those duties of honor and love which i u (I w 116 THE CHEISTIAN's SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. we owe to one another in the various relations of life. The nearer we are to Christ, the more shall we be enabled to exemplify the meekness and gentleness of our Lord, and the more tender will be our considera- tion for those who are our natural guardians and coun- sellors. The Saviour's guidance will always manifest itself by the Saviour's spirit, and where, in obedience to Christ, we are led to act contrary to the advice or wishes of our friends, we shall prove that this is our motive, by the love and patience which will mark our conduct. But this point having been settled, we come now to the question as to how God's guidance is to come to us, and how we shall be able to know His voice. There are two especial ways in which He reveals His will to us — through the Scriptures, and by means of the direct voice of His Holy Spirit, making impres- sions upon our hearts and our judgment. The first of these is the guidance to be found in the Bible. Until you have found and obeyed God's will in reference to any subject as it is there revealed, you need not ask nor expect a separate direct personal revelation. A great many fatal mistakes are made in this matter of guidance, by the overlooking of this simple rule. Where our Father has written out for us a plain direction about anything, He will not, of course, make an especial revelation to us about that thing. And if we fail to search out and obey the Scripture rule, where there is one, and look instead for an in- ward voice, we shall open ourselves to the deceptions of Satan, and shall almost inevitably get into error. No man, for instance, needs or could expect any direct revelation to tell him not to steal, because God has already in the Scriptures plainly declared His will about it. This seems such an obvious thing that I DIFFICULTIES CONCEtlNlNQ GUIDANCE. IV, would not speak of it, but that I have frequently met with Christians who have altogether overlooked it, and have gone off into fanaticism as the result. I know the Bible does not always give a rule for every particular course of* action, and in these cases we need and must expect the direct voice of the Spirit. And yet the Scriptures are far more explicit even about details than most people think. And there are not many important affairs in life for which a clear direction may not be found in God's book. Take the matter of dress, and we have 1 Pet. iii. 3, 4, and 1 Tim. ii. 9. Take the matter of conversation, and we have Eph. iv. 29, and v. 4. Take the matter of avenging injuries and standing up for your rights, and we have Rom. xii. 19, 20, 21, and Matt. v. 38-48, and 1 Pet. ii. 19-21. Take the matter of forgiving one another, and we have Eph. iv. 32, and Mark xi. 25, 26. Take the matter of conformity to the world, and we have Rom. xii. 2, and 1 John ii. 15-17, and James iv. 4. Take the matter of anxieties of all kind, and we have Matt vi. 25-34, and Phil. iv. 6, 7. I only give these as examples to show how very full and practical the Bible guidance is. If, therefore, you find yourself in perplexity, first of all search and see whether the Bible speaks on the point in question, asking God to make plain to you by the power of His Spirit, through the Scriptures, what is His mind. And whatever shall seem to you to be plainly taught there, that you must obey. When we read and meditate upon this record of God's mind and will, with our understandings thus illuminated by the inspiring Spirit, our obedience will be as truly an obedience to a present living word, as though it were afresh spoken to us to-day by our Lord from Heaven. The Bible is not only an ancient me«- '. ;i" ,fi*-t 118 THE christian's SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. sage from God sent to us many years ago, but it is a present message sent to us each time we read it. " The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life," and obedience to these words now is a living obedience to a present and personal command. Especial guidance, therefore, superseding that of the Scriptures on any point about which the Scriptures are explicit, is not to be looked for, and no guidance of the Spirit can ever be contrary to Scripture. But if, upon searching, you do not find in the Bible any directions upon your point of difficulty, or if the directions given do not reach into all the especial de- tails of the case, then you have a right to ask and to expect direct guidance by the voice of the Spirit speaking in your soul, and making distinct impres- sions upon your mind as to your duty. He will surely guide you into the right paths, and will make known to you God's sweet will concerning you ; and you may realize not only your way, but even your very steps to be ordered by Him. But in giving yourselves up to these impressions of duty, there are two points very important to guard. If they are from the Spirit they will be in accordance with the Scripture and with a sanctified judgmeiit, for God has surely not revealed His will in one place to contradict it in another, and His direct promise is that the " meek He will guide in judgment." Anything therefore which is contrary to Scripture or to a sancti- fied judgment must bo rejected as from Satan, For we must never forget that Satan can make impressions upon our minds as well as the blessed Spirit of God, and in this matter of guidance it is especially necessary not to be ignorant of his devices. Sometimes, under a mistaken idea of exalting the Divine Spirit, earnest and honest Christians have ignored and even violated DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING GUIDANCE. 119 the teachings of Scripture, and have outraged their judgnientH. God, who sees the sincerity of their hearts, can and does pity and forgive, but the consequences as to this life are often very sad. In nothing, therefore, do we so much need to realize our own helplessness and to cast ourselves in child-like trust on the Lord, telling Him our danger of being deceived, and trusting Him not to permit it. Every peculiarly precious spiritual gift is always necessarily linked with some peculiar danger, and this supreme blessing of direct guidance is no exception to this rule. But with the tests I have mentioned, and with an absolute commit- ting of the whole matter to the Lord, and a perfect confidence in Him, there is nothing to fear. And now I have guarded the points of danger, do permit me to let myself out a little to the blessedness and joy of this direct communication of God's will to us. It seems to me to be the grandest of privileges. In the first pl^ce, that God should love me enough to care about the details of my life is perfectly wonder- ful. And then that He should be willing to tell me all about it, and to let me know just how to live and walk so as to perfectly please Him, seems almost too good to be true. We never care about the little details of people's lives unless we love them. It is a matter of indiflfercnce to us with the majority of people we meet as to what they do or how they spend their time. But as soon as we begin to love any one, we begin at once to care. That God cares, therefore, is just a precious proof of His love ; and it ia most blessed to have Him speak to us about everything in our lives — about our dross — about our reading — about our friendships — about our occupations — about all that we do, or think, or say. You must know this in your own experience, dear reader, if you would come into the full joy and t-; ■4, ^* h i i 120 THE CHRlS'riAN*S SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. privilege of this life hid with Christ in God, for it is one of its most precious gifts. God's promise is, that He will work in us to wUl as well as to do of His good pleasure. This, of course, means that He will take possession of our will and work it for us, and that His suggestions will come to us, not so much as commands from the outside, as desires springing up within. They will originate in our will ; we shall feel as though we wanted to do so and so, not as though we must. And this makes it a service of perfect liberty ; for it is always easy to do what we desire to do, let the accompanying circumstances be as difficult as they may. Every mother knows that she could secure perfect and easy obedience in her child, if she could only get into that child's will and work it for him, making him want himself to do the things she willed he should. And this is what our Father does for His children in the new dispensation, — He writes His laws on our hearts and on our minds, and we love them, and are drawn to our obedience by our affections and judgment, not driven by our fears. The way in which the Holy Spirit, therefore, usually works in this direct guidance is to impress upon the mind a wish or desire to do or to leave undone certain things. The soul when engaged, perhaps, in prayer, feels a sudden suggestion made to its inmost consciousness in reference to a certain point of duty, " I would likt) to do this or the other," it thinks ; " I wish I could." Or perhaps the suggestion may come as a question, " 1 wonder whetner I ought not to do so and so ? " Or it may be only at first in the way of a conviction that such is the right and best thing to be done. At once the matter should be committed to the Lord with an instant consent of the will to obey Him ; and DIFFICULTIES COKCERNING GUIDANCE. 121 if the sugi^estion is in accordance with the Scriptures and a sanctified judgment, and it continues to seem right, an immediate obedience is the safest and easiest course. At the moment when the Spirit speaks, it is always easy to obey ; if the soul hesitates and be- gins to reason, it becomes more and more difficult con- tinually. As a general rule, the tirst impressions arc the right ones in a fully-surrendered heart, for God is faithful in His dealings with us, and will cause His voice to be heard before any other voices. Such im- pressions therefore should never be met by reasoning. Prayer and trust are the only safe attitudes of the soul, and even these should be but momentary, as it were, lest the time for action should pass, and the blessing be missed. If, however, the suggestion does not seem quite clear enough to act upon, and doubt and perplexity ensue, especially if it is something about which one's friends differ from us, then we may need, perhaps, a time of waiting on the Lord for further light. But we must wait in faith, and in an attitude of entire surrender, saying, " Yes ! " continually to the will of our Lord, let it be what it may. If the suggestion is from Him, it will continue and strengthen ; if it is not from Him, it will disappear, and we shall forget we e"er had it. If it continues — if every time we are brougl ^ into near communion with the Lord it seems to return — if it troubles us in our moments of prayer, and disturbs all our peace, we may then feel sure it is from God, and we must yield to it or suffer an unspeakable loss. I believe myself the only safe way is always to yield up the doubtful things to God, until wo have clear light to tp-ke them back. A dear lady who had walked in a life of consecra- tion for many years, told me that her invariable rule it i !' , i. ;, i a m 1,0 ■• Im l^- i.h kit 122 THE christian's SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. i was to decide every doubtful matter on the self-deny- ing side, and that she had never once had occasion to regret it. It was a secret of a life of wonderful de- votedness. The apostle gives us a rule in reference to doubtful things which seems to me very explicit. He is speaking about certain kinds of meat-eating, which were ceremonially unclean, and, after declaring his own liberty, says, " I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself. But to him that esteemeth anything unclean, to him it is unclean." And in summing up the whole subject, he writes : " Hast thou fftith ? have it to thyself be- fore God. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth. And he that doubt- eth is damned (condemned) if he eat, because he eateth not of faith : for whatsoever is not of faith is sin." The doubtful things must all be surrendered, dear Christian, until God gives you light to know more clearly His mind concerning them. And as a general thing, you will find that the very doubt has been His voice calling upon you to come into a more perfect con- formity to His will. Take all your present perplexities, then, to Jesus. Tell Him you only want to know and obey His voice ; and ask Him to make it plain to you. Promise Him that you will obey, whatever it may be. Believe im- plicitly that He is guiding you, according to His word. Surrender all the doubtful things, until you have clearer light. Look and listen for His dear voice continually, and the moment you are sure of it, yield an immediate obedience. Trust Him to make you forget the impression if it is not His will, and if it con- tinues, believe that He is faithful, and would not let you bo deceived. Above everything else, trn«t Him. Nowhere is faith DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING GUIDANCE. 123 more needed than here. He has promised to guide. You have asked Him to do it. And now you must believe that V.e does, and must take what comes as being His gu.dance. No earthly parent or master could guide his children or servants if they should refuse to take his commands as being really the ex- pression of his will. And God cannot guide those souls who never trust Him enough to believe that He is doing it. And oh, do not be afraid of this sweet life lived hour by hour, and day by day under the guidance of thy Lord 1 If He seeks to bring thee out of the world and into a very close conformity to Himself, do not shrink from it. It is thy most blessed privilege. Rejoice in it. Embrace it eagerly. Let everything go that it may be thine. " Dole not thy duties out to God, But let thy hand be free ; Look long at Jesus ; His sweet blood How was it dealt to thee ? ** The perfect way is hard to flesh ; It is not hard to love ; If thou wert siok for want of God, How swiftly wouldst thou move I ** Then keep thy conscience sensitive ; No inward token miss ; And go where grace entices thee :— • Perfection lies in this." ■A ~~__^ CHAPTER XII. (S>m\mnim 9m\)Mim. '-'o ERTAIN very great mistakes are made concerning this matter of temptation in the practical working out of this life of faith. First of all, people seem to expect that, after the soul has entered into its rest in Jesus temptations will cease, and to think [that the promised deliverance is not only to be irom yielding to temptation, but even also from being tempted. Consequently when they find the Canaan- ite still in the land, and see the cities great and walled-up to Heaven, they are utterly discouraged, and think they must have gone wrong in some way, and that this cannot be the true land after all. Then next they make the mistake of looking upon temptation as sin, and of blaming themselves for what in reality is the fault of Satan only. This brings them into condemnation and discouragement ; and disQOur- 1 CONCERNING TEMPTATION. 125 agement, if continued in, always ends at last in actual sin. Satan makes an easy pi^ey of a discouraged soul. So that we fall often from the very fear of having fallen. To meet the first of these diflficulties, it is only necessary to refer to the Scripture declarations, that the Christian life is to be throughout a warfare ; and that especially when seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, we are to wrestle against spiritual ene- mies there, whose power and skill to tempt us must doubtless be far superior to any we have ever hereto- fore encountered. As a fact, temptations generally increase in strength tenfold after we have entered into the interior life, rather than decrease. And no amount or sort of them Aiust ever for a moment lead us to suppose we have not really found the true abiding place. Strong temptations are generally a sign of great grace, rather than of little grace. When the Children of Israel had first left Egypt, the Lord did not lead them through the country of the Philistines, although that was the nearest way ; " for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt." But afterwards, when they had learned better how to trust Him, He permitted their enemies to attack them. Then also in their wilderness journey they met with but few enemies, and fought but few battles compared to those in the land where they found seven great nations, and thirty-one kings to be conquered, besides walled cities to be taken, and giants to be overcome. They could not have fought with the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and tho Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, until they had gone into the land where these enemies were. And the very powbr of your temptations, dear Christian, there- r^ \ 126 THE christian's secret of a happy life. fore may perhaps be one of the strongest proofs that you really are in the land you have been seeking to enter, because they are temptations peculiar to that land. You must never allow them to cause you to question the fact of your having entered it. The second mistake is not quite so easy to deal with. It seems hardly worth while to say that temp- tation is not sin, and yet most of the distress about it arises from not understanding this fact. The very suggestion of wrong seems to bring pollution with it, and, Satan's agency not being recognized, the poor tempted soul begins to feel as if it must be very bad indeed, and very far oflf from God, to have had such thoughts and suggestions. It is as though a burglar should break into a man's house to steal, and when the master of the house began to resist him and drive him out, should turn round and accuse the owner of being himself the thief. It is Satan's grand ruse for en- trapping us. He comes and whispers suggestions of evil to us, — doubts, blasphemies, jealousies, envyings and pride, — and then turns round and says, " Oh, how wicked you must be to think of such things ? It is very plain that you are not trusting the Lord ; for if you were, it would have been impossible for these things to have entered your heart." His reasoning sounds so very plausible that the soul often ac- cepts it as true, and At once comes under condemna- tion, and is filled with discouragement. Then it is easy for Satan to lead it on into actual sin. One of the most fatal things in the life of faith is discour- igement. One of the most helpful is cheerfulness. A vrery wis^ man once said that in overcoming tempta- fiions cheerfulness was the first thing, cheerfulness the second, and cheerfulness the third. We must expect to conquer. That is what the Lord said so often to tr« m mf CONCERNING TEMPTATION. 127 Is that ting to bo that you to to deal kt temp- ibout it he very with it, ihe poor be very had such burglar when the ^ Irive him of being e for en- 3stions of envyings lys, " Oh. lings ? It Lord; for i for these reasoning often ac- condemna- Then it is sin. One is discour- Eulness. A ng tempta- fulness the aust expect 30 often to Joshua, " Be strong and of good courage." " Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed." "Only be thou strong and very courageous." And it is also the reason He says to us, " Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." The power of temptation is in the fainting of our own hearts. Satan knows this well, and he always begins his assaults by discouraging us, if he can in any way accomplish it. Sometimes this discouragement arises from what we think is a righteous grief and disgust at ourselves that such things could be any temptation to us ; but which is really a mortification arising from the fact that we have been indulging in a secret self-congratulation that our tastes were too pure, or our separation from the world was too complete for such things to tempt us. We have expected something from ourselves, and have been sorely disappointed not to find that some- thing there, and are discouraged in consequence. This mortification and discouragement are really a far worse condition than the temptation itself, though they pre- sent an appearance of true humility, for they are nothing but the results of wounded self-love. True humility can bear to see its own utter weakness and foolishness revealed, because it never expected anything from itself, and knows that its only hope and expectation must be in God. Therefore, instead of discouraging the soul from trusting, it drives it to a deeper and more utter trust. But the counter- feit humility which Satan produces plunges the soul into the depths of a faithless discouragement, and drives it into the very sin at which it is so distressed. I remember once hearing an allegory that illus- trated this to me wonderfully. Satan called to- gether a council of his servants to consult how they might make a good man sin. One evil spirit -ate 128 THE christian's secret of a happy life. f started up and said, " I will make him sin." " How will you do it ? " asked Satan. " I will set before him the pleasures of sin," was the reply ; " I will tell him of its delights, and the rich reward it brings." " Ah," said Satan, " that will not do ; he has tried it and knows ^etter than that." Then another spirit started up ana said, "I will make him sin." " What will you do ?" asked Satan. " I will tell him of the pains and sorrows of virtue. I will show him that virtue has no delights, and brings no rewards." " Ah, no ! " exclaimed Satan, " that will not do at all ; for he has tried it, and knows that ' wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.' " " Well," said another imp, starting up, " I will under- take to make him sin." " And what will you do ? " asked Satan again. " I will discourage his soul," was the short reply. " Ah, that will do ! " cried Satan, " that will do ! We shall conquer him now." And they did. An old writer says, " All discouragement is from the devil;" and I wish every Christian would just take this as a pocket piece, and n<. :r forget it. We must fly from discouragement as we would from sin. But this is impossible if we fail to recognize Satan's agency in temptation ; for, if the temptations are our own fault, we cannot help being discouraged. But they are not. The Bible says, "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation ;" and we are exhorted to '* count it all joy when we fall into divers temptations." Temptation, therefore, cannot be sin ; and the truth is, it is no more a sin to hear these whispers and sugges- tions of Satan in our souls than it is for us to hear the swearing or wicked talk of bad men as we pass along the street. The sin only comes, in either case, by our stopping and joining in with thom. If when the CONCERNING TEMPTATION. 129 wicked suggestions come we turn from them at once, as we would from wicked talk, and pay no more atten- tion to them, we do not sin. But, if we carry them in our minds, and roll them under our tongues, and dwell on them with a half -consent of our will to them as true, then we sin. We may be enticed by Satan a thousand times a day without sin ; and we cannot help his enticings. But if he can succeed in making us think that his enticings are our sin, he has accom- plished half the battle, and can hardly fail to gain a complete victory. A dear lady once came to me under great darkness, simply from not understanding this. She had been living very happily in the life of faith for some time, and had been so free from temptation as almost to begin to think she would never be tempted any more. But suddenly a very peculiar form of temptation had assailed her, which had horrified her. She found that the moment she began to pray, dreadful thoughts of all kinds would rush into her mind. She had lived a very sheltered, innocent life, and these thoughts seemed so awful to her that she felt she must be one of the most wicked of sinners to be capable of having them. She began by thinking she could not possibly have entered into the rest of faith, and ended by concluding that she had never even been born again. Her soul was in an agony of distress. I told her that these dreadful thoughts were altogether the suggestions of Satan, who came to her the moment she kneeled in prayer, and poured them into her mind, and that she herself was not to blame for them at all ; that she could not help them any more than she could help hearing if a wicked man should pour out his blasphemies in her presence. And I urged her to recognize and treat them as from Satan ; not to blame herself or be discouraged. I it 1? 130 THE christian's SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. but to turn at once to Jesus, and commit them to Him. I showed her how great an advantage Satan had gained by making her think these thoughts were originated by herself, and plunging her into condemnation and discouragement on account of them. And I assured her she would find a speedy victory if she would pay no attention to them ; but, ignoring their presence, would simply turn her back on them, and look to the Lord. She grasped the truth, and the next time these thoughts came she said to Satan, " I have found you out now. It is you who are suggesting these dreadful thoughts to me, and 1 hate them, and will have nothing to do with them. The Lord is my helper ; take them to Him, and settle them in His presence." Immediately the baffled enemy, finding himself discovered, fled in confusion, and her soul was perfectly delivered. Another thing also. Satan knows that if a Christian recognizes a suggestion of evil as coming from him, he will recoil from it far more quickly than if it seems to be the suggestion of his own mind. If Satan prefaced each temptation with the words, " I am Satan, your relentless enemy; I have come to make you sin," I suppose we would feel hardly any desire at all to yield to his suggestions. He has to hide himself in order to make his baits attractive. And our victory will be far more easily gained if wo ire not ignorant of his devices, but recognize him at hi very first approach. We also make another great mistake about tempta- tions in thinking that all time spent in combating tliem is lont. Hours pass, and we seem to have made no pro- gress, because we have been so beset with temptations. But it often happens that we have been serving God far more truly during these hours, than in our times of comparative freedom from temptation. Temptation is CONCERNING TEMPTATION. 131 really more the devil's wrath against God than against us. He cannot touch our Saviour, but he can wound our Saviour by conquering us, and our ruin is impor- tant to him only as it affects Christ. We are, there- fore, really fighting our Lord's battles when we are fighting temptation, and hours are often worth days to us under these circumstances. We read, " Blessed is the man that endureth temptation," and I am sure this means enduring the continuance of it and its frequent recurrence. Nothing so cultivates the grace of patience as the endurance of temptation, and nothing so drives the soul to an utter dependence upon the Lord Jesu-, 'h d Si v4 '•li 136 THE christian's secret of a happy life. was ! And how exactly it is repeated by many a child of God in the present day, whose heart, because of a defeat, melts and becomes as water, and who cries out, " Would to God we had been content, and dwelt on the other side Jordan!" and predicts for itself further failures and even utter discomfiture before its enemies. No doubt Joshua thought then, as we are apt to think now, that discouragement and despair were the only proper and safe conditions after such a failure. But God thought otherwise. "And the Lord said unto Joshua, Get thee up ; wherefore liest thou upon thy face?" The proper thing to do, was not to abandon them- selves to utter discouragement, humble as it might look, but at oiice to face the evil and get rid of it, and afresh and immediately to " sanctify themselves." "Up, sanctify the people," is always God's command. "Lie down and be discourage'^," is always Satan's temptation. Our feeling is that it is presumptuous, and even a.lmost impertinent, to go at once to the Lord after having sinned against Him. It seems as if we ought to suffer the consequences of our sin first for a little while, and endure the accusings of our con- science. And we can hardly believe that the Lord can be willing at once to receive us back into loving friend- ship with Himself. A little girl once expressed the feeling to me, with a child's outspoken candor. She had asked whether the Lord Jesus always forgave us for our sins as soon as wo asked Him, and I had said, " Yes, of course He docs." ** Just as soon?" she repeated, doubtingly. " Yes," I replied, " the very minute we ask. He forgives us." " Well," she said deliberately, " I cannot believe that. I should think He would make us feel sorry for two or three days first. And then I should think He FAILURES. 137 would make us ask Him a great many times, and in a very pretty way, too, — not just in common talk. And I believe that is the way He does, and you need not try to make me think He forgives me right at once, no matter what the Bible says." She only said what most Christians think. And, what is worse, what most Christians act on, making their discouragement and their very remorse separate them infinitely farther oil irom God, than their sin would have done. Yet it is so totally contrary to the way we like our children to act towards us, that I wonder how we ever could have conceived such an idea of God. How a mother grieves when a naughty child goes oft' alone in despairing remorse, and doubts her willingness to forgive ; antl how, on the other hand, her whole heart goes cut in welcoming love to the darling who runs to her at once and begs her forgiveness. Surely our God knew this yearning love when He said to us, " Return, ye back- sliding children, and I will heal your backslidings." The fact is, that the same nioujent which brings the consciousness of having sinned, ought to bring also the consciousness of being forgiven. This is especially essential to an unwavering walk in the highway of holiness, for no separation from God can be tolerated here for an instant. We can only walk in this path by looking continu- ally unto Jesus, moment by moment; and if our eyes are taken off" Him to look upon our own sin and our own weakness, we shall leave the path at once. The believer, there^r^re, who has, as he trusts, entered upon this highway, if he finds himself overcome by sin, must flee with it instantly to Jesus. He must act on 1 John i. 9 : " If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." He must not hide His sin and seek 10 I. f 138 THE christian's secret of a happy life. to salve it over with excuses, or to push it out of his memory by the lapse of time. But he must do as the children of Israel did, rise up " early in the morning," and " run " to the place where the evil thing is hidden, and take it out of its hiding-place, and lay it "out before the Lord." He must confess his sin. And then he must stone it with stones, and burn it with fire, and utterly put it away from him, and raise over it a great heap of stones, that it may be forever hidden from his sight. And he must believe then and there that God Uy according to His word, faithful and just to forgive him his sin, and that He does do it ; and further, that He also cleanses him from all unrighteousness. He must claim an immediate forgiveness and an immediate cleansing by faith, and must go on trusting harder and more absolutely than ever. As soon as Israel's sin had been brought to light and put away, at once God's word came again in a message of glorious encouragement, " Fear not, neither be thou dismayed. . . . See, I have given into thy hand the king of Ai, and his people, and his ciiy and his land." Our courage must rise higher than ( ver, and we must abandon ourselves more completely Ic the Lord, that His mighty power may the more perfectly work in us all the good pleasure of His will. More- over, we must forget our sin as soon as it is thus con- fessed and forgiven. We must not dwell on it, and examine it and indulge in a luxury of distress and remorse. We must not put it on a pedestal, and then walk around it and view it on every side, and so magnify it into a mountain that hides our God from our eyes. We must follow the example of Paul, and " forgetting those things which are behind, and reach- ing forth into those things which are before," we must " press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." FAILURES. 130 I would like to brinfr up two contrastive illustra- tions of theso things. One was an earnest Christian man, an active worker in the Church, who had been living for several months in the enjoyment of full sal- vation. He was suddenly overcome by a temptation to treat a brother unkindly. Not having supposed it possible that he could ever sin again, he was at cnce plunged into the deepest discouragement, and con- cluded he had been altogether mistaken, and had never entered into the life of full trust at all. Day by day his discouragement increased until it became despair, and he concluded he had never even been born again, and gave himself up for lost. He spent three years of utter misery, going farther and farther away from God, and being gradually drawii off into one sin after another, until his life was a curse to him- self and to all around him. His health failed under the terrible burden, and fears were entertained for his reason. At the end of three years he met a Christian lady, who understood the truth about sin that I have been trying to explain. In a few momeni/s' conveisa- tion she found out his trouble, and at once said, '* You sinned in that act, there is no doubt about it, and I do not want you to try and excuse it. But have you never confessed it to the Lord and asked Him to for- give you?" "Confess it!" he exclaimed, "why, it seems to me I have done nothing but confess it, and entreat God to forgive me night and day for all these three dreadful years." " And you have never believed He did forgive you ? " asked the lady* " No," said the poor man, " how could I, for I never felt as if He did ?" " But suppose He had said He forgave you, would not that have done as well as for you to feel it ? " " Oh, yes," replied the man, " if God said it, of course I would believe it." " Very well. He does say so," was i ; r, t' I I • I ; i '1 i' * ■ I 140 THE christian's SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. the lady's answer, and she turned to the verse we have taken above (1 John i. 9) and read it aloud. " Now," she continued, " you have been all these three years confessing and confessing your sin, and all the while God's record has been declaring that He was faithful and just to forgive it, and to cleanse you, and yet you have never once believed it. You have been * making God a liar ' all this while by refusing to be- lieve His record." The poor man saw the whole thing, and was dumb with amazement and consternation: and when the lady proposed they should kneel down, and that he should confess his past unbelief and sin, and should claim, then and there, a present forgiveness and a pres- ent cleansing, he obeyed like one in a maze. But the result was glorious. In a few moments the light broke in, and he burst out into praise at the wonder- ful deliverance. In three minutes his soul was enabled to traverse back by faith the whole long weary jour- ney that he had been three years in making, and he found himself once more resting in Jesus, and rejoic- ing in the fulness of His salvation. The other illustration was the case of a Christian lady who had been living in the land of promise about two weeks, and who had had a very bright and victo- rious experience. Suddenly, at the end of that time, she was overcome by a violent burst of anger. For a moment a flood of discouragement swept over her soul. Satan said, " There now, that shows that it was all a mistake. Of course you have been deceived about the whole thing, and have never entered into the life of full trust at all. And now you may as well give up altogether, for you never can consecrate yourself any more entirely, nor trust any more fully than you did this time ; so it is very plain this life of holiness is em we do the Ih FAILUREa 141 not for you ! " These thoughts flashed through her mind in a moment, but she was well taught in the ways of God, and she said at once, " Yes, I have sinned, and it is very sad. But the Bible says that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, and I believe He will do it." She did not delay a moment, but while still boiling over with anger, she ran — she could not walk — into a room where she could be alone, and kneeling down beside the bed, she said, " Lord, I confess my sin. I have sinned, I am even at this very moment sinning. I hate it, but I cannot get rid of it. I confess it with shame and confusion of face to Thee. And now I believe that, according to Thy word, Thou dost forgive and Thou dost cleanse." She said it out loud, for the inward turmoil was too great for it to be said inside. As the words, " Thou dost forgive and Thou dost cleanse," passed her lips the deliverance came. The Lord said, " Peace, be still," and there was a great calm. A flood of light and joy burst on her soul, the enemy fled, and she was more than conqueror through Him that loved her. The whole thing — the sin, and the recovery from it — had occupied not five minutes, and her feet trod on more firmly than ever in the blessed highway of holiness. Thus the valley of Achor became to her a door of hope, and she sang afresh and with deeper meaning her song of deliverance, " I will sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously." The truth is, the only remedy after all, in every emergency, is to trust in the Lord. And if this is all we ought to do, and all we can do, is it not better to do it at once ? I have often been brought up short by the question, " Well, what can I do but trust ? " And I have realized at once the folly of seeking for deliv- .'r' m I 142 THE CHRISTIAN'S SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. erance in any other way, by saying to mygelf, " I shall have to come to simple trusting in the end, and why not come to it at once, now in the beginning ?" It is a life and walk of faith we have entered upon, and if we fail in it our only recovery must lie in an in- crease of faith, not in a lessening of it. Let every failure, then, if any occur, drive you in- stantly to Jesus with a more complete abandonment and a more perfect trust, and you will find that, sad as they are, they will not take you out of the land of rest, riot permanently interrupt your sweet commun- ion with Him. And now, having shown the way of deliverance from failure, I want to say a little as to the causes of failure in this life of full salvation. The causes do not lie in the strength of the temptation, nor in our own weakness ; nor, above all, in any lack in the power or willingness of our Salvation to save us. The promise to Israel was positive, " There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life." And the promise to us is equally positive, "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able ; but will, with the temptation, also make a way of escape that ye may be able to bear it." The men of Ai were " but few," and yet the people who had conquered the mighty Jericho " fled before the men of Ai." It was not the strength of their enemy, neither had God failed them. The cause of their defeat lay somewhere else, and the Lord Himself declares it, " Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them ; for they have taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen and dissembled also, and they have put it even among their own stuff. Therefore the children (' shall why It is ., and kn in- »u in- iinent t, sad md of amun- erance uses o£ ses do in our in the IS. The lOt any of thy |e, "God mpted ptation, able to ) people before of their jause of Himself Ebve also them ; nd have e put it children FAILURES. 143 of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs upon their enemies." It was a hidden evil that conquered them. Deep down under the earth, in an obscure tent, in that vast army, was hidden something against which God had a contro- versy, and this little hidden thing made the whole army helpless before their enemies. " There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, Israel ; thou canst not stand before thine enemies until ye take away the accursed thing from among you." The teaching here is simply this, that anything allowed in the heart which is contrary to the will of God, let it seem ever so insignificant, or be ever so hidden, will cause us to fall before our enemies. Any root of bit- terness cherished towards another, any self-seeking, any harsh judgme .cs indulged in, any slackness in obeying the voice of the Lord, any doubtful habits or surroundings, any one of these things will effectually cripple and paralyze our spiritual life. We may have hidden the evil in the most remote corner of our hearts, and may have covered it over from our sight, refusing even to recognize its existence — of which, however, we cannot help being all the time secretly aware. We may steadily ignore it, and persist in declarations of consecration and full trust ; we may be more earnest than ever in our religious duties, and have the eyes of our understanding opened more and more to the truth and beauty of the life and walk of faith. We may seem to ourselves and to others to have reached an almost impregnable position of victory, and yet we find ourselves suffering bitter defeats. We may wonder, and question, and despair, and pray. Nothing will do any good until the accursed thing is dug up from its hiding-place, brought out to the light, and laid before God. And the moment a believer who is walking in 144 THE christian's secret of a happy life. this interior life meets with a defeat, he must at once seek for the "ause, not in the strenpfth of that particu- lar enemy, but in something behind — some hidden want of consecration lying at the very centre of his being. Just as a headache is not the disease itself, but only a symptom of the disease situated in some other part of the body, so the sin in such a Christian is only the symptom of an evil hidden probably in a very different part of his being. Sometiiiies the evil may be hidden even in that which, at a cursory glance, would look like good. Beneath apparent zeal for the truth may be hidden a judging spirit, or a subtle leaning to our own under- standing. Beneath apparent Christian faithfulness, may be hidden an absence of Christian love. Beneath an apparently rightful care for our affairs, may be hidden a great want of trust in God. I believe our blessed Guide, the indwelling Holy Spirit, is always secretly discovering these things to us by continual little twinges and pangs of conscience, so that we are left without excuse. But it is very easy to disregard His gentle voice, and insist upon it ourselves that all is right ; and thus the fatal evil will continue hidd i in our midst, causing defeat in most unexpected quarters. A capital illustration of this appeared to me once in my housekeeping. I had moved int' a new house, and looking over it to see that it was all ready for occu- pancy, I noticed in the cellar a very clean-looking cider-cask, headed up at both ends. I debated with myself whether I should have it taken out of the cellar and opened, to see what was in it, but concluded, as it seemed empty and looked nice, to leave it undisturbed, especially as it would have been quite a piece of work to get it up the stairs. I did not feel quite easy, but FAILURES. 145 ; once rticu- lidden o£ his If, but _ 5 other is only Eb very in that B good. idden a under- iulness, Beneath may he Leve our } always ontinual ) we are isregard that all hidd A expected ,e once in ouse, and for occu- lookinjT xted with the cellar ded, as it disturbed, e of work easy, but reasoned away my scruples and left it Every spring and fall, when the house-cleaning time came on, I would remember that cask, with a little twinge of my housewifely conscience, feeling that I could not quite rest in the thought of a perfectly clean house while it remained unopened ; for how did I know but under its fair exterior it contained some hidden evil ? Still I managed to quiet my scruples on the subject, thinking always of the trouble it would involve to investigate it; and for two or three years the innocent-looking cask stood quietly in my cellar. Then, most unac- countably, moths began to fill my house. I used every possible precaution against them, and made every effort to eradicate them, but in vain. They increased rapidly, and threatened to ruin everything that I had. I sus- pected my carpets as being the cause, and subjected them to a thorough cleaning, i suspected my furni- ture, and had it newly upholstered. I suspected all sorts of impossible things. At last the thought of the cask flashed on me. At once I had it brought up out of the cellar, and the head knocked in ; and I think it is safe to say that thousands of moths poured out. The previous occupant of the house must have headed it up with something in it which bred moths, and this was the cause of all my trouble. Now I believe that, in the same way,.8ome innocent- looking habit of indulgence — some apparently unim- portant and safe thing, about which we yet have, now and then, little twinges of conscience — something which is not brought out fairly into the light, and in- vestigated under the searching eye of God — lies at het root of most of the failures, in this higher life. All is not given up. Some secret corner is kept locked against the entrance of the Lord. And, therefore, w© cannot 146 THE christian's secret of a happy lifb. stand before our enemies, but find ourselves smitten down in their presence. It is necessary to keep continually before us this prayer : " Search me, God, and know my heart ; try me, and know my thoughts ; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlast- ing," in order to prevent failure, or to discover its cause if we find we have failed. And now I beg of you, dear Christians, do not think, because I have said all this about failure, that I believe in it. There is no necessity for it whatever. The Lord Jesus is able, according to the declaration concerning Him, to deliver us out of the hands of our enemies, that we may " serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life." Let us then pray, every one of us, day and night : " Lord keep us from sinning, and make us living wit- nesses of Thy mighty power to save to the uttermost ;" and let us never be satisfied until we are so pliable in His hands, and have learned so to trust Him that He will bo able to " make us perfect in every good work to do His will, working in us that which 'vj well- pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amon." li i CHAPTER XIV. GREAT many Christians are slaves to the habit of doubting. No drunkard was ever more utterly bound by the chains of his fatal habit than they are by theirs. Every step of their whole Christian life is taken against the fear- ful odds of an army of doubts, that are forever lying in wait to assail them at each favorable moment. Their lives are made wretched, their usefulness is effectually hindered, and their communion with God is continually broken by their doubts. And although the entrance of the soul upon the life of faith, of which this book treats, does in many cases take it altogether out of the region where these doubts live and flourish, yet, even here ii sometimes happens that the old tyrant will rise up and re-assert his sway, and will cause the feet to stumble and the heart to fail, oven when he cannot succeed in utterly turning the believer back into the dreary wilderness again. 1/ I:: 148 THE christian's secret of a happy life. We all of us remember, doubtless, the childish fasci- nation, and yet horror, of that story of Christian's im- prisonment in Doubting Castle, by the wicked giant Despair, and our exultant sympathy in his escape through those massive gates and from tha*" cruel tyrant. Little did we suspect then that we shot Id ever find ourselves taken prisoner by the same giant, and im- prisoned in the same castle. And yet I fear to every member of the Church of Christ there has been at least one such experience. Turn to the account again if it is not fresh in your minds, and see if you do not see pictured there experiences of your own that have been very grievous to bear at the time, and very sor- rowful to look back upon afterwards. It seems strange that people, whose very name of Believers implies that their one chief characteristic is that they believe, should have to confess to such ex- periences. And yet it is such a universal habit that I feel if the majority of the Church were to be named uvcr again, the only fitting and descriptive name that could be given them would be that of Doubters. In fact, most Christians have settled down under their doubts, as to a sort of inevitable malady, from which they suffer acutely, but to which they must try to be resigned as a part of the necessary discipline of this earthly life. And they lament over their doubts as a man might lament over his rheumatism, making them- selves out as an "interesting case" of especial and peculiar trial, which requires the tendcrest sympathy and the utmost consideration. And this is too often true of believers, who are ear- nestly longing to enter upon the life and walk of faith, and who have made perhaps many steps toward it. They have got rid, it may be, of the old doubts that once tormented them, as to whether their sins are DOUBTS. ^ 149 fasci- sim- giant scape jrraiit. f find idim- every sen a>t again io not ,t have ry 8or- ame of •istic is ich ex- b that I named ne that srs. In er their 1 which y to be of this bts as a ig them- cial and ^mpathy ) are ear- of faith, award it. abts that sins are really forgiven, and whether they shall after all get safe to Heaven ; but they have not got rid of doubting. They have simply shifted the habit to a higher plat- form. They are saying, perhaps, " Yes, I believe my sins are forgiven, and I am a child of God through faith in Jesus Christ. But then ." And I dare not doubt this any more, this "but then" includes an interminable array of doubts concerning every declara- tion and every promise our Father has made to His children. One after another they fight with them and refuse to believe them, until they can have some more reliable proof of their being true, than the simple word of their God. And then they wonder why they are permitted to walk in such darkness, and look upon themselves almost in the light of martyrs, and groan under the peculiar spiritual conflicts they are compelled to endure. Spiritual conflicts ! Far better would they be named did we call them spiritual rebellions ! Our tight is to be a fight of faith, and the moment we doubt, our fight ceases, and our rebellion begins. I desire to put forth, if possible, one vigorous pro- test against this whole thing. Just as well might I join in with the laments of a drunkard, and unite with him in prayer for grace to endure the discipline of his fatal appetite, as to give way for one instant to the weak complaints of these enslaved souls, and try to console them under their slavery. To one and to the other I would dare to do nothing else but proclaim bhe perfect deliverance the Lord Jesus Christ has in store for them, and beseech, entreat, command them, with all the force of my whole nature, to avail themselves of it and be free. Not for one moment would I listen to their despairing excuses. (f f 150 THE christian's SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. You ought to be free, you can be free, you must be free! Will you undertake to tell me that it is an inevitable necessity for God to be doubted by His children ? Is it an inevitable necessity for your children to doubt you ? Would you tolerate their doubts a single hour? Would you pity your son, and condole with him, and feel that he was an interesting case, if he should come to you and say, " Father, I cannot believe your word, I cannot trust your love ? " I remember once seeing the indignation of a mother I kiU'W, stirred to its very depths by a little doubting on tne part of one of her children. She had brought two little girls to my house to leave them while she did some errands. One of them, with the happy con- fidence of childhood, abandoned herself to all the pleas- ures she could find in my nursery, and sang and played until her mother's return. The other one, with tlie wretched caution and mistrust of maturity, sat down alone in a corner to wonder whether her mother would remember to come back for her, and fear she would be forgotten, and to imagine her mother would be glad of the chance to get rid of her anyhow, because she was such a naughty girl ; and ended with working herself up into a perfect frenzy of despair. The look on that mother's face when, upon her return the weeping little girl told what was the matter with her, I shall not easily forget. Grief, wounded love, indignation and pity, all strove together for mastery. But indignation gained the day, and I doubt if that little girl was ever so vigorously dealt with before. A hundred times in my life since has that scene come up before me with deepest teaching, and has compelled me, peremptorily to refuse admittance to the doubts about my heavenly Father's love and care DOUBTS. 151 and remembrance of me, that have clamored at the door of my heart for entrance. I am convinced that to many people doubting is a real luxury, and to deny themselves from indulging in it would be to exercise the hardest piece of self-denial they have ever known. It is a luxury that, like the indulgence in all other luxuries, brings very sorrowful results; and, perhaps, looking at the sadness and misery it has brought into your own Christian experience, you may be tempted to say, " Alas I it is no luxury to me, but only a fearful trial." But pause for a moment. Try giving it up, and you will soon find out whether it is a luxury or not. Do 1 ot your doubts come trooping to your door as a company of sympathizing friends, who appreciate your hard case, and hav^ come to condole with you ? And is it no luxury to sit down with them and enter- tain them, and listen to their arguments, and join in with their condolences ? Would it be no self-denial to turn resolutely from them, and refuse to hear a word they have to say ? If you do not know, try it, and see. Have you never tasted the luxury of indulging in hard thoughts against those who have, as you think, injured you ? Have you never known what a positive fascination it is to brood over their unkindness, and to pry into their malice, and to imagine all sorts of wrong and uncomfortable things about them ? It has made you wretched, of course, but it has been a fas- cinating sort of wretchedness, that you could not easily give up. And just like this is the luxury of doubting. Things have gone wrong with you in your experience. Dis- Eensations have been mysterious, temptations have een peculiar, your case has seemed different from I i I 1 1 .! 162 THE christian's secret of a happy life. that of any one's around you. What more natural than to conclude that for some reason God has for- saken you, and does not love you, and is indifferent to your welfare ? And how irresistible is the conviction that you are too wicked for Him to care for, or too difficult for Him to manage ? You do not mea" ^o blame Him, or excuse Hita of injustice, for you feel that His indifference and rejec- tion of you are fully deserved, because of your un- worthiness. And this very subterfuge leaves you at liberty to induge in your doubts under tha guise of a just and true appreciation of yonr own shortcomings. But all the while you are as really indulging in hard and wrong thoughts of your Lord as ever you did of a human enemy ; for He says He came not to save the righteous, but sinners ; and your very sinfulness and un worthiness is your chiefest claim upon His love and His care. As well might the poor little lamb that has wandered from the flock and got lost in the wilderness say, " The shepherd does not love me, nor care for me, nor remem- ber me, because I am lost. He only loves and cares for the lambs that never wander." As well might the ill man say, "The doctor will not come to see me, nor give me my medicines, because I am ill. He only cares for and visits well people." Jesus says, " They that are whole need not a physi- cian, but they that ar=) sick." And again He says, " What man of you having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it V " Any thoughts of Him, therefore, which are different from what Ha says of Himself, are hard thoughts, and DOUBTS. 153 to indulge in them is far worse than to indulge in hard thoughts of any earthly friend or foe. From the beginning to the end of your Christian life it is always sinful to indulge in doubts. Doubts are all from the devil, and are always untrue. And the only way to meet them is by a direct and emphatic denial. And this brings me to the practical part of the whole subject, — as to how to get deliverance from this fatal habit. My answer would be that the deliverance from this can be by no jther means than the deliverance from any other sin. It is to be found in Christ, and in Him only. You must hand your doubting over to Him, as you have learned to hand your other temp- tations. You must do just what you do with your temper or your prido. You must give it up to the Lord. I believe myself, the only effectual remedy is to make a pledge against it, as you would urge a drunkard to do against drink, trusting in the Lord alone to keep you steadfast. Like any other sin, the stronghold is in the will, and the will to doubt must be surrendered exactly as you surrender the will to yield to any other temptation. God always takes possession of a surrendered will. And if we come to the point of saying that we will not doubt, and surrender this central fortress of our nature to Him, His blessed Spirit will begin at once to work in us all the good pleasure of His will, and we shall find ourselves kept from doubting by His mighty and overcoming power. The trouble is, that in this matter of doubting the soul does not always make a full surrender, but is apt to reserve to itself a little secret of liberty to doubt, looking upon it as being sometimes a necessity. " I do not want to doubt any more," we will say, or, 11 i'i 154 THE christian's SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. " I hope I shall not ;'* but it is hard to come to the point of saying, " I will not doubt again." But no surrender is effectual until it reaches the point of say- ing, " I will not." The liberty to doubt must be given up forever. And the soul must consent to a continu- ous life of inevitable trust. It is often necessary, I think, to make a definite transaction of this surrender of doubting, and to come to a point about it. I believe it is quite as necessary in the case of a doubter as in the case of a drunkard. It will not do to give it up by degrees. The total abstinence principle is the only effectual one here. Then, the surrender once made, the soul must rest absolutely upon the Lord for deliverance in each time of temptation. It must lift up the shield of faith the moment the assault comes. It must hand the very first suggestion of doubt over to the Lord, and must tell Satan to settle the matter with Him. It must refuse to listen to the doubt a single moment. Let it come ever so plausibly, or under whatever guise of humility, the soul must simply say, " I dare not doubt : I must trust. The Lord is good, and He DOES love me. Jesus saves me. He saves me now." Those three little words, repeated over and over — " Jesus saves me, Jesus saves me" — will put to flight the greatest army of doubts that ever assaulted any soul. I have tried it times without number, and have never known it to fail. Do not stop to argue the matter out with Satan, or to try to convince him that he is wrong. Pay no attention to him whatever ; treat him with the utmost contempt. Shut your door in his face, and emphatically deny every word he says to you. Bring up some, " It is written," and hurl it after him. Look right at Jesus, and tell Him you trust Him, and you mean to trust DOUBTS. 165 Him. Let the doubts clamor as they may, they cannot hurt you if you will not let them in. I know it will look to you sometimes as though you were shutting the door against your best friends, and you heart will long after your doubts more than ever the Israelites longed after the flesh-pots of Egypt. But deny yourself ; take up your cross in this matter, and unmercifully refuse to listen to a single word. This very day a perfect army of doubts stood awaiting my awaking, and clamored at my door for admittance. Nothing seemed real, nothing seemed true; and least of all did it seem possible that I — miserable, wretched I — could be the object of the Lord's love, or care, or notice. If I only had been at liberty to let these doubts in and invite them to take seats, and make themselves at home, what a luxury I should have felt it to be ! But years ago I made a pledge against doubting, and I would as soon think of violating my pledge against intoxicating liquor as to violate this one. I dared NOT admit the first doubt. I therefore lifted up my shield of faith the moment I was conscious of these suggestions, and handing the whole army over to my Lord to conquer, I began to say, over and over, " The blood of Jesus cleanseth me, the blood of Jesus cleanseth me, Jesus saves me, Jesus saves me. Jesus saves me now." The victory was complete. The enemy had come in like a flood, but the Lord lifted up a standard against him, and he was routed and put to flight ; and my soul is singing the song of Moses and the children of Israel, saying, " I will sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously ; the horse and his rider hath He thrown in the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song, and He is become my salva- tion. The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is His name." • 1*'^ I? It 166 THE christian's secret of a happy life. Dear, doubting soul, go and do likewise; and a similar victory shall be thine. As you lay down this book take up your pen, and write out your determination never to doubt again. Make it a real transaction between your soul and the Lord. Give up your liberty to doubt, forever. Put your will in this matter over on the Lord's side, and trust Him to keep you from falling. Tell Him all about your utter weakness and your long-encouraged habits of doubt, and how helpless you are before your enemy, and commit the whole battle to Him. Tell Him you will not doubt again ; and then, henceforward keep your face steadfastly looking unto Jesus, away from yourself and away from your doubts, holding fast the profession of your faith without wavering, because He is faithful who hath promised. And as surely as you do thus, holding the beginning of your confidence steadfast unto the end, just so surely simll you find yourself in this matter made MORE than conqueror through Him who loves you. CHAPTER XV. r- /] V-1 F all that has been said concerning the life hid with Christ in God be true, its results in the practical daily walk and conversation ought to be very marked, and the people who have entered into the enjoyment of it ought to be, in very truth, a peculiar people, zealous of good works. My dear boy once wrote to a friend something to this effect : " That we are God's witnesses necessarily, because the world will not read the Bible, but they will read our lives ; and that upon the report these give, will very much depend their belief in the Divine nature of the religion we profess." As a late preacher said, it is an age of facts, and inquiries are being in- creasingly turned from theories to realities. If our religion is to make any headway now, it must be proved to be more than a theory, and we must present m i hi nV'^ ■ 168 THE christian's secret of a happt'life. it to the investigation of the critical minds of our age, the grand facts of lives which have been actually and manifestly transformed by the mighty power of God working in us all the good pleasure of His will. Give us forms of life, say the scientists, and we will be con- vinced. And when the Church is able to present to them in all its members the form of a holy life, their last stronghold will be conquered. I desire, therefore, before closing my book, to speak very solemnly of what I conceive to be the necessary fruits of a life of faith such as I have been describing, •and to press home to the hearts of every one of my readers their responsibility to walk worthy of the high calling wherewitn they have been called. And I would speak to some of you, at least, as per- sonal friends, for I feel sure we have not gone thus far together throughout this book without there having grown in your hearts, as there has in mine, a tender personal interest and longing for one another, that we may in everything show forth the praises of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvellous light. As a friend, then, to friends, I am sure I may speak very plainly, and will be pardoned if I go into some details of our daily lives which may seem of secondary importance, and yet which make up the largest part of them. The standard of practical holy living has been as low among Christians that the least degree of real devotedness of life and walk is looked upon with sur- prise, and even often with disapprobation, by a large portion of the Church. And, for the most part, the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ are satisfied with a life so conformed to the world, and so like it in almost every respect, that, to a casual observer, no difference is discernible. ' RESULTS IN DAILY WALK, ETC. 159 r age, y and t* God Give le con- ent to , their speak jessary sribing, of my le high as per- fie thus having L tender that we im who as light. Y speak to some condary t part of been aa of real ith sur- a large )art, the d with a in almost UfFerence But we, who have heard the call of our God to a life of entire consecration and perfect trust must do differ- ently from all this. We must come out from th« world and be separate, and must not be conformed tc it in our characters nor in our lives. We must give up its friendships, its pursuits, its interests. Our con- versation must be in Heaven, and we must seek those things that are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. We must walk through the world as Christ walked. We must have the mind that was in His. As pilgrims and strangers we must abstain from fleshly lusts that war against the soul. As good soldiers of Christ Jesus, we must disentangle ourselves from the affairs of this life as far as possible, that we may please Him who hath chosen us to be soldiers. We must abstain from all appearance of evil. We must be kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake, hatli f(?r- given us. We must not resent injuries or unkindness, but must return good for evil, and turn the other cheek to the hand that smites us. We must take al- ways the lowest place among our fellowmen; and seek not our own honor, but the honor of others. We must do all that we do for the glory of God. And, to sum it all up, since He who hath called us is holy, so must we be holy in all manner of conversation ; be- cause it is written, " Be ye holy, for I am holy." Now, dear friends, this is all exceedingly practical, and means, surely, a life very different from the lives of most Christians around us. It means that we do really and absolutely turn our backs on the world and its fashions, and its amusements and its ways. It means that we are a peculiar people, not only in the eyes of God, but in the eyes of the world around us ; and that, wherever we go, it will be known from our t 160 THE CHRISTUN'S SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. E/- H H habits, our dress, our conversation, and our purs aits, that we are followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, and are not of the world. We shall no longer feel that our money is our own, but the Lord's, to be used in His service. We shall not feel at liberty to use our ener- gies exclusively in the pursuit of worldly means, but seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteous- ness, shall have all needful things added unto us. We shall find ourselves forbidden to seek the highest places, or to strain' after worldly advantages. We shall not be permitted to be conformed to the world in our dress, nor in our ways of living. We shall not be able to go to balls, and operas, and dances as the world does. We shall not dare to waste our intellects nor our time in reading the world's novels. Our days will be spent not in serving ourselves, but in serving our Lord; and yet, all our rightful duties will be more perfectly performed than ever, because whatever wc do will be done " not with eye-service as men-pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart." Into all these things we shall undoubtedly be led by the blessed Spirit of God, if we give ourselves up to His guidance. But unless we have the right stan- dard of Christian life set before us, we shall be hin- dered by our ignorance from recognizing His voice; and it is for this reason I desire to be very plain and definite in my statements. I have noticed that wherever there has been a faith- ful following of the Lord in a consecrated soul, several things have inevitably followed, sooner or later. Meekness and quietness of spirit become in time the characteristics of the daily life. A submissive accept- ance of the will of God, as it comes in the hourly events of each day ; pliability in the hands of God to leaj lif€ did in not BESULTS IN DAILY WALK, ETa lei ir salts, st, and lat our in His r ener- Qs, but hteous- is. We highest }S. We B world hall not as the tttellects )ur days serving be more ,ever wo •pleasers, . of God y be led selves up Tht stan- fl be hin- is voice ; 5lain and n a fai th- ill, several tcr. 1 time the ve accept- lio hourly 3f God to do or suffer all the good pleasure of His will ; sweet- ness under provocation ; calmness in the midst of tur- moil and bustle ; yieldingness to the wishes oi others, and an insensibility to slights and affronts ; absence of worry or anxiety ; deliverance from care and fear ; all these and many other similar graces, are invariably found to be the natural outward development of that inward life which is hid with Christ in God. Then as to the habits of life, we always see such Christians sooner or later laying aside their worldly amusements, giving up theirnovelreading, putting off their jewellery, dressing in simplicity and without useless ornamenta- tion, renouncing worldly habits, and surrendering all purely fleshly gratifications. Sooner or later I have generally found that smoking is given up, and the drinking of wine or beer, except as medicine, is sur- rendered. Dancing is seen to be contrarv to the will of God ; the opera and the theatre are felt to be places unfit for the presence of a follower of the Lord Jesus. The voice is dedicated to God, to be used in singing His praises. The purse is placed at His disposal. The pen is dedicated to write for Him, the hands and feet to do His bidding. Year after year, such Christians are seen to grow more unworldly, more heavenly- minded, more transformed, more like Christ, until even their very faces express so much of the beautiful inward Divine life, that all who look at them cannot but take knowledge of them that they live with Jesus, and are abiding in Him. I feel sure that to each one of you have come at least some divine intimations or foieshadowings of the life I here describe. Have you not begun to feel dimly conscious of the voice of God speaking to you in the depths of your soul about the.se things ? Has not your soul been plunged into inward trouble and 162 THE christian's secret of a happy life. doubt about certain amusements or pursuits in which you have been formerly accustomed to indulge ? Have you not begun to feel uneasy with some of your habits or ways, and to wish that you could do difter- ently in these respects ? Have not paths of devoted- ness and service begun to open out before you with the lonmng thought, " Oh, that. I could walk in them?" All tncse longings and doubts, and this inward dis- tress, are the voice of the Good Shepherd in your heart seeking to call you out of all that is contrary to His will. Oh I let me entreat of you not to turn away from His gentle pleadings. You little know the sweet paths into which He means to lead you by these very steps, or the wonderful stores of blessedness that lie at their end, or you would spring forward with an eager joy to yield to every one of His requirements. The heights of Christian perfection can only be reached by faith- fully each moment following the Guide who is to lead you there, and He reveals your way to you one step at a time, in the little things of your daily lives, asking only on your part that you yield yourselves up to Hi« guidance. If, then, in anything you feel doubtful or troubled, be sure that it is the voice of your Lord, and surrender it at once to His bidding, rejoicing with a great joy that He has begun thus to lead and guide you. Be perfectly pliable in His dear han i, go where He entices you, turn away from all from which He makes you shrink, obey Him p«jrfectly, and He will lead you out swiftly and easily into a wonderful life of conformity to Himself, that will bo a testimony to all around you, beyond what you yourself will ever know. I knew a soul thus given up to follow the Lord whithersoever He might lead her, who in three short months travelled from the depths of darkness and RESULTS IN DAILY WALK, ETC. 163 rhich ilge? your iffer- oted- with lem? 1 dis- your iry to away sweet ! very i lie at rerjoy leights faith- lead le step asking to His tt'ul or rd, and with a 1 guide where ich He tie will ful life nony to rill ever he Lord ee short leas and despair into the realization and conscious experience of the most blessed union with the Lord Jesus Christ. Out of the midst of her darkness she consecrated her- self to the Lord, surrendering her will up altogether to Him, that He might work in her to will and to do of His own good pleasure. Immediately He began to speak to her by His Spirit in her heart, suggesting to her some little acts of service for Him, and troubling her about certain things in her habits and her life — her jewellery, her dress, her singing, her reading, her amusements. She recognizea His voice, and yielded to Him each thing He asked for, even those about which she only felt doubtful, realizing that it was safer to put the benefit of the doubt on the Lord's side, than to run the risk of disobeying Him. He led her rapidly on, day by day conforming her more and more to His will, and making her life such a testimony to those around her, that even some who had begun by oppos- ing and disbelieving were forced to acknowledge that it was of God, and were won to a sim' ar surrender. And, finally, after three short months of this faithful following it came to pass, so swiftly had she gone, that her Lord was able to reveal to her wondering soul the deepest secrets of His love, and to ful HI to her the marvellous promise of John xiv. 21 and 23, by coming unto her, and making His abode with her. Think you she has ever regretted her whole-hearted following of Him ? Or that aught but thankfulness and joy can ever fill her soul when she views the steps by which her feet have been lf;d to this place of wondrous blessedness, even though some of them may have «oemed at the time hard to take ? Ah, dear soul, if thou wouldst know a like blessing, abandon thyself, like her, to the guidance of thy dearest Lord, and shrink from no surrender for which He may call 164 THE christian's secret of a happy life. 1 'I il I *• The perfect way is hard to flesh, It is not hard to love ; If thou wert sick for want of God, How swiftly wouldst thou movo 1** Surely thou canst trust Him ! And if some things may be called for which look to thee of but little moment and not worthy thy Lord's attention, remember that He sees not as man seeth, and that things small to thee may bo in His eyes the key and the clue to the deepest springs of thy being. In order to mould thco into entire conformity to His will, He must have thee pliable in His hands, and this pliability is more quickly reached by yielding in the little things than even by the greater. ViVj one great desire is to follow Him fully ; canst thou not say then a continual " Yes" to 3.11 His sweet commands, whether small or great, and trust Him to lead thee by the shortest road to thy fullest blessedness. My dear friend, this and nothing less than this, is what thy consecration meant, whether thou knew it or not. It meant inevitable obedience. It meant that the will of thy God was henceforth to be thy will under all circumstances and at all times. It meant tliat from that moment thou surrendered thy liberty of choice, and gave thyself up utterly into the control of thy Lord. It meant an hourly following of Him whither- soever He might lead thee, without any dream of turning back. And now I appeal to thee to make good thy word. Let everything else go, that thou mayest live out, in a practical daily walk and conversation, the Christ-life thou hast dwelling within thee. Thou art united to thy Lord by a wondrous tie, walk then, as He walked, and show to the unbelieving world the blessed reality of His mighty power to save, by letting Him save thee in hesults in daily walk, eto. 165 to the very uttermost. Thou needest not fear to con- sent to this, for He is thy Saviour, and His power is to do it all ! He is not asking thee, in thy poor weak- ness to do it thyself. He only asks thee to yield thy- self to Him, that He may work in thee to will and to do by His own mighty power. Thy part is to yield thyself. His part is to work ; and never, never will He give thee any command which is not accompanied by ample power to obey it. Take no thought for the morrow in this matter ; but abandon thyself with a generous trust to thy loving Lord, who has promised never to call His own sheep out into any path without Himselt' i^oing before them to make the way easy and safe. Take each little step as He makes it plain to thee. Bring all thy life in each of i*s details to Him to regu- late and guide. Follow gladly and quickly the sweet suggestions of His Spirit in thy soul. And day by day thou wilt find Him bringing thee more and more into conformity with His will in all things; moulding thee and fashioning thee, as thou art able to bear it, into a vessel unto His honor, sanctified and meet for His use, and fitted to every good work. So shall be given to thee the sweet joy of being an episole of Christ known and read of all men ; and thy light shall shine so brightly that men seeing, not thee, but thy good works, shall glorify, not thee, but thy Father which is in Heaven. " And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and do all His commandments which I com- mand thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth ; and all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God. 'V m 166 THE christian's secret of a happy life. " Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field. " Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, ana *he fruit of thy cattle, the in- crease of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. " Blessed shalt be thy basket and thy store. "Blc^ed sbr t ihou be when thou comest in, and blessed hal < - lou be when thou goest out. *' The horei -1,11 cause thine enemies that rise up against iL - lo l"^ smitten before thy face ; they shall come out against ti ee one way, and flee before thee seven ways. '* The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto ; and He shall bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. " The Lord shall establish thee an holy people unto Himself, as He hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in His ways. "And all the people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of thee. " And the Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers to give thee. " And the Lord shall make thee the head and not the tail ; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath ; if thou hearken unto the command- ments of the Lord thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them." ' io. CHAPTER XVL Ske i0Jf of (^MUwtt REMEMBER reading once somewhere this sentence, " Perfect obedience would be perfect happiness, if only we had perfect confidence in the power we were obeying." I remember being struck with the saying, as the revelation of a possible, although hitherto undreamed-of, way of hap- piness, and often afterwards, through all the lawless- ness and wilfulness of my life, did that saying recur to me as the vision of a rest, and yet of a possible de- velopment, that would soothe and at the same time satisfy all my yearnings. Need I say that this rest has been revealed to me now, not as a vision, but as a reality ; and that I have seen in the Lord Jesus, the Master to whom we may all yield up our implicit obedience, and taking His yoke upon us, may find our perfect rest You little know, dear hesitating soul, of the joy you ■'II 168 THE christian's secret of a happy life. ill are missing. The Master has revealed Himself to you, and is calling for your complete surrender, and you shrink and hesitate. A measure of surrender you are willing to make, and think indeed it is fit and proper you should. But an utter abandonment, without any reserves, seems to you too much to be asked for. You are afraid of it. It involves too much, you think, and is too great a risk. To be measurably obedient you desire, to be perfectly obedient appals you. And then, too, you see other souls who seem able to walk with easy consciences, in a far wider path than that which appears to be marked out for you, and you ask yourself why this need be. It seems strange and, perhaps, hard to you, that you must do what they need not, and must leave undone what they have liberty to do. Ah! dear Christian, this very difference between you is your privilege, though you do not yet know it. Your Lord says, " He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me ; and he that loveth Me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him." You have His comr :«indments ; those you envy have them not. You know the mind of your Lord about many things in which, as yet, they are walking in darkness. Is not this a privilege ? Is it a cause for regret that your soul is brought into such near and intimate rela- tion with your Master, that He is able to tell you things which those who are farther off may not know ? Do you not realize what a tender degree of intimacy is implied in this ? There are many relations in life which require from the different parties only very moderate degrees of de- votion. We may have really pleasant friendships with one another, and yet spend a large part of our THE JOY OF OBEDIENCE. 16^ lives in separate interests, and widely different pur- suits. When together we may greatly enjoy one another's society, and find many congenial points ; but separation is not any special distress to us, and other and more intimate friendships do not interfere. There is not enough love between us to give us either the right or the desire to enter into and share one an- other's most private affairs. A certain degree of reserve and distance is the suitable thing we feel. But there are other relations in life where all this is changed. The frendship becomes love. The two hearts give themselves to one another, to be no longer two but one. A union of souls takes place, which makes all that belongs to one the property of the other. Separate interests and separate paths in life are no longer possible. Things which were lawful bo- fore become unlawful now because of the nearness of the tie that binds. The reserve and distance suitable to mere friendship become fatal in love. Love gives all, and must have all in return. The wishes of one be- come binding obligations to the other, and the deepest desire of each heart is that it may know every secret wish or longing of the other, in order that it may fly on the wings of the wind to gratify it. Do such as these chafe under this yoke which love imposes? Do they envy the cool, calm, reasonable friendships they see around them, and regret the nearness into which their souls are brought to their beloved one, because of the obligations it creates ? Do they not rather glory in those very obligations, and inwardly pity, with a tender yet exulting joy, the poor far-off ones who dare not come so near ? Is not every fresh revelation of the mind of one another a fresh delight and privilege, and is any path found hard which their love compels them to travel ? to Iw sJ i i ; 170 THE CHRISTIAN*S SECRET OF A HAPPY LiPE. Ah! dear souls, if you have ever known this, even for a few hours, in any earthly relation ; if you have ever loved a fellow human being enough to find sacri- fice and service on their behalf a joy; if a whole- souled abandonment of your will to the will of another, has ever gleamed across you as a blessed and longed-for privilege, or as a sweet and precious reality, then by all the tender longing love of your heavenly Master, would I entreat you let it be so toward Christ. He loves you with more than the love of friendship. As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so does He re- joice over you, and nothing but a full surrender will satisfy Him. He has given you all, and He asks for all in return. The slightest reserve will grieve Him to the heart. He spared not Himself, and how can you spare yourself ? For your sake He poured out in a lavish abandonment all that He had, and for His sake you must pour out all that you have without stint or measure. Oh, be generous in your self -surrender ! Meet His measureless devotion to you, with a measureless devo- tion to Him, Be glad and eager to throw yourself headlong into His dear arms, and to hand over the reins of government to Him. Whatever there is of you, let Him have it all. Give up for everything that is separate from Him. Consent to resign from this time forward all liberty of choice ; and glory in the blessed nearness of union which makes this enthu- siasm of devotedness not only possible but necessary. Have you never longed to lavish your love and atten- tions upon someone far of! from you in position or circumstances, with whom you were not intimate enough to dare to approach them ? Have you not felt a capacity for self-surrender and devotedness that has i; THE JOY OF OBEDIENCE. 171 seemed to bum within you like a fire, and yet had no object upon which it dared to lavish itself ? Have not your hands been full of alabaster boxes of ointment, very precious, which you have never been near enough to any heart to pour out ? If, then, you are hearing the sweet voice of your Lord calling you into a place of nearness to Himself, which will require a separa- tion from all else, and which will make an enthusiasm of devotedness not only possible, but necessary, will you shrink or hesitate ? Will you think it hard that He reveals to you more of His mind than He does to others, and tlmt He will not allow you to be happy in anything which separates you from Himself ? Do you want to go where He cannot go with you, or to have pursuits which He cannot share ? No ! no, a thousand times no ! You will spring out to meet His dear will with an eager joy. Even His slightest wish will become a binding law to you, which it would fairly break your heart to disobey. You will glory in the very narrowness of the path He marks out for you, and will pity with an infinite pity the poor far-off ones who have missed this precious joy. The obligations of love will be to you its sweetest privileges ; and the right you have acquired to lavish the uttermost abandonment of all that you have upon your Lord, will seem to lift you into a region of un- speakable glory. The perfect happiness of perfect obedience will dawn upon your soul, and you will be- gin to know something of what Jesus meant when He said, " I delight to do Thy will, my God." Ai 1 do you think the joy in this will be all on your side ? Has the Lord no joy in those who have thus surrendered themselves to Him, and who love to obey Him ? Ah, my friends, we are not fit to speak of this ; but surely the Scriptures reveal to us glimpses of the ■ ir.l 172 THE christian's secret of a happy life. II H I ' i I delight, the satisfaction, the joy our Lord has in us, that ravish the soul with their marvellous suggestions ot* blessedness. That we should need Him is easy to comprehend I that He should need us seems incompre- hensible. That our desire should be toward Him is a matter of course ; but that His desire should be toward us passes the bounds of human belief. And yet — and yet He says it, and what can we do but believe Him ! He has made our hearts capable of this supreme over- mastering affection, and has offered Himself as the object of it. It is infinitely precious to Him, and in tenderest accents He is saying to each one of us, as He said to Peter, " Lovest thou Me, lovest thou Me more than these ? " Continually at every heart He is kncotwing, asking to be taken in as the supreme object of love. " Wilt thou have Me," He says to the be- liever, ** to be thv Beloved ? Wilt thou follow Me into suffering and loneliness, and endure hardness for My sake, and ask for no reward but My smile of approval, and My word of praise ? Wilt thou throw thyself with an utter abandonment into My will ? Wilt thou give up to Me the absolute control of thyself and all that thou art ? Wilt thou be content with pleasing Me and Me only ? May I have My way with thee in all things ? Wilt thou come into so close a union with Me as to make a separation from the world necessary? Wilt thou accept me for Thy only Lord, and leave all others to cleave only unto Me ? " ' In a thousand ways He makes this offer of union with Himself to every believer. But all do not say " Yes " to Him. Other loves and other interests seem to them too precious to be cast aside. They do not miss Heaven because of this. But they miss un- speakable joy. You, however, are not one of these. From the very tf^ THE JOY OF OBEDIENCE. 173 first your soul has cried out eagerly and gladly to all His offers, " Yes, Lord ! yes ! " You are more than ready to pour out upon Him all your richest treasures of love and devotedness. You have brought to Him an enthusiasm of self -surrender that, perhaps, may dis- turb and distress the more prudent and moderate Christians around you. Your love makes necessary a separation from the world, which a lower love can- not even conceive of. Sacrifices and services are pos- sible and sweet to you, which could not come into the grasp of a more half-hearted devotedness. The union upon which you have entered gives you the right to a lavish outpouring of your all upon your beloved One. Services of which more distant souls know nothing become now your sweetest and most joyful privilege. Your Lord claims from you, because of your union with Him, far more than He claims of them. What to them is lawful, love has made unlawful for you. To you He can make known His secrets, and to you He looks for an instant response to every requirement of His love. Oh, it is wonderful ! the glorious unspeakable privi- lege upon which you have entered. How little it will matter to you if men shall hate you, or shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil for His dear sake ! You may well rejoice in that day and leap for joy ; for be- hold your reward is ^reat in Heaven ; and if you arc a partaker of His suliering, you shall be also of His glory. In you He is seeing of the travail of His soul, and is satisfied. Your love and devotedness are His precious reward for all He has done for you. It is unspeak- ably sweet to Him. Do not be afraid then to let your- self go into a whole-hearted devotedness to your Lord i 1 174 THE christian's secret of a happy life. that can brook no reserves. Others may not approve, but He will, and that is enough. Do not stint oi measure your obedience or your service. Let your heart and your hand be as free to serve Him, as His heart and hand were to serve you. Let Him have all there is of yon — body, soul, and spirit, time, talents, voice — everything. Lay your whole life open before Him, that He may control it. Say to Him each day, " Lord, how shall I regulate this day so as to please Thee ? Where shall I go ? what shall I do ? whom shall I visit ? what shall I say ? " Give your dress up into His control, and say, " Lord tell me how to dress so as to please Thee." Give Him your reading, your pursuits, your friendships, and say, " Lord, speak to me Lbout all these, and tell me just what Thy mind is about them." Do not let there be a day nor an hour in which you are not consciously doing His will, and following Him wholly. And this personal ser- vice to Him will give a halo to your life, and gild the most monotonous existence with a heavTenly glow. Have you ever grieved that the romance of youth is so soon lost in the hu,rd realities of the world ? Bring Christ thus into your life and into all its details, and a far grander enthusiasm will thrill your soul, than the brightest days of youth could ever know, and nothine; will seem hard or stern again. The meanest life will be glorified by this. Often as I have watched a poor woman at her wash-tub, and have thought of all the disheartening accessories of such a life, and have been tempted to wonder why such lives need to be, there has come over me with a thrill of joy, the recollection o* this possible glorification of it, and I have said to myself. Even this life, lived in Christ, and with Christ, following Him whithersoever He may lead, would be filled with a spiritual enthusiasm that would make THE JOY OP OBEDIENCE. 175 poor 1 the been there 3ction lid to hrist, Id be make every hour of it glorious. And I have gone on my way comforted to know that God's most wondrous blessings thus lie in the way of the poorest and the meanest lives. " For," says our Lord Himself, " whoso- ever," whether they be rich or poor, old or young, bond or free, "whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is My brother, and My sister, and My mother." Pause a moment over these simple yet amazing words. His brother, and sister, and mother ! What would we not have given to have been one of these ? Oh, let me entreat of you, beloved Christian, to coiro taste and see for yourself how good the Lord is, and " what wonderful things He has in .^tore for those who keep His commandments, and who do those things that are pleasing in His sight." " So they read in the book of the law of God dis- tinctl}^ and gave the sense, and caused them to under- stand the reading. " And Nehemiah, which is the Tirshatha, and Ezra the priest, the scribe, and the Levites, that taught the people, said unto all the peopie. This day is holy unto the Lord your God, mourn not nor weep. For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. " Then he said unto them. Go your way, eat the fat and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared ; for this day is holy unto our Lord ; neither be yo sorry ; for the joy of the Lord is your strength. " So the Levites stilled all the people, saying, Hold your peace, for the day is holy ; neither be ye grieved. " And all the people went their way to eat, and to drink, and to send portions, an i to make great mirth, because they had understood the words that were declared unto them." lii^ CHAPTER XVII. Mt i0JJ 0f lttl0tt. Is LL the dealinpfs of God with the soul of the believer are in order to bring ifc into oneness with Himself, thot. the prayer of our Lord may be fuinlled — " That they all may be one ; as Thou, Father, art "-^ Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one m us.'* . . . "I in them, and Thou in Me, that tl.oy may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me." This soul-union was the glorious purpose in the heart of God for His people before the foundation of the world. It was the mystery hid from ages and generations. It was accomplished in the death of Christ. It has been made known by the Scriptures. And it is realized as an actual experience by many of God's dear children. But not by alL It i» true of all, and God has not k i 1 *f-te-. » THE JOT OF UNIOW. r/7 hidden it or made it hard, but the eyes of many are too dim and their hearts too unbelieving, and they fail to grasp it. And it is for the very purpose of bringing them into the personal and actual realization of this, that the Lord is stirring up believers everywhere at the present time to abandon themselves to Him, that He may work in them all the good pleasure of His will. All the previous steps in the Christian life lead up to this. The Lord has made us for it, and until we have intelligently apprehended it, and have voluntarily consented to embrace it, the travail of His soul for us is not satisfied, nor have our hearts found their destined and final rest. The usual course of Christian experience is pictured in the history of the disciples. First, they were awak- ened to see their condition and their need, and they came to Christ and gave in their allegiance to Him. Then they followed Him, worked for Him, believed in Him, and yet how unlike Him I Seeking to be set up one above the other, running away from the cross ; misunderstanding His mission and His words ; forsak- ing;; their Lord in time of danger. But still sent out to preach, recognized by Him as His disciples, possess- ing power to work for Him. They knew Christ -^ nly " after the flesh," as outside of them, their Lord aid Master, but not yet their Life. Then came Pentecost, and these same disCi^les came to know Him as inwardly revealed, as one with them in actual union — their very indwelling Life. Hence- forth He was to them Christ within, working in thorn to will and to do of His good pleasvi o, delivering them by the law of the Spirit of His life from the bondage of the law cf sin and death under which they had been held. Ko longer was it between themselves i^^ *i 1^^ m i i 178 THE christian's SECRET OP A HAPPY LIFE. i W ! 1)1 1 I and Him a war of wills and a clashing of interest. One will alone animated them, and that was His will. One interest alone was dear to them, and that was His. They were made one with Him. And surely all can recognize this picture, though perhaps as yet the final stage of it has not been fully reached. You may have left much to follow Christ, dear reader ; you may have believed on Him, and worked for Him, and loved Him, and yet may not be like Him. Allegiance you know, and confidence you know, but not yet union. There are two wills, two interests, two lives. You have not yet lost your own life that you may live only in His. Once it wo»s I and not Christ. Then it was I and Christ. Perhaps now it is even Christ and I. But has it come yet to be Christ only, and not I at all ? if not, shall I tell you how it may ? If you have followed me through all the previous chapters of this bo'jk you will surely now b ready to take the final step (j'l faith which will lead your soul out of self and into Christ, and will be prepared to abide in Him for- ever, and to know no life but His. All you need, therefore, is to understand what the ScripturcL teach about this marvellous union, that you may be sure it is really intended for you. If you read such passages as 1 Cor. iii. 16, " Know ye not that ye are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" and then look at the op«>nir:;7: of the chapter to see to whom these wonder- Ct,l woruH are spoken, even to " babes in Christ," who v:/5vc ' yoi carnal" and walked according to man, you will see tli;,t this soul-union of which I speak, this unspc»»*.kabiH glorious mystery of an indwelling God, is tlio possesdion of oven the weakest and most failing belie ve"? in Christ. So that it is not a new thing you la Lc THE JOY OF UNION. 179 arc asked for, but only to realize that which you already have. Of every believer in th" Lord Jesus it is absolutely true that his body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which "is in him, which he has of God." But althouorh this is true, it is also equally true that unless the believer knows it, and lives in the power of it, it is to him as though it was not. Like the treasures under a man's field, which existed there before they were known or used by him, so does the life of Christ dwell in each believer as really before he knows it and lives in it, as it does afterwards, although its power is not manifested until intelligently and volun- tarily the believer ceases from his own life and accepts Christ's life in its place. It, seems to me just in this way. As though Christ were living in a house, shut up in a far-off closet, un- known and unnoticed by the dwellers in the house, longing to make Himself known to them and be one with them in all their daily lives, and share in all their interests ; but unwilling to force Himself upon their notice, as nothing but a voluntary companionship could meet or satisfy the needs of His love. The days pass by over that favored household, and they remain in ignorance of their marvellous privilege. They come and go about their daily affairs with no thought of their wonderful Guest. Their plans are laid without reference to Him. His wisdom to guide nnd His strength to protect, are all lost to them. Lonely days and weeks are spent in sadness, which might have been full of the sweetness of His presence. But suddenly the announcement in made — " The Lord is in the house ! " How will its owner receive the intelligence ? Will he call out an eager thanksgiving, and throw wide cipen every door for the entrance of his glorious Guest ? 180 THE christian's SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. Or will he shrink and hesitate, afraid of His presence, and seek to reserve some private corner for a refuge from His all-seeing eye. Dear friend, I make the glad announcement to thee that the Lord is in thy heart. Since the day of thy conversion He has been dwelling there, but thou hast lived on in ignorance of it. Every moment during all that time might have been passed in the sunshine of His sweet presence, and every step have been taken under His advice. But because thou knew it not, and hast never looked for Him there, thy life has been lonely and full of failure. But now that I make the announcement to thee, how wilt thou receive it ? Art thou glad to have Him ? Wilt thou throw wide open every door to welcome Him in ? Wilt thou joyfully and thankfully give up the government of thy life into His hands ? Wilt thou consult Him about every- thing, and let Him decide each step for thee, and mark out every path ? Wilt thou invite Him into thy innermost cha^aberF, and make Him the sharer in thy most hidden life ? W ilt thou say " Yes," to all Hi , longing for union witl thee, and with a glad and eager abandonment hand thyself and all that concerns thee over into His hands ? If thou wilt, then shall thy soul begin to know something of the joy of union with Christ. And yet, after all, this is but a faint picture of the blessed reality. For far more glorious than it would he to have Christ a dweller in the house or in the heart, is it to be brought into such a real and actual union with Him as to be one with Him— one will, one purpose, one interest, one life. Human words cannot express such a glory as this. And yet I want to express it. I want to make your soul so unutterably hungry to realize it, that day Mj ai bi ui Pi thl rej su] th THE JOY OF UNION. 181 or night you cannot rest without it. Do you understand the words — one with Christ? Do you catch the slightest glimpse of their marvellous mean- ing ? Does not your whole soul begin to exult over such a wondrous destiny? For it is a reality. It means to have no life but His life, to have no will but His will, to have no interests but His interests, to share His riches, to enter into His joys, to partake of His sorrows, to manifest His life, to have the same mind as He had to think, and feel, and act, and walk as He did. Oh, who could have dreamed that such a destiny could have been ours ! Wilt thou have it dear soul ? Thy Lord will not force it on thee. For He wants thee as His companion and His friend, and a forced union would be incom- patible with this. It must be voluntary on thy part. The bride must say a willing " Yes " to her bride- groom, or the joy of their union is utterly wanting. Canst thou say a willing " Yes " to thy Lord ? It is such a simple transaction and yet so real ! The steps are but three. First, be convinced, that the Scriptures teach this glorious indwelling of thy God ; then surrender thy whole being to Him to be possessed by Him ; and finally, believe that He has taken pos- session, and is dwelling in thee. Begin to reckon thyself dead and to reckon Christ as thy only life. Maintain this attitude of soul unwaveringly. Say, " I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me," over and over, day and night, until it becomes the habitual breathing of thy soul. Put off thy self -life by faith continually, and put on the life of Christ. Let this act become, by its constant repetition, the attitude of thy whole being. And as surely as thou dost this day by day, thou shalt find thyself continually bearing about in thy body the t*! f m 1 182 THfi CHRISTIANAS SECRET OS" A flAPPY LlFB. dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in thy mortal flesh. Thou shalt learn to know what salvation means ; and shalt have opened out to thy astonished gaze secrets of the Lord, of which thou hast hitherto hardly dreamed. " As it is written, 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. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit ; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God." (1 Cor. il 9, 10.) ti i /:./ ^'^ W/0'^.- vigy*. ti' vr» CHAPTER XVIIL iottd^ge »nd pbedg. 'i li HERE can be no denying the fact that there are two kinds of Christian experi- ence, one of which is an experience of bondage, and the other one of liberty. It is true that there ought to be only the experience of liberty, but as we have to deal with what is, rather than with what ought to be, we cannot shut our eyes to the sad condition of bond- age in which a large portion of the Church of Christ pass many, if not all the years of their Christian life. The reason of this and the remedy for it are not diffi- cult to find. The reason is legality and the remedy is Christ. In the Epistle to the Qalatians this subject is treated of exhaustively. The very situation of this Epistle in the order of the books of the New Testament, is signi- ficant, immediately preceding, as it does, the three Epistles which unfold such wonderful richer and M 9, ^^0. 99^M s. / '/ ^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I 1.25 ^WIA |25 ■u iiii |2.2 ■UUu i4lliJ4 fliotographic Sciences Corporation -(b ^ *^% .^> e ^^,^. 7.1 23 WIST MAIN ITMIT WliSTH.N.Y, 14SM (71*) 179-4503 .<'. *%«■ v^^ l/.x 184) THE christian's SECRET OF A HAPPT LIFE. ! treasures as are ours in Christ. For I feel sure that in the order of the books of the Bible there is wonderful teaching for those whose eyes have been opened to understand it. Any one who has read that valuable book, " The Progress of Doctrine in the New Testa- ment/' by Barnard, will know what I mean. He proves the fact that there is a regular development of truth in the order of the books of the New Testament, and divides this development into four grand stages He shows us that there is first, in the four Gospels, the building of the temple, or the work of Christ wrought out before us ; second in the Acts, the doors of this temple are thrown open and the world is invited to enter, or Christ is preached and sinners are invited to come to Him ; third, in the Epistles, is the life in this temple, and the inhabitant of the temple is shown the treasures and riches that belong to him there, or the life in Christ is revealed to us and the fulness there is in Him for everv believer ; and fourth, in the Revelation, we have declared to us the future glorious consummation of this temple, when it becomes the Now Jerusalem coming down from Qod out of Heaven. This development of truth is also the actual devel- opment of the experience of each individual soul. First, Christ is seen as in the Gospels ; then the soul comes to Him, and enters into the life hid in Him, as in Acts ; then it begins to find out and appropriate the fulness there is in Him, as in the Epistles. And it is in this third stage that the lesson comes which I wish especially to enlarge upon here. It is very possible to pass through the Gospels into the Acts, and to become really an inhabitant of this glorious temple, and then to stop short and never explore the various chambers of the temple, nor get possession of its infinite treasures. It is just as though the guests who have been invited BONDAGE AND LIBEBTT. 185 to visifc at a beautiful palace amply able to accoi imo- date every one of them, and to provide for all ihfiir wants, should go only as far as just inside the door, and should stand uncomfortable and starving and shivering, in the vestibule, declaring themselves to be too unworthy to presume to go any farther into the house or to enter into the enjoyment of the comforts and luxuries provided for them by their wealthy host. Such conduct on the part of our invited guests would not only be utter folly, but would also distress us ex- ceedingly. And I believe that our dear Lord, who has asked us to come to Him and to abide in Him, is con- tinually grieved at our hesitation and unwillingness to go in and sit at His table, and enjoy the satisfying provision that He has made for us. Like the poor prodigal, our thought is that we are not worthy to be called sons, but that we must be content to take the place of hired servants in our Father's house. And as a consequence, instead of the happy ease and liberty of a child, there creeps into our Christian life the con- straint and bondage of a servant. And we, who have been called to liberty, fine* ourselves entangled again under the yoke of bondage. It is this bondage of which the Epistle to the Gala- tians treats. And it was absolutely necessary to have it removed before the Holy Qhost could reveal the wonderful secrets of God's love and grace which are contained in the three Epistles that follow — Ephesians, Fhilippians and Colossians. For, OS I have said, the order of the books of the Bible has deep lessons. And in the Epistles which reveal to us the life in Christ, we are led, as it were, from one room to another, and from a lower story to a higher, as each Epistle unfolds to us some new and deeper secret of the inexhaustible love of God. 18 186 THB OHKISTIAN'S SECBET OF A HAPPY LIFE. lu Romans we have given to us the first necessary f)ro vision of our Father's house, and it is a clear know- edge of His will concerning us and His plans for ua In this Epistle the doctrines of our religion are fully developed in a clear and logical order, and it is the only B4)istle where this is the case. We begin here with the fall of man, and are taken step by step, up through God's order to the point where we can say, with unfaltering confidence, "For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principali- ties, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." If a soul wants to know God's thoughts of salvation, Romans is the book to go to for it. And no one need ever have any difficulty or perplexity as to His will who will only receive, without questioning, the teaching of this book. After Romans comes Corinthians, which gives vs some very necessary instructions as to home-life, and church-life, and our relations with one another as the children of one Father. This, of course, is the next step in our progress. • Then comes Galatians, where the greatest danger to the Church is met and put out of the way, and this is legality, or the spirit of bondage. And how right and logical it seems that, after clear doctrine and right practice are settled in any Church, the next step should be to point out its chiefest danger, and to show ^he way of deliverance from it. There is also another rea- son for the especial position of this Epistle. When a person enters a house, it is essential that at once his position in that house should be settled and under- stood. If that position is that of a servant, then one is not to expect the riches of that house to be thrown BONDAGE AND LIBEBTT. 187 open to his use, nor the secrets of that house revealed to him. But if his position is that of a friend a child, a bride, then the word of the Fatlier is, " Ail that I have is thine;" " All tnings are yours." Now, in Ephe- sians, the announcement is to be made to us that Qod " hath blessed us with all spiritual blessing in Christ," and before we are in a condition to believe in this announcement and rejoice in it, we must be taught to know that we are no more servants, but sons, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ It is just exactly as though in the book of Ephesians we enter into the private study of our friend, and hav- ing seated ourselves there, he begins to tell us his secrets — all the wonderful things he has for us, and overwhelms our souls with the story of the riches and treasures he has gathered together for our U5;e. It is the Lord telling His secrets in the book of Ephesians to them that fear Him. It is just the development of what Jesus said, " Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth ; but I have called you friends ; for all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you." Also of those passages in the Psalms where we are told He will show u. His covenant. He shows us this covenant in the book of Ephesians. He lets us into the secrets of His grace toward us, even before the foundation of the world. The book of Ephesians is the book of communion. Now communion is based on forgiveness, but communion is not forgiveness, it is something that follows forgiveness. As long as there is any reserve, any want of reconciliation between our- selves and a friend, as long as there is any separation of spirit, there cannot be communion. All that separates between our souls and the Lord must go before we can know what communion is. The book of Oalatiana 188 TH2 chbistian's secret of a hippy life. shows US what is generally the dividing thing between Christ and the soul, and that is legality, raul here speaks in terms of severe condemnation of the people to whom he is writing. It does not appear that they had done any very bad thing, but they had believed a very bad thing ; the attitude of their souls was wrong. We continually forget that it is not so much what men do that is taken account of by God, as what men are. As it says in this book, " In Christ Jesus neither cir- cumcision availath anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature/' and God is a great deal more con- cerned about what men are than what they do. We can see the reason for this very easily, for if we are right we shall certainly do right. But we may do right without being right at all, and of course the doing right is nothing, unless we are right at the bottom. So that the essential thing after all is character, the true inward life of the soul as it is toward God. The book of Galatians is evidently addressed to Christians, to people who had received the Spirit and tasted the good word of Life. They had begun in the Spirit. Now the question of Paul is. How are you going to be made perfect ? How are you going to uve ? Tou have been born, that is a settled question ; now what sort of life are you going to lead ? You have entered into your home in this glorious temple, now how are you going to get possession of its wonder- ful treasures. Are you to work for them as a servant, or receive them as a gift bestowed upon a child ? You have had glorious promises given to you, how will you get them fulfilled ? The Galatians had given a wrong answer to these questions. They had said in effect, "It is to be by works." They believed that Christ alone was enough for forgiveness; but they thought that when it came to daily practical right- BONDAGE AND LIBEBTT. 189 eonsness, something must be added to Christ, some works of their own. And Paul's indication against Peter arose from the fact that Peter had given his en- dorsement to this idea, by withdrawing himself from the uncircumcised Qentile Christians, and refusing to eat with them, on the ground of their not having been circumcised. The Galatian Christians had begun all right. They had received the Spirit by the hearing of faith. They had learned at first that the Lord Jesus Christ Was a complete Saviour, and they had trusted Him for their salvation; but some Jewish brethren had come to them, and said, " Oh, no, you are very much mistaken, Jesus is not enough without you are circumcised." Th&y added circumcision to the work of Christ, we in the present day are greatly shocked at this, and so we add something else — some sort of Christian work, reso- lutions, agonizings, visiting the poor, teaching mission Sunday- schools, some self -effort of some kind. It does not make much matter what you add, the wrong thing is to add anything at all. The Church talks in deep condemnation of ttie " Jew's religion," and yet there is a good deal of the Jew's religion mixed with the Christian religion now. The Jew's religion is one of works — " This do, and thou shalt live." The religion of Christ, on the contrary, is, Live and then thou shalt do. The Law says, always. Pay me that thou owest ; the Gospel says, I frankly forgive thee all. The Law says. Make you a new heart and a new spirit ! the Gospel says, A new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you. The Law says. The wages of sin is death ; the Gospel says. The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Law says, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart ^nd with all thy strength; the Gospel says, 190 THE christian's SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. Herein is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins. The religion of works is as though a man should want to have an apple orchard, and should try to do it by getting some apples first, and then getting a tree and tying the apples on it, and finally, getting some root^ and fastening them on the tree ; ^rst the fruit and then the roots. But the religion of Jesus begins at the root, and then grows up and blooms out into flowers and fruit. Paul says to the Qalatians that the law was their schoolmaster to bring them to Christ, but that after faith is come they were no longer under a school- master. •* Wherefore," he says, "thou art no more a servant, but a son." " Stand fast, therefore," he con- tinues, " in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of N)ndage." It is as though we had been servants in a house and been under the law of the master and had tried to please him, but the service had been one of duty. Now the master takes the servant and lifts her up to l: his bride. She may go on doing the same things as before, but she does them in a different spirit, not from a sense of duty, but from love to her husband. Imagine the bride after a while beginning to think of her previous low estate, and to lose the sense of union with her husband, imagining that after all she is nothing but a servant, and saying, ** My master," in- stead of " My husband." This is just what had hap- pened to the Oalatians. They were still Christians, but legal Christians, working from the constraints of an outward law, and not from the power of an inward life. And such Christians find it very hard work. They had to keep themselves at their work by argu- ^^^^ BONDAGE AND LIBERTY. lUl ed ns. ant ments, reasonings, scoldings and all sorts of things. Love never has to do this. Love acts from some sort of inward impulse that carries it along. Love in a mother will make her nurse her sick child for weeks and months without feeling it a hurden; whereas if she did it because the law compelled her, she would break down in two or three nights. This Qalatian religion is a gratifying religion to self. There is nothing that self dislikes so much as to be left on one side and to have no notice taken of it ; and, therefore, any form of legality that creeps into the Church is sure to find some favor. And when any Christian talks of walking without law, in the wonderful life of freedom, ease, naturalness, and love, the legal Christian immediately thinks some heresy is being preached. It is a. sort of spiritual treadmill to go on day after day in a certain line of duty, in which one has no heart ; and people who do so cannot understand what the Bible can mean when it talks about standing in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. They are exactly like Jacob. The Lord had given him a promise that he should be head over Esau, but he and his mother did not think the Lord could man- age it without their help, and the consequence of their management was that Jacob had to run away from his father's house. Instead of being the master over Esau, he became an exile. And just so the Lord gives Christians a promise that they shall reign over every- thing, but they do not think it can be done unless they help Him to bring it about, and so they try to man- age matters in their Christian life. Jacob was a son, but he tried to manage to get his rights, just as many a Christian is drying to manage to get his, and the result is with them as it was with Jacob — they lose 192 THE christian's secret op a happy life. the sweet, happy, confiding place of the child in its father's house, and live in the servants place. Then they have to work very hard, as Jacob did. By day and by night he had to work, and sleep forsook his eyes, and yet, as he said, if the Lord had not been with him, notwithstanding all his work, he would not have got a single thing. People often say they get certain things by working ; but it is not by working, but be- becausc the Lord is with them. I had a dear friend who had a hard time in her Christian life. She would have wonderful experiences and conflicts, and after two or three hours of it she would get peace, and then be happy the rest of the day. I tried to explain to her about a life of trust, like a child in a house. " Oh," she said, " but I have such gopd times after I have gone through these conflicts." " Well," I asked, " what brings about the good time when you do get it?" " Why, fin- ally," she replied, " Icome to the point of just trusting the Lord." " Suppose you should come to that point, to begin with ? " I asked. " Oh," was the reply, " 1 never thought I could do that." Look at the difference between Jacob and Isaac. Eleazar said, "God hath blessed Abraham, and He hath given to Isaac whatsoever he hath." Isaac did not work for it ; his father just gave it to him because he was a child, and he loved him. The Epistle to the Ephesians is full of what God hath given. lo is im- possible to get into the child's place until legality is put away. If a child had a notion that a parent would not give him clothing or food, or provide for him unless he worked for it, there could not possibly be any sweet communion between the parent and the child. I once knew a little girl who did get that notion, and she went round and asked at the doors in tho neighborhood if they did not want some one to a{ U es BONDAGE AN^ LIBERTY. 193 lis i'or come and work for them. It distressed her father unspeakably to think that she did not know his heart better than that; but it did not distress him half so much as it distresses our Heavenly Father to think His children will work so hard for their spirit- ual living. This book of Ephesians shows the soul brought out of the servant's place, and into the child's place. When people are near to each other and love each other, no matter how grand the gifts are that one may give to another, they can be accepted without any feeling of embarrassment or obligation. So when the soul gets near to God, He can begin to tell it about all the wonderful things He has for it. People will not listen to Him till they get near. They say they are too unworthy, and if He put the blessing into their very laps, they rise up and let it drop ; but as soon as they get near to Him they a."e delighted to have the blessing poured out upon them, and can never think anything too much to receive, knowing that it is like our Lord to be liberal. " All things are yours, for ye are Christ's and Christ is God's." The whole higher Christian life is shut up in being a child of God. Nothing more is needed than just to believe that God is as good a Father as the best ideal earthly father, and that the relationship of a child of God is just the same as that of a child to its parent in this world. Children do not need to carry the money for their support about in their own pockets. If the father has plenty that satisfies them, and is a great deal better even than if it were in the child's own posses- sion, as then it might get lost. So it is not necessary for Christians to have all their spiritual possessions in their own pockets. It is far better that their riches should be all stored up for them in Christ, and when they want anything they can go and ask Him for it. 194 THE CHRISTIAN'S SECRET OF A HAPPT LIFE. He of God is " made unto us wisdom, and righteous- ness, and sanctiiication, and redemption," and apart from Him we have nothing. In Galatians we see the believer working for his living, as a servant works. In Ephesians we see him receiving all he needs from his Father's hand, as a child receives. Can we question for a moment which is the most acceptable way in the sight of God ? Can we wonder that Paul was so distressed at the bondaore into which the Galatian Christians had been brought ? Can we not understand something of the dishonor that this life of legal bondage does to the work of Christ, and comprehend what Paul meant when he said : " I do not frustrate the grace of God ; for if righteousness come by the law then is Christ dead in vain." The Galatians did not deny Christ ; they only wanted to add something to Christ. Their idea was Christ and circumcision. But to add anything to Christ is to deny His completeness and to exalt self. Men will undergo painful self-sacrifices sooner than acknowledge that they are utterly helpless and worth- less. A man will gladly be even a fakir, if only it is self that does it, so that self may share the glory. And a religion of bondage always exalts self. It is what / do — my efforts, ffiy wrestlings, my faithfulness. But a religion of liberty leaves self nothing to glory in ; it is all Christ, and what He does, and what He is, and how wonderfully He saves. The child does not boast of itself, but of its father and mother ; and our " souls make their boast in the Lord," and " the humble hear thereof and are glad." Sometimes a great mystery is made out of this higher Christian life ; but it seems to me this contrast between bondage and liberty must make it plain. It is only to find out that we really are ''no more servants but BONDAQfi AND LIBERTY. 195 i» sons," and to enter into the blessed privileges of the relationship. All can understand what it is to be a little child ; there is no mystery about it. God did not use the tij^ure of father and children without knowinc; all that this relationship implies ; and those who know Him as their Father know the whole secret, and can ^o right out of the book of Galatians into the book of Ephesians. They are their Father's heirs, and may enter now into possession of all that is necessary for their present needs. They will be very simple in their prayers. " Lord," they will say, " I am Thy child, and 1 need such and such things." " My child," He will answer, " there it is stored up for thee in Christ ; go and take it." They will not need to have a great wrestling time every morning to get what they need for the day. Would it not be a dreadful state of affairs if the children in a family should be compelled to wrestle with their parents every morning for their food and clothing ? And our Lord tells us that, " If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him ? " There is a text which says, " And I will walk at liberty, for I seek Thy precepts." Our only true liberty must come from seeking and understanding the mind and thoughts of God. If He has provided only a servant's place for us, then the Christians whose lives are lives of bondage and restraint are right. But if He has called us to be children and heirs — to be His friends. His brethren. His bride — how sadly and griev- ously wrong is it for us ever to be entangled again under the yoke of bondage I The thought of bondage is uttei ly abhorrent to any one of these sweet relation- ships. And while bondage will not, of course, hinder the final entrance of the poor enslaved soul into its 196 THE christian's SEOaET OP A HAPPY LIFE. li'^ P I heavenly rest, it "» i'^, I am sure, put it into the sad condition of tho?** who ? re described in 1 Cor. iii. 11-15. Their work shal. be bu:i ned, and they shall suffer loss ; yet they themseK .^ sh-vU be saved, but so as by fire. Oh, that every 'h ' of God did but know his won- drous privileges ! ' it me entreat of you to abandon yourselves so utterly to the Lord Jesus Christ, that He might be able to work in you all the good pleasure of His will, and may, by the Ipw of the Spirit of Life in Him, deliver you from every other law that could possibly enslave you. " Against such there is no law," is the divine sen- tence concerning all who walk and live in the Spirit; and who shall find it most blessedly true in your own experience if you will but lay aside all self -effort and self-dependence of every kind, and will consent to let Christ live in you,- and work in you, and be your in- dwelling life. For "God is able to make all grace abodiid toward yon ; that ye, always having all suffi- ciency in all things, may abound to every good work." <^ CHAPTER XIX. Mt fflbmiote of d^cd T has been well said that " earthly cares are a heavenly discipline ;" but they are even something better than discip- line, — they are God's chariots, sent to take the soul to its high places of triumph. They do not look like chariots. They look instead like enemies, sufferings, trials, defeats, misunder- standings, disappointments, unkindnesses. They look like Juggernaut cars of misery and wretchedness, which are only waiting to roll over us and crush us into the earth. But could we see them as they really are, v/e should recognize them as chariots of triumph in which we may ride to those very heights of victory for which our souls have been longing and praying. The Juggernaut car is the visible thing; the chariot of God is the invisible. The King of Syria came up against the man of God with horses and chariots that 198 THE christian's secret op a happy LIPE. could be seen by every eye, but God had chariots that could be seen by none save the eye of faith. The servant of the Prophet could only see the outward and visible ; and he cried, as so many have done since, " Alas, my master I how shall we do ?" But the Prophet himself sat camly within his house without fear, because his eyes were opened to see the invisible; and all he asked for his servant was, " Lord, I pray Thee open his eyes that he may see." This is the prayer we need to pray for ourselves and for one another, "Lord, open our eyes that we may see;" for the world all around us, as well as around the Prophet, is full of God's horses and char- iots, waiting to carry us to places of glorious victory. And when our eyes are thus opened, we shall see in all the events of life, whether great or small, whether joyful ot sad, a " chariot " for our souls. Everything that comes to us becomes a chariot the moment we treat it as such ; and on the other hand, even the smallest trials may be a Juggernaut car to crush us into misery or despair if we so consider them. It lies with each of us to choose which they shall be. lb all depends, not upon what these events are, but upon how we take them. If we lie down under them and let them roll over us and crush us, they become Juggernaut cars ; but if we climb up into them, as into a car of victory, and make them carry us triumphantly onward and upward, they become the chariots of God. Whenever wo mount into God's chariots the same thing happens to us spiritually that happened to Elijah. We shall have a translation. Not into the heavens above us, as Elijah did, but into the heaven within us; and this, after all, is almost a grander translation than hi i. We shall be carried away from the low, earthly, grovelling plane of life, where every- tSE CHARIOTS O^ QOD. 199 thing hurts and everything is unhappy, up into the " heavenl3' places in Christ Jesus," where we can ride in triumph over all below. These " heavenly places " are interior, not exterior ; and the road that leads to them is interior also. But the chariot that carries the soul over this road is generally some outward loss or trial or disappoint- ment ; some chastening that does not indeed seem for the present to be joyous, but grievous ; but that never- theless afterward "yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby." in the Canticles we are told of "chariots paved with love." Wo cannot always see the love-lining to our own particular chariot. It often looks very un- lovely. It may be a cross-grained relative or friend ; it may be the result of human malice or cruelty or neglect; but every chariot sent by God must neces- sarily be paved with love, since God is love ; and God's love is the sweetest, softest, tenderest thing to rest one's self upon that was ever found by any soul Any- where. It is His love, indeed, that sends the chariot. Look upon your chastenings then, no matter how grievous they may be for the present, as God's chariots sent to carry your souls into the "high places" of spiritual achievement and uplifting, and you will find that they are, after all, " paved with love. ' The Bible tells us that when God went forth for the salvation of His people, then He " did ride upon His horses and chariots of salvation ;" and it is the same now. Everything becomes a "chariot of salvation" when God rides upon it. He maketh even the "clouds His chariot," we are told, and " rideth on the wings of the wind." Therefore the clouds and storms that darken our skies and seem to shut out the shining of the Sun of Righteousness are really only God's chariots 200 THE chrisxian's secret of a happy life. into which we may mount with Him, and " ride pros- perously" over all the darkness. Dear reader, have you made the clouds in your life your chariots ? Are you " riding prosperously " with God on top of them all? I knew a lady who had a very slow servant. She was an excellent girl in every other respect, and very valuable in the household ; but her slowness was a constant source of irritation to her mistress, who was naturally quick, and who always chafed at slowness. This lady would consequently get out of temper with the girl twenty tiroes a day, and twenty times a day would repent of her anger and resolve to conquer it, but in vain. Her life was made miserable by the conflict. One day it occurred to her that she had for a long while been praying for patic nee, and that per- haps this slow servant was the very chariot the Lord had sent to carry her soul over into patience. She immediately accepted it as such, and from that time used the slowness of her servant as a chariot for her soul ; and the result was a victory of patience that no slowness of anybody was ever after able to disturb. I knew anotner lady, at a crowded convention, who was put to sleep in a room with two others, on account of the crowd. She wanted to sleep, but they wanted to talk ; and the first night she was greatly disturbed, and lay there fretting and fuming, long after the others had hushed, and she might have slept. But the next day she heard something about God's char- iots, and at night she accepted these talking friends as her chariots to carry her over into sweetness and Eatience, and was kept in undisturbed calm. "When, owever, it grow very late, and she knew they all ought to bo sleeping, she ventured to say slily, " Friends, I am lying here riding in a chariot 1" The (( THE CHARIOTS OF QOD. 201 311, effect was instantaneous, and perfect quiet reigned! Her chariot had carried her over to victory, not only inwardly, but at last outwardly as well. If we would ride in God's chariots, instead of our own, we should find this to be the case continually. Our constant temptation is to trust in the " chariots of Egypt," or, in other words, in earthly resources. We can see them ; they are tangible and real, and look substantial; while God's chariots are invisible and intangible, and it is hard to believe they are there. We try to reach high spiritual places with the " multitude of our chariots." We depend first on one thing and then on another to advance our spiritual condition, and to gain our spiritual victories. Wo "go down to Egypt for help." And God is obliged often to destroy all our own earthly chariots, before He can bring us to the point of mounting into His. We lean too much upon a dear friend to help us onward in the spiritual life, and the Lord is obliged to separate us from that friend. We feel that all our spiritual prosperity depends on our continuance under the ministry of a favorite preacher, and he is mys- teriously removed. We look upon orr prayer-meeting or our Bible-class as the chief source of our spiritual strength, and we are shut up from attending them. And the " chariot of God " which al ne can carry us to the places where we hoped to be taken by the instrumentalities upon which we have been depending, is to be found in the very deprivations we have so mourned over. God must burn up with the fire of His love every chariot of our own that stands in the way of our mounting into His. We have to be brought to the place whore all other refuges fail us, before we can say "He only." We say, " He and — something else," " He and my experi- 14 20^ THE christian's secHet ot A Hapft life. ence," or ** He and my church relationships," or " He and my Christian work ;" and all that comes after the " and" must be taken away from us, or must be proved useless, before we can come to the ** He only." As long as visible chariots are at hand, the soul will not mount into the invisible ones. Let us be thankful, then, for every trial that will help to destroy our earthly chariots, and that will compel us to take refuge in the chariot of God which stands ready and waiting beside us in every event and circumstance of life. We are told that " God rideth upon the heavens;" and if we would ride with Him there, we need to be brought to the end of all riding upon the earth. When we mount into God's chariot our goings are " established," for no obstacles can hinder His trium- phal course. All losses, therefore, arc gains that bring us to this. Paul understood this, and he gloried in the losses which brought him such unspeakable rewards. "But what things were gain to me, those I cout ted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord : for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him." Even the ** thorn in the Hesh," the messenger of Satan sent to butf'et him, became a " chariot of God " to his willing soul, and carried him to heights of triumph, which he could have reached in no other way. To " take pleasure " in one's trials, what is this but to turn them into the grandest of chariots ? Joseph had a revelation of his future triumphs and reigning, but the chariots that carried him there looked to the eye of sense like dreadful Juggernaut cars of failure and defeat. Slavery and imprisonment are IS THE. CHARIOTS OF GOD. 203 strange chariots to take one to a kingdom, and yet by no other way could Joseph have reached his exalta- tion. And our exaltation to the spiritual throne that awaits us is often reached by similar chariots. The great point, then, is to have our eyes opened to see in everything,' that comes to us a " chariot of God," and to learn how to mount into these chariots. We wust recoofnize each thing that comes to us, as being really God's chariot for us, and must accept it as from Him. He does not command or originate the thing, perhaps ; but the moment we put it into His hands, it becomes His, and He at once turns it into a chariot for us. He makes all things, even bad things, work together for good to all those who trust Him. All He needs is to have it entirely committed to Him. When your trial comes, then, put it right into the will of God, and climb into that will as a little child climbs into its mother's arms. The baby carried in the chariot of its mother's arms rides triumphantly through the hardest places, and does not even know they are hard. And how much more we, who are carried in the chariot of the "arms of God I" Get into your chariot, then. Take each thing that is wrong in your lives as God's chariot for you. No matter who the builder of the wrong may be, whether men or devils, by the time it reaches your side it is God's chariot for you, and is meant to carry you to a heavenly place of triumph. Shut out all the second causes, and find the Lord in it. Say, " Lord, open my eyes that I may see, not the visible enemy, but Thy unp.een chariots of deliverance." No doubt the enemy will try to turn your chariot into a Juggernaut iat by taunting you with the sug- gestion that God is not in your trouble, and that there 18 no help for you in Him. But you must utterly 204 THE christian's secret of a happy life. disregard all such suggestions, and must overcome them with the assertion of a confident faith. " God ia my refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble/' must be your continual declaration, no matter what the seemings may be. Moreover, you must not be half-hearted about it. You must climb wholly into your chariot, not with one foot dragging on the ground. There must be no "ifs," or "buts," or " supposings," or "questionings." You must accept God's will fully, and must hide your- self in the arms of His love, that are always under- neath to receive you, in every circumstance and at every moment. Say, " Thy will be done ; Thy will be done," over and over. Shut out every other thought but the one thought of submission to His will and of trust in His love. There can be no trials in which God's will has not a place somewhere ; and the soul has only to mount into His will as in a chariot, and it will find itself "riding upon the heavens" with God, in a way it had never dreamed could be. The soul that thus rides with God "on the sky" has views and sights of things that the soul which grovels on the earth can never have. The poor crushed and bleeding victim under the car of Juggernaut can see only the dust and stones and the grinding wheels, but the triumphant rider in the chariot sees far fairer sights. Do any of you ask where your chariots are to be found ? The Psalmist says, " The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels." There is never in any life a lack of chariots. One dear Christian said to me, at the close of a meeting where I had been speaking about these chariots : " I am a poor woman, and have all my life long grieved that I could not drive in a carriage, like some of my rich THE CHARIOTS OF GOD. 205 , » neighbors. But I have been looking over my life while you have been talking, and I find that it is so full of chariots on every side that I am sure I shall never need to walk again." I have not a shadow of doubt, dear readers, that if all our eyes could be opened to-day we should see our homes, and cur places of business, and the streets we trax'orse filled with the " chariots of God." There is no need for any one of us to walk for lack of chariots. That cross inmate of your household, who has hitherto made life a burden to you, ad who has been the Juggernaut car to crush your soul into the dust, may henceforth be a glorious chariot to carry you to the heights of heavenly patience and long-suffering. That misunderstanding, that mortification, that unkindness, that disappointment, that loss, that defeat, — all these are chariots waiting to carry you to the very heights of victory you have so longed to reach. Mount into them, with thankful hearts, and lose sight of all second causes in the shining of His love, who will " carry you iti His arms " safely and trium- phantly over it aU. CHAPTER XX. mt mt m m\m. HTS life hid with Christ in God has inany aspects, and can be considered under a great many different figures. There is one aspect which has been a great help and inspiration to me, and I think may be also to some other longing and hungry souls. It is what I call the life on wings. Our Lord has not only told us to consider the " flowers of the field," but also the "birds of the air;" and I have found that these little winged creatures have some wonderful lessons for us. In one of the Psalms, the Psalmist, after enumerating the darkness and bitterness of his life in this earthly sphere of trial, cries out, " Oh that I had wings like a dove ! for then would I fly away, and be at rest. Lo, then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilderness. I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest" (Ps. Iv. 6-8). THE LIFE ON WINGS. 207 This cry for " win^s " is as old as humanity. Our souls were made to " mount up with wings," and they can never be satisfied with anything short of fiying. Like the captive-bom eagle that feels within it the instinct of flight, said chafes and frets at its imprison- * ment, hardly knowing what it longs for, so do our souls chafe and fret, and cry out for freedom. We can never rest on earth, and we long to " fly away " from all that so holds and hampers and imprisons us here. This restlessness and discontent develop themselves generally in seeking an outward escape from our cir- cumstances or from our miseries. We do not at first recognize the fact that our only way of escape is to "mount up with wings," and we try to "flee on horses," as the Israelites did, when oppressed by their trials (see Isaiah xxx. 16). Our " horses " are the outward things upon which we depend for relief, some change of circumstances, or some help from man ; and we mount on these and run east or west, or north or south, anywhere to get away from our trouble, thinking in our ignorance that a change of our environment is all that is necessary to give deliverance to'sour souls. But all such efforts to escape are unavailing, as we have each one proved hundreds of times ; for the soul is not so made that it can "flee upon horses," but must make its flight always upon wings. Moreover, these " horses " generally carry us, as they did the Israelite.s, out of one trouble, only to land us in another. It is as the Prophet says, " As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him ; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him." How often have we also run from some " lion " in 208 THE christian's secret of a happy life. our pathway only to be met by a "bear;" or have hidden ourselves in a place of supposed safety, only to be bitten by a " serpent !" No ; it is useless for the soul to hope to escape by running away from its troubles to any earthly refuge, for there is not one that can give it deliverance. Is there, then, no way of escape for us when in trouble or in distress ? Must we just plod wearily through it all and look for no relief ? I rejoice to answer that there is a glorious way of escape for every one of us, if we will but mount up on wings, and fly away from it all to God. It is not a way east or west, or north or south, but it is a way upwards. "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength ; they shall mount up with wings as eagles ; they shall run, and not be weary ; and they shall walk and not faint." All credtures that have wings can escape from every snare that is set for them, if only they will fly high enough ; and the soul that uses its wings can always find a sure " way to escape " from all that can hurt or trouble it. What, then, are these in ngs? Their secret is con- tained in the words, " They that wait upon the Lord." The soul that waits upon the Lord is the soul that is entirely surrendered to Him, and that trusts Him per- fectly. Therefore we might name our wings the wings of Surrender and of Trust. I mean by this, that, if we will only surrender ourselves utterly to the Lord, and will trust Him perfectly, we shall find our souls " mounting up with wings as eagles " to the " heavenly places" in Christ Jesus, where earthly annoyances or sorrows have no power to disturb us. The wings of the soul carry it up into a spiritual plane of life, into the " life hid with Christ in God." THE LIFE ON WINGS. 209 wbich ?s a life utterly independent of circumstances, and one that no cage can imprison and no shackles bind. The "things above" are the things the soul on wings cares about, not the " things on the earth ;" and it views life and all its experiences from the high altitud'> of " heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Things look very different according to the standpoint from which we view them. The caterpillar, as it creeps along the ground, must have a widely different " view" of the world around it, from that which the same caterpillar will have when its wings are developed, and it soars in the air above the very places where once it crawled. And similarly the crawling soul must necessarily see things in a very different aspect from the soul that has "mounted up with wings." The mountain top may blaze with sunshine when all the valley below is shrouded in fogs, and the bird whose wings can carry him high enough, may mount at will out of the gloom below into the joy of the sunlight above. I was at one time spending a winter in London, and during three long months we did not once see any genuine sunshine, because of the dense clouds of smoke that hung over the city like a pall. But many a time I have seen that above the smoke the sun was shining, and once or twice through a rift I have had a glimpse of a bird, with sunshine on its wings, sailing above the fog in the clear blue of the sunlit sk> Not all the brushes in London could sweep away the fog ; but could we only mount high enough, we should roach a region above it all. And this is what the soul on wings does. It over- comes the world through faith. To overcome means to " Qome over," not to be crushed under ; and the soul 210 THE christian's SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. on wings flies over the world and the things of it These lose their power to hold or bind the spirit that can " come over " them on the wings of Surrender and Trust. That spirit is made in very truth " more than conqueror." Birds overcome the lower law of gravitation by the higher law of flight ; and the soul on wings overcomes the lower law of sin and misery and bondage by the higher law of spiritual flying. The " law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus" must necessarily be a higher and more dominant law than the law of sin and death ; therefore the soul that has mounted into this upper region of the life in Christ, cannot fail to conquer and triumph. But it may be asked how it is, then, that all Chris- tians do not alw^vs triumph. I answer that it is because a great many Christians do not " mount up with wings" into this higher plane of life at all. They live on the same low level with their circum- stances ; and instead of flying over them, they try to fight them on their own earthly plane. On this piano the S(jul is powerless ; it has no weapons with whicli to conquer there ; and instead of overcoming, or coming over, the trials and sorrows of the earthly life, it is overcome by them and crushed under them. We all know, as I have said, that things look differ- ently to us according to our " point of view." Trials assume a very ditterent aspect when looked down upon from above, than when viewed from their own level. What seems like an impassable wall on its own level, becomes an insignificant line to the eyes that see it from the top of a mountain; and the snares and sorrows that assume such immense proportion while wo look at them on the earthly plane, become insignificant little motes in ifhe sunshine when the THE LIFE ON WINGS. 211 18 soul has mounted on wings to the heavenly places above them. A friend once illustrated to me the difference be- tween three of her friends in the following way : She said, if they should all three come to a spiritual moun- tain which had to be crossed, the first one would tun- nel through it with hard and wearisome labor; the second would meander around it in an indefinite fashion, hardly knowing where she was going, and yet, because her aim was right, getting around it at last ; but the third, she said, would just flap her wings and fly right over. I think we all must know some- thing of these different ways of locomotion ; and I trust, if any of us in the past have tried to tunnel our way through the mountains that have stood across our pathway, or have been meandering around them, that we may from henceforth resolve to spread our wings and " mount up " into the clear atmosphere of God's presence, where it will be easy to overcome, or come over, the highest mountain of them all. I say "spread our wings and mount up," because not the largest wings ever known can lift a bird one inch upward unless they are used. We must use our wings, or they will avail us nothing. It is not worth while to cry out, " Oh that I had wings, and then would I flee ;" for we have the wings already, and what is needed is not more wings, but only that we should use those we have. The power to surrender and trust exists in every human soul, and only needs to be brought into exercise. With these two wings we can " flee " to God at any moment ; but, in order really to reach Him, we must actively use them. We must not merely want to use them, but wo uuAt do it definitely and actively. A passive sur- 212 THE christian's secret of a happy life. render or a passive i^rust will Hot do. I mean this very practically. We shall not " mount up " very high, if we only surrender and trust in theory, or in our especially religious moments. We must do it definitely and practically, about each detail of daily life as it comes to us. We must meet our disappointments, our thwartings, our persecutions, our malicious enemies, our provoking friends, our tHals and temptations of every sort, with an active and experimental attitude of surrender and trust. We must spread our wings and " mount up " to the "heav- enly places in Christ" above them all, where they will lose their power to harm or distress us. For from these high places we shall see things through the eyes of Christ, and all earth will be glorified in the heavenly visioxL *' Tho dove hath neither claw nor sting, Nor weapon for the fight ; She owes her aafetv to the wing, Her victory to flight. Tho Bridegroom opes His arms of love. And in tnem folds the panting dove." How changed our lives would be if we could only fly through the days on these wings of Surrender and Trust ! Instead of stirring up strife and bitterness by trying, metaphorically, to knock down and walk over our offending brothers and sisters, we should escape all strife by simply spreading our wings and mounting up to the heavenly region, where our eyes would see all thingb covered with a mantle of Christian love and '% )ur souls were made to live in this upper atmos- phere, and we stifle and choke on any lower level. Our eyes were made to look off from these heavenly heights, and our vision is distorted by any lower 1:HE LlFfi ON wiiids. ^13 gazing. It is a great blessing, therefore, that our loving Father in heaven has mercifully arranged all the discipline of our lives with a view to teaching us to fly. Itf Deuteronomy we have a picture of how this teaching is done : " As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings : so the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him." The mother eagle teaches her little ones to fly, by making their nest so uncomfortable that they are forced to leave it and commit themselves to the un- known world of air outside. And just so does our God to us. He stirs up our comfortable nests, and pushes us over the edge of theTi, and we are forced to use our wings to save ourselves from fatal falling. Read your trials in this light, and see if you cannot begin to get a glimpse of their meaning. Your wings are being developed. I knew a lady whose life was one long strain of trial, from a cruel, wicked, drunken husband. There was no possibility of human help, and in her despair she was driven to use her wings and fly to God. And during the long years of trial her wings grew so strong from constant flying, that at last, as she tolu me, when the trials were at their hardest, it seemed to her as if her soul was carried over them on a beautiful rainbow, and found itself in a peaceful resting-place on the other side. With this end in view we can surely accept with thankfulness every trial that compels us to use our wings, for only so can they grow strong and large and fit for the highest flying. Unused wings gradually wither and shrink, and lose their flying power ; and if Sl4 THE CHRISTIANAS SECfeET O*" A fiAPt»Y tlJ*. we had nothing in our lives that made flying neces- sary, we might perhaps at last lose all capacity to fly. But you may ask, Are there no hindrances to flying, even where the wings are strong, and the soul is try- ing hard to use them ? I answer, Yes. A bird may be imprisoned in a cage, or it may be tethered to the ground with a cord, or it may be loaded with a weight that drags it down, or it may be entrapped in the "snare of the fowler;" and hindrances which answer to all these in the spiritual realm, may make it impos- sible for the soul to fly, 'intil it has been set free from them by the mighty power of God. One " snare of the fowler " that entraps many souls is the snare of doubt. The doubts look so plausible and often so humble, that Christians walk into their *' snare," without dreaming for a moment that it is a snare at all, until they find themselves caught and unable to fly ; for there is no more possibility of flying for the soul that doubts, than there is for the bird caught in the fowler's snare. The reason of this is evident. One of our wings, namely, the wing of trust, ia utterly disabled by the slightest doubt ; and just as it requires two wings to lift a bird in the air, so does it require two wings to lift the soul. A great many people do everything but trust. They spread the wing of surrender, and use it vigorously, and wonder why it is that they do not mount up, never dreaming that it is because all the while the wing of trust is hanging idly by their sides. It is because Christians use one wing only, that their efforts to fly are often so irregular and fruitless. Look at a bird with a broken wing trying to fly, and you will get some idea of the kind of motion all one- THE LIFE ON WlNOR 215 sided flying must make. We must use both our wings, or not try to fly at all. It may be that for some the " snare of the fowler " is some subtle form of sin, some hidden want of con- secration. Where this is the case, the wing of trust may seem to be all right, but the wing of surrender hangs idly down ; and it is just as hopeless to try to fly with the wing of trust alone, as with the wing of surrender alone. Both wings must be used, or no flying is possible. Or perhaps the soul may feel as if it were in a prison from which it cannot escape, and consequently is debarred from mounting up on wings. No earthly bars can ever imprison the soul. No walls, however high, or bolts, however strong, can imprison an eagle, so long as there is an open way upward ; and earth's power can never hold the soul in prison, while the upward way is kept open and free. Our enemies may build walls around us as high as they please, but they cannot build any barrier between us and God ; and if we " mount up with wings," we can fly higher than any of their walls can ever reach. If we find ourselves imprisoned, then, we may be sure of this, that it is not our earthly environment that constitutes our prison-house, for the soul's wings scorn all paltry bars and walls of earth's making. The only thing thai can really imprison the soul is something that hinders its upward flight. The Prophet tells us that it is our iniquitied that have separated between us and our God, and our sins that have hid His face from u& Therefore, if our soul is imprisoned, it must be because some indulged sin has built a barrier between us and the Lord, and we cannot fly until this sin is given up and put out of the way. 216 THE CHRtSTUN*S SECRET OP A HAPM LIFE. But often, where there is no conscious sin, the soul is still unconsciously tethered to something of earth, and so struggles in vain to fly. A party of my friends once got into a boat in Norway to row around one of the fiords there. They took their seats and began to row vigorously, but the boat made no headway. They put out more strength and rowed harder than before, but all in vain ; not an inch did the boat move. Then one of the party suddenly recollected that the boat had not been unmoored, and he exclaimed, "No wonder we could not get away, when we were trying to pull the whole continent of Europe after us ! " And just so our souls are often not unmoored from earthly things. We must cut ourselves loose. As well might an eagle try to fly with a hundred-ton weight tied fast to its feet, as the soul try to "mount up with wings " while a weight of earthly cares and anxieties is holding it down to earth. When our Lord was trying to teach His disciples concerning this danger, He told them a parable of a great supper to which many who were invited failed to come, because they were hindered by their earthly cares. One had bought a piece of ground, another a yoke of oxen, and a third had married a wife ; and they felt that all these things needed their care. Wives, or oxen, or land, or even very much smaller things, may be the cords that tether the soul from flying, or the weights that hold it down. Let us then cut every cord, and remove every barrier, that our souls may find no hindrance to their mounting up with wings as eagles to heavenly places in Christ Jesus. We are commanded to have our hearts filled with songs of rejoicing, and to make inward melody to the Lord. But unless we mount up with wings this is fiiiAiTiiJTilaJiiil' THE LIFE ON WIKOB. 217 impossible, for tne only creature that can sing is the creature that flies. When the Prophet declared that though all the world should be desolate, yet he would rejoice in God and joy in the God of his salvation, his soul was surely on wings Paul knew what it was to uee hia wings when be found himself to be " sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing." On the earthly plane all was dark to both Paul and the Prophet, but on the heav- enly plane all was brightest sunshine. Do you know anything of this life on wings, dear reader ? Do you " mount up " continually to God, out of and above earth's cares and trials, to that higher plane of life where all is peace and triumph; or do you plod wearily along on foot through the midst of your trials, and let them overwhelm you at every turn ? Let us, however, guard against a mistake here. Do not think that by flying I mean necessarily any very joyous emotions or feelings of exhilaration. There is a great deal of emotional flying that is not real flying at all. It is such flying as a feather accomplishes which is driven upward by a strong puff of wind, but flutters down again as soon as the wind ceases to blow. The flying I mean is a matter of principle, not a matter of emotion. It may be accompanied by very joyous emotions, but it does not depend on them. It depends only upon the facts of an entire surrender and an absolute trust. Every one who will honestly use these two wings, and will faithfully persist in using them, will find that they have mounted up with wings as an eagle, no matter how empty of all emotion they may have felt themselves to be before. For the promise is sure : " They that wait upon the Lord SHALL mount up with wings as eagles. Not 15 / 218 THE CHRr/fIAN*S SECRET OF . HAPPY LIFE. M may perhaps mount up," but "shall." It is the inevitable result May we each one prove it for our- selves 1 *' rhe lark aoara singing from its nest, And tells aloud L <« trust in God, and so is blest " Let come what cloud. " He has i o store, he sows no seed. Yet sings aloud, and doth not heed. Through Cxoudy day or scanty feed, He sings to shame Men who forget in fear of need A Father's name. " The heart that trusts, forever sings. And feels as light as it had wings ; A well of peace within it springfl. Come good or ill, Whatever to-day or morrow brings, It is HU will." ;he ir- BY Rev. Mark Guy Pearse. 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