M13RARY 
 
 OF Tin: 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 GIFT 01 
 
 Mrs. SARAH P. WALSWORTH. 
 
 Received October, 
 Accessions No .'7ty- (of- Class No. 
 
X C^- . 
 
WINDINGS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 BIVEE OF THE WATER OF LIFE 
 
WINDINGS 
 
 RIVER OF THE WATER OF LIFE, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 DEVELOPMENT, 
 
 DISCIPLINE, " T AND*FRUITS 
 
 OF FAITH. 
 
 GEORGE B. CHEEVER, D,D 
 u 
 
 " Of TH 
 
 ,,^~ 
 j% 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 JOHN WILEY, 161 BROADWAY 
 J3 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON. 
 
 1849. 
 
Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1849, by 
 
 GEORGE B. CHEEVER, D.D., 
 Tn the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. 
 
 R. CRAIQHEAD, PRINTER, 
 112 FULTON STREET, NEW YORK. 
 
 T. B. SMITH, STEREOTYPER, 
 216 WILLIAM STREET. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IN this humble attempt to jmite the speculative and the practical 
 on the subject of FaitlT^J have followed no theory, but have 
 endeavored to trace the stream of Christian experience, as it is 
 recorded in the Word of God, and makes its appearance in the 
 hearts of God's people. But we begin the stream back of its appear- 
 ance as a River of Life, even there, where belief exists, as a con- 
 stitutional element of our being, though not as faith in God manifest 
 in the flesh. Men cannot live even in and for the body only, 
 without a belief in something above the body, and out of it. We 
 take away the very ground under the feet of infidelity, by showing 
 that the unbeliever, even in not believing, has to throw himself upon 
 belief, and has to be a more credulous soul by far, than the man 
 of spiritual Faith. But as Thomas ...Carlyle somewhere excellently 
 says (or something very like it), the credulity of unbelief is a faith 
 in mere inert dead masses, with a blank denial or blind ignorance 
 of that spiritual lightning, which alone can set things on fire. And 
 a woful, dead, hopeless age it is, when the belief in spiritual lightning 
 has gone, and there is nothing deemed real but the five senses. 
 
 The union of Grace and Truth is only in Jesus Christ ; and Faith 
 is the manifestation, not of human power, but of Christ himself in 
 the mind, Christ in the heart, Christ in the life, and Christ in the 
 soul, the hope of glory. Paith is a life, not a speculation ; it is a 
 life, and not a mere emotion in regard to the Author of life. I 
 ave endeavored to trace its workings, its forms, its results, its 
 various developments, for the ministry of the life of a practical piety, 
 in Christians who, like Paul, count not themselves to have attained, 
 but would be pressing forward. May the Divine blessing accompany 
 the effort ! 
 

 CONTENTS, 
 
 PAKT FIRST. 
 
 CHRIST IN THE MIND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Beginnings of the River. Poverty of truth without life. Grace and 
 truth combined only in Christ. Mistakes of mere head-work without 
 heart-work 3 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Coloring of Truth through the prism of individual experience. Grace a 
 winding River, and a free, original, unconstrained life. Danger of 
 making press-gangs out of human theories and hypotheses. The law 
 within and the law without. Light within and light without. 
 Heart-light and intellectual light, and God's prerogative in regard 
 to them 10 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Faith here, a discipline preparatory to knowledge and faith here- 
 after. Passage of faith into knowledge and life. Faith in the testi- 
 mony of God becoming experience. The life of heaven a life of 
 faith. The extreme credulity of unbelief. Necessity of faith in evil 
 as well as good. Impossibility of escaping from the evil, except by 
 believing God's testimony in regard to it 16 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Faith followed by the Earnest of the Spirit. The distinction between 
 Faith, Knowledge, and Experience. Neither Faith nor Experience 
 possible, if Experience be demanded first. Reproductive power of 
 Faith, and its reduplicating processes of growth.-i-Connexion between 
 the Earnest of the Spirit in the Church, and the conversion of souls 
 from the world . . 27 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Effect of unbelief upon the Character. Illustrations of unbelief in the 
 Pharisees and Sadducees. Absolute necessity of relying on God's 
 testimony. Purpose for which that testimony was given, that by 
 faith we may avoid the experience of evil, and secure the experience 
 of good. Comparison of the experiment of faith, and the experi- 
 ment of experience. Faith alone can lead the soul to heaven ; 
 experience alone leads it down to hell 39 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Sympathy with God and sympathy with man. Faith in God's Word, 
 faith in God's holiness and justice, and faith in man's guilt, the 
 elements of power in leading the Soul to faith in Christ the Saviour. 
 Comparison of Edwards and Whitefield. Comparison of revivals of 
 religion as produced mainly by true sympathy with God, and a 
 regard to his glory, or mainly by sympathy with man and the desire 
 of salvation , 49 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Schoolmaster and the Father. The Servant and the Child. Faith 
 produced by the combustion of God's promises with man's sins . . 63 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 God's method of discipline. Faith an element of character for deve- 
 lopment and growth. A reward of Faith in the habit of Faith . 75 
 
CONTENTS. IX 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The germ and the blade under discipline for the harvest. Contrast and 
 variety of spiritual experiences 85 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Individuality and independence. God in man, not man reduplicated. 
 Entire dependence God-ward, entire independence and originality, 
 man-ward. Helps from Christian biographies. Supremacy and 
 power of Christ's example t ... ... ... .-. -.-,-;, - ,,,^ V\f-**, . 98 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Counterfeit Bills. The religion of imitation, not experience. Faith 
 trembling and self-distrustful, unbelief presuming and self-confident . 108 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Counterfeit Bills continued. Formalism and Faith, Pride and Contrition 
 in contrast. The power of the element of self-despair . . . 120 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Faith guided of God. Unbelief left to itself. The separating pillar. 
 Sunshine and darkness in the same dispensation. The source of 
 infidelity 130 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The trials of faith. Trials of character, and trials to mend character. 
 Inward and external trials. Christian sympathy .... 146 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Faith still put to the test. Is it faith in sight, or faith in God ? Three 
 days in the wilderness. Light out of darkness, strength out of weak- 
 ness. The discovery of God in self-disappointment and abasement . 154 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Faith an in-working law, with the obedience voluntary ; not a despot- 
 ism, with the obedience compulsory or irresistible. God working in 
 man both to will and to do. Deceitfulness and danger of the idea of 
 perfection attained . . . .IV V '* /*;'=> .. * 166 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Faith working by Love. Assurance not an attainment, but a result. 
 Not a direct gift, but the consequence of Christ in the affections. 
 Not a direct duty, but the companion of duty, and its after-part . 179 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PART THIRD. 
 
 CHRIST IN THE IflFE 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 PAQK 
 
 Illustrations of the Life of Faith in Christ's Apostles. The Life of 
 Faith a Missionary Spirit at the very outset, and a life of Love con- 
 tinued 195 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 The calling of Philip, and Philip's work upon Nathaniel. The social 
 power and impulse of Christianity. Desirableness of Love to Christ 
 as the reigning feature in the character 209 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Philip and Nathaniel. The voice of the Gospel and of Faith, Come 
 and See ! 222 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 The Creed of Doubt 236 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 The Creed of Faith 248 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 The Reproof of Mercy 260 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Justification by Faith, and obedience after it. The Law of the Spirit 
 of Life in Christ Jesus 272 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 The Cross daily. The Morality of Faith the only true and constant 
 Morality. Faith the element of power in Prayer .... 286 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Faith, the element of power in Prayer. Imaginary Prayer. Dreaming 
 of flying. Wandering thoughts in Prayer. The incalculable im- 
 portance of right habits, as fixtures of the soul in Prayer . . . 299 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PART FOURTH. 
 
 CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OP GLORY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 PAOR 
 
 Christ the Light of the Soul. In this world, partial, as through a glass 
 darkly. In the Celestial world, supreme, entire, unmingled, univer- 
 sal. The single eye, and the Spiritual body 313 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 The Vision of Faith continued. Spiritual discernment only from God. 
 The natural man and the Spiritual man, the blind man and the seeing 323 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Faith's Vision continued. Spiritual discernment and Spiritual insen- 
 sibility both illustrated by the Transfiguration 334 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 Faith's Vision continued. Faith passing into Love. Self put out by 
 letting Christ in. Object of the appeals to Self in the Gospel . . 344 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 Justification by Faith. The religion of Faith and the system of 
 Works delineated. Faith producing Works. Justification followed 
 by glorification 355 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 Glorification completed. Heaven a perfect state, both relatively and 
 absolutely, but such perfectness not attained this side of Heaven. 
 And in Heaven itself, all perfection is in and of Christ. Conclusion 
 of the Windings of the River of the Water of Life . . . .372 
 
DEVELOPMENT, DISCIPLINE, 
 
 AND 
 
 FRUITS OF FAITH. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 GRACE AND TRUTH. 
 CHRIST IN THE MIND. 
 
WINDINGS OF THE RIVER 
 
 OF THE 
 
 WATEB OF LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Beginnings of the River. Poverty of truth without life. Grace and truth 
 combined only in Christ. Mistakes of mere head-work without heart- 
 work. 
 
 DOES the River of the Water of Life go into the mind first, 
 and into the heart through the mind, or into the mind 
 through the heart ? Grecian, Jewish, and Saxon philoso- 
 phers, so called, might laugh at this question, as if it were 
 very easily answered ; for they think that truth alone con- 
 stitutes life, truth according to their seeing ; and that all 
 truth is addressed only to the understanding. But truth 
 alone, truth left to itself, is not the River of the Water of 
 Life to sinful beings ; but if they be left to themselves, and 
 the truth left to itself and to their reception of it, it is a 
 river of death. The Law of God is truth without mixture ; 
 but to sinful beings it is not a river of life ; without grace 
 it worketh death. The Law was given by Moses, but 
 Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ. Grace and Truth 
 together, and that only, is the River of the Water of Life, 
 clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and 
 of the Lamb. Grace and Truth, from the throne of God 
 and of the Lamb. 
 
4 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 All truth is addressed to the understanding ; but if men 
 " walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understand- 
 ing darkened, being alienated from the life of God through 
 the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of 
 their hearts," then the process of enlightenment, the 
 process of cure, must begin with the heart. In this sense 
 the River of the Water of Life runs into the heart first, 
 from the throne of God and of the Lamb, and then into 
 the mind ; and the mind is enlightened only in proportion 
 as the heart is cleansed. Hence the prayer of the Psalmist, 
 Create in me a clean heart, O God ! and the prayer of the 
 Apostle, " That the God our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father 
 of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and reve- 
 lation in the knowledge of Him ; the eyes of you?' under- 
 standing being enlightened." The eyes of the understanding, 
 in spiritual things, are right affections and a believing heart. 
 This is that single eye, with which the whole body shall 
 be full of light. Full of light, because there is life-light in 
 the heart. It is not simple intention merely, but a heart 
 purified by faith. A single eye, in the ordinary sense, is 
 no great wonder. A man may have a single eye, it is well 
 said, by putting one eye out, or keeping one eye shut ; and 
 in this way men full of prejudice and blindness often think 
 they have a single eye. In this way even an Atheist may 
 have a single eye, putting one eye out entirely, and looking 
 with the other straight forward into darkness. But the 
 true single eye is where both eyes look out from a single 
 heart, purified by faith ; looking together, and looking to 
 God, and looking in God's light. 
 
 And so again the Apostle prays to be " strengthened 
 with might by God's Spirit in the inner man that Christ 
 may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and 
 grounded in love, may be able to comprehend." So it is 
 plain that love is the source and ground of comprehending 
 of understanding. Right affections are the opening of the 
 eyes of the understanding, the removal of the blindness of the 
 heart, and then and thus light pours into the mind. " The 
 
^ CHRIST IN THE MIND. 5 
 
 entrance of thy words giveth light ; it giveth understanding 
 to the simple." 
 
 In HIM was Life, and the Life was the light of men. The 
 Life was the light, not the light was the life. The law 
 given by Moses was light, but it was not life. In Him, 
 in Christ was the life, and the life was the light. Truth 
 discloses sin, but cannot cure it. God's law shines upon it, 
 but only to forbid and condemn it. The light alone cannot 
 remove the deformed objects it shines upon, but there must 
 be another hand, another power, another influence. There 
 must be a life at work within, as well as a light shining upon. 
 
 For this reason it is that that remarkable expression is 
 used to signify regenerated persons, Children of Light. 
 Children ; it is a filial, affectionate, obedient relationship 
 to the light as life, a confiding, childlike life in it. Children 
 of light, not mere servants or slaves. The servant abideth 
 not in the house for ever, but the Son abideth ever. The 
 mind without the heart may be a slave of light, but the 
 heart only can be a child of light. The mind filled with 
 light may be a convict, condemned to work at the galleys ; 
 but the regenerated heart filled with light is a free, gentle, 
 loving child. And so, for all gracious truth, all true 
 liberty, all true life, the mind must come, just like a little 
 child, to Christ. For truth, the mind may go to a great 
 many sources, and may gather many kinds of truth ; but 
 for grace and truth it can go only to Jesus Christ ; it can 
 find that combination nowhere else. 
 
 Let men therefore beware of thinking to work out their 
 own salvation by the truth only, or the head only, or by 
 speculative knowledge, or by the prayer-book only, or by 
 external rites. The salvation of the soul will not come, 
 revivals of religion will not come, except by grace and 
 truth, and they come only by Jesus Christ. And whoever 
 undertakes to produce them in any other way than by 
 going to him, will be found very much in the predicament 
 of those seven sons of one Sceva a Jew and Chief Priest, 
 who took upon themselves to call over those who had evil 
 
6 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 spirits, the name of the Lord Jesus ; the name only, but 
 neither grace nor truth ; and the man in whom the evil 
 spirit dwelt leaped upon them and beat them, so that they 
 fled out of the house naked and w r ounded. Such, sooner 
 or later, must be the result of all efforts, either upon our- 
 selves or others, made by mere names and ceremonies, 
 without a heart acquaintance with Christ, and a humble, 
 contrite application to him for grace and truth. 
 
 Truth, alone, is mere head-work, grace is heart-work. 
 Truth in the head alone, turns into error ; it becomes 
 vermiculate, as Lord Bacon once said of the wit of man 
 exercised upon mere speculation ; it breeds worms, and 
 men spin it into brain-cobwebs of their own fancies. 
 Men by the head, take truth which was meant for the 
 heart, and which must be baptized into the heart, along 
 with grace, and the heart into it, before it would be sal- 
 vation, and absolutely pervert it into falsehood by using it 
 apart from its meaning and intent. They take the Sacra- 
 ment of the Lord's Supper, for example, which is really 
 heart-truth, and heart-affecting truth, and was meant 
 eminently for the heart's good, and which, as a rite, is 
 the heart's language of loving remembrance towards the 
 Blessed Saviour, and the Saviour's assurance of never- 
 ceasing love to his disciples, and they work at it and by 
 it with the head only ; they assert and reason themselves 
 into regeneration by it ; they eat it, and say they are 
 saved by the ordinance ; and a man who believes himself 
 saved by an external ordinance, or is persuaded that he 
 receives the Spirit of God by an external ordinance, with- 
 out the heart, is not likely to take much other trouble to 
 gain the Spirit of God ; is not likely, either, to inquire 
 very particularly into the need of the Spirit of God in the 
 heart, or to make regeneration a heart-work in any way. 
 So this truth is made a lie, by working at it with the head 
 only, without the heart. We might show, indeed, how 
 multitudes of monstrous, misshapen errors have come 
 about in the same way. 
 
CHRIST IN THE MIND. 7 
 
 We say of a ship, ill-constructed, that she is too much 
 by the head ; she ploughs into the waves, instead of flying 
 over them, and making them the means of her progress : 
 so men who carry truth by the head knock their heads 
 against it, instead of using it for heart-life, and for 
 onward progress. Such men put forms for realities, and 
 change realities into mere forms. They take, for example, 
 the truth of regeneration by the Holy Spirit, which was 
 meant for the heart, and is nothing without the heart, and 
 put it into the form of baptism, and go at it by the head, 
 saying, that men are regenerated by baptism, and that 
 baptism is regeneration. They take the truth of baptism, 
 also, which is nothing without the heart, and was meant 
 for the heart to be put into, and which is like an outward 
 case to be put round a picture that God himself is painting, 
 and by head-work only they put baptism itself in the place 
 of that which it merely signifies, in the place and stead of 
 regeneration in the heart. So men come to man to do 
 that for them which God only can do. Suppose that men 
 should be so utterly deluded as to resort to a man profess- 
 ing the ability to produce perfect miniatures, but giving 
 instead thereof merely the outside morocco cases ; and 
 suppose they should accept the empty cases and carry 
 them home on the faith of the man's assurance (inasmuch 
 as he received his commission for painting in a direct line 
 from Titian), that when they get home they shall find the 
 pictures inside ; we should look upon that as a very 
 strange delusion. Yet in spiritual things, many take the 
 cases, and comfort themselves with the assurance that 
 they have the pictures ; and they lay them away carefully, 
 but never look inside to see whether they are not dis- 
 appointed. Poor Ignorance fumbled for his roll of assur- 
 ance at the Gate of the Celestial City, but found it not ! 
 
 Thus more head-work makes absolute error out of heart- 
 truth. It is so in innumerable cases. Prayer itself may 
 be turned from truth into error, and always is, when it is 
 resorted to and relied upon by the head without the heart. 
 
8 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 It is truth resorted to without grace. A man must bring 
 his heart to Christ, for truth and grace to be put into it, 
 and not stand tinkering upon it himself by truth only, or 
 by Moses instead of Christ. Moses land morality are 
 good, if they lead to Christ. Moses commanding morality 
 is good, as the Schoolmaster, to teach a man his own sin- 
 fulness, his utter destitution of all that can make any 
 pretence to morality, and his need of Christ ; but that is 
 all Moses can do. And if, instead of learning of Moses 
 their need of grace and truth, and coming to Christ for it, 
 men work with Moses and truth only, it is just using truth 
 with the head merely, and not the heart, and so it proves 
 error, or at the best, mere condemnation. Such will the 
 truth always be to sinful men, separated from grace and 
 without it. 
 
 There are fabrics of our food, which have to pass 
 through certain processes to become wholesome, and 
 taken without those processes, may be absolute poisons. 
 There are fabrics in the arts for our clothing, which have 
 to pass through certain mediums or processes before they 
 are fit for use, and which, if men take them without those 
 processes, are slazy and worthless. So it is with forms of 
 truth belonging to the heart, and of heart-manufacture by 
 grace, when men attempt empirically to lay hold upon 
 them, and pronounce names over them, and use them in 
 the raw, without those heart processes. They may be 
 deemed valuable, but they are worthless. They may be 
 relied upon for salvation, but dead or perverted truth is 
 no better for salvation than positive unmingled error. It 
 is just as if a man going to sea, should provide his ship 
 with a quantity of unspun hemp instead of cables, and 
 having pronounced the word cables over it, should confi- 
 dently set sail, insisting that the heap of raw hemp was 
 cable enough, and would hold the ship, if kept beneath the 
 hatches : so miserably mad and deluded are men who 
 rely upon forms, without God's grace in the heart, in the 
 affections. There are those who, in times of spiritual 
 
CHRIST IN THE MIND. 9 
 
 danger, run to forms instead of Christ, as if a return to 
 form, or a clinging to form, would save them. A delusion 
 not unlike that of those who, in a case of fire, will 
 throw a looking-glass out of the window, and carry an 
 andiron carefully down stairs. 
 
 Even where external forms seem not to be trusted in, 
 nor mere external morality, there may be a formalism of 
 the heart, and a trusting to Moses there without grace, or 
 to truth there without Christ. And truth without Christ 
 is as poor as forms without truth. We may sometimes 
 see serious-minded men pounding upon their own hearts 
 with prayer and with the truth, away from Christ, and 
 wondering that still nothing is returned but the ring of 
 empty metal. They do not pound very earnestly, for if 
 they did, like Luther, for example, in his time of delusions, 
 they would soon find the vanity of such mere pronuncia- 
 mentos away from Christ. But they work just enough 
 to half satisfy conscience, and keep themselves from that 
 self-despair which might lead to Christ. It may, perhaps, 
 be asked, What can a man do, otherwise than go to the 
 Word of God and prayer ? He can go to Christ. That 
 is what he can do, and must do, and that is his whole 
 duty. But is not my Word (does not God say ?) like the 
 fire and hammer, to break the rock in pieces ? Indeed 
 it is, in the hands of the Spirit of God, in the hands of 
 Christ ; but if you stay away from Christ, and think 
 to do the work yourself before coming to him, you may 
 stay pounding till you die, and no good will come of it. 
 Take the hammer and the fire, and your heart also, and 
 carry them to Christ. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Coloring of Truth through the prism of individual experience. Grace a 
 winding River, and a free, original, unconstrained life. Danger of 
 making press-gangs out of human theories and hypotheses. The law 
 within and the law without. Light within and light without. Heart- 
 light and intellectual light, and God's prerogative in regard to them. 
 
 THE stream of truth, running into the heart and mind, 
 or through the heart into the mind, will also be colored, 
 more or less, by the individual's own experience ; a thing 
 in regard to which each for himself, and all for each, must 
 be upon their guard. If not, how can any one know that 
 his peculiar views, which he may have regarded as the 
 result of great knowledge or originality, are not owing 
 merely to a defective experience ? It is very certain 
 that the purer, the truer, and deeper a soul's religious 
 experience becomes, and the more a man distrusts and 
 abases self, and clings solely to God and his Word, 
 exalting them, the more sure and trustworthy and full 
 of truth will be that soul's views of religious doctrine. 
 He who exalts the Word, the Word will exalt him ; but 
 he who neglects or disesteems the Word, will himself go 
 down in proportion. It is surprising what an invigorating 
 and expanding power a great faith in God's Word exerts 
 upon the mind ; and on the other hand, a weak faith in 
 God's Word leads to weakness, in doubt, self-confidence, 
 and dependence upon men. 
 
 Hence, among the questions to be asked concerning a 
 propounder of new things are these : Has he a deep 
 
CHRIST IN THE MIND. 11 
 
 experience of the Divine Life ? Is he known as main- 
 taining a close walk with God ? Is he a soul of much prayer, 
 much communion with Christ, living,- by faith, upon God's 
 Word, received as God's, not man's ? It is certain that 
 none but such souls are qualified to be guides in untried 
 paths. Hence the writing of the books of inspiration was 
 committed only to those, whom God had trained to great 
 heights of attainment in holiness. If it ha.d not been so, 
 where would have been, or what would have been, our 
 volume of inspiration ? If only an ordinary Christian 
 had had the writing of the Epistles, what a poor and low 
 exhibition of Christian experience would we have had, 
 instead of the glowing and lofty experience of Paul, Peter, 
 and John ; what a defective or excrescential or one-sided 
 exhibition, in personal hobbies of doctrine ridden upon out 
 of vanity, like the shows of horsemanship in a circus, 
 instead of simple gospel truth, displayed for God's glory. 
 
 This River of grace in the heart of man runs not in an 
 artificial channel, but is a windir% stream, going hither and 
 thither at God's will, not man's. Men may attempt to 
 dyke it in, and keep it strait and elaborate, according to 
 their own mathematical surveying of the ground, but it 
 follows no human arrangement or analysis, but takes its 
 own way. And a much sweeter, lovelier way it is, than 
 men's metaphysics would often appoint for it, or than any 
 human heart-geographer ever traces for it in his map, when, 
 wishing to have all things very accurate, and according to 
 some pretended invariable model or rule, he draws his line 
 and says, this course the river of grace always pursues. 
 Doubtless, there has been too much pursuing of this river 
 by maps, after certain old surveys by others, taken for 
 complete and accurate, instead of going anew to the foun- 
 tain head in God's word, and thence following the stream 
 through valley and meadow, woodland and green pastures. 
 
 The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus works va- 
 rious forms of fruit and beauty in the character of life, 
 almost infinitely various, yet all the work of the self-same 
 
12 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. The 
 work of faith, the life of faith, the law of faith, is not a 
 work, or life, or law, of human metaphysics or monotony ; 
 but of infinite grace, wisdom, and variefy. It is a mistake 
 indeed, to take one character, and analyse .the law and 
 proceedings of faith from that, and make a rule out of it, 
 and carpenter-like proceed to regulate every other character 
 accordingly. The work of grace is a free, original life, 
 after an inward law. 
 
 An external law indeed it is, as God's law ; but that law, 
 from being merely external, becomes an inward law of 
 life, an in- working law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. 
 While God's law is merely without a man, outside of him, 
 he is outside of it, and it acts no otherwise upon him, if it 
 acts at all, than as a man acts upon a clock who stands out- 
 side of it and turns the hands according to the town-time, 
 its own mainspring being broken. But when the maker 
 of the clock comes and puts it inwardly to rights, he puts, as 
 it were, the principle and law of the external time within 
 the heart of it, and then it goes freely of itself, and keeps 
 time without any need of a man standing beside it, with a 
 law of the town-clock by the sun, to turn its hands. Hence 
 God says that when the time of the free dispensation of 
 his spirit comes, he will write his law in men's hearts, and 
 hence David says, " Thy law have I hid in my heart, that 
 I might not sin against thee ;" and he prays the same thing 
 in various forms. He did not think it enough to study 
 God's law with his eyes, but he must hide it within his 
 heart, to work, as a law, there ; and so, by governing his 
 affections and thoughts, or rather inspiring them, or as 
 a fountain bubbling up with them from the bottom, it 
 would govern his life, running with the winding stream of 
 his thoughts and affections everywhere. 
 
 The Trees of Righteousness, the planting of the Lord, 
 that he might be glorified, are of an endless attractiveness 
 and beauty in their variety. But you are not to compel 
 them all into one form or manner of verdure and foliage, 
 
CHRIST IN THE MIND. 13 
 
 any more than you are to order all the trees of the world 
 into the shape of oaks or elms. Men are sometimes, in 
 their workings upon the plants of divine grace, like 
 Chinese farmers, or like the caterers to royal tastes in 
 Versailles gardens ; they will cut the foliage of nature into 
 squares, pyramids, and triangles, or will let nothing grow 
 that is not planted in straight lines. There has been much 
 tendency to such kind of surveying and regulation. Man 
 shows his original self-will even in his application of God's 
 word, which he has an inveterate, unconquerable disposi- 
 tion to order exactly after his own theory and experience. 
 If he has a striking original experience in himself, he will 
 take that ; or if a remarkable original experience in another 
 shall powerfully arrest his admiration and square with his 
 own metaphysics, he will take that. Whatever is adopted 
 and made the child of self-love, is petted and spoiled by 
 over-indulgence. In this way very good things may 
 become injurious ; very healthful developments may be 
 cankered into excrescences ; very harmless single instances 
 or exceptions may be exalted into dangerous precedents 
 and rules. In order to make a pate de foie de Strasburg 
 for spiritual epicures, many will take a favorite theory and 
 sow up its eyes, and stuff it, and will do this with every 
 truth they can lay hold of. The truths both of nature and 
 of God's word too often fare with theorizers, as poor un- 
 protected laborers, when they meet with press-gangs for a 
 man-of-war ; a poor peasant with his spade finds himself 
 suddenly and violently transmuted into a sailor. 
 
 But the wind bloweth where it listeth, and always will ; 
 and the river runneth and windeth where it listeth, and 
 always will ; and the Trees of Life will always bear at 
 least twelve manner of fruits for the healing of the nations. 
 There always will be more things than are dreamed of in 
 our philosophy. As we are fearfully and wonderfully 
 made in mind and body, so that no man can fathom God's 
 wisdom, either in the one or the other, nor can possibly 
 tell how they are linked together, so are we fearfully and 
 
14 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 wonderfully made in the new creation by the Spirit. 
 Thou knowest not the works of God, who maketh all. 
 "Marvellous are thy works," says David, and that my 
 soul knoweth right well ; but very littler else beside that do 
 I know right well, at all. Curiously wrought are we, and 
 precious are God's thoughts unto us, and so great is the 
 sum of them, that if we should count them, they are more 
 in number than the sand. Let a man stand upon the sea 
 shore and begin the work of counting ; let him try that 
 first, before he puts the line of his arithmetic down into 
 the deeps of God's thoughts, with the vanity of making a 
 rule for others. 
 
 Then, too, as we have seen, the River of the Water of 
 Life runs through the heart, not the mind merely; and, 
 little as a man knows of a man's mind, yet he can fathom 
 that much more easily than he can a man's heart. " Who 
 can know it? I the Lord." Yea, and it is the Lord only 
 that knoweth how to gather up into his own bosom all the 
 reins of our affections. As a charioteer, he bindeth them 
 about his arm, and guideth us at pleasure. We have 
 heard of a man preaching upon the text, "Marvel not," 
 &c., and proving from it, or rather forcing upon it, the lie, 
 that there was nothing very marvellous in the work of 
 regeneration ! A man who could see the wind might, per- 
 haps, see such a conclusion, and come honestly by it. 
 Men who pride themselves much upon their knowledge of 
 the human heart are very apt to have confounded a little 
 knowledge of the workings of the mind with heart know- 
 ledge, and conclude themselves masters of human nature. 
 'Tis as easy as lying! Perhaps next to the mystery of God 
 in Christ is the mystery of God shining in the heart, to 
 give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the 
 face of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Man shines as far as the intellect ; God shines into the 
 heart. There is vastly more light in this world upon the 
 intellect than there is in the heart. Intellectual light men 
 are very proud of, and it makes them proud ; heart-light 
 

 CHRIST IN THE MIND. 15 
 
 they care little about, for it makes them humble, and like 
 little children. And yet it is so strange and so beautiful a 
 thing, that, wherever it appears, men cannot help admiring 
 it. Heart-light in books they recognise and acknowledge 
 as one of the highest proofs of genius. Heart-light is life- 
 light, warm, fervent, kindling others. Mere intellectual 
 light is cold, pale, unattractive. There is all the difference 
 that there is between painted light or reflected light upon 
 a portrait or statue, and the light of life, the light of the 
 warm coloring of flesh and blood, transmitting even the 
 light of the affections to the beholder. Man's light falls 
 upon the intellect, God's light goes into the heart. It 
 must enter there, it must work there, it must live there, as 
 the light of life, or all is darkness and death. Hence our 
 blessed Lord says, " He that followeth me shall not walk 
 in darkness, but shall have the light of life. This is a light 
 that must enter into the heart, the affections, just as the 
 light of the sun enters into the composition of plants, and 
 they grow in it, and it works and grows in them. If it 
 merely fell upon them, there would be no life ; without this 
 inward quickening process, all would be winter, like as in 
 a glorious glittering day in February, though our northern 
 world is flooded with light, clearer than that of the tropics, 
 yet the time of germinating, quickening life in nature not 
 having come, the light does not enter into the composition 
 and growth of vegetation, and only serves to show cold 
 forms and bare leafless outlines. But when the spring 
 time and summer come, God shoots the light into the 
 heart of all nature, and it becomes the light of life. Just 
 so God must shoot it into the heart of man, and this is 
 a work that man alone cannot do. Neither can man 
 alone make man believe ; that also is God's prerogative, 
 and for this very reason, because man gets no further than 
 the intellect with his light, while God pierces through the 
 intellect into the heart, and then shines through the heart 
 into the intellect. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Faith here, a discipline preparatory to knowledge and faith hereafter. 
 Passage of faith into knowledge and life. Faith in the testimony of God 
 becoming experience. The life of heaven a life of faith. The extreme 
 credulity of unbelief. Necessity of faith in evil as well as good. Impossi- 
 bility of escaping from the evil, except by believing God's testimony in 
 regard to it. 
 
 FAITH is to be regarded as a discipline. It is a disci- 
 pline of character in this life, preparatory for the life of 
 heaven. The life of heaven will be a life of faith to a far 
 greater extent than even the life of this world. This may 
 seem paradoxical, especially to a mind dwelling on the 
 common expression that in heaven faith is swallowed up 
 in sight. But that is an expression nowhere to be found 
 in the Scriptures. We read that death shall be swallowed 
 up in victory, but never that faith shall be swallowed up 
 in sight. So far is this from being the case, that in reality 
 the sight which the soul shall enjoy in heaven will only 
 prepare it for the exercise of still greater faith, and faith 
 must continue to be the life of the soul for ever. Faith 
 will indeed cease in regard to certain things, of which 
 there will be experience ; as, for example, the realities of 
 heaven and hell, the transactions of the judgment, the 
 promised salvation of the soul through Christ, the rewards 
 of the righteous and the retribution to the wicked ; faith in 
 Christ likewise, as our atoning Saviour, will be changed 
 into sight and knowledge. While present in the body, 
 and absent from the Lord, we walk by faith, not by sight. 
 We have access to God by faith, we wait for the hope of 
 
CHRIST IN THE MIND. 17 
 
 righteousness by faith, we are saved by hope and faith ; 
 for hope which is seen is not hope, and our hope, as yet, is 
 seen only by faith. In all these respects, when the soul 
 in heaven beholds the Saviour face to face, it will then live 
 by sight and knowledge, though now it lives only by faith, 
 and possesses knowledge only by faith. 
 
 But the sight and experience of the soul in all these 
 respects will only prepare it for a greater exercise of faith 
 than at present it is capable of. All things which at pre- 
 sent are not known by sense are matters of faith. Even 
 our belief in God's existence at present is partly faith, 
 rather than knowledge only, for so the word of God repre- 
 sents it. He that cometh to God must believe that he is, 
 and that he is a re warder of them who diligently seek him. 
 
 It is faith founded on evidence, by which evidence that 
 which may be known of God at present is manifest in us 
 and to us by his works and his word. But as yet no man 
 hath seen God at any time. So that, as yet, our belief in 
 the existence of God is partly of the same nature with our 
 belief in the existence, for example, of Moses. We have 
 never seen Moses, and yet we believe in his existence. 
 But if we had seen him, had been acquainted with him, 
 had dwelt with him in life, had observed him, com- 
 muned with him, walked about with him, heard his words 
 and seen his actions, our belief in his existence would be 
 knowledge, it would be a belief which we could not help, 
 a belief founded on the evidence of experience, which is 
 always irresistible. So we have never seen God. We 
 see indeed his works ; we are ourselves his workmanship, 
 and this we know ; but we know it, as yet, by faith and 
 reason, not sight, not such experience as we are yet to 
 have. In the same manner we believe in Christ, and in 
 him God is revealed to us more clearly than ever before, 
 so that by our faith in Christ we have a greater faith in 
 God ; and all the evidence by which Christ is made known 
 to us is additional evidence in regard to God. But we 
 have never seen Christ ; all our acquaintance with Christ, 
 
18 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 as yet, is by faith ; whom, having not seen, says the apostle, 
 ye love ; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, 
 ye rejoice, with joy unspeakable and full of glory. 
 
 Now this faith, beginning in faitft, and passing from 
 faith to faith, becomes a life, a knowledge, and a discipline 
 of faith and life for the life to come. This is brought to 
 view in those two grand passages concerning the gospel of 
 Christ, in Romans i. 17, and 2d Cor. 4th chapter and fifth. 
 For I am not ashamed, says Paul, of the gospel of Christ. 
 For it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that 
 believeth. For therein the righteousness of God is revealed 
 from faith to faith ; as it is written, the just shall live by 
 faith. This faith in God's righteousness as revealed in 
 Christ passes into knowledge and life in the heart, when 
 God shines into it, to give the light of the knowledge of 
 his glory in the face of Jesus Christ. This living faith has 
 all the power of knowledge, all the practical effect of know- 
 ledge. We having the same spirit of faith, according as it 
 is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken, we also 
 believe, and therefore speak ; knowing, adds the apostle, 
 KNOWING, that he which raised up the Lord Jesus, shall 
 raise up us also by Jesus. And again, for we KNOW that if 
 our earthly house, &c. And again, we are always confi- 
 dent, KNOWING, &LC. Now here we have faith passing into 
 knowledge and life, even in this world. It is not absolute 
 knowledge, but it prepares the soul for an introduction into 
 such knowledge. "It is a discipline of preparation, the dis- 
 cipline of believing, and of life by believing, here in this 
 world, for absolute knowledge, the knowledge and the life 
 of actual, sensible experience hereafter. 
 
 And then again, that absolute knowledge, for which the 
 soul is prepared by a life of faith here, is to be the ground, 
 in connexion with this precious discipline, of still higher 
 faith hereafter. For the life of heaven is to be a life of 
 faith, for which all the previous discipline of the soul was 
 necessary to prepare it. It is not to be a life of salvation 
 only, though salvation is declared by the apostle to be the 
 
CHRIST IN THE MIND. 19 
 
 end of our faith. And, considered with regard to redemp- 
 tion from sin, and from the world of woe, and admission to 
 heaven, in the company of the blessed, in the likeness of 
 Christ, it is the end, the perfection, the consummation, the 
 completion and issue of our faith. But this end of faith is 
 not so much the close of one dispensation, as it is the 
 beginning of another, to which the whole of the preceding 
 was preparatory. The faith itself, as a discipline, and the 
 salvation, which is the issue of that discipline, are but the 
 stepping-stones to the life higher still, of knowledge and 
 of faith, in and for the glory of God. 
 
 But it may be asked, or some may be disposed to ask, 
 what can there be higher than salvation ? And we may 
 answer that salvation is but the beginning of a life in God, 
 a life of faith, and of the beholding and acquisition of God's 
 knowledge from faith to faith, in which a kind and degree 
 of faith shall be requisite of which we cannot now con- 
 ceive, and for which we are not now prepared, and could 
 not be prepared in any other way than by our present dis- 
 cipline of faith unto salvation. There may be manifesta- 
 tions of God hereafter to the spirits in bliss, which will 
 require a state of salvation wrought out by the precious 
 discipline of faith, before the soul can have a capacity of 
 faith large enough to begin to receive those manifestations. 
 So that if to fallen beings God had begun to manifest him- 
 self by sight instead of faith, it may have been a thing in 
 the nature of things impossible that salvation should ever 
 in that way have been attained. God must be to us a 
 God who for the present hideth himself, in order that it 
 may be possible for us to be prepared for his revelation of 
 himself hereafter to our experience. So that this may be 
 a satisfaction to the mind, if at any time it be inclined to 
 wonder why God takes, as it sometimes seems, such round- 
 about and distant ways of bringing the soul to himself, or 
 why he does not come out of his place of invisibleness, 
 and cause the very sense of his creatures to see and know 
 him, or why he does not present himself in such tangible, 
 
20 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 irresistibly impressive forms to the human soul, as to make 
 it impossible that any creature should ever fall into, or 
 experience, any insensibility in regard to his attributes. 
 
 For, suppose for a moment that he Should do this to a 
 creature not disciplined by faith ; suppose that for a season, 
 in order to convince the soul of the tendency of sin, and 
 the certainty of its penalty, and of his perfections as 
 against the sinner, he should follow every sin with its penal 
 consequences, making the soul feel the fires of divine 
 justice ; and suppose that instead of requiring such a soul 
 to believe that God is, and that he will call all men to an 
 account, he should, for the present, manifest himself 
 in unquestionable miracles, dealing with every soul 
 by the present individual experience of his own power ; 
 even then it is evident that this would not produce faith, 
 nor prepare the soul for the exercise of faith, which 
 would remain in exercise only so long as the experience 
 continued, but the moment it should be withdrawn, the 
 moment God should require the soul to believe without 
 experience, it would again wait for experience, and would 
 not believe until again experience should come. It is on 
 this ground that our Blessed Lord assures us that, if men 
 will not believe on the ground of God's Word, they would 
 not, also; though one rose from the dead. And this kind 
 of faith is also the very faith of devils, who, there is reason 
 to suppose, cannot and do not believe anything but by 
 experience. And in this point Satan changes into his own 
 nature the soul of every unbeliever, whose mind he suc- 
 ceeds in blinding to the light of the gospel, by experience 
 of the delusions of sense. 
 
 So that, in the nature of things, the soul cannot know 
 God, but by faith. The bare experience of God is not 
 knowledge of him, but only faith is ; for the devils have 
 experience of God, but no knowledge of him, nor affec- 
 tionate belief in him, for himself the belief which is con- 
 fidence, which is knowledge, which is life. So that, if 
 you should now stop the experience of the devils in the world 
 
CHRIST IN THE MIND. 21 
 
 of woe, if you should stop their sufferings, and leave God 
 presented as he was before, there would still be no pro- 
 duction of faith in him ; all the experience of the devils 
 would not have taught them faith. Faith alone can pre- 
 pare the soul for experience, can teach the right use of 
 experience, and can make experience a discipline of 
 knowledge and of life. 
 
 And this shows us a view, in which the unbeliever, the 
 infidel, the professed atheist, the man who denies every- 
 thing which he does not himself experience, comes singu- 
 larly near, even in this world, to the character of devils as 
 described in the Word of God. Infidelity, or a compla- 
 cent demand of experience, and a determination and 
 habit of being moved only by experience, which is the 
 pride of some men's intellects, so far as they deem it a 
 virtue, let them remember, is the virtue of the devil. He 
 was the first unbeliever and liar, the first who taught the 
 doctrine of believing only in what you experience. " Yea, 
 hath God said that ye shall die ? But God doth know that 
 ye shall be as gods. I telJ you that ye shall experience no 
 evil." Satan would have men believe on his own assertion 
 merely, before experience, even while teaching and per- 
 suading men not to believe in anything but by experience, 
 not to believe in God's testimony. Satan would have men 
 believe in his testimony in preference to God's. And this 
 is just the characteristic both of philosophic, and of 
 ordinary and vulgar infidelity. Do not believe, cries the 
 hiss of the Serpent, without experience. Yea, do not 
 believe, cries Hume the philosopher, without experience. 
 Yea, do not believe, cry the vulgar herd of infidels, with- 
 out experience. But why ? Why not believe ? Mark 
 the answer. Because we assure you that the experience 
 you are required to credit will not follow. Yea, says the 
 hiss of the Serpent, ye shall not surely die. Yea, says the 
 philosophic Hume, there is no life of retribution beyond 
 the grave. Yea, say the whole company of unbelievers, 
 there is no hell, no penal retribution. 
 
22 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 Now, mark their requisition, their own enormous tax 
 on your credulity, even while they ridicule the idea of 
 believing on testimony without experience. What ground 
 is it, on which they call upon you to disbelieve all the 
 testimony of the Scriptures concerning the world of 
 rewards and punishments ? What ground on which they 
 call upon you not to believe ? Why, their own testimony, 
 without experience ! Who is there of them that has 
 ever gone into the eternal world and found the Bible a 
 falsehood, and then come back to this world to present 
 experience as the ground of belief ? Who is there that 
 has ever died in his sins, and gone into the eternal world, 
 and there found himself happy, in spite of the Bible, and 
 has then come back to tell his old companions, on the 
 boasted ground of experience, that there is no penal 
 retribution ? that hell is a mere bugbear of superstition, 
 the last judgment a cunningly devised fable, and the wrath 
 of God against sin a false report of his character ? And 
 yet they call upon you not to believe without experience. 
 They will believe in Satan, and in Hume, and in their 
 own assertions, without experience, but not in God. 
 They will take Satan at his word, and take the word of 
 any philosophic fool, and swear on the faith of any octavo 
 of denial of the Word of God, without even a pretence to 
 the foundation of experience to stand upon. This is 
 infidelity in all its forms. An enormous tax on the cre- 
 dulity of men, even in those very respects in which they 
 warn men against credulity, and call upon them to harden 
 themselves against all evidence but that of experience. 
 
 But, now, suppose that they themselves have what they 
 could call experience. Suppose that any twelve men among 
 a company of disbelievers in the sanctions of God's word, a 
 company of those who deny the tremendous reality of an 
 endless retribution, were to be carried into the eternal 
 world, and there to find from experience that there was no 
 such thing as a hell, or an endurance of retributive suffer- 
 ing ; and suppose that these twelve men could return to 
 
CHRIST IN THE. MIND. 23 
 
 earth with the assertion of what they had seen and known ; 
 on what ground could they call upon men to believe them, 
 and disbelieve the gospel, but the ground of their own 
 testimony ? Simply and barely the ground of their own 
 testimony ! But on their own present theory of denying 
 everything which cannot be demonstrated by experience, 
 how could they demand that other men besides themselves 
 should believe in them, and disbelieve the gospel, on the 
 bare assertion of their experience ? They have cut away 
 the ground they themselves would endeavor to stand upon. 
 They make belief in any testimony absolutely impossible. 
 If they require you not to believe in God's testimony, they 
 cannot present you anything in which you can believe. 
 The principle of unbelief in eternal realities, as revealed in 
 God's word, logically* and consistently driven, cuts you off 
 from the possibility of believing anything in the universe, 
 until you yourself experience it. 
 
 And now suppose this were the principle acted on by 
 mankind, what would be the consequence ? Why, just 
 this that the experience of evil, being gained in defiance 
 of God's warning, and as the fruit and penalty of an un- 
 changed evil nature, when it comes, will come too late, 
 and be eternal. It will make you a believer indeed, but a 
 believer to your own destruction, an eternal believer in 
 evil, and in nothing else ; a believer by the force of despair. 
 And that is the very point of such infinite consequence. 
 The evil of which you are forewarned of God, being required 
 now to believe it on God's testimony, and so to escape 
 from it, is eternal evil. It is just what exists, has existed, 
 and will exist for ever, as an inevitable result of the nature 
 of things, wherever there is an evil being. And the requi- 
 sition of infidelity, that you believe it not, except on expe- 
 rience, is just the requisition that you hazard its eternal 
 experience, that you plunge into its eternal possession. 
 
 Now, then, if you would ever have experience of good, 
 it must be by faith both in good and evil. You must 
 believe in the good, and now secure it ; you must believe 
 
24 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 in the evil, and now avoid it. If you do not believe in the 
 one, you will not and cannot in the other; and if you 
 believe in neither, you will have experience of the evil, to 
 the exclusion of the good, to your own everlasting destruc- 
 tion. God forewarns you of the evilj that you may believe 
 in that, and, obeying his directions, may not experience it. 
 God promises you the good, that you may believe in that, 
 and guided by his directions may experience it for ever. 
 
 Look now on the other side. In the introduction of sin 
 and unbelief into our world, he who was a liar and murderer 
 from the beginning said to our first parents, " Ye shall not 
 surely die, but God knoweth ye shall be as gods, knowing 
 good and evil." In that there was tremendous truth, as 
 well as the first universal lie. It. was a sardonic, malignant, 
 bitter irony of truth, poured like a jet of infernal fire, from 
 the devil's experience. Ye shall be as gods. But what 
 kind of gods ? The devil and his angels, the fallen angels ! 
 No beings in the universe knew evil, but those who knew 
 sin ; none others could know it. The angels of heaven 
 were in that blissful ignorance in which Adam himself 
 was created, ignorance of everything but good. The devil 
 and his angels had fallen by the commission of sin, from 
 that blissful ignorance into the eternal knowledge of evil. 
 And now they would have Adam fall likewise, fall by sin 
 into the same abyss of progress in knowledge, becoming 
 like the gods in hell, knowing both good and evil. It was, 
 indeed, an advancement in knowledge ! The inhabitants 
 of hell did know more than those of heaven ; and if they 
 would have it, they were welcome to have it all to them- 
 selves ; none else desired it. They knew both good and 
 evil ; had known only good, and now knew evil only, and 
 for ever. In heaven the blissful angels still know only 
 good, and to know the evil, they must ruin their own souls, 
 must go down to hell as sinful, ruined beings. It was in 
 this way that Satan would make Adam a god ; would have 
 him to know both good and evil ; good by the loss of it, 
 evil by the possession of it. 
 
CHRIST IN THE MIND. 25 
 
 Adam did not need faith in the good ; it was his already. 
 But faith in the evil he did need, faith in God's word in 
 regard to the evil ; and God required it of him, as the only 
 way of keeping the good. But now since the fall, having 
 lost the good, we need faith in the good as well as the evil, 
 belief in regard to both, founded on God's word ; because 
 we do not, as yet, know either as eternal. We need faith 
 in God's promises as to the one, and faith in his threaten- 
 ings as to the other ; and by acting according to our faith, 
 we shall, through Christ, inherit the one, and be saved 
 from the other, shall know the good eternally, and be freed 
 from the evil eternally. 
 
 Now, then, we return to the point from whence we 
 started, that faith is a discipline of the soul, essential to its 
 preparation for a life of blessedness in the world to come. 
 It is God's arrangement in Christ, that we should be saved 
 by faith, and by faith in him only ; but that is not all ; the 
 discipline of faith and the principle of faith are necessary 
 in our own nature, as without that, though there may be 
 a heaven in the universe, there can be none in our souls. 
 We must carry the elements of heaven, the rest of heaven 
 into heaven with us, or we shall find no rest there. We 
 shall know evil only, in the eternal world, if we do not 
 know Christ in this world. And how astounding is the 
 insensibility of the multitudinous souls of men to this truth ! 
 They hear it, as if it no more concerned them, than the 
 question does whether the star Sirius is inhabited. If there 
 were the least degree of sensibility, though but enough to 
 dictate the turning of a look, with the utterance of a prayer, 
 towards Christ, there might be hope ; and in the least 
 struggling of the soul after him, there may be the com- 
 mencement of a life of faith within the soul. Yea, when 
 the soul, feeling its utter destitution of anything like faith, 
 begins to struggle towards Christ for faith, there may be 
 in that first faint struggle the predetermination of faith, the 
 beginning of God working in the soul both to will and to 
 do. And this is a wonderful encouragement, even in times 
 
 2 
 
26 GRACE AND TRUTH, CHRIST IN THE MIND. 
 
 of general, yea universal neglect ,and indifference on the 
 subject of religion ; encouragement for the soul to begin. 
 Yea, we had almost said, do anything else except do 
 nothing ; begin, though in the faintest degree ; and in that 
 beginning there may be God, there irfay be Christ, there 
 may be heaven. 
 
 Lord, how should thy servant see, 
 Unless thou give me seeing eyes ? 
 Well may I fall, if out of thee ! 
 
 If out of thee, how should I rise ? 
 
 1 wander wide without thine aid, 
 And lose my way in midnight shade. 
 
 O let my prayer acceptance find, 
 And bring the mighty blessing down; 
 Eyesight impart, for I am blind, 
 And seal me thine adopted son ; 
 A fallen, helpless creature take, 
 And heir of thy salvation make. 
 

 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Faith followed by the Earnest of the Spirit. The distinction between Faith, 
 Knowledge, and Experience. Neither Faith nor Experience possible, if 
 Experience be demanded first. Reproductive power of Faith, and its redu- 
 plicating processes of growth. Connexion between the Earnest of the 
 Spirit in the Church, and the conversion of souls from the world. 
 
 IT is quite impossible to give a better definition of Faith 
 than Paul has done in the eleventh chapter of the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews ; and yet, in that definition there might 
 seem at first sight to be almost a confusion between the 
 act of the soul itself, and the realities in reference to which 
 that act is exercised. And in fact there is a sense in 
 which genuine faith creates as well as apprehends, the 
 objects which it must realize. Faith is belief in God's 
 testimony, followed by experience. The order, as we have 
 seen, is set forth in 2d Cor. iv. 13, thus : We having the 
 same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, 
 and therefore have I spoken, we also believe, and therefore 
 speak; knowing, &c. The knowing follows the belief, 
 and the speaking follows the knowing, as pressed on and 
 impelled by it. The knowing following the belief, is the 
 Word of God as fire in the soul, yea, as the prophet 
 Jeremiah calls it, as a fire in the bones, that must for very 
 relief break out into a flame, and burn upon other souls, 
 yea, upon the whole world. It is a constraining impulse, 
 a life, a power, inward, from God, and therefore uncon- 
 querable, irresistible. 
 
 " In whom also, after that ye believed,'' says Paul to the 
 
28 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 Ephesians, " ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of pro- 
 mise, which is the Earnest of our inheritance, until the 
 redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of 
 his glory." This is a wonderful passage. The Earnest 
 of our inheritance means the experience of it, in some 
 measure beforehand, ministered with Faith 'by the Holy 
 promised Spirit, until the time when, by redemption com- 
 pleted, it shall come to be held in actual everlasting posses- 
 sion. Thus God gives us not mere testimony, though it be 
 his own, but experience also, and the evidence of experience, 
 abundantly, in the Christian life, in the Christian system, 
 which is a system of life, not a theory. But experience 
 does not come first, it is not the first thing. Faith in God 
 comes first, faith in God's testimony ; then experience is 
 the fruit of faith. First comes belief in the things revealed 
 of God, because God testifies of them, because God declares 
 them. Then comes knowledge, the knowledge of expe- 
 rience, growing out of faith. In some things, it is true, 
 experience does come first, is the first thing ; and faith, in 
 accepting it from God, simply gives it shape, and possesses 
 it in a perfection and completeness of truth, which God 
 only himself possesses and can impart. As, for example, 
 men know by experience their own sinfulness ; that is not 
 an article of faith first, and knowledge afterwards; but 
 God's word teaches the same thing, only in clearer light, 
 and as a universal truth, and with a perfection and power, 
 which God's testimony only could impart. And faith, 
 receiving this truth, which was partially known before, 
 from God, knows it now with incomparably greater clear- 
 ness and certainty. So that, after all, there is, even before- 
 hand, enough of experience to begin the Christian system 
 with that, and not with faith ; and indeed in one direction 
 we do begin with that, and appeal to that, and from that 
 carry the sinner to God. 
 
 But in regard to things beyond our present, limited, 
 unassis'ted experience, we must begin with faith, and come 
 to experience afterwards. And faith itself produces 
 
CHRIST IN THE MIND. 29 
 
 knowledge, the knowledge of experience ; it is the sub- 
 stance and life of knowledge, the demonstration of things 
 not seen. Let us endeavor to illustrate. I have a near 
 and dear friend, we will say, a Father, so good, so kind, 
 so true, so holy, so completely under the influence of 
 heavenly principle, and so bent upon my best good, that 
 I have a confidence in him, which could not be surpassed 
 by any knowledge of my own. If he were to tell me any- 
 thing for my good, which I did not know before, or could 
 not know without his telling it, it would answer for me 
 all the purposes of knowledge. It would be in me as 
 complete, actual, and active knowledge, as if I myself 
 had seen it. Now this is because I believe it, because I 
 believe my Father. I believe him, and therefore know 
 what he tells me, because it is the truth. But a stranger, 
 not acquainted with my Father, not having confidence in 
 him, does not believe him in this manner, and therefore, 
 though told by him precisely the same things, and for his 
 good, does not know those things. He knows them in 
 one sense, because he has been told them, and they are 
 true. But in another sense he does not know them, and 
 cannot tell another person that he knows them, because 
 he does not believe them. He demands experience of 
 them, before he can consent to know them. 
 
 Again : You have before you a vase or jar containing 
 hydrocyanic acid in a preparation of the strongest alcohol. 
 A person enters your room, whom you know to be 
 inveterately addicted to strong drink. While he is there, 
 you are called away ; but you take care, before leaving him, 
 to tell him that the jar contains the most deadly of all 
 known poisons, a single drop of which would destroy life. 
 " I have told you this," you say to him, " and you know it ; 
 therefore touch it not, at your peril." "But I do not 
 know it by any means," the man answers ; " you tell it 
 me, indeed, but I do not know it ; and how can I know it, 
 but by trying it, or seeing it tried." " You do know it," 
 you answer, " because it is true, and I have told it to you, 
 
30 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 and whatever truth you hear and understand, you know." 
 " But I do not know it," the man answers, " because I do 
 not believe it." And truly, if the man does not believe it, 
 then in one sense he does not know it, while in another 
 sense, the thing being true, and having been told him, he 
 does know it. And the probability is that such an im- 
 pression of knowledge will have been made upon him by 
 your manner and words, that though he says he does not 
 believe you, yet he will not touch the jar. In that he will 
 act upon belief, without what he calls or deems to be 
 knowledge. But if, against whatever you have told him, 
 he tastes of the liquid and dies, you would say he knew 
 better, he died against knowledge. 
 
 But belief does not in itself constitute knowledge ; 
 nothing but truth constitutes that, and belief is but the 
 apprehension and reception of it. The belief of things 
 that are true is knowledge ; the belief of things that are 
 false is not knowledge, though it be ever so firm a belief. 
 The knowledge of things that are true, without belief, is 
 dead knowledge, knowledge without life. It is only belief 
 that imparts life and power. Nothing but belief can make 
 a man feel that he knows. And thus it is with faith in 
 God, faith in divine things. Knowledge without it is 
 dead, and inefficacious for anything but condemnation. 
 Revelation without faith is the world's condemnation. 
 
 Sense always produces belief, at least while the ex- 
 perience of it lasts, but knowledge does not always. An 
 ignorant man in torrid climes, who never saw snow or ice, 
 hears that at the North by the effect of cold the water 
 becomes as hard as a rock. Now having heard that, and it 
 being true, does he not know it ? Yet he does not believe it, 
 and therefore he does not feel that he knows it, and can- 
 not use it as knowledge. But, set him down by a pool of 
 water at the North, in an atmosphere thirty degrees below 
 the freezing point, and let him see and feel the process, and 
 then handle the ice, and he will both know it and believe 
 it. He will not only know it, as he knew it when it was 
 
CHRIST IN THE MIND. 31 
 
 told him, but he will feel that he knows it. The experience 
 of it will produce belief, when mere knowledge would not. 
 Experience compels belief, takes away all volition from it, 
 all possibility of the exercise of confidence apart from 
 sight. 
 
 Now this sense or experience in earthly things is analo- 
 gous to the sealing of the spirit in heavenly things ; only, 
 while in earthly things it goes before belief, in heavenly 
 things it follows. It follows the confidence of the soul in 
 God as a Father, in Christ as a Saviour. That confidence 
 of the soul in God sets it upon the rock of reality, makes 
 it feel the truth, and walk upon it, as a swimmer, ship- 
 wrecked and almost exhausted, feels suddenly the hard 
 bottom beneath his feet, and speedily stands upon dry land. 
 So faith takes the soul out of the sea of doubt, and places 
 it upon the Rock of Ages. Thus faith is the substance of 
 things hoped for. 
 
 There is, therefore, both the evidence of faith, evidence 
 for faith, and the evidence of sense, in the Christian sys- 
 tem ; but if sense or experience be demanded first, if it be 
 sought and insisted on before faith, before the soul will 
 believe, then there can be neither faiih nor experience. 
 God is before sense, God is the ground of sense itself, God 
 is the author of sense ; and the things of the Christian 
 system are brought from God to sense, addressed by God 
 to the inward sense of God in all mankind. Faith in God 
 will accept God's voice, God's Word ; will believe it, and 
 will wait for experience ; but believing it, knows it, and 
 has experience, the earnest of the Spirit. But the demand 
 for experience first, doubts God, dishonors God, exalts 
 man above God, puts the testimony of man, of sinful self, 
 above that of God. It says, we will accept of nothing as 
 from God, till it be sanctioned, confirmed, endorsed, made 
 credible, from man, by man's experience. This is the 
 blindness and absurdity of unbelief ; this is sense, shut- 
 ting itself up to sense, and making faith impossible. It is 
 just as if you should turn the Cathedral of Strasbourg 
 
82 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 upside down, with the steeple in the earth and the founda- 
 tions in the air. 
 
 The temple of our faith and experience is built on God ; 
 it can be built on nothing else. God's Word, and faith in 
 God's Word, is its broad immovable foundation ; experience 
 is the spire, rising into heaven ; growing more slender as 
 to sense, more spiritual, more above sense, more imper- 
 ceptible to sense, gazing at it from below, more like a line 
 or gossamer web in the air, yet more true, more certain, 
 more definite, lost in the skies, because ascending to a 
 height which sense cannot reach. We lay the foundations, 
 ascend the dome, and climb the spire ; and thence faith 
 again, renewed and strengthened by an experience grow- 
 ing out of faith, gazes into heaven, balances her wings on 
 the highest point of experience given this side of heaven, 
 and from that point takes her flight to the throne of God in 
 glory. But if the soul had refused to begin, except with 
 experience, the experience of self instead of the Word of 
 God, the progress would have been downwards, into the 
 earth, not out of it ; away from heaven, not towards it, 
 but down towards hell. Progress towards God, conquest 
 over self, and advancement in divine things, is impossible 
 except by faith. 
 
 By another figure, faith is the root, experience the fruit ; 
 and faith says to experience, Thou bearest not the root, 
 but the root thee. Faith draws her nourishment from the 
 parent soil, the heavenly, life-giving Word, into which her 
 roots strike so deep, that you cannot tear them away 
 without tearing the Word away, and from which you can- 
 not separate them without destroying life ; faith is nothing 
 apart from God's Word. But, growing out of God's 
 Word, quickened by God's Spirit, faith rises into a tree, 
 and produces the fruits of experience. Then again from 
 the seeds of those fruits, once more planted, from the 
 experience produced by faith, and striking down again into 
 the same heavenly soil, there springs a greater faith, and 
 more abundant fruit, till there is a forest that shakes like 
 
CHRIST IN THE MIND. 33 
 
 Lebanon. Faith reduplicates itself, and is multiplying by 
 experience : to him that hath shall be given, and he shall 
 have more abundantly. But unbelief, or the demand for 
 experience first, as the ground of faith, is self-destructive, 
 and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that 
 which he seemeth to have. Faith is from God and in God, 
 and so produces the work of God, a holy experience of 
 God in self ; but experience without faith is from and in 
 self only, and is for ever, just what mere self is, sinful ; and 
 produces only what mere self produces, unbelief and 
 death. The water can never rise higher or purer than 
 the fountain. 
 
 It is just as if God should offer you a grain of wheat, 
 telling you that if you will take it as his gift, and plant it 
 on his assurance, it will grow up and produce a thousand 
 grains. If, believing God, you take it and plant it, then 
 the thousand grains are yours, your experience ; and again 
 out of them^your living faith may have a hundred times as 
 many thousand grains, and again out of them a countless 
 harvest. But if you say, I must see the thousand grains 
 promised and predicted, before I ca believe, before I can 
 take the first grain and use it, then you can have nothing, 
 and are worse than nothing, and must die. Rejecting 
 reliance upon God, there is nothing but death left possible. 
 
 Faith, in its reproductive power and process of growth, 
 may be compared to the great Oriental Banyan Tree. It 
 springs up in God, rooted in God's Word, and soon there 
 are the great waving branches of experience. Then 
 from these very branches the runners go down again into 
 God's Word, and thence spring up again, new products of 
 faith, and new trees of experience, till one and the same 
 tree becomes in itself a grove, with pillared shades and 
 echoing walks between. So experience just grows out of 
 faith, and then a greater faith grows out of experience, 
 the Word of God being all the while the region of its roots, 
 and again a still vaster, richer experience grows out of 
 that faith, till every branch becomes not only a product, 
 
 2* 
 
34 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 but a parent stock, set in the same Word, and all expand- 
 ing into a various, magnificent, and enlarging forest. 
 " Said I not unto thee that if thou wouldst believe thou 
 shouldst see the glory of God ? He that believeth, as the 
 Scripture hath said, out of his belly lhall flow rivers of 
 living water. This spake he of the Spirit they should 
 receive." 
 
 Thus it is that experience is founded on faith, not faith 
 on experience. I receive not testimony from man, said 
 our Blessed Lord. And indeed, if men will not believe 
 God, how can they believe, on man's testimony, anything 
 in relation to God ? They cannot, in relation to the God 
 of the Scriptures, but in relation to the god of their own 
 fancy they can and do believe themselves and others. 
 They invest God with other and different attributes than 
 those exhibited in his Word, and then they rely on human 
 testimony that such must be the God of the Universe. 
 But true faith, in all cases, is faith in God, not man. 
 Faith in Christian experience is faith in God, not man, 
 God working in man. When we see souls sealed with the 
 earnest of the Spirit, we see one of the greatest of God's 
 w r orks, we look upon one of God's witnesses, or rather, one 
 of the forms under which God witnesses of himself. Here 
 is another temple of God, and in the architecture we see 
 the hand of God, and know the Spirit of God. This is 
 God himself at present witnessing to his own Word. As 
 it was said, They went forth and preached everywhere, 
 the Lord working with them, and confirming the Word 
 with signs following, so now ; it is not man's testimony, 
 but God's, which he thus confirms. " How shall we 
 escape if we neglect so great salvation ; which at the first 
 began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto 
 us by them that heard him ; God also bearing them wit- 
 ness both with signs and wonders and with divers miracles 
 and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will." 
 And this earnest of the Spirit is God's witness of himself 
 in his Word. To his own children it is experience vouch- 
 
CHRIST IN THE MIND. 35 
 
 safed. It is like taking them into heaven, and letting them 
 see. It is to all what the experience of the three in the 
 Mount of Transfiguration was to them ; what Paul's being 
 caught up into the third heaven was to him : an additional 
 revelation from God for faith to stand upon, an additional 
 argument of impulse and power to carry the soul onward 
 in its path of light, until the day of eternal reality. " We 
 are his witnesses," says Peter, "and so is also the Holy 
 Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him." 
 There cannot be a depth and power of experience deeper 
 than that of this Earnest of the Spirit, nor indeed any- 
 thing equal to it. It produces faith, it opens God's Word 
 more and more, as windows in heaven, prepares the soul 
 to preach it, to stand upon it with a more steadfast con- 
 fidence, it makes the soul more and more mighty in God. 
 Out of an intense practical understanding of God's Word, 
 and experience of it as a fire, this Earnest of the Spirit 
 prepares the soul to labor abundantly for God. This is 
 that to which David referred when he prayed, " Restore 
 unto me the joy of thy Salvation and uphold me with thy 
 free Spirit ; then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and 
 sinners shall be converted unto thee." This is that seal of 
 God. This is a grand proof of God's message. Just as 
 a document of state is proved to be such by being sealed 
 with the king's signet, or the great seal of the govern- 
 ment, so this is proof that God is there, that the Word is 
 his Word, and the work his work, the manifestation being 
 that of his Spirit. 
 
 And God would have his people, his Church, present 
 their own experience, their Earnest of the Spirit, as a 
 great corroborative argument for coming to God, a proof 
 to the world what wonderful things grow qut of his Word, 
 received in faith. " Go home to thy friends, and tell them 
 how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath 
 had compassion on thee." It is like a Physician offering 
 to heal the people, and calling upon many who have been 
 healed to testify as to the efficacy of the eourse of treat- 
 
36 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 ment. But if the cure be doubtful, if the old disease 
 return again, if there be not the joy of health, the activity 
 of renewed life and vigor, if the lame man, who was sup- 
 posed to have been cured, is still seen with his crutches, 
 if the palsied are still lying helpless onHheir beds, there is 
 no argument for faith here. Hence, the great responsibility 
 upon the Church to show to the world a lively, active, 
 fruitr producing piety, to walk as children of the light, to 
 be witnesses for God, a chosen generation, a peculiar peo- 
 ple, to show forth the praises of him, who hath called you 
 out of darkness into his marvellous light. If not such, 
 there is a betrayal of Christ, instead of a witnessing for 
 him. " The hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on 
 the table." 
 
 But faith, personal faith is requisite. After that ye 
 believed ye were sealed. And that Holy Spirit with which 
 ye were sealed is the Earnest, a part of the covenanted 
 and anticipated gift in glory, and a preparation for it. It 
 is the experience of heaven beforehand, a foretaste of 
 heaven, an Earnest of the inheritance of the saints in 
 light, a sending forward of the soul, as it were, into heaven, 
 to come back and report. It is evidence from the eternal 
 world ; it is a sign like the raising of one from the dead ; 
 it is indeed the raising of a dead soul, to speak as living. 
 It is not man's evidence, but God's ; God speaking in 
 man ; the Holy Spirit, given of God to them that obey 
 him, being God's witness of himself. 
 
 The evidence of a man merely carried into heaven and 
 brought back again, would be man's evidence, not God's ; 
 the evidence of a man plunged into hell and brought back 
 again, would be man's, not God's. It would be mere 
 human testimony. But the evidence of those sealed with 
 the Holy Spirit is God's evidence continued ; it is just 
 simply the predictions in his Word fulfilled, and it is all 
 from him. It is not man endorsing God's Word, but it is 
 God's own voice, confirming his own Word ; God's voice 
 from God's Temple in the soul, calling upon men to enter 
 
CHRIST IN THE MIND. 37 
 
 the Temple of the Word, and to hear his voice, and 
 receive the Earnest of his Spirit, there. It is like the 
 preaching of Christ, as God manifest in the flesh, directing 
 men to the preaching of God's law, and to that of the 
 prophets, who prophesied beforehand the coming and the 
 sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. It 
 is God, varying and corroborating his own testimony, God 
 his own Interpreter, God his own Witness. 
 
 Now this Holy promised Spirit, this Earnest of our 
 inheritance until the redemption of the purchased posses- 
 sion^ committed to the Church, is vouchsafed to Christians, 
 for the praise of the glory of Christ our Saviour. And 
 the more of it the Church possesses, and the more indi- 
 vidual Christians possess, the more visibly the glory of the 
 Redeemer shines, and the more the world is attracted by 
 such a radiance ; the more signally and tangibly the Word 
 of God is demonstrated, and the weight and meaning of its 
 great incomprehensible texts of glory are somewhat mani- 
 fested and brought even to the reach of sense. We 
 ought to be able to show to the world a great degree, an 
 even fresh supply, of this Earnest of the Spirit, this coin 
 of heaven, this fruit from the tree of life, these leaves for 
 the healing of the nations, this water from the river of 
 Paradise, this experimental proof of our inheritance in 
 glory. How otherwise can we win the attention of men 
 absorbed in earthly cares, and seeking earthly treasures ? 
 How otherwise can we allure to brighter worlds and lead 
 the way ? 
 
 If a man should come into the city from California, 
 from the gold region said to be in existence there, bringing 
 with him twenty pounds weight of gold in the shape of 
 the flakes or grains in which it is described as being found, 
 and inviting poor miserable adventurers to go with him on 
 a new expedition, he would perhaps gather thousands of 
 disciples, when, if he came without his baskets of gold 
 flakes as the earnest of the great treasures the company 
 would possess, he might not gain one. And just so, the 
 
38 GRACE AND TRUTH, CHRIST IN THE MIND. 
 
 Church of Christ will have power over men just propor- 
 tioned to the glory of that Earnest of her inheritance, 
 which she has in present possession. Just so much of the 
 Spirit of heaven as she now possesses, just so much of the 
 joy of God's Salvation as belongs to Her, just so much of 
 the glory of a glowing experience in the deep things of 
 God as is manifest in her, just so much as she can show, 
 prove, demonstrate, of a revelation of the things that eye 
 hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into 
 the heart of man to conceive, which God hath prepared 
 for those who love him ; just so many more souls will she 
 be capable of drawing to her Saviour. This is the great 
 principle of David's prayer, Restore unto me the joy of 
 thy Salvation, and uphold me by thy free Spirit ; then will 
 I teach transgressors thy ways, AND SINNERS SHALL BE 
 
 CONVERTED UNTO THEE. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Effect of unbelief upon the Character. Illustrations of unbelief in the 
 Pharisees and Sadducees. Absolute necessity of relying on God's testi- 
 mony. Purpose for which that testimony was given, that by faith we may 
 avoid the experience of evil, and secure the experience of good. Com- 
 parison of the experiment of faith, and the experiment of experience. 
 Faith alone can lead the soul to heaven ; experience alone leads it down to 
 hell. 
 
 IF the Divine be not acknowledged and reverenced, 
 what becomes of the human ? If God's witness of him- 
 self be not received, there can remain to be developed in 
 the human character nothing but a spirit of universal 
 distrust, bitterness, and hatred. The likeness of the devil 
 comes out, both in classes and individuals, when man lets 
 go his hold on God and heaven. A man knows himself to 
 be a liar, and believes all others to be the same. The 
 unbelievers in Christ, when he was personally on earth, 
 illustrated in their own character the malignant influence 
 of scepticism upon the soul. They were proofs of what 
 Christ had said respecting men enjoying a great light of 
 evidence, but rejecting it ; it became darkness. And if 
 the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that 
 darkness ! " The fearfullest penalty," remarks Mr. Carlyle, 
 " a man pays for yielding to untruth of heart, is not to 
 know true from false, when he looks at them." 
 
 It was a carping, bitter set of men, an envious and 
 jealous set, an evil and adulterous generation, which, when 
 Christ was upon earth, always sought a sign. The Phari- 
 sees were formalists and hypocrites ; the Sadducees were 
 semi-infidels ; both were unbelievers in Christ. They 
 
40 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 would not receive the testimony of God respecting Christ. 
 The Sadducees would not receive the testimony of God 
 respecting a future state ; the Pharisees were at swords' 
 points with them in this latter article ; but both classes were 
 united in refusing God's testimony in regard to the Messiah, 
 or rather in rejecting the Messiah of God's testimony ; and 
 so a common enmity against Christ brought them together. 
 They rejected the counsel of God within themselves, not 
 being baptized with the baptism of John unto repentance, 
 not relishing the self-humbling doctrines of the gospel, 
 not being prepared by humility of heart, to see their glory 
 and beauty, and to believe them. 
 
 They came sometimes to taunt and tempt Christ in 
 regard to the evidence on which they concluded they 
 would possibly receive him, or might possibly be induced 
 to believe. But they must have everything palpable to 
 their own senses. Theirs was the experimental philosophy 
 of common sense, the coolness of enlightened minds, and 
 not the enthusiasm of an ignorant, superstitious rabble. 
 Have any of the rulers, or of the Pharisees, believed on 
 him ? Aye, answer us that. But this people, who 
 knoweth not the law, are cursed. 
 
 We must have demonstration to sense. Come now, 
 and open a window in heaven, raise us a dead man to life, 
 give us manna, as God gave to our forefathers ; do some- 
 thing now, here, on the spot, for us, in our presence. 
 The people that you healed yesterday, the bread you 
 created for seven thousand, are nothing to us ; we must 
 have present experience and demonstration ; we will not 
 take your testimony, nor their testimony, no, nor God's 
 testimony, without sensible, personal, experimental evi- 
 dence. What sign showest thou then, that we may see it 
 ourselves, and believe thee ? What dost thou work ? 
 Come, give us a sign, that we may believe. 
 
 It was the same bitter, unbelieving, taunting, and malig- 
 nant spirit, with which the very murderers of our Blessed 
 Lord addressed him, suffering, dying on the cross. If 
 
CHRIST IN THE MIND. 41 
 
 thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross. 
 Aye, if he be the King of Israel, let him now come down 
 from the cross, and we will believe him. And they would 
 not have believed, even if he had come down. 
 
 Now this was an evil spirit. There was no sincerity 
 of inquiry in it, no desire after the truth, no preparation 
 for it. It was an evil and adulterous generation that 
 thus sought after a sign. Part of the people ran after the 
 miracles, as they would after the tricks of a magician, or 
 after an alchemist who could produce gold. Ye seek me, 
 not because ye see the miracles, but because ye did eat 
 of the loaves and were filled. To such a spirit it would 
 have been folly for Christ to repeat the demonstrations of 
 his divine power and majesty. Suppose for a moment 
 that a messenger as an old prophet were among us, prov- 
 ing his divine mission by miracles, converting stones into 
 bread ; and suppose that a multitude of persons should run 
 after him, with baskets on their arms, calling for signs, 
 begging for the repetition of his miracles, that their bas- 
 kets might be filled with loaves : would he do right to 
 work a single miracle for such a temper ? or, for the 
 spirit of taunting and unbelief and idle curiosity, demand- 
 ing the display of miraculous power ? Would God con- 
 descend to notice that ? Would it be just to gratify 
 that ? But if one came, humbly waiting to see if it were 
 really God that was speaking, God that was sending his 
 Word, if one came to examine and to see and to listen, 
 waiting on God, and comparing all things with his Word, 
 and earnqjjly imploring his guidance, that would be a very 
 different spirit. God: might regard that spirit, and might 
 bring that soul, in his providence, where it would find an 
 irresistible evidence, that would clear all doubt. But no 
 just evidence is clear to a carping, unbelieving spirit, 
 to a heart unwilling to receive divine truth on God's 
 testimony. 
 
 Now the characteristic of unbelief and infidelity is to 
 take nothing on God's testimony merely, nothing without 
 
42 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 experience. And. of course, unbelief is death. There is 
 nothing within the whole compass of our reasoning plainer 
 than this. God's testimony is given to faith, on the one 
 side, that believing, we may avoid experience, the experi- 
 ence of evil ; on the other side, that believing, we may 
 secure experience, the experience of good. If God's 
 testimony be not received, if there be not faith in it, and 
 action upon it accordingly, there follows inevitably, on the 
 one side, the sufferance of the thing for the avoidance of 
 which the testimony was granted, that is, the eternal ex- 
 perience of evil ; and on the other side, the*/oss of the 
 thing for the gaining of which the testimony was granted, 
 that is, the eternal loss of all good, of heaven's blessedness. 
 Without belief in God's testimony, and action accordingly, 
 there is neither preparation for, nor possibility of future 
 blessedness. All active life springs from faith, and without 
 faith there is no action. It is faith, in some form or 
 another, that drives forward the whole business of exist- 
 ence. But if there be faith in self alone, and in present 
 existence, there is action for self alone, and for present 
 enjoyment. A man whose creed is experience alone, and 
 not faith, will go no further than present experience and 
 faith in himself will justify. Of course he will live and 
 act only for this world, and not for God and eternity. 
 The things of the eternal world are unseen and eternal. 
 They are revealed to faith, and can be known only by 
 God's testimony, and so if men will not believe that, and 
 act accordingly, but persist in demanding experience, they 
 will go on with neither faith nor experience^, they will 
 look only at things seen and temporal, and will believe 
 and act only with reference to this life, and to what they 
 experience here. They will put off acting in regard to 
 the things of another life, until they have the same 
 experience of that life that they have of this. But they 
 cannot have that here. They must take God's testimony 
 in lieu of experience, or dare the desperate hazard of going 
 into that life without any preparation for it, trusting self 
 
CHRIST IN THE MIND. 43 
 
 instead of God ; the hazard of going into that life to act 
 upon experience there ; whereas experience there, if it do 
 not follow faith here, can be nothing but experience of 
 evil. 
 
 For this is the great point of God's testimony in regard 
 to that life, that both the evil and the good of it are un- 
 changeable and endless, and, therefore, whatever a man is 
 ever going to do in regard to that life must be done in this ; 
 in this, or not at all. If good is to be secured in that life, it must 
 be secured in God's way, and secured now ; there is no 
 other way and no other time. And if evil is to be avoided 
 in that life, it must be avoided in God's way, and avoided 
 now ; there is no other way, and no other time. And if 
 men, required to believe God and act accordingly, say and 
 insist that they cannot arid will not believe and act except 
 from experience, they just deliberately declare a reliance 
 on self, and a distrust of God ; a belief that self is infallible, 
 but that God may be a liar. This is God's own phrase- 
 ology, or we would not dare adopt and use it ; but it is 
 God's. Hath made God a liar, 
 
 Here is one consequence of unbelief ; it puts the 
 being into a moral attitude, and developes a moral state, 
 in which, according to God's testimony, and we may add, 
 man's knowledge (the thing being clear even to reason), 
 if a man dies thus and enters on his eternal career, he is 
 sinful and must be miserable. He is at odds with God on 
 the question which is to be trusted, self or God, and on 
 the question which is to submit, self or God ; and the very 
 question which makes him an enemy, launches him into 
 eternity a selfish unbeliever, with a lie thrown in the face 
 of God. He cannot have God's blessing, cannot enter 
 into rest, in such a state ; but, under the same law of sin 
 and death, under which he passed through this world, and 
 entered on the eternal world, under that same law he must 
 remain, and under God's curse in consequence. For the 
 experience to which he looked forward to settle the ques- 
 tion whether he should change his course, whether there 
 
44 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 would be any need to change it, not deeming God's testi- 
 mony sufficient, cannot and will not alter his character, 
 and, moreover, neither can nor will leave any more oppor- 
 tunity or possibility of change. ? 
 
 This is the second consequence. The experience, 
 against which he was forewarned of God, is experience of 
 evil. He was forewarned, that he might avoid it, and fore- 
 warned of it as eternal, and because it is eternal, and this 
 life the only opportunity of avoiding it. Consequently, 
 if he dares to hazard the test of experience on this ques- 
 tion, he does it at an infinite hazard, and it is infinite 
 madness to do it. The experiment of faith, to which God 
 invites him, and commands him, as his only way of salva- 
 tion, can do him no harm, and even if he should fail, 
 would leave him no worse off than before. But the ex- 
 periment of experience, if that goes against him, if he finds 
 by that that God's Word was true, is his eternal perdition. 
 It is a thing that seals his destiny, a thing from which he 
 cannot turn back, an experience that, by the very terms 
 of the contract, so to speak, if he enters on it, is eternal, 
 and ruins his soul. The experiment is, whether there be 
 a hell, an endless hell. He says to himself, If there be 
 not, then I have no need to deny myself, and take all the 
 trouble of faith in Christ, submission to the cross, and a 
 belief in all the system of God's revelation, for there is no 
 such danger of ruin as God's testimony declares. But if 
 there be, what then ? Why, if there be a hell, then, 
 according to the terms of the contract, he is in it ; he 
 knows it, by being an inhabitant of it. If there be, it is 
 too late for him to retract. The experience to which he 
 looked forward, questioning whether there be any fires of 
 evil in eternity, is the experience of hell-fire itself. This 
 is the very condition of his experiment, and he knows 
 beforehand that if it goes against him, it does so for ever, 
 and he is lost ; and yet he dares hazard it. 
 
 He hazards it in spite of all the vast array of means 
 which God has set in motion to prevent his hazarding it, 
 
CHRIST IN THE MIND. 45 
 
 and to save him from the necessity of it. He hazards it 
 in the face of Christ and his cross, which is a demonstra- 
 tion to the universe, and not only a provision whereby the 
 soul may be saved, but demonstration that without faith in 
 Christ the ruin of the soul is eternal. He rushes to 
 destruction past the law and the cross, the justice and the 
 mercy of God, standing in his way. The arms of divine 
 love, at the expense of the incarnation and death of the 
 Son of God, are stretched across his path to stop him ; 
 but he stoops downward, as it were, to avoid .them, and 
 darts beneath and beyond them, to plunge himself into 
 that tempest of fire, that experiment of the reality of hell, 
 of which he might know, by the cross of Christ itself, 
 that there could be no more question than of the reality 
 of his own existence as a sinner. But he is gone, gone 
 past recovery ; and his soul knows the fire of hell, by 
 having its windows opened upon him, and the fountains 
 of its great deep broken up within him. And so knowing 
 it, he knows that it is eternal. 
 
 Now this was the scepticism and consequent experience 
 of the rich man of Christ's parable, in contrast with the 
 faith and consequent experience of Lazarus. He was, in 
 all probability, a Sadducee. He had questioned or 
 denied the great truth of future endless retributions drawn 
 from the writings of Moses and the Prophets. The testi- 
 mony of God had not been enough for him. He had 
 questioned the reality of a future state, and so doing, he 
 said, " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." 
 Accordingly, his whole life was, to be clothed in fine linen, 
 and to fare sumptuously every day. But in rejecting the 
 testimony of God, he took upon himself the responsibility 
 of the consequences, if that testimony should be found 
 true. And in hell he met the solution of his doubts, and 
 the eternal end of his scepticism. " In hell he lifted up 
 his eyes, being in torments." It was nothing but the 
 world of experience, the world which he had chosen as 
 his own. And now, strange as it may seem, he was 
 
46 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 anxious to have the same drama played over with regard 
 to his unbelieving 'brethren, which he had so often on 
 earth demanded should be played with himself ; that is, 
 
 that one should be sent to them from the dead, for thev 
 
 i . j 
 
 would not hear Moses and the Prophets. They would not 
 believe on God's Word, but demanded sense and experience. 
 " Nay, father Abraham, but if one went unto them from 
 the dead, they will believe." I should myself have believed, 
 had some dead messenger come to me from this fiery gulf. 
 And the calm, serene, holy majesty of heaven answers, 
 " They have Moses and the Prophets ; let them hear them. 
 If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither would 
 they believe, though one rose from the dead/' 
 
 Now there is no describing, in adequate colors, the mad- 
 ness and the guilt of such infinite presumption. If a man 
 should throw himself into a caldron of red hot boiling 
 potash, saying that he wished to ascertain by experiment 
 whether it would destroy life, no question would be had as 
 to his insanity. If a man should throw himself into the 
 crater of Vesuvius, saying that he doubted the stories told 
 about its fires were mere stories, and he wished the testi- 
 mony of experience ; no doubt would be had in regard to 
 his insanity. If a man of a company travelling across 
 the country in the direction of the terrible volcanic lake 
 of Kailua, should say to his companions, There is no 
 need of our going such a round-about way to get to the 
 other side ; it will take so many hours, and such fatiguing 
 labor ; so wearisome an expedition, that for my part I 
 choose to go directly across the lake. But you are mad, 
 his companions would say ; you know better ; you cannot 
 touch the lake with the sole of your foot without destruc- 
 tion. But I do not believe that, answers the man, and I 
 am determined not to believe, except by experience. 
 Why, thou reckless, thou infinite fool, they might answer 
 him, thou canst not touch thy body to the fire without 
 death, and wilt thou hazard thyself in such madness ? 
 But the man thinks he has a garment of asbestos, that 
 
CHRIST IN THE MIND. 47 
 
 will keep him from burning, and so, while his companions 
 take their way around the borders of the volcano, he 
 marches straight in the direction across it, and perishes. 
 Just this, but infinitely worse, is the madness that dares 
 the experiment of the fires of hell, as a matter of experi- 
 ence. 
 
 In the nature of things, in regard to the evil in eternity, 
 of which men are warned, they cannot have the evidence 
 of experience, but must take that of faith, which is given 
 for this very purpose, that that of experience may be 
 avoided, may not be incurred, it being eternal. 
 
 We may and must solemnly reflect upon this point. We 
 must call to mind again the great reason why a revelation 
 from God is given at all, which is because the destiny to 
 come is an eternal one, because the heaven to be lost, if 
 lost, is eternal, and the retributions to be endured, if 
 endured at all, are eternal. We may safely say, that if 
 this were not the case, there would have been no revelation, 
 because no need of such an interposition of the Almighty 
 as that revelation supposes and discloses. The human 
 race could as well have gone on and have been saved 
 without a revelation as with one. The very fact on 
 which that revelation is grounded is the fact of a future 
 state of endless retribution, to which this world, according 
 to the character formed in it, is an introduction. What 
 makes God's warnings so awfully impressive is, that they 
 are warnings as to a threatened experience which is end- 
 less. There is no return from it, no change of it, after it 
 be once entered. Heaven is changeless in enjoyment, 
 hell is changeless in misery ; heaven in holiness, hell in 
 sin. This is what has produced a revelation. This 
 eternity of our future condition has made the Cross a 
 reality ; for without it there had been no Saviour suffering, 
 dying, and no need of one. And the cross itself, the sys- 
 tem of redemption, this vast, incomprehensible, all-com- 
 prehending transaction, demonstrates that eternal retribu- 
 tion, and makes its eternity a reality. The system itself, 
 
48 GRACE AND TRUTH, CHRIST IN THE MIND. 
 
 the gospel itself, in the character of the sinner, and the 
 character of the Son of God, is such, that if accepted, it 
 secures heaven as eternal ; but if rejected, is death unto 
 death, and renders hell both inevitable and eternal. It is 
 under these circumstances that God has said that there is 
 no way or possibility of salvation except through Christ, 
 and that he has added to this the warning of the Holy 
 Ghost, TO-DAY ! " To-day, if ye will hear his voice, 
 harden not your hearts." And why not To-morrow? 
 Because, To-morrow may be ETERNITY, instead of being 
 a new To-day. To-morrow, when put in the bosom of 
 To-day, is sacrificed beforehand. The evil that is not 
 believed in, and so felt by faith as present, to-day, will 
 to-morrow, if to-morrow comes, be still less believed in, 
 and still less felt as present. Because sentence against 
 an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart 
 of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. 
 
 "Not that which full of life, instinct with power, 
 Makes known its present being ; that is not 
 The true, the perilously formidable." 
 
 Men are on their guard against that; men flee from 
 that, because they see and feel it. 
 
 " O no ! it is the common, the quite common, 
 The thing of an eternal yesterday, 
 What ever was, and evermore returns, 
 Sterling to-morrow, for to-day 'twas sterling! 
 For of the wholly common is man made, 
 And custom is his nurse." 
 
 Yea, the custom of security to-day makes men feel that 
 to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant. 
 Faith in To-morrow, instead of Christ, is Satan's nurse, 
 for man's perdition. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Sympathy with God and sympathy with man. Faith in God's Word, faith in 
 God's holiness and justice, and faith in man's guilt, the elements of power 
 in leading the Soul to faith in Chrifct the Saviour. Comparison of Edwards 
 and Whitefield. Comparison of revivals of religion as produced mainly 
 by true sympathy with God, and a regard to his glory, or mainly by 
 sympathy with man and the desire of salvation. 
 
 THE view we have taken in the preceding chapters con- 
 cerning the necessity of faith in the evil as well as the 
 good disclosed of God awaiting us in the eternal world, 
 is attended with important consequences as to the elements 
 of Christian power and usefulness. It is manifest that 
 sympathy with God is to be coveted and relied upon 
 rather than sympathy with man. It is manifest that all 
 righteous and truly useful sympathy with man grows out 
 of sympathy with God, and cannot exist without it. Here 
 is the line between a true and false theology, and a genuine 
 and spurious benevolence. Heartfelt benevolence is the 
 child of faith in God ; so is all correct theology ; we are 
 thrown upon simple faith in God's Word. There must be 
 faith in God, simply and alone, as to the nature and con- 
 sequences of sin in an untried world, as to God's own 
 feelings towards the sinner and his treatment of him, and 
 as to the eternity of future punishment. There must be 
 faith in God as to all these points, above all human sym- 
 pathy, and then true human sympathy will proceed out of 
 that faith. But if we begin with human sympathy, and 
 reason from that towards God, we shall believe man rather 
 
 3 
 
50 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 than God, we shall color our theology by our wishes and 
 our suppositions of what we think ought to be, instead of 
 what we learn from God's Word is. This is a habit 
 that destroys faith, which must receive its knowledge of 
 God's government from God himself, toot man. 
 
 We have experience of some things, but for all that lies 
 beyond our experience, we must trust God. We have 
 experience of sin in ourselves, but if our faith goes no 
 further than experience, we shall have radically defective 
 views both of human depravity and of its deserts and 
 consequences. We have experience of sin in ourselves, 
 but our examination of that experience is necessarily 
 superficial, even because of our own sinfulness ; and in 
 regard to God's view of sin, and his treatment of it, we 
 are thrown entirely upon faith. Hence, the amazing 
 power of great faith in God, which gives a man command 
 of the deepest depths of human experience, and enables 
 him to master an experience in man, on the authority of 
 God, beyond the measurement of individual consciousness, 
 and to wield it as an element of irresistible conviction. 
 Faith in God carries a man to depths of self-knowledge, 
 and knowledge of human nature, otherwise unattainable. 
 A man under the guidance of it may be ploughing into 
 the souls of men in furrows of depravity never before laid 
 open, perhaps unsuspected and unacknowledged, at sight 
 of which the complacent self-consciousness, that would 
 have gnashed its teeth in rebellion, becomes the enlight- 
 ened, wounded, angry conscience, that indicts the soul in 
 guilt before God. 
 
 But there must be faith in God's Word ; the source of 
 this power is that faith, faith both in God and man as pre- 
 sented in God's Word. It is the possession or deficiency 
 of this element of faith in God as presented in his Word, 
 that constitutes power or weakness in the soul ; and in the 
 presentation of the subject, produces either unmingled, 
 majestic, overwhelming truth, or a mixture of falsehood. 
 It was this faith in God's Word, and in God as presented 
 
CHRIST IN THE MIND. 51 
 
 in his Word, that made one of the elements, perhaps the 
 grand element, of irresistible power in the ministry of 
 Jonathan Edwards. It was the deficiency of this faith 
 that made the element of weakness and poverty in the 
 ministry of John Foster, who, powerful and clear as he 
 was in the excavation of the human heart, and the pro- 
 vince of religious morality, and splendid as his genius was, 
 in grandeur of imagination, profound thought, and exquisite 
 taste and sensibility, was shorn of his power, and betrayed 
 into lamentable weakness on the point on which he doubted, 
 on the views of God's government and man's destiny, 
 which he did not take from the Word of God. We bring 
 these two great minds together for illustration. Edwards 
 believed and reasoned ; Foster doubted and reasoned ; both 
 reasoned strongly, but Edwards in God's light, Foster in 
 man's twilight. In the light there are nothing but clear, 
 well-defined, not doubtful objects ; in the twilight there is 
 gathering gloom and perplexity ; you may mistake a man 
 for a tree. Edwards was clear and irresistible, Foster 
 perplexed and hesitating ; Edwards had the certainty of 
 God, Foster the uncertainty of man. Edwards accepted 
 the character and administration of God, as presented in 
 his Word; he saw God in God's own light, not man's. 
 Foster let it be colored through the prism of the sympathy 
 of man with man ; he saw God and his administration 
 through man's miseries and sins, instead of seeing man's 
 sins through God. What an incomparably higher position 
 of observation, light, and power, was that of Edwards ! 
 
 And here much depends upon personal experience at 
 the outset. Deep conviction of sin, and heartfelt contrition 
 for it, are great helps to faith in God's Word ; they make 
 a man take God's part against himself, and against the 
 sinner, instead of taking the sinner's part against God. 
 The truly contrite heart, enlightened as to God's holiness, 
 and filled with his love, rejoices in God's sovereignty, and 
 in all God's judgments. Such a heart speaks of God at 
 once from the secret place of thunder, and the deepest 
 
52 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 springs of love. He that is spiritual judgeth all things, 
 while he himself is judged of no man. Sympathy with 
 God gives prodigious power over man ; it carries all 
 things before it. While Edwards was preaching his 
 stupendous sermon, " Sinners in thfe hands of an angry 
 God," it was his high, holy, perfect sympathy with God, 
 that raised him to such a gigantic, almost superhuman 
 effort. The sermon might remind one of the rolling 
 thunder of the fierce chariot of Messiah, as described by 
 Milton, driven, gloomy as night, against the sinning 
 angels, and shaking the steadfast empyrean in its whirl- 
 wind round. That sermon was made up out of three 
 mighty elements, which in our time are much wanting : 
 faith in God's Word, faith in God's holiness and justice, 
 and faith in man's guilt. For concentrated, intense, glow- 
 ing fire and power, it is like what men's ideal might per- 
 haps be of the mightiest of Demosthenes' orations. It is 
 awful beyond expression in its gloomy grandeur, but 
 irresistibly powerful in its onward increasing pressure of 
 truth, which is like that vast volcanic cataract of fire that 
 we have read of in the Sandwich Islands, precipitated 
 over a perpendicular mountain wall of rock, sheer into 
 the ocean. 
 
 That sermon w r as borne out, every sentence of it, by 
 the Word of God ; borne out by the demonstration of 
 man's guilt and danger in the fact that Christ died for 
 sinners ; and borne out by the words of the beloved and 
 loving disciple, that " he that believeth not the Son of God 
 shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." 
 We think that John, when he used such expressions in the 
 gospel, and repeated them in various forms in the book of 
 Revelations, had quite as much love to God and love to 
 man, as those who, in our day, undertake to criticize 
 Edwards for not properly representing the Divine benevo- 
 lence. The sermon which he preached, to which we have 
 referred, was in the midst of the great work of God's 
 grace in 1741, and it was honored of God by the imme- 
 
CHRIST IN THE MIND. 53 
 
 diate conversion of souls. And the truth is that all 
 true, genuine, lasting sympathy for man and benevolence 
 to man must have for its foundation a real and genuine 
 sympathy with God's holiness and justice ; if not, it is 
 radically defective. There is a sickly pretence of com- 
 passionate and tender feeling, that shudders at such 
 representations of God's justice as are found in the Scrip- 
 tures ; but it is because there is more of sympathy with 
 man as a sinner, than with God as a holy God. Sympathy 
 with God, and a regard to his glory, was at the bottom of 
 the great revival in Edwards's day ; sympathy with man 
 has been more characteristic of the revivals in our day. 
 The lack of sympathy with God is that deficiency in 
 Christian character, which makes even true revivals of 
 religion of short duration, and permits the mixture in them 
 of extraneous and superficial ingredients. Sympathy 
 with man makes a periodical and fitful piety ; sympathy 
 with God a deepening and enduring piety, the same 
 yesterday, to-day, and for ever. 
 
 Now it is comparatively easy to play upon men's sym- 
 pathies, and to stir them deeply and powerfully ; but it 
 is not so easy to raise men to adoring, submissive, 
 reverential, and loving views of God's holiness and justice. 
 These two things must be mingled. But whereas the last 
 may be exceedingly powerful with but little of the first, 
 the first will be powerless or useless without the last. And 
 whereas a great degree of the last, a true and deep sym- 
 pathy with God, will certainly and inevitably be productive 
 of true and deep sympathy with man (though from defect 
 of natural tenderness of sensibility, or want of suitableness 
 of manner and of illustration, it may not so clearly appear), 
 mere sympathy with man is by no means sure of being 
 accompanied or followed by sympathy with God. 
 
 The celebrated Whitefield possessed a natural constitu- 
 tional sympathy with man to a remarkable degree, 
 sanctified by Divine grace, and sustained and carried out 
 by a great and true sympathy with God, and a theology 
 
54 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 that abased man and exalted God. Whitefield and 
 Edwards may be advantageously compared, as instances, 
 the first of preponderating sympathy with man, the last of 
 preponderating sympathy with God ; but both men of 
 extraordinary piety, extraordinary attainments in holiness, 
 though as to vastness and strength of intellect there could 
 scarcely be a comparison. Whitefield could never have 
 preached Edwards's sermon, " Sinners in the hands of an 
 angry God ;" it would not have been in his nature, either 
 of mind or heart. He would have been compelled to stop 
 forty times to present the love of Christ amidst the 
 thunders of the law, and to weep and exclaim with his 
 congregation, in tones of sympathizing tenderness and 
 love. And the concentrated, deepening power of the 
 sermon, and its intolerable pressure upon the conscience, 
 increasing to the close, would have been weakened and 
 lightened thereby, while its power over men's sympathies 
 would have been immeasurably augmented. There would 
 have been all the difference, and more than all, that \ve 
 might, under certain circumstances, conceive between the 
 effect of Old Hundred, or Luther's Judgment Hymn, and 
 a melody like Woodstock, in the words, 
 
 " There is n fountain filled with blood, 
 Drawn from Iminanuel's veins." 
 
 Each of these preachers might have been more power- 
 ful by a participation in each other's excellences and 
 peculiar elements of power. Edwards stood nearer to 
 God, Whitefield stood nearer to man. There was more 
 in Whitefield with which an ordinary congregation could 
 sympathize ; he was nearer to the level of all men wher- 
 ever he addressed them ; and he possessed a surpassing 
 persuasiveness and eloquence of manner, of which 
 Edwards was almost entirely destitute. 
 
 The case of Whitefield's sermon on the text, "When 
 he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his 
 
CHRIST IN THE MIND. 55 
 
 baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers ! who 
 hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come ?" may 
 be compared with that of Edwards on the text, " Their 
 feet shall slide in due time." An irreligious young man, 
 converted through the instrumentality of Whitefield's 
 preaching on that occasion, has given some account of it. 
 " Mr. Whitefield," said he, in relating this passage in the 
 history of his own immortal life, " described the Sadducean 
 character ; this did not touch me. I thought myself as 
 good a Christian as any man in England. From this he 
 went to that of the Pharisees. He described their exterior 
 decency, but observed that the poison of the viper rankled 
 in their hearts. This rather shook me. At length, in the 
 course of the sermon, he abruptly broke off, paused for a 
 few moments, then burst into a flood of tears, lifted up his 
 hands and eyes, and exclaimed;-' Oh my hearers ! the wrath 
 to come ! the wrath to come !' These words sank deep 
 into my heart like lead in the waters. I wept, and when 
 the sermon was ended, retired alone. For days and 
 weeks I could think of little else. Those awful words 
 would follow me, wherever I went, * The wrath to come ! 
 The ujra^h to come !' ' And that sound, and that text, 
 borne into his soul on the thrilling tones of Whitefield's 
 impassioned voice, was God's instrument for that indi- 
 vidual's conversion. He made a public profession of 
 religion, and became a very eminent preacher of the 
 gospel. 
 
 Now if Edwards had been preaching on that text, he 
 never would have stopped thus, and lifted up his hands 
 and wept ; what was nature and habit in Whitefield would 
 have been theatrical affectation in Edwards ; he would 
 have gone on steady with God's wrath to the end of the 
 chapter. Unquestionably Whitefield's own sermon, in 
 Whitefield's hands, was more impressive and effective than 
 it could have been in Edwards's hands. But the foundation 
 of its impressiveness was the same ingredient of the wrath 
 of God ; and although Edwards had more of sympathy 
 
56 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 with God's holiness and justice, and less of constitutional 
 sympathy with man's sensibilities, there was in each the 
 same view of the action of the Divine attributes in regard 
 to sin and the sinner, the same glowing love to Christ, 
 and the same heartfelt compassion for souls consequent 
 thereon. 
 
 There was in Edwards a wonderful simplicity and 
 power of faith in God's Word, combined with a vast com- 
 prehension of its meaning. There was a wonderful union 
 of faith in God's Word and experience of God's life. 
 These two things grew together, and strengthened and 
 reacted upon each other. Faith in God alone, to a certain 
 degree, may be merely human, but faith in God's Word is 
 divine. A degree of faith in God is perhaps so constitu- 
 tional, that no man is born into the world and grows up 
 without it. But faith in God's Word is the work of God's 
 Spirit. Faith in God's Word, and that faith in God which 
 springs from his Word as the seed of it in the soul, is the 
 spring of all power. There can be no true faith in God 
 not founded in, and springing from, his Word. Since 
 Christ came, no man cometh to the Father, or knoweth 
 the Father, but by Him ; and of Him, the Word is the 
 only revelation. Mere faith in God, or the conviction 
 that God is, and that he judges his accountable creatures, 
 to which degree of belief nature herself may rise, must be, 
 with fallen creatures, mostly, if not merely, fear. But 
 faith in God's Word receives God as revealed in Christ, 
 and beholds in him a forgiving God, and when perfected 
 in love, casteth out fear. Belief in God may be a bondage, 
 like the faith of devils ; belief in God's Word is a child- 
 like, filial trust in God's attributes ; it is the belief of 
 love, the exercise of the heart. It is neither constraint 
 by conscience, nor compulsion by mere argument. It is 
 the spontaneous synthesis of reason and the affections, of 
 logic and love, seeing God in his Word, knowing God 
 through his Word. It knows God, because, with the 
 witness of the Spirit, it sees, hears, knows, the Word. 
 
CHRIST IN THE MIND. 57 
 
 It hears and knows the Word, because, by the witness of 
 the Spirit, it knows God. " My sheep hear my voice. I 
 know my sheep, and am known of mine." A stranger's 
 voice will they not hear, but the voice of the Shepherd 
 they distinguish and know. It is a sensitiveness, a deli- 
 cacy, a positive knowledge of the heaven-taught soul, 
 which might be called a spiritual, heavenly instinct. 
 
 But this faith leads the soul to consult the Word, and 
 not man nor self, for all its knowledge of God's attributes, 
 and of the action of those attributes towards man. Such 
 a soul will not consult a priori reasoning, or the senti- 
 mentality of mere human sympathy, to see what God will 
 do with sinful man, or what are God's feelings towards the 
 sinner, but submissively and confidently takes God's Word, 
 and sympathizes with God, as there exhibited. This was 
 the grand source of the power of Edwards, and the 
 strength of his theology. He took what he found in God's 
 Word, and proclaimed it, whether men would hear or 
 forbear. 
 
 He told men, from God's Word, that God is angry with 
 the wicked every day, and that God hates all the workers 
 of iniquity ; a thing which God, as a holy God, must do, 
 and which if he did not do, he would never have given 
 his Son to die for them. For if sin were not so great, so 
 odious, so dreadful and terrible an evil, so malignant 
 against all good, so destructive of the welfare of the whole 
 universe of God, and so opposed to every attribute of 
 God, as to make God of necessity hate the sinner, there 
 would be nothing in sin so terrible as that God could not 
 save the sinner without Christ's dying for him ; there 
 would be nothing, indeed, in sin of such a nature as to be 
 absolute perdition to the soul. For there never can be 
 perdition to anybody or anything, on which God's wrath 
 does not lie eternally ; and it is impossible that God's 
 wrath should lie eternally on any being or thing, which he 
 does not eternally, and by the necessity of his own good- 
 ness, hate. 
 
 3* 
 
58 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 Therefore, when in John it is said that " he that 
 believeth not the Son, the wrath of God abideth on him," 
 it is merely and only a repetition of what is said in the 
 fifth Psalm, " Thou hatest all the workers of iniquity." 
 God cannot do otherwise than hate them, from the very 
 necessity of his own goodness. Nay, from 'the necessity 
 of his own mercy and love to the universe, he must hate 
 sinners, because they, as sinners, are living only to the 
 injury and pain and suffering of the universe, and God 
 cannot love them. In just as much as God loves the 
 happiness of the universe, and the well-being of the soul, 
 he must hate the sinner. It is because he hates the sinner, 
 as a sinner, but knows the value of the soul, and loves the 
 soul, that he has given his own Son to die, that sinners 
 may be saved ; and the salvation of sinners is their being 
 brought out from that state of character, in which God 
 could not but hate them, into that glorious and blessed 
 change and state of character, in Christ, in which God 
 can and does love them. And he himself brings them out 
 of that state, and he himself changes and saves them ; 
 changes and saves them, because he loves their welfare 
 while he hates their character, and knows that their wel- 
 fare is impossible, while their character is such that a holy 
 God must hate it. 
 
 The source of power over man is a living faith in 
 God and sympathy with God, as thus revealed and ex- 
 hibited in his Word. We must go to the RECORD, and 
 there learn what God is, and what man is ; what is due 
 to God's glory, and what is essential to man's good. 
 Without this embedding of the soul in the Word, all our 
 revival piety is convulsive, and needs both reviving and 
 steadying. Without this, it is not so much faith in God, 
 a mighty, calm, deep possession of our souls by the things 
 of the gospel, an oceanic and eternal life, as it is unstable 
 and constitutional sympathy ; not so much faith, as it is 
 sight ; not so much God and his glory, as it is men and 
 churches. The piety of the Apostles and Reformers was 
 
CHRIST IN THE MIND. 59 
 
 God-ward, ours is man-ward. Theirs was self-absorption 
 in God, self-crucifixion in Christ, baptism and vitality in 
 God's Word ; ours is self-glorification in Christianity as 
 perfecting the world and mankind, evangelization as the 
 remedy of the world's evils, and a living on God's Word 
 from hand to mouth. They took their stand-point in 
 God and the Cross ; we ours in man and expediency. 
 They said that God must be glorified, we say that men 
 must be saved. Vastly higher, deeper, broader is the piety 
 that says God must be glorified, than the piety that merely 
 says, man must be saved. A man may, indeed, do much 
 by the last ; the last, if genuine, is the fruit of the first ; 
 the first comprehends the last, produces it, and is its only 
 source and sustaining energy. A church filled with the 
 first, with a desire for God's glory, and bowed down 
 beneath its power, will move on in the work of the world's 
 salvation with a majesty, a calmness, an unwavering 
 resolution, a steady lustre, and a mighty triumph, while 
 sympathy for man alone will be periodical, . fickle, often 
 desponding, and easily perplexed. 
 
 These two things must be combined ; and when God 
 trains a church that truly and thoroughly unites them, it 
 will be the most glorious and powerful exhibition of grace 
 the world has ever seen. It cannot be that the church, 
 intended of God to be the world's true measure and mode, 
 both of time and rest, should ever be swinging, as a 
 vast pendulum, between extremes. And these extremes, 
 in their negation and ignorance one of another, have 
 maintained in the world a series of defective and almost 
 antagonistical presentations of piety ; a pretended ecstatic 
 piety in the contemplation of God, which never comes 
 down in sympathy and contact with man's guilt and 
 misery, or a morality and sympathy towards man, which 
 never rises to its only true fountain in the love of God. 
 
 The vast corruptions of Christianity and of the Church 
 have been occupied in crucifying a living Christ ; the 
 formal preservations and presentations of Christianity and 
 
60 GRACE AND TRUTH, CHRIST IN THE MIND. 
 
 of the Church have been occupied in embalming a dead 
 Christ. The first have been busy adorning, glorifying, and 
 strengthening their despotic hierarchies ; the last have 
 been engaged in cutting and drying their dogmatic ortho- 
 doxies. Between both, the work of Christ and his Church 
 in this guilty, dying world, to seek and to save the lost, 
 has been fearfully neglected. Now shall at length come 
 the period, when truth shall no longer be tossed in a 
 gorgeous robe between Herod and Pilate, nor crucified by 
 a remorseless hierarchy as a sacrifice for the life of its 
 own despotism, nor laid up for mere speculation, as form 
 without love. In the world, as in individual loving hearts, 
 it shall be Grace and Truth, in the form and activity of 
 Love ; a supreme regard to God's glory producing man's 
 highest good. 
 
DEVELOPMENT, DISCIPLINE, 
 
 AND 
 
 FKUITS OF FAITH, 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 GRACE AND TRUTH. 
 CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
WINDINGS OF THE KIVEK, 
 CONTINUED. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Schoolmaster and the Father. The Servant and the Child. Faith pro- 
 duced by the combustion of God's promises with man's sins. 
 
 THERE is a great difference between God's light upon the 
 mind, disclosing sin, and God's light in Christ, disclosing 
 grace, pardon, and life. God comes through Moses to the 
 mind and conscience, and makes the soul see and feel the 
 need of Christ, see and feel the burden of sin, which no being 
 but Christ can remove. The Old Testament does not 
 come to any man without the New; no man knows Moses, 
 who may not, by means of Moses, know Christ ; neither 
 does John the Baptist, between the Old and New, appear 
 anywhere, crying Make straight the way of the Lord, but 
 the Lord himself is close at hand. John may say to-day, 
 There standeth one among you, whom ye know not ; but if 
 any soul will listen attentively, seriously, humbly, to Moses 
 and John, the next day John will be able to point out Jesus, 
 saying, Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin 
 of the World. While in the maze and horror of convic- 
 tion of sin under Moses and John, oftentimes all that 
 the soul knows of Christ is that voice of John, There 
 
64 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 standeth one among you whom ye know not ; and perhaps 
 the soul wonders, Who can it be ? Where is he ? Oh, 
 that I might see him, might find him, might know him ! 
 When the soul has been long enough in that maze and 
 horror of sin and desolation, under the law and rod of 
 Moses the Schoolmaster, and John the Usher, to be beaten 
 down and humbled, groaning beneath the burden of sin, 
 then comes that animating sweet voice, and a bright form 
 rises on the soul with it, Behold the Lamb of God, who 
 taketh away the sin of the world. The sin of the world ? 
 says the soul, then my sin. And coming nearer to the 
 gracious being whom Moses and John point out, another 
 voice, sweeter still, speaks to the burdened soul, Come 
 unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will 
 give you rest ! That is the completion of mercy, the ful- 
 filment of grace. That voice, truly heard by the soul 
 chastised and beaten down by Moses, and instructed of 
 him and John, finishes the victory, and the soul is at the 
 feet of Christ, its blindness removed, its darkness and its 
 burden gone ; the sinner sits there and weeps for joy, 
 clothed and in his right mind. 
 
 " And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." 
 When Christ is lifted up, that is the end. And Christ's is 
 the conquering voice. Moses and John can point the 
 way, and say to the soul, go ! Christ only can say, come ! 
 Moses can lift up the brazen serpent, and say, Look, and 
 live! And John, seeing Jesus, can say, Behold the Lamb 
 of God ! But Christ only can say, Come unto me ! Moses 
 and John can say, This is the way, walk ye in it! Christ 
 only can say, I am the Way, the Truth, the Life. Moses 
 and John can cry, The wrath to come! The wrath to 
 come ! Flee from the wrath to come ! Christ only can 
 say, Look unto me, and be ye saved ! I will give you rest. 
 Moses and John can lay the burden on the soul, Christ 
 only can remove it. 
 
 God's light, out of Christ, falling into the mind and con- 
 science, discloses sin ; and even by the Cross, if Christ be not 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 65 
 
 received into the heart, it discloses nothing but sin. Unto 
 them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure ; but 
 even their mind and conscience are defiled. The light 
 shining thus alone, is like light in a dark room or dungeon, 
 disclosing all the rats and impurities. But Christ in the 
 mind and conscience, when God has shined into the heart, 
 in the face of Jesus Christ, is purity and peace, is forgiveness 
 and justification, is wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, 
 and redemption. All this he is made unto us of God ; of 
 whom are ye in Christ Jesus, that according as it is 
 written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. The 
 light upon the mind and conscience condemned by the 
 law, and shut up under it, is to turn it to the promise by 
 faith, and to him who is the object of faith and the source 
 of forgiveness, Jesus Christ. That is Moses, dealing with 
 the soul through the conscience, showing the curse, and 
 crying, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all 
 things written in the book of the law to do them. Not 
 against the promises of God, but to make the soul grasp at 
 the promise and cling to it and come to Christ by it. And 
 then the law-work and the curse-work is done, Christ 
 having redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made 
 a curse for us, so that we might receive the promise of the 
 Spirit through faith. And thus to as many as receive that 
 promise, and by it receive him, from whom it comes, and 
 to whom it points, to them he gives the right, the power, 
 the privilege, to become the sons of God, even to them 
 who believe in his name. And thus the great work of 
 Moses and of John is finished, and the soul that was under 
 the rod, the burden, the condemnation, and the bondage, at 
 school to an inexorable master, becomes the child, the heir, 
 prepared for the inheritance, the redeemed and regene- 
 rated freeman in Christ Jesus. For the law was our 
 schoolmaster, to bring us to Christ, that we might be 
 justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no 
 longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children 
 of God by faith in Christ Jesus. And because ye are sons, 
 
66 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, 
 crying Abba, Father. And thou art no more a servant, 
 but a son ; and if a Son, then an heir of God through Christ. 
 
 Now what inexpressible loveliness of wisdom and glory 
 is in this system ! Would to God that every soul might 
 follow this experience, might thus trace the blessed way 
 from Moses to Christ ; blessed, because it makes the soul 
 hate sin, and because it ends in Christ ; blessed, though 
 ever so painful. And there is no reason in the world why 
 every soul should not have this experience of Sons, this 
 experience of Moses' schoolmastership leading to Christ ; 
 for it is perfectly free to all, and Moses takes all in hand, 
 nor is there any way or possibility of getting rid of Moses 
 and his bondage, but by finding Christ and his love. And 
 as Moses stands over the soul and behind it, beating it, 
 Christ stands before the soul inviting it, and crying, Who- 
 soever will, let him come, and I will give him rest. So it 
 is your own fault, if you do not come ; it is neither Moses' 
 fault, nor Christ's fault, but your own, and your own only. 
 
 Nevertheless, of all that hear the gospel, the vast multi- 
 tude stay away. Some stay in utter insensibility, even 
 under all the wrath and threatenings of Moses, and all the 
 tenderness and love of Christ. And others stay in bare 
 conviction, and though convinced of sin in some degree, yet 
 do not come to Christ. But all conviction is vain, unless 
 it be followed up by the gospel, by repentance, and faith, 
 and prayer, and Christ taking away sin. Some persons 
 never go further than conviction, and yet often have 
 enough of that to lead them to repentance, if they would 
 go to Christ, and see aright the gospel ; enough they have 
 of Moses in their mind and conscience, to know their need 
 of Christ and the way to him. But though they see and 
 know that they are sinners, they take not the means to 
 have their sins removed, and so the convictions, which are 
 now and then renewed, subside again, and leave them as 
 bad as before, and perhaps worse. They are like our 
 street contractors or laborers, who from time to time 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 67 
 
 sweep up the mud in noticeable piles, but send no carts to 
 convey it away, and in a week's time it is all again spread 
 over the streets as before with additions. So it is with 
 the mire of sin in men's souls, if, on conviction of sin, they 
 do not apply to Christ for its removal. 
 
 Moses can do much with the mind and conscience, but 
 Christ only can cleanse the heart, can put the truth into 
 the heart, grace and truth. Moses can make the truth 
 work for our perdition, but Christ only can make it work 
 our life, can make it the light of life. The truth often 
 temporarily makes a great impression on the mind and 
 conscience, but not being lodged in the heart, the fowls of 
 the air come and devour it up. They can easily catch it 
 away before it is rooted. The sermon which on Sabbath 
 evening seemed all light and power to an awakened mind 
 and conscience, not being carried to God for his blessing, 
 not being carried to Christ, for him to give it life in the 
 heart, Monday morning's brightness and gaiety and worldly 
 activity carry it all away. Then the mind wonders where 
 those impressions have gone. They have gone where the 
 heart has gone, and because the heart has gone, away from 
 God. The cares of life, the deceitfulness of riches, and the 
 lusts of other things, have choked the word, and the fowls 
 in Wall street, in Pearl street, in Vanity Fair, have carried 
 it off. 
 
 The mind, the conscience, the heart, and the life are all 
 concerned together in life-truth. If they are separated 
 from one another, if the connexion between them is 
 broken off, the truth perishes. A steamer may have fuel, 
 and water, and a boiler, and fire, and the steam may be 
 got up ; but if it do not pass into the great cylinder, and 
 set the beating heart in motion, it is all a waste. Or if 
 it do not pass from the beating heart to the wheels, to set 
 them in motion, it is all a waste. And the vessel may be 
 wrecked, whether at sea or near the coast, by a separation, 
 disconnexion, break, or disarrangement, between any of 
 these parts of the machinery. 
 
68 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 Just so it is with truth in the soul. If it stays merely 
 in the mind and conscience, and goes not by Divine grace 
 into the heart, it will just merely wreck the mind and 
 conscience, instead of keeping it ; it will explode, if it 
 becomes active, and yet is not admitted into the heart. 
 Or again, if it goes not from the heart into the life, it will 
 but condemn and harden and wreck the heart, because it 
 is the truth held in unrighteousness, a thing against which 
 God's seal of reprobation is most fearfully set. For the 
 wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodli- 
 ness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in 
 unrighteousness. Because, that which may be known of 
 God is manifest in them, for God hath showed it unto 
 them, and therefore they are without excuse. Indeed, all 
 truth, that is not obeyed in the life, by living in the affec- 
 tions, condemns the soul, and in the end, if the discon- 
 nexion be continued, destroys it. Christ, therefore, must 
 rule in the affections. And for this, a mighty and gradual 
 discipline is requisite, a work which Christ only, by 
 grace, by providence, by truth, can work. 
 
 Sometimes God takes one method, sometimes another, 
 and sometimes all methods fail, and the foolish, careless, 
 guilty sinner, regardless of all the riches of God's good- 
 ness, forbearance, and long-suffering, leading him to 
 repentance, goes on after his hardness and impenitent 
 heart, treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath, and 
 revelation of God's righteous judgment. " He goes on after 
 his hardness and impenitent heart ;" it is a striking ex- 
 pression ; he follows the impulses of his hardness and 
 impenitent heart, instead of the leadings of Christ ; he 
 pursues after his blind heart, instead of pursuing after 
 God. Some souls bend and break, submissive and 
 "penitent, under a discipline which other souls success- 
 fully resist. One soul becomes a broken bruised reed 
 under the blows of Moses, and then Christ instantly takes 
 the loving, tender charge of that soul, instead of Moses. 
 Another soul stands up firm and erect, stubborn, like an 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 69 
 
 upright, stout reed, cased in flint, and growing every day 
 harder and drier. The blows of Moses only harden it 
 more and more, and the tenderness of Christ, and the dews 
 of God's grace, falling about the roots, only seem to be 
 turned by it into tough fibre and silex. 
 
 We have known of a blacksmith, notorious for his 
 recklessness and unbelief on the subject of religion, with 
 a heart as hard as his own anvil. There was a revival by 
 God's grace in the village, and a second blacksmith in the 
 same place, who had been a hardened sinner, was con- 
 verted. One of this man's customers, who did not at all 
 relish this change, came shortly after to the first black- 
 smith, to have a piece of work done by him. Somewhat 
 surprised at this application, the blacksmith said, " How 
 is this, friend John ? I thought you got all your work done 
 at neighbor Charles's." " Ah, but he's too good now ; he 
 isn't bad enough for me ; your shop is the only tolerable 
 one now." The thing struck the man to the heart. It 
 was an unexpected, unintended blow of Moses. He went 
 home, cut through and through to think that he should be 
 considered the worst man in the village, and be patronized 
 by bad men solely on that account. He could not sleep 
 for thinking of it, and was filled with anxiety on account 
 of his sins. He went to the study of the Bible, and to 
 prayer. The sword of the Spirit went into his soul, and 
 he was brought to repentance. 
 
 So God works. But some there are, who complain of 
 their own insensibility, and wonder at it, and think they 
 would give much to have it removed, but still, for that 
 operation they do not put their hearts at the disposal of 
 Christ, or into his hands for healing. They are like blind 
 men sitting by the way-side, and making a great outcry 
 over their misfortune, but when the Physician comes that 
 way and calls them, they will not stir one step on their 
 own part towards him. What good would the most per- 
 fect dispensary in the world, and the most skilful oculists 
 in the world, waiting in it. do for the blind in a great city, if, 
 
70 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 being invited to come and have their blindness removed, 
 they would not come, but would stay away from fear of 
 the operation, or from sheer distrust and indolence ? 
 
 But in the name of all righteousness, mercy, and truth, 
 is not God himself doing everything lor men, to have this 
 insensibility taken away ? Does he not thunder with his 
 law, and tenderly persuade them with his gospel, and still 
 will they be like deaf adders, who will not hear the voice 
 of the charmer, charming never so wisely deaf to the 
 sound both of the wail of hell's torments, and the melody 
 of heaven's music ? But if these things do not dispel 
 our insensibility, if all the array of God's providences, 
 and all the terrors of the law, and the majesty and mercy 
 of the Cross of Christ fail to move us, what can do it ? 
 Would we have God take his rod and shatter us in 
 pieces, or would we have him put a worm in our gourds, 
 and make friends and comforts and health wither and die 
 away from us, or would we have him, when truth and 
 love will not prevail, dip us, as it were, in the burning 
 lake, and make us feel its torments ? Yet all the disci- 
 pline of God in the world, the moment it is taken off, 
 would fail to affect us lastingly, unless by the light of 
 God's truth, under the power of his grace, we come to 
 Christ. All God's discipline with us must come to this, 
 or come to naught. 
 
 And the discipline of light itself, in the cross of Christ, 
 is admirably adapted to produce this result. The same 
 light that shows us our guilt, is a light that shows us our 
 Saviour. It is not God as a holy God merely, that shines 
 upon our hearts, our life, our being, our ways. That 
 might be enough to show us our guilt, but it would simply 
 strike us down in despair ; for seeing how infinitely holy 
 God is, the clear sight of God would be only a sense of the 
 infinite distance between God and the soul, and of the 
 impossibility of ever passing that gulf of guilt, and get- 
 ting back to God. But God shines in Christ. And the 
 peculiarity of this light is, that the very arrangement and 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 71 
 
 nature of it, by which mercy is brought- to view, offered 
 and shown to be possible, is an arrangement that increases 
 the demonstration of man's guilt, shows it forth more 
 clearly, and in a way infinitely convincing and affecting. 
 The light that shows us a Saviour establishes beyond all 
 contradiction the fact of our guilt and ruin, and the great- 
 ness of it. And the light that shows the guilt shows the 
 Saviour. Moreover, it is not God's Word barely and 
 alone, to which he shuts us up for evidence ; he does not 
 leave us to that, without other helps to our faith. And 
 this is an extraordinary thing in God's mercy, a wonder- 
 ful view of it, that God bridges over for us the gulf of our 
 own insensibility and unbelief in regard to Christ, by 
 giving us an experience produced by his Word, even 
 before we have come to Christ. This experience growing 
 out of his Word, though an experience of sin, is neverthe- 
 less a plank thrown across the sheer gulf that in our 
 insensibility and darkness separates between us and God. 
 It is the effect of God's light in our own souls, upon our 
 own sins. That first effect of which we have spoken, 
 is to disclose what is \vithin us, what we ourselves are, in 
 contrast with what God is. That being done, and then 
 Christ being revealed, God in Christ, as a forgiving God 
 and Saviour, faith in Christ springs out of experience in 
 ourselves, and out of our own necessity and despair. 
 Faith in Christ is the flame produced by the meeting of 
 the Word of God and our experience, the promises of 
 God and our experience. Our experience is first produced 
 by God's light, God's condemning Word, God's holy law, 
 God's holy self, in contrast and conflict with the soul. 
 Then faith in Christ springs up out of the meeting of God's 
 promising Word with that experience ; God's promises and 
 our sins are the fuel. Out of that heap of fuel, kindled by 
 the Holy Spirit, blazes up the flame of faith in Christ. It 
 is a wonderful arrangement of God's mercy. For, let it 
 be noted, if God left us to ourselves as to the matter of 
 faith in Christ, if he came requiring faith in Christ, before 
 
72 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 any enlightening or experience vouchsafed beforehand in 
 regard to our guilt, his Word might preach Christ so for 
 ages, and there never would be faith either in it or in him. 
 That deep, impassable gulf between God and the soul 
 would remain impassable for ever, ancP none would attempt 
 to cross it. God crosses it in our experience, before we 
 would ever attempt to cross it, or even be aware of its 
 existence. God produces our experience, and lays it 
 down as that bridge for unbelief and insensibility itself to 
 walk upon, that experience of guilt, and so of the need of 
 Christ as a Saviour, and of God's forgiveness in him, out 
 of which, or upon which, the soul comes in faith to Christ. 
 
 But that experience itself, we see, would be nothing 
 without God's promises ; that is, would be nothing to pro- 
 duce faith, nothing but to produce despair, nothing but to 
 bring the soul to the verge of that horrible gulf, make it 
 look down into it, and then plunge it headlong in despair 
 for ever. So that God's promises in Christ are the piles 
 driven down into that gulf, the piers, deeper and stronger 
 than hell itself, on which that experience of hell may be 
 bottomed, may be flung as a bridge for the passage of the 
 soul in faith towards a Saviour. There it rests, upheld by 
 those foundations. And the foundations which as but- 
 tresses and piers sink below, and sustain the shock of all 
 the drift of chaos and of hell against them, rise also as a 
 fence or railing above, to keep the trembling, fearful soul, 
 walking thus upon its own terrible experience towards 
 Christ, from falling over, from plunging into the bosom of 
 despair instead of Christ. This is God's mercy, this is 
 God's infinitely wise and gracious arrangement. Out of 
 death he brings forth life. Out of the materials of sin 
 and hell and despair, he brings a passage to holiness and 
 salvation and joy and life eternal in the Saviour. Out of 
 condemnation in guilt he brings pardon, and out of the 
 grave, victory. 
 
 Now God having demonstrated this to us in many forms, 
 might have left us to our own experience and his pro- 
 
CHRIST IW THE AFFECTIONS. 73 
 
 mises ; and no man could have imagined what more we 
 could ask of him than that ; and yet God himself has gone 
 still further. For he has, as it were, thrown down this 
 bridge before our own eyes, and shown us other sinners 
 walking safely on it. There it is in the 32d Psalm, and 
 David going over it. And what is to be thought of the 
 prayer, " For thy name's sake pardon mine iniquity, for it 
 is great ?" Would it not be the strangest of all strange 
 prayers for a criminal to offer to the government, a 
 criminal guilty of a monstrous murder for example, if Jie 
 should say, My murder is the worst that was ever com- 
 mitted since Cain's ; the most atrocious, the most 
 deliberate, cruel, cold-blooded, inexcusable, and therefore 
 I beseech you for the government's sake to pardon me. 
 And yet that is David's prayer to God, that is the prayer 
 God teaches us to offer for his mercy : " For thy name's 
 sake pardon mine iniquity, for it is great." And so David 
 went over the bridge of his own sins into the heart of 
 God's mercy. And there it is again in the 2d Chronicles 
 xxxiii. 12, 13, and Manasseh going over it, that monstrous 
 sinner ! But God was entreated of him, and heard his 
 supplication. And there it is again in Luke xv., and the 
 Prodigal Son going over it And there it is again in 1st 
 Timothy i. 15, and Paul himself going over it, as the 
 chief of sinners, with the same argument, "For thy 
 name's sake pardon mine iniquity, for it is great." 
 
 And here let us stop one moment and see the progress 
 of Paul's experience. There is a peculiarly beautiful and 
 instructive series of climacterics in it, which has often been 
 noted. In the year of our Lord 59, he is the least of the 
 apostles, and not meet to be called an apostle, because he 
 persecuted the church of God. In the year of our Lord 
 64, after five years more of growth in grace, he is less than 
 the least of all saints. But in the year of our Lord 65, 
 and not long before he was to receive his crown in 
 heaven, he is the chief of sinners. So a man, as he goes 
 down in self goes up in God, and as he goes up in God 
 
 4 
 
74 GRACE AND TRUTH, CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 goes down in self. He that began his way to Christ by 
 saying, Lord have mercy upon me, for I am a great sin- 
 ner, sees more and more, after he has come to Christ, and 
 all his sins are put behind him and .forgiven, how great 
 and aggravated they were ; and the more he experiences 
 of God's loving kindness, and the more he grows in 
 grace, the more he sees and feels his own unworthiness. 
 His sins grow behind him, as God's love grows before him ; 
 but it is the love that is before, while the guilt is all behind, 
 and the more he sees of the love that forgives, the more, 
 in the expanding and increasing light of that love, he sees 
 of the greatness of the guilt that has been forgiven. So 
 love grows out of sin, and sin seems larger by love, all the 
 way through eternity. 
 
 GRACE ! 'tis a charming sound, 
 
 Harmonious to the ear ; 
 Heaven with the echo shall resound, 
 
 And all the earth shall hear. 
 
 GRACE first contrived the way 
 
 To save rebellious man ; 
 And all the steps that grace display, 
 
 Which drew the wondrous plan. 
 
 GRACE led my roving feet 
 
 To tread the heavenly road; 
 And new supplies each hour I meet, 
 
 While pressing on to God. 
 
 GRACE all the work shall crown 
 
 Through everlasting days, 
 It lays in heaven the topmost stone 
 
 And well deserves the praise. 
 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 God's method of discipline. Faith an element of character for development 
 and growth. A reward of Faith in the habit of Faith. 
 
 THERE was a Day of Discourse by our Blessed Lord with 
 his disciples on earth, very noticeable for a conversation 
 on the subject of faith, which has singularly, in some 
 points, escaped examination. It was the occasion in 
 Luke's seventeenth chapter, when the apostles came with 
 the simple, childlike prayer, "Lord, increase our faith/' 
 The prayer itself is simple and childlike, though it may 
 possibly be offered in words, without the possession of 
 the spirit which it indicates. The prayer itself is at the 
 bottom of the well-spring of our spiritual life. 
 
 A man already has some faith, who truly feels his need 
 of faith, and his dependence on Christ for it. So this 
 prayer offered by the apostles was one of the most satis- 
 factory proofs that faith was in their hearts, and that it was 
 a growing principle, however small at first. We all need 
 to come to Christ with this prayer, but oftentimes we 
 know not what we are praying for, and the apostles them- 
 selves hardly knew what they were praying for, when they 
 begged for an increase of their faith. They were in 
 truth praying that our Blessed Lord would take what 
 means he might find necessary to produce a stronger faith 
 in their hearts. They thought they were praying for a 
 direct communication from his Spirit, a direct and posi- 
 tive and immediate exercise of his power in their souls, 
 without any waiting, or working, or difficulty on their 
 
76 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 part. But they were very greatly mistaken ; and as he 
 saw in them a true sincerity in that request, although 
 mingled with much error, he answered their prayer in his 
 own way and time, not theirs ; according to his own wis- 
 dom and grace, not their short-sightedness. 
 
 They had formed the habit of walking by sight, not 
 faith, and they were carrying that habit even into spiritual 
 things. They wished all their acquisitions to be present 
 ones, and they would have present proof that their prayers 
 were answered. They had no idea upon what a sea of 
 trying discipline their supplications would launch them 
 forth. The true increase of their faith comprised an 
 amount of trial from which they would have shrunk back, 
 could they have foreseen it. And when it came, they saw 
 not then its meaning, they thought it was the wrong way. 
 The increase of faith comprises methods of discipline, 
 both inward and external, which to sight seem very mys- 
 terious. At the very time when God is administering the 
 very remedies that are to work in us a greater faith, when 
 Christ, our great Physician, is taking our case in hand, 
 and putting us under the necessary regimen, it may seem 
 to us as if our prayers were neither heard nor answered. 
 Prayer, sometimes, seems to bring nothing but difficulty, 
 seems to do nothing but stir up our ill humors, seems to 
 reveal nothing but our guilt and misery. Then we think 
 God has deserted us, or we have never known the way of 
 his mercy, or have no right to hope in it, and no reason 
 for encouragement. We are almost ready to turn back, 
 perhaps, because of the very discipline by which God 
 would carry us forward. We know not God's methods, 
 and can see but little way before us. Sometimes the 
 direction of those methods seems to sight directly con- 
 trary to the way of our progress. But in spiritual things 
 we often have to go down in order to go up, just as in climb- 
 ing a high mountain you often have to descend in one 
 place in order to ascend in another. So it is in God's 
 discipline. And our habit of judging by sight, and of ask- 
 

 CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 77 
 
 ing for sight, or rather of expecting sight in spiritual things,, 
 when we have been asking for faith, is very preposterous. 
 So is the habit of being discouraged by present diffi- 
 culties, inward or external, instead of looking to God, 
 trusting all with Christ, and pressing onwards. 
 
 If a traveller were passing through a vast reach of 
 country to gain a destined point, to arrive at some great 
 city, where his business is to be accomplished, what would 
 be thought of his conduct, if, happening upon a barren 
 tract of landscape, a desert, or a rocky ridge of mountains, 
 he should say, I will give up my journey for the present, 
 till the country becomes more favorable ; or if he should 
 conclude and say, This cannot be the right rpad to the 
 city, it is not possible that the path can lead through this 
 desert, or over this mountain ; or if he should argue and 
 say, If this were the right path, it would certainly lead 
 through a more interesting region, and I should find the 
 landscape more delightful. He would be thought to have 
 taken leave of his senses, if he should stop travelling till 
 the road became more interesting. But the Christian 
 traveller is still more inconsiderate and foolish, who says 
 within himself, every time that the spiritual landscape 
 wears to him an uninteresting aspect, every time that 
 prayer becomes a burden, and the reading of the Bible a 
 leaden duty that has lost its charm, every time that his 
 soul melteth for heaviness, and cleaveth unto the dust, or 
 wandereth in darkness, or in stormy weather, or over 
 craggy mountains : who says within himself, I cannot be 
 in the right way, if I were, it would be more interesting ; 
 this cannot be the way to the city ; there must be some 
 other way ; this cannot be God's way. If a soul should 
 pause and . argue in this way, what would become of 
 it ? But no ! the soul is bound to make progress over 
 rough places as well as smooth ones, and through unin- 
 teresting landscapes, and in dark and stormy weather. 
 It is God's way, though these feelings of despondency, 
 or impatience, or discouragement, or unbelief, are not 
 
78 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 God's feelings. The way of duty is the way of God's 
 appointment ; but the feelings that throw their own color- 
 ing over it are the feelings of an imperfect and distrustful 
 or discontented human heart ; the Christian Pilgrim is not 
 to give way to them, but to resist them ; and for him the 
 discipline of faith is to go forward, notwithstanding those 
 feelings, looking to the end. 
 
 " Ye have need of patience that after ye have done the 
 will of God, ye might receive the promise." The way 
 itself may in reality be a wilderness ; and there have 
 been memorable cases, in which, the soul of the pilgrims 
 being much discouraged because of the way, they have 
 turned aside to seek a better way. But the way that for 
 the present seems easier, leads in the end to a place that 
 is infinitely worse than all the evils in the way through 
 the wilderness. The Castle of Despair receives the pil- 
 grims at the end of the wrong way, the way that seemed 
 easier ; and the evil experience in that Castle is incom- 
 parably worse to bear, than all the discouragements which 
 made the soul of the pilgrim to faint within him in the 
 right way. The discouragements themselves afford a dis- 
 cipline to faith. How, indeed, should faith be disciplined, 
 if there were not difficulties to be overcome, discourage- 
 ments to be struggled with ? The enjoyment of serene 
 weather, perpetual sunshine, and a flowery path, may be a 
 discipline for gratitude, but leaves no opportunity for the 
 trial of faith. 
 
 Faith itself, the habit of faith, gained by doing duty, is 
 one of the rewards of faith. To him that hath, and that 
 putteth his money in active use for his Master, shall be 
 given the more ; but from him that hath not shall be taken 
 away even that which he seemeth to have. From the 
 discourse of Christ following the prayer of the apostles, 
 it would seem probable that they had been looking for the 
 rewards of faith beforehand. It may have been a miracu- 
 lous faith, which they desired for present exercise, for 
 present power, in Christ's service. But our Blessed Lord 
 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 79 
 
 told them that they could not receive so great a gift, 
 except through and after a course of faithful obedience. 
 They must do their work of faith for their Lord and 
 Master, and then they should eai and drink. Then this 
 faith should be completed, and in its very completion they 
 should have their reward. But they could not claim it 
 as a debt, and they must not indulge beforehand in any 
 thought that their works of service, or the faith where- 
 with already they wrought them, were, or could be, works 
 of merit, on the ground of which they could claim accept- 
 ance, or step into office in Christ's kingdom. For after 
 they had done all they could do, they could not have done 
 anything which they were not bound to do ; anything, the 
 neglect of which, or the refusal of which, would not have 
 been a sin. Does a parent lay claim to great merit, 
 because he provides for his children food which is not 
 injurious, or because he takes the proper steps to have his 
 children taught the rudiments of common knowledge, 
 necessary for their existence ? Does a servant deem that 
 he lays his master under obligations, because he does not 
 neglect to perform the daily, common duties of his sta- 
 tion ? Does he claim, when he has spread the table for 
 his master, and waits upon him while he is at meat, to 
 have done a service of great merit, on the ground of 
 which he may claim an extraordinary reward ? When he 
 goes upon a common errand, which not to do would be 
 rebellion and disobedience, and unfitness for his place, 
 does he think to have brought his master under obligations 
 for a service of profit to him, of which he can boast, as if it 
 were something above a mere simple, unavoidable duty, 
 something supererogatory ? I trow not. 
 
 Such was the instruction of our Blessed Lord to his 
 disciples. They were to remember that faith itself was 
 of gradual growth. If they had the seeds of it, the begin- 
 nings of it, the true principles of faith, and would go 
 forward in a course of simple obedience for the service, 
 the honor, the glory of their Master, their faith would 
 
80 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 grow into great power and glory, and in that very increase 
 would bring both its fruits and its rewards. But they 
 must not seek for it as a selfish thing, or as a grace of 
 power for self-advancement, or mere personal comfort and 
 enjoyment, but as a grace to be used for Christ, and a 
 discipline in his service. Neither must they seek for it 
 under the imagination that by it they could claim heaven 
 on the ground of merit, or a place in the Redeemer's 
 kingdom on the ground of great attainments or great 
 services; for that was not the way in which the soul 
 could be justified. It would be a great mistake to use 
 faith as a kind of justifying works ; a mistake into which 
 the apostles themselves were then in danger of falling. 
 Lord, I have s-o much faith, they \vould, under the influence 
 of this mistake, have been thinking within themselves ; 
 and I claim to bo made prime minister, or grand council' ;r, 
 or first regent, in thy kingdom. Or under the same mis- 
 take, and the same mixture of worldly misapprehension, 
 a mother might have come and said, Lord, my sons have 
 so much faith, my two sons ; grant that they may sit. the 
 one on thy right hand, the other on the left, in thy king- 
 dom. But no ! they knew not what they asked. And in 
 asking for an increase of faith, if they did it at all under 
 such darkness, such misapprehension, and it is very likely 
 they did, they needed great reproof, correction, and in- 
 struction in righteousness. They needed just such an 
 answer as the Saviour made, appealing to their own com- 
 mon sense, in regard to the business of a servant, and the 
 work of faith as a service. 
 
 They had not yet learned that the grace of faith was a 
 gradual discipline, not a mere sudden, supernatural, or 
 miraculous endowment. It was the gift of God, but a gift 
 in his own way, not theirs. So is the kingdom of God, 
 and so is faith, which individually in men is the essence of 
 that kingdom, as if a man should cast seed into the ground, 
 and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed 
 should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 81 
 
 earth bringeth forth fruit of herself, first the blade, then the 
 ear, after that the full corn in the ear. And again, the 
 kingdom of heaven, and faith, the essence of that kingdom, 
 is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and 
 sowed in his field ; which, indeed, is the least of all seeds ; 
 but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and 
 becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and 
 lodge in the branches thereof. Now then, if ye have faith 
 as a grain of mustard-seed, if ye have the true germ of this 
 grace, this grov^ing germ, and will go forward in its 
 development, by a course of persevering, self-forgetting 
 obedience to God, obedience to your Divine Master for his 
 glory, out of love to him, and not regard to yourselves, this 
 seed and principle of faith shall spring and grow, ye know 
 not how ; and it shall become a great tree, that no tempest 
 can uproot or shake. 
 
 Ye come to me, my disciples, as for a supernatural, 
 miraculous endowment ; but I tell you that faith is a dis- 
 cipline of your souls ; it is a life, not a miracle ; and it 
 springs up, first the blade, then the ear, after that the full 
 corn in the ear. Ye come to me for a miracle ; I tell you 
 it depends also upon yourselves ; upon your own humility, 
 and persevering, simple-hearted, single-hearted obedience ; 
 it depends upon your own life for your Lord and Master. 
 I cannot _ give you this faith before you have learned this 
 discipline, and formed this habit of humble service, in 
 dependence upon me. It would be like giving a servant 
 his reward, before he has performed the duties of his 
 station. It would be like a master telling his servant to 
 take his place at the table, and to eat and drink, before the 
 master himself has been served, or his wishes and com- 
 mands attended to. Your faith will grow by the patient 
 exercise of that which ye already have. To him that hath 
 shall be given, and he shall have more abundantly. But it 
 is a habit, a life, a discipline of the soul, and cannot be a 
 mere miraculous endowment. If ye cultivate its begin- 
 nings, and thus by grace make the germ and the gift of 
 
 4* 
 
82 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 grace pass into a life, a habit, then ye shall be able to 
 do anything, and nothing shall be too hard for you. But a 
 life of faith is necessary for the growth of faith, and ye will 
 meet with trials of your faith, which pothing but the habit 
 of your faith will be able to carry you through ; and ye 
 shall have works of faith to do, evil spirits to overcome, in 
 which I shall have to tell you, This kind goeth not out 
 but by prayer and fasting. Pray, fast, watch, labor, strive, 
 discipline yourselves as God leads you on, and co-operate 
 with him, while he is working in and <tipon you, and ye 
 shall have a lasting faith, and a habit of faith that can 
 remove mountains. 
 
 Now this truth of gradualism in the growth, nourishment, 
 and discipline of faith, and this dependence of the power 
 and life of faith upon practical obedience, is so important, 
 that there is scarcely anything in the whole compass of 
 theology more essential for the soul to study and be 
 thoroughly acquainted with. God's manner of discipline 
 with us must be known in some degree, that we may not 
 ignorantly go against it, or mistake, or thwart it, or perplex 
 ourselves unnecessarily on account of it, or deprive our 
 souls of the good they might enjoy in and from it. God's 
 discipline with us is education, the education of our souls 
 for eternity. It is at first a discipline to prepare us for his 
 service, to form, draw forth, and invigorate our spiritual 
 faculties, to be exercised for his glory, in the spread of his 
 kingdom, in the work of doing good, in a world of sin and 
 sorrow, pain and conflict. It is also a discipline in itself, 
 through this consequent and attendant habit of service, 
 obedience, and self-denying love, for the blissful enjoyment 
 of God himself in heaven, and for an infinitely higher and 
 more extended service of faith, and position of glorious use- 
 fulness, in that eternal kingdom. God acts with us as free 
 agents, whose elements of character are all voluntary, whose 
 good must be voluntary, or it is not good. Faith, in all its 
 varieties, must be the act and exercise of our own souls, as 
 well as the gift of God. It must be, under God's working, the 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 83 
 
 co-operation of our own spirits with his Spirit, working in 
 us both to will and to do. 
 
 It is by work here that God prepares us for rest here- 
 after. It is by faith here, amidst difficulties, that God 
 prepares us for sight hereafter, amidst light and glory 
 ineffable, inconceivable. The more work here, the deeper 
 and more blissful rest hereafter. The more faith here, 
 amidst discouragements and darkness, the vaster, clearer, 
 more transporting sight hereafter. The subduing of the 
 will here to God's will, the habit of self-denial formed under 
 the teachings and the power of faith, the habit of working 
 for God amidst doubts and difficulties, will be followed by 
 a state where no self-denial is needed, because the will is 
 completely one with God's will, because the soul is entirely 
 absorbed in God and his blissful service and glory, without 
 any mixture of sin, any thought of self, any experience of 
 evil. Heaven itself is this perfect delight in the will and 
 service of God. Heaven is a state, not a place, or it is a 
 place, because it is a state first ; a place and state of glory 
 and rest hereafer, because there was a place and state of 
 difficulty and grace here. Now God works in his children 
 the preparation, the fitness, for Heaven as an eternal, im- 
 mutable place and state of glory and blessedness hereafter, 
 by passing them through a medium of refining fire here ; 
 by leading them through a state and place of difficulty, 
 conflict, self-denial, service, where service is costly ; leading 
 them by grace in exercise, grace in conflict, grace fervently 
 sought and labored after, to the state and place, where 
 grace is sole and supreme in an eternal likeness and one- 
 ness with God. 
 
 This was Christ's work with his disciples on earth. It 
 is still his work, now that he reigns in heaven. While he 
 was himself on earth, the object of sight rather than faith, 
 their faith was stationary in its progress ; it was germinat- 
 ing and preparing for growth, but their sight itself pre- 
 vented faith. Christ was preparing them by his discipline 
 and instructions, and then, so soon as he himself was taken 
 
84 GRACE AND TRUTH, CHRTST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 up out of their sight, their faith grew like a mighty tree 
 that could brave the most terrible tempests. When every 
 sensible stay was taken away from them, when all the 
 pillars of hope had been broken, on yvhich they had con- 
 fidently leaned while Christ was with them, looking even 
 to the last moment of life for a temporal deliverance, king- 
 dom, and reign ; when every expectation of that nature, and 
 every earthly imagination, had vanished with the sufferings, 
 death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, then faith 
 took firm hold upon the promises ; then faith communed 
 with, and relied upon, an unseen spiritual Almighty 
 Saviour ; then faith grew with the greater rapidity for its 
 long previous discipline in Christ's own presence. Christ's 
 departing words had a great meaning for his disciples, 
 which they were not then aware of. " It is expedient for 
 you that I go away from you ; if I depart not, the Comforter 
 will not come to you." If Christ had not departed, the 
 work of the Comforter, the work of faith, could not have 
 been completed. It is often necessary that sensible sup- 
 ports and stays be removed, before the soul will rest upon 
 those which are unseen, eternal, and spiritual. 
 
 One sun by day, by night ten thousand shine, 
 And light us deep into the Deity ! 
 
 Yea, when the day that lighted us to our earthly busi- 
 ness, our cares of sight and sense, and also kept the 
 outward sensitive organization of our nature so wakeful 
 and active, and so fully occupied, that there was hardly a 
 moment for thought, has passed into the silence and dark- 
 ness of midnight, then not only the starry heavens reveal 
 the infinite extent of God's universe, but faith is quickened, 
 and in solemn, holy meditation and prayer, rises to heaven. 
 So it is with God's gracious discipline. When the shades of 
 darkness fall, when the winds rise, and deep calleth unto 
 deep at the noise of God's water-spouts, then there is 
 nothing but God left for the soul by faith to rest upon. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The germ and the blade under discipline for the harvest. Contrast and variety 
 of spiritual experiences. 
 
 AMONG the parables of our Blessed Lord, there are none 
 more beautiful and full of sacred meaning, than those whose 
 imagery is taken from the processes of seed time and 
 harvest. He gives us a system of accountability and 
 retribution sometimes in a single sentence, and in like man- 
 ner sketches the process and progress of his own grace. 
 "So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed 
 into the ground, and should sleep and rise night and day, 
 and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not 
 how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first 
 the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear." 
 This illustration we doubt not was meant to be applied 
 both to individual experience, and to the workings of God's 
 Providence and grace on a scale as wide as the world. 
 We have here a picture of the growth of the kingdom of 
 God, both in an individual soul, and in the nations. But 
 perhaps the more direct application of the figure is to the 
 workings of God's regenerating Word and Spirit in the 
 individual heart. 
 
 Our Blessed Lord says that this working is like seed cast 
 into the ground, which the earth brings forth of itself into 
 fruit. There is here, as elsewhere, a picture of God 
 working, and man co-operating with God. It is not God 
 
86 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 alone, nor man alone, but God in man ; as it is not the 
 seed alone nor the earth alone, but the seed in the earth, 
 and the earth by fructifying powers and tendencies given 
 to it of God, and active according tojGod's arrangement. 
 Although faith is as a seed, or a germ, implanted in a pre- 
 pared soil, and growing gradually, as such a plant grows, 
 yet the substance and the resemblance must not be con- 
 founded ; for faith in man's heart is not itself a physical 
 germ, or growing plant, set in the soul from abroad, but it 
 is a voluntary life of the soul, a habit of the spiritual 
 existence, by and under the grace of God. God's disci- 
 pline is at work to draw out the soul into such habit, such 
 life. When such life and habit are formed, and just so far 
 as they are formed, the object of God's discipline, per- 
 sonally, is accomplished, or at least is going forward to its 
 accomplishment. This is our education at the hand of 
 God. It is not the communication of immediate or 
 miraculous power or knowledge, at which God, by his 
 providence and grace, is aiming, but it is the quickening 
 and training of our souls to the possession and exercise 
 of the divine life. And as a child begins to learn to walk 
 by creeping, and to read by spelling; or as a tree begins to 
 grow by the blade first, or an ear of wheat by the blade, 
 and then the ear, and afterwards the full corn in the ear ; 
 so with our learning of the life of faith, our growing up 
 into the full and perfect habit of that life. 
 
 The end, object, and fulfilment of that life are future, and 
 God is educating us not for immediate effects merely, but 
 for eternity. All our discipline is for lasting purposes, not 
 transitory results, and God will form us to habits of life, not 
 mere temporary excitements. God will work in us ele- 
 ments of character, not mere fitful impulses. We look too 
 much to present frames, enjoyments, fruits ; God looks to 
 eternal results, and an eternal life of holiness and glory. 
 We look to that which is transitory ; God looks to that 
 which is permanent. We look to feelings, emotions, 
 speculations; God looks to active habits, and a life made 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 87 
 
 up of principles and habits, which shall be the eternal in- 
 alienable nature of our being. 
 
 Even for this world alone, this is the only true concep- 
 tion of education. To educate a child is not merely to 
 store the soul with knowledge, but to draw forth and 
 strengthen the sensibilities and faculties of mind and heart. 
 While the understanding is yet tender, its powers in their 
 greenness and infancy, but little knowledge, and that very 
 gradually, can be received ; but the faculties themselves 
 must be developed and exercised ; and a true education is 
 the preparation of the mind, by such wise and well directed 
 discipline, by the formation of good habits, through judi- 
 cious instruction and example, for the proper acting of its 
 part in the world ; for those occasions, where not mere 
 knowledge, but a well prepared, disciplined, and balanced 
 judgment will be requisite, with strong habits of thought, 
 of decision, of comparison, of selection, and just, manly, 
 virtuous, religious principles of action. This is education ; 
 not the crowding of the mind with rules and knowledges, 
 but the forming of the mind, from correct principles, to 
 upright habits and energetic appliances. The mind is not 
 a warehouse, in which goods are to be stored for sale, but a 
 manufactory, in which great care is to be lavished first 
 upon the selection of the material to be wrought, and next 
 upon the machinery, the right husbanding and direction of 
 the power, and the combination of all the agencies for the 
 greatest activity and productiveness. 
 
 And thus it is that God deals with us, in disciplining us 
 ny faith. He will have habits of faith. He will have not 
 merely passive emotions, but active habits, and a life. 
 He will have not transitory forms of feeling merely, but a 
 fountain inexhaustible, a fire for ever burning, a principle, 
 a power, a nature. He will draw out our native powers 
 into a voluntary, spontaneous co-operation with his super- 
 natural grace and providential discipline. Thus it is that 
 he will make faith to increase by exercise. In order to 
 produce that exercise, to draw forth the soul into it, he 
 
88 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 seems, sometimes, to quit the soul, to go away from it, 
 and leave it to itself, in darkness. He deals with it, some- 
 times, as a mother deals with a little child in teaching it to 
 walk. Who has not watched the careful fond mother 
 setting down her little child in one part of the room alone, 
 then gradually retreating from it, leaving it standing by 
 itself, half terrified, and then beckoning to it, and calling it 
 to take courage and come ? Who has not seen the little 
 trembling creature burst into tears, because it seemed to 
 be so deserted, and then at length, gaining courage from ne- 
 cessity, with little tottering steps, advance towards the out- 
 stretched arms of its mother, and at last, having performed 
 the grand feat of a walk quite across the floor, hide itself 
 rejoiced and comforted in her bosom ? Thus God teaches 
 us to walk by faith. Thus God teaches us to exercise our 
 spritual faculties ; thus he draws forth our powers, our 
 affections, into a co-operation with his own purposes, pro- 
 vidences, and grace ; into the formation of habits, that 
 shall grow with our growth and strengthen with our 
 strength, inlo life everlasting. 
 
 Sometimes his providences are dark, and he seems to 
 have deserted the soul, when he is only going before it, and 
 calling it to come after him. The Lord Jesus loves to 
 behold even the feeblest exercise of faith, and will neither 
 break the bruised seed nor quench the smoking flax. 
 Sometimes he may seem to deny our requests, even with 
 severity, or to pay no attention to them, when in reality 
 he is taking the very way to answer them, and will answer 
 them in that very way which will make the response the 
 greater blessing. Thus was it with the Syrophenician 
 woman. Her heart was drawn out, by the Saviour's 
 seeming neglect, into such a fervor of prayer and power 
 of faith, that the effect of that exercise alone upon her soul 
 would have been a blessing beyond all price ; and the pro- 
 duction of that state of mind, before the mercy which she 
 sought was granted, made that healing mercy itself a 
 thousand times more precious. So it is in the case of 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 89 
 
 every parent, who is anxiously seeking the conversion of a 
 dear child. God may seem to defer his grace, may let 
 that child long wander on in paths of sin and folly, till at 
 length the soul of the parent shall have been brought to 
 such an exercise of faith, that when the conversion of the 
 child takes place, both the sad anxiety and the blessing, 
 both the apparent denial or neglect, and the manifest 
 answer of prayer, shall combine to work a habit of faith, 
 such as no other discipline of the soul could possibly 
 produce. 
 
 Our expectations are not to be made the rule of God's 
 benefactions. Our opinions, suppositions, imaginations as 
 to what is best, are often widely different from God's 
 judgment, in the case before us, as to what is fit. And 
 the reason often is that God and we are working for such 
 different results; God for an eternal character ' and an 
 eternal good, we, for a relief from present distress, or the 
 accomplishment of a present purpose. God's ways in the 
 discipline of his grace are not at all as our ways, nor his 
 thoughts as our thoughts ; if they were, very few of us 
 would ever reach heaven. Our ideas of what is fit are 
 those of poor blind creatures of a day, crushed before the 
 moth. And constantly our Lord must answer us as he 
 did Peter, " What I do thou knowest not now, but thou 
 shalt know hereafter." 
 
 We often act the part of Passion even in regard to the 
 things of grace, and would have all our good things now ; 
 and probably if God should give them to us, without the 
 gradual active habits necessary to prepare us for the use 
 of them, we should spend them all at once, like Passion. 
 We should be Prodigal Sons, even in the things of the 
 kingdom of heaven, and should soon find ourselves reduced 
 to the condition of eating husks. It would be as it is with 
 ill-educated children, on whom their parents bestow a 
 large patrimony, but who, not knowing how to take care 
 of it, speedily run it through, and come back, in poverty, 
 for more; while a well-educated son, trained to good 
 
90 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 habits, with principles rightly formed and developed, 
 though endowed with no patrimony but this good educa- 
 tion, will accumulate an estate almost as fast as the Prodigal 
 son will waste one ; and having ihus virtuously ac- 
 cumulated it, will benevolently use it. We would often 
 receive all, and have all, without the labor of getting all ; 
 but God would have us acquire grace by self-denying 
 diligence ; and therefore our receipts of grace often come 
 in very sparingly, and are long in coming ; not because 
 of God's parsimony, but our indolence ; not because of 
 God's unwillingness to give, but our impatience in asking, 
 and unfitness to receive. God will not himself do, what 
 the prophet, with such rude vigor and point, tells us not to 
 do, put our wages into a bag with holes. It is not only 
 many things that Christ has to say to his disciples, which 
 they cannot bear now, but many things to give them, 
 which they cannot receive now, and which, if they were 
 received, would be wasted, just as if the things were said, 
 they would not be understood, or else misapplied. There 
 may be the wresting and misapplication of gifts, as well as 
 of words, by those who are unlearned and unstable. 
 
 It is said of Ezra, that he came to Jerusalem with the 
 good hand of his God upon him, because he had prepared 
 his heart, to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it. A 
 preparation of heart by the discipline of faith is necessary 
 for the reception of great gift s of faith ; and, the discipline it- 
 self is found to be the ordinary channel through which the 
 gifts are conveyed. God would not have us play the part 
 of Passion, even in the divine life, but of Patience ; and so 
 he will teach us to admire and love his own discipline. 
 We often think we desire more grace, when God sees that 
 we have formed no habit of striving after it, and are not 
 prepared to use it, even if it were received. 
 
 "The soul of the sluggard desireth and hath nothing; 
 but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat." Most true 
 is this proverb in spiritual things. If the soul of the slug- 
 gard should be filled according to his desires, the fulness 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 91 
 
 would not remain with him ; it would be soon gone. 
 There is no principle of life, no habit of faith, in such a 
 case, no element of a divine nature, to turn what it 
 receives into an everlasting part and possession of itself. 
 Neither is there any disposition, in such a case, to go from 
 strength to strength, from one degree of grace and glory 
 to another ; but a sluggish inactive contentment, like that 
 of a lazy, inefficient man, who would- rather live idly by 
 begging, than help himself. 
 
 While, therefore, God would not have in his children a 
 kind of passion that excludes patience, he would still have 
 an unsatisfied restlessness in the soul that comes to him 
 for grace, and a perpetual desire to make each degree of 
 grace only the stepping stone to a still higher degree. 
 "My soul followeth hard after thee." When there is this 
 habit of progress, everything given is so much gained. 
 And the proverb is especially true in the things of grace, 
 that God helps those who help themselves. " My soul 
 followeth hard after thee ; thy right hand upholdeth me." 
 Those who give all diligence to make their calling and 
 election sure, are endowed of God with such plenteous 
 grace, and such habits of grace are formed under his 
 guidance, that they can hardly doubt in regard to their 
 filial relationship to God. But those who wait for the 
 feeling of assurance to come upon them like a gale of wind, 
 or a prize in a lottery, or a sovereign fiat of the Almighty, 
 will wait in vain ; and while thus waiting and longing, 
 will grow leaner and leaner in the Christian life. Indeed, 
 there is all the difference between those who would have 
 the Spirit of heaven baptize and possess them without 
 their own self-denying efforts, and those who are accus- 
 tomed to the Christian conflict, that there is between those 
 who would become suddenly rich by speculating, or by the 
 drawing of a prize, and those who are willing to gain a 
 competency by patient industry. 
 
 Patience keeps all the gains of grace, and wastes 
 nothing. Passion and speculation lose, as often as they 
 
92 GHACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 gain. Hence, your passionate, fitful Christians are at ex- 
 tremes ; sometimes on the heights of feeling and of glory, 
 sometimes in the depths of woe. But your conscientious, 
 patient, diligent Christians, are pressing; onward in a steady 
 progression, that, though it has its depths and heights, 
 and sometimes at great distances between, is nevertheless 
 as the path of the just, as the shining light, shining more 
 and more unto the perfect day. Progression, not startling 
 inequality, is the satisfactory proof of Christian experi- 
 ence. The blade, the ear, the full corn in the ear. There 
 is a great difference between the blade and the ear ; the 
 difference would be a startling inequality, if one morning 
 the ear should be visible ripening towards the full, and the 
 next morning it should be found, over night, to have 
 retreated back into the blade. But such is not Christian 
 experience. Inequalities may be great at different inter- 
 vals, and if a Christian be a growing Christian, they will 
 be great ; but great by gradual growth, not by sudden and 
 startling change, either of increase or decrease. They 
 will be great by growth from less grace to greater, great 
 by comparison of the blade with the ear, but not by sud- 
 den changes, or mere frames of feeling ; great by growth 
 from glory to glory ; we all, beholding as in a glass the 
 glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from 
 glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. 
 
 Now we think this is the scriptural exhibition. But is 
 it always thus to sight and present experience, or is this 
 simply a statement of \vhat takes place in reality, through 
 fluctuations of feeling and changes of present experi- 
 ence, that seem, at times, the elements of a very different 
 agency, the march of an absolutely contrasted and oppo- 
 site progression ? Undoubtedly this progress from glory 
 to glory is often a thing unknown in present experience, 
 though actually going on by the grace of God. There 
 may be present experience that looks like despair, which 
 shall be but the necessary step to the next degree of 
 glory ; there may be great extremes by God's discipline, 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 93 
 
 which are not fitful extremes by human passion. David 
 passed through such extremes, now in the heights, now in 
 the depths, now apparently almost in heaven, now in hell. 
 Sometimes his soul sits and sings, like a bird lighting from 
 the clear air upon the topmost leafy bough of a tree, fresh 
 with the dew of the morning ; sometimes he seems not 
 only to desire, but really to possess, wings like a dove to 
 fly away and be at rest. Then again he chatters like a 
 crane or a swallow ; he is like an owl of the desert, like a 
 pelican of the wilderness. Sometimes his heart rejoices 
 in God like a water-brook, again it is like a dry, crinkling, 
 leathern bottle in the smoke. Sometimes his soul cleaveth 
 unto the dust, and then again starts forward like an arrow, 
 and rises like an eagle. Sometimes his bones are burned 
 as an hearth, and his heart is smitten and withered like 
 grass ; and then again he rises to heaven like a bright 
 flame, or his soul is as Mount Zion that cannot be 
 removed, but abideth for ever. 
 
 Compare the 88th Psalm with the 118th or 'the 104th, 
 and see if you could possibly recognise them as records of 
 the same soul's experience. In one view you will say no ; 
 in another, yes, because the tenor of the one Psalm in the 
 depths, just implies and prepares the way for the other on 
 the heights ; and those changes are inevitable to deep 
 feeling, changes from despondency to exultation, from 
 despair to triumph, from darkness to light. The same 
 deep and strong feeling in view of one's own guilt, shut 
 up to that, will be like an envelopment in the fire and 
 smoke of the bottomless pit ; when in view of God's 
 glorious attributes and of Christ's preciousness, loveliness, 
 and mercy, it will be like an embathing in the flood of 
 melody and light from the open gates of heaven. But 
 these inequalities and extremes may take place under the 
 same degree of grace and strength and^ glory in the soul. 
 These changes may be changes of God's discipline for the 
 promotion of his grace. They may be like the changes 
 of rain and storm and dry weather and sunshine upon the 
 
94 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 same green blade, which under all is steadily ripening into 
 the ear, but which, if it were a sensitive intelligence, like 
 man's soul, might suppose that all these changes were 
 within itself, parts of its own life, instead of the discipline 
 of God for the growth of that life. They may also be 
 changes, that depend more upon natural temperament 
 than grace ; changes of God's discipline to bring nature 
 under grace. Many of the changes in a character like 
 Dr. Payson's we shall find to be changes of natural tem- 
 perament under the discipline of grace, or of divine 
 providence for the production of grace ; while again the 
 changes in a character like President Edwards', are more 
 directly, immediately, and serenely, changes of and by 
 grace. 
 
 Variety in natural temperament calls for variety in 
 God's discipline, and makes variety in the development 
 and appearance of grace. Some souls are so like crystal, 
 or clear glass, that the light of heaven, the light of grace, 
 seems to shine through them in its own serene purity 
 unchanged. Others are like a prism, or window of stained 
 glass, where the light comes through particular fancies and 
 tendencies of character, and with colors more human 
 than divine. And yet, the last display may seem the most 
 splendid and imposing, the work of the greatest labor, 
 disclosing more of the divine glory ; whereas, the first 
 gives the most direct, simple, unerring view of God and 
 his grace. You see through the , first more of the very 
 light of heaven, through the last a mixture of human 
 temperaments and sympathies. Change in the last may 
 be more manifest than in the first, and growth in grace 
 may be more perceptible, 'just because there was more of 
 the merely human that needed to be removed ; and as that 
 is taken away, and the divine supplies its place, the change 
 is more noticeable. The change from sin to holiness may 
 be regarded as more wonderful than the change from glory 
 to glory ; but it is not more beautiful. Grace changes by 
 degrees, and degrees only, from good to better, from less 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 95 
 
 to greater. Nature, under the discipline of grace, changes 
 in quality, from bad to good, from sin to holiness, from 
 self to God. 
 
 On this subject, the remarks of President Edwards in 
 his work on Revivals of Religion, as well as in the book 
 of Religious Affections, are exceedingly instructive and 
 valuable. His section on the experiences of Christians is 
 full of profound wisdom ; the passages on defective ex- 
 periences, on the degenerating of experiences, and also on 
 the mixture of evil in the best experiences, should be read 
 with care and self-examination. They strike at the root 
 of all imaginary perfection, and put the soul on its guard 
 against giving advantage to the devil through ignorance 
 of his devices. 
 
 The testimony of a man like Edwards on the question, of 
 spiritual perfection in this world, is of so much the greater 
 importance, because it was not given in argument on a 
 point, not proposed for the establishing of an opinion, not 
 controversial in any way, but rather incidental, in the sim- 
 ple outpouring of the treasures of experience, observation, 
 and the knowledge of the Word of God. " Indeed," says 
 Edwards, " it is not to be supposed that Christians ever 
 have any experiences in this world, that are wholly pure, 
 entirely spiritual, without any mixture of what is natural 
 and carnal. The beam of light, as it comes from the 
 fountain of light upon our hearts, is pure, but as it is 
 reflected thence it is mixed ; the seed as sent from heaven 
 and planted in the heart, is pure, but as it springs up out 
 of the heart, is impure ; yea, there is commonly a much 
 greater mixture than persons for the most part seem to 
 have any imagination of. I have often thought that the 
 experiences of true Christians are very frequently, as it is 
 with some kinds of fruits, that are enveloped with several 
 coverings of thick shells or pods, which are thrown away 
 by him that gathers the fruit, and but a very small part of 
 the whole bulk is the pure kernel, that is good to eat." 
 
 This is an admirable illustration, the more so, because 
 
 ,^^^iri3 J- ""-IlSj^v. 
 
96 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 it is so humbling to the pride of our nature ; it is as 
 true as it is beautiful. The change in this world, we 
 have reason to believe, is always imperfect, never 
 complete ; and yet, even in its mo^st imperfect com- 
 mencement, how glorious, how blessed ! How blessed to 
 be thus beneath the forming hand of God our Saviour ! 
 How happy is a Christian, whom God is leading onward 
 and upward to glory, under all this experience ! We care 
 not what at present may be the phase of this experience. 
 The Christian may seem to be brought by it to the very 
 gates of hell ; yet even there, or groping his way with sighs 
 and groans unutterable in the valley of the shadow of death, 
 he is infinitely happier than the most joyous and favored 
 of the children of this world. For God is with him, pre- 
 paring him for himself, and perhaps passing his soul 
 through some faint experience of hell beforehand, that he 
 may be purged from sin and saved from hell for ever. 
 Yea, he may be passing through the fire now, that the fire 
 may never have power to touch him hereafter. But the 
 prosperous child of this world is drawn of Satan through 
 a career of pleasure here, that he may be kept from God 
 and plunged in fire hereafter. 
 
 To return once more to the beautiful figure under which 
 our Blessed Lord has illustrated the work of his grace ; it 
 is manifest from its nature that it has, at a definite period, 
 for which no other period can be exchanged, its beginning, 
 its progress, and its end. It is just as peculiar and ap- 
 propriate, and we may add essential, as the seedtime to 
 the husbandman, and the summer to the growth of nature, 
 and the autumn to the reaper. If the seedtime be deferred 
 to the autumn, will the harvest ripen in the winter ? If 
 the careless husbandman refuse to sow in the spring, or 
 the thorny earth refuse its ministrations in the summer, 
 and produce but nettles, what is there for it in the 
 autumn but to be burned ? Whose end, says the apostle, 
 comparing it to the fruitless soul, is to be burned. 
 
 There are days of grace in the summer season of our 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 97 
 
 souls, presenting influences and opportunities of heaven, 
 like the glorious autumn Sabbath with its crystal atmo- 
 sphere, its heavenly repose, its serene and sacred light ; 
 days given of God in mercy to the soul for its growth in 
 God's own likeness. There is a season of such visitation 
 for every soul, but certainly it is not often repeated, it may 
 never return, and therefore, if neglected, is neglected for 
 ever. And if the work of grace be not begun in life, it 
 will neither be begun nor completed in eternity. Habit, 
 the habit of grace as well as sense, is a thing of time. 
 The formation of character takes time ; a character for 
 heaven as well as hell. If the heavenly work be begun 
 in season, it is well. But if not, then you are taking 
 all the time of your probation for evil ; and if the period 
 for the growth of good be passed, you are lost ; it is the 
 destruction of the soul for ever. Then cometh the end. 
 The angels are the reapers. Let both grow, tares and 
 wheat, together until the harvest. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 Individuality and independence. God in man, not man reduplicated. Entire 
 dependence God-ward, entire independence and originality, man-ward. 
 Helps from Christian biographies. Supremacy and power of Christ's 
 example. 
 
 FAITH in Christ is in every man who possesses it the most 
 purely original and independent part of his character. 
 Indeed, reliance upon Christ is a man's only originality 
 and independence ; everything else, in the whole empire 
 of sin and the experience of fallen beings, he learns from 
 his fellow-men and imitates. His faith is his own, taught 
 and produced in him only by the Holy Spirit. Work out 
 your own salvation, for it is God that worketh in you. 
 There is great emphasis in this text upon that word own. 
 
 Work out your own salvation, each for himself, in reli- 
 ance only on God, not upon man, not upon one another. 
 Individual dependence upon God in Christ is the great 
 lesson of the gospel ; an independence of man and a 
 dependence on God as entire and perfect, as if each 
 individual were the only being to be saved in the world, 
 the only one under Christian duties and responsibilities. 
 Every soul is to work out its own salvation, in a depend- 
 ence on God as independent of man, as if there were no 
 other soul in the same conflict, or that had ever passed 
 through it. The instrumentalities of men upon one 
 another are simply God's agencies to accomplish this 
 individual work. All the complications and responsibilities 
 of society, and of social duties, are just a series of the 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 99 
 
 demands, the causes, and occasions of individual effort. 
 The world is a great school, a spiritual gymnasium for the 
 soul. All things are meant to bring men to God. Jacob's 
 ladder is not merely let down from heaven ; life itself and 
 all things in it are such a ladder if there be a dreaming 
 soul, and a disposition to see and use all things in the light 
 of heaven. Men, events, blessings, trials, relationships, 
 necessities, dependencies, charities, duties, cares, and 
 businesses, may be steps in the ladder, with angels ascend- 
 ing and descending. 
 
 The gospel distribution of responsibility throws at the 
 same time all upon one, and one upon all. It does this in 
 a way that is almost contradictory. Bear ye one another's 
 burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. But let every 
 man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing 
 in himself alone, and not in another. For every man 
 shall bear his own burden. If every man is to bear 
 his own burden, it might be asked, how can each bear 
 the other's ? And again, if ye bear one another's bur- 
 dens, how can each have rejoicing in himself alone, 
 and not in another ? The truth is, here is the very per- 
 fection of society, set down in these brief items ; the 
 perfection at once of dependence and independence, of 
 personal and mutual responsibility and accountability. 
 In this kingdom of heaven upon earth, formed by each 
 one having as much at heart the welfare of others as his 
 own, each individual is to regard all others as so many 
 reduplicates of self, to be blest and benefited, and every 
 individual is to avoid throwing his own burdens upon 
 others. Each is to prove his own work, and not leave it- 
 to be accomplished by others, and at the same time each 
 is to help all others as often as he can find opportunity. 
 And the opportunity to bless others is to be regarded as 
 itself one of the greatest of blessings. This, I say, is the 
 society of heaven ; this is perfect love, casting out fear ; 
 this would put a stop to human misery, and make angels 
 out of men. 
 
100 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 Now in this state of things, the more earnestly a man 
 endeavors to prove his own work, and to have rejoicing 
 in himself alone and not in another, the more he will have 
 rejoicing in others' holiness as the fruit^of his own. The 
 more a man relies solely upon God, the more he will have 
 others relying on himself, or thrown upon himself to be 
 blest by him. It is one of the rewards of such independ- 
 ence of man in reliance upon God, one of the rewards of 
 eminent piety in proving its own work, to be constituted 
 a great instrumentality of God in winning other souls to 
 piety and heaven. The more entirely and thoroughly a 
 man, in humble dependence upon God, does his own work, 
 the more he will help others to do their work, and the 
 more of others' work God will enable him to do, and give 
 him opportunity to do, for God. This, I say, is a great 
 reward of original, laborious, deep piety, You may see it 
 in the case of such men as Baxter and Bunyan, Halybur- 
 ton, Edwards, and Payson. Never leaving other men to 
 bear their burdens, but always going to God alone with 
 them, and looking to God's discipline and Christ's example, 
 not man's, God has given them, in consequence, the inesti- 
 mable privilege of bearing the burdens and blessing the 
 souls of very many others, so fulfilling the law of Christ. 
 And though they have now rested from their labors, as we 
 call labor, yet still in their works they are the burden- 
 bearers of the Christian world ; in their works they are 
 still going about doing good, and in some measure, like 
 Christ himself, bearing men's infirmities, and healing their 
 sicknesses. In this sense, though they rest from their 
 labors, their works still follow them. 
 
 But piety cannot be gained by proxy ; and although 
 God makes use of these secondary instrumentalities to 
 bring men to himself, it is a great evil, when men rely 
 upon the instrumentalities instead of God, and imitate 
 Christ's agencies instead of Christ. A secondary and 
 second rate piety is the consequence, instead of original 
 and deep experience. Men cease to prove their own work, 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 101 
 
 and to have rejoicing in themselves alone. Their piety 
 becomes a superficial imitation, not of the Author and 
 Finisher of our Faith, but of poor creatures like them- 
 selves. It is the copy of a copy, and perhaps the very 
 imperfections are imitated. Men use the language and 
 adopt the phrases taught by the piety of others, without 
 the fire of that piety to give life and meaning to the lan- 
 guage. The expressions of religious experience are the 
 work of foreign or external and artificial training, and not 
 fresh from the heart. Imitative diaries become common, 
 with the same complaints, the same confessions, the same 
 mournings, the same forms of prayer. Religious experi- 
 ence becomes a monotonous stereotype, a fashion, a pre- 
 vailing manner, not a living spirit and a new creation. 
 
 But the Christian conflict cannot be imitated. The 
 soul must not merely speculate about it, nor gaze upon 
 others' record of it, but engage in it, each soul for itself. 
 So run I, not as uncertainly, said the apostle ; so fight I, 
 not as one that beateth the air. The closest watching of 
 the Christian pilgrimage, the most accurate acquaintance 
 with its theory, will be of no avail without this. One soul 
 cannot be inspired by the fire of another's piety, nor pos- 
 sess its elements, except by an original personal application 
 to the Word and Spirit of God. The world may cry, 
 Give us of your oil ; but the answer ever must be, Go ye 
 and buy for yourselves. We are to look to the Author 
 and Finisher. Faith must be faith in Chrm, not in 
 Richard Baxter. 
 
 Nothing can be an element of life and power in the 
 Christian but what is thus original. There may be great 
 speculative knowledge without this, but it will be inert and 
 cold. Only that which comes burning from the heart 
 will reach the heart. The fire of God's Wo^d must be a 
 fire of experience, a fire of faith, in the Christian's own 
 soul, as a flame in one's bones, before it can be like the fire 
 and the hammer upon other souls. What a man has 
 gained for himself, with great care and labor, he will value 
 
102 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 and keep ; he will know how to use it, and increase it, 
 whether it be knowledge or wealth. In Christian experi- 
 ence, a little that is one's own is better than whole volumes 
 at second-hand. The knowledge of his own poverty that 
 a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many 
 wicked. Indeed, the experience, the sense, of our vanity 
 and misery out of Christ is itself great riches. Every- 
 thing is great riches, which a man receives direct from the 
 Saviour ; and all true Christian experience comes direct 
 from him. Hence, while the charge is, Work out your 
 own, the effect of so working is to make the soul feel that 
 it is all of Christ, that all which we can justly call our 
 own is mere guilt and wretchedness. The more a man 
 receives from Christ, the poorer he feels, and the richer, 
 at one and the same time ; the poorer in himself, the 
 richer in his Saviour. The heaven-taught knowledge of 
 this poverty is itself great power and riches, while the 
 imagination of great self-riches is the most disastrous 
 weakness and poverty. 
 
 If a man works his own, without entire dependence on 
 Christ, and the experience of God working in him, he works 
 a mine of death. If he accumulates what he regards as his 
 own righteousness, to make sure of heaven, and does not, 
 in utter abrogation of self, throw himself on Christ, he 
 works not his own salvation, but his own ruin. The story 
 is told in Oriental fable of a man who gathered great stores 
 of grain ift his warehouse against a time of famine, and 
 waited till the price should rise. He saw the misery of 
 the poor, but still kept his warehouse shut till the grain 
 should bring the price his greediness demanded for it. At 
 length the price got to that height, and then he took the 
 key and went to unlock his gates, exulting in the thought 
 of the enorrngus wealth of which he was coming in pos- 
 session ; when lo ! a worm had penetrated the warehouse, 
 and his grain was a vast heap of rottenness. So is he 
 that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich towards 
 God. So is he that accumulates and endeavors to live 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 103 
 
 upon his own or others' experience, but not in Christ. 
 That which is not of faith, not received in daily reliance 
 upon God, in daily renewed experience in Christ, breeds 
 worms, like the manna hoarded by the Israelites in unbelief, 
 which stank and could not be eaten. So a self-righteous 
 or borrowed experience rots on one's hands. 
 
 And yet, the experience of others is of inestimable 
 value, properly used. All things are to be tried by God's 
 Word, and the soul must gain its own growth jn Christ by 
 feeding upon that Word. But the experience of others 
 may be a great encouragement and help. Such a help 
 Bunyan once found in reading Luther on Galatians ; it 
 seemed to him as if the book were written out of his own 
 heart. It was written out of Luther's heart, or rather out of 
 the Word in Luther's heart, and described the same con- 
 flicts through which Bunyan in his loneliness had been toil- 
 ing and battling, not knowing that any other creature in the 
 world had ever passed through the same. So, when 
 Bunyan found his own experience drawn out in such vivid 
 coloring and language in Luther's account of the saint's 
 experience according to God's Word, it was a surprising 
 comfort to him. But it was not a thing to begin with, or 
 to copy from, but to meet with by the way, and compare 
 notes, turning all the while to God's Word. And this is 
 just the use which should be made of religious biographies. 
 It is not from them that^we are to learn the language or 
 derive the modes of true religious experience, but from 
 God's Word. There may be things in them to aid us, to 
 animate us, to warn, to reprove, and humble us, but they 
 cannot be our guides, our models. There is but one 
 model, and that is at once our Law and or Lord. All 
 others are to be regarded only as they resemble that. Be 
 ye followers of me, said Paul, just so far as I also am of 
 Christ. Bright human examples are good, so far as they 
 reflect the glory of the Saviour, and turn the soul to him. 
 But as in learning to draw, a pupil of any ingenuity will 
 not take the paper and lay it over the sketch before it and 
 
104 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 so trace it, but with the sketch in view will reproduce one 
 like it, but not the same, using these copies simply for 
 advancement ; so we are to use religious biographies. 
 They are simply helps to bring, us to God, ministering 
 impulses, warnings, encouragements. As Christian in 
 travelling through the Valley of the shadow of death 
 thought he heard a voice before him singing, and it made 
 him rejoice even in darkness ; for thought he within him- 
 self, nobody could sing in this place except God was with 
 him, and if God be with the pilgrim before me, whoever 
 he may be, why not with me also, although my soul be 
 cast down within me by these hideous sights and sounds 
 in the darkness ; so the reading of the progress of other 
 Christians may rejoice the soul of the pilgrim, and be the 
 means of animating his faith. The sight of God's grace in 
 others it was always intended should quicken his grace in 
 ourselves. There is a great and mighty use to be made of 
 Christ's example, and only of that. There is a necessity 
 for that in our o\\jn nature, a necessity of support for our- 
 selves, and of protection from others. 
 
 We are all creatures of imitation : it is a propensity 
 which seems absolutely essential to the existence of human 
 society. Most of us, however, possess unfortunately so 
 great a degree of it, that it overpowers all originality of 
 character, and leaves us at the mercy of all the influences 
 which may be darted upon us from every passing ac- 
 quaintance, and not unfrequently the sport of every 
 casualty that can happen. It subjects the character to be, 
 we cannot say formed, but altered and re-altered, modelled 
 and re-modelled, actuated sometimes for the worse, some- 
 times for the* better, by every human mind with which it 
 comes in contact. It leaves it to be tossed about like a 
 piece of coin, till by constant, successive attrition every 
 vestige of any original impression is worn away, and all 
 individuality is effaced. Instead of taking the formation 
 of our character into our own hands, and looking with a 
 watchful and suspicious eye to all the influences which 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 105 
 
 may come to us from the friends and acquaintances with 
 whom we associate, we leave it as it were an empty sheet, 
 like the blank space of a subscription paper, on which 
 every man is at liberty to write his name, and leave the 
 impression of his seal, till it is filled up, an unintelligible 
 blot, the chaotic scrawl of ten thousand confused and con- 
 trasted signatures. It is mournful to think how many 
 immortal spirits we influence, and by how many we are 
 influenced in the course of our lives, and yet how little 
 caution we use as to the moral and mental impressions 
 which we give and receive. The pursuits of human life, 
 and the characters we come in contact with, are so varied, 
 the objects that are ever demanding our attention so 
 manifold, that we are constantly forgetting the great pur- 
 pose of life, and yielding ourselves to the influence of 
 adventitious circumstances. 
 
 Hence the absolute necessity of one commanding model, 
 and but one, in all the universe. We must hang up the 
 portrait before us ; we must study its features ; we must 
 try to catch its spirit, and to assimilate, oy God's grace, by 
 constant exertion, our own character to its glories. By it 
 we must correct our wanderings, measure our improve- 
 ments, ascertain what manner of spirit we are of. Unless 
 this be the case, instead of imitating one, we shall uncon- 
 sciously imitate a thousand, receiving impressions from all 
 the casual acquaintances and occurrences of life, as 
 various as the countenances of our race, as multiplied and 
 heterogeneous as the rays that fall from a broken prism ; 
 and from these mingled, momentary, and multiplied in- 
 fluences our moral and active habits for time and eternity 
 will be made up. Christ and Christ only must be our 
 pattern. Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of 
 our faith, we may detect and throw off* every besetting 
 evil, and with him always before us, we shall be in no 
 danger from influences that would otherwise drive us 
 about like a plank in the ocean. Imitate him, and we are 
 perfectly safe ; but without him, all is uncertain, unsafe, 
 
 5* 
 
106 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 unstable. The holiest men who have gone before us, and 
 the holiest now upon the scene of conflict, are all imper- 
 fect, erring, sinful. Were it allowable, it would not be 
 safe or prudent to take even the bept of them as our 
 exclusive guides in the formation of our Christian charac- 
 ter. We are liable to a mistaken judgment in regard to 
 many points in their temper and deportment ; in the glow 
 of admiration their very faults may be copied as virtues. 
 
 Moreover, the peculiar characteristics of Christ's most 
 eminent followers may not be capable of universal appli- 
 cation. Their piety, like that of all other men, was much 
 moulded by circumstances, and by the original bias of 
 their moral and mental constitution. If we could succeed 
 in grafting it upon our own lives, still it would be a forced 
 growth, destitute of the freedom and vigor of a native 
 plant. All that is good in them we are indeed bound to 
 exhibit, and by it we must be animated ; but the religion 
 of the best of men has foreign ingredients to weaken its 
 efficacy, if not to adulterate its purity. What was un- 
 necessary gloom, arising from peculiarities of tempera- 
 ment, in Brainard, never can become piety in us. What 
 was psychical despondency in the beloved Martyr cannot 
 change its nature, though some of us may imitate it as an 
 excellence ; what was nervous depression or excitement in 
 Payson can never in us become a virtue, or minister to 
 the depth, truth, and life of our religious exercises. Nor 
 19 it possible to imitate the excellences of these saints, by 
 making them our model, and neglecting Christ. As in 
 order to cultivate the style of a distinguished author, if a 
 student wished to do that, he must make himself ac- 
 quainted with the same discipline by which the author's 
 powers were developed ; must study the same books and 
 be familiar with the same minds, which nourished his 
 genius ; just so, if we wish to possess and exhibit the 
 qualities of any eminent Christian, whose character we 
 greatly admire, we must hourly and unceasingly be 
 intimate with the same Saviour, who was his example and 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 107 
 
 his support. Otherwise, the exhibition which we make of 
 those graces will be but a mangled and miserable copy of 
 what at first was only a faint imitation of Him who knew 
 no sin ; in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, 
 but who yet was made like unto his brethren, and exhibited 
 humanity in its noblest and most perfect form. No mere 
 reflection of his brightness should be suffered to intercept 
 our steadfast gaze at the great fountain of all light and 
 life. It is as if we should darken our windows and light 
 up a taper, when all creation is glowing in the brilliance 
 of the noonday sun. 
 
 Now this is God's wisdom and mercy for us. The 
 scheme of the gospel is God in man, not man reduplicated ; 
 it is man formed on God, in every case of regeneration, 
 not on man ; after God, not after man. God- ward, true 
 religion in man is entire dependence ; man-ward, it is 
 entire independence and originality. Old things are 
 passed away, behold all things are become new, and all 
 things are of God : God in Christ, reconciling the world 
 unto himself, God in Christ purifying us unto himself, new 
 creating us by his Spirit, God in Christ as our example, 
 bringing us into the possession and reflection of his own 
 
 image. 
 
 By various maxims, forms, and rules, 
 That pass for wisdom in the schools, 
 I strove my passions to restrain, 
 But all my efforts proved in vain. 
 But since the Saviour I have known, 
 My rules are all reduced to one ; 
 To keep my Lord by faith in view; 
 This strength supplies, and motives too. 
 
 I see him lead a suffering life, 
 Patient amidst reproach and strife ; 
 And from his pattern courage take, 
 To bear and suffer for his sake. 
 Upon the Cross I see him bleed, 
 And by the sight from guilt am freed; 
 This sight destroys the life of sin, 
 And quickens heavenly life within. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Counterfeit Bills. The religion of imitation, not experience. Faith trembling 
 and self-distrustful, unbelief presuming and self-confident. 
 
 AMONG the exploits of faith enumerated by the Apostle 
 Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews, we find the crossing 
 of the Red Sea put down to the credit of the Israelites, in 
 a striking contrast with the ineffectual attempt of the 
 Egyptians to do the same. " By faith they passed through 
 the Red Sea as by dry land ; which the Egyptians assay- 
 ing to do were drowned." This last clause of the fate of 
 the Egyptians is not a mere expletive. It is difficult to 
 see why the Apostle should bestow this notice upon the 
 Egyptians buried in the sea, while the people of God had 
 gone triumphantly over, unless there were some additional 
 illustrations of the nature of faith to be gained by such 
 contrast. Accordingly, as it is an instance of precisely 
 the same act, performed by believers and unbelievers, with 
 results precisely and to the uttermost extreme opposite, 
 it shows in the strongest manner the comprehensive and 
 decisive nature and operation of the principle of faith, as 
 determining the character and destiny. The same things 
 done in faith and done without faith are entirely different. 
 Externally, they may be precisely the same things in 
 every respect, and yet no two things could be more dis- 
 similar. In the one case they are righteousness and peace, 
 in the other they are guilt and condemnation ; in the one 
 case they are life, in the other, death. This law or princi- 
 ple runs through the whole character and exercises of our 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 109 
 
 spiritual being ; and it is the nature of our spiritual being 
 which determines that of our temporal. As a man think- 
 eth in his heart towards God and eternity, so is he in 
 reality towards man and the things of this world. If his 
 spiritual being is not under the law of faith and love, the 
 law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, then his whole 
 being, spiritual and temporal, is under the law of sin and 
 death. There is nothing good in him, and nothing of life 
 in him, if there be not goodness and life towards God. 
 
 Now to illustrate the nature of faith and unbelief in 
 particular duties, let us take that of prayer. The great 
 work of faith is to come to Christ, to rest on Christ, to be 
 acquainted with Christ, to realize his preciousness, to have 
 the life hid with him in God. Now this communion of 
 the soul with Christ and this life of the soul in and upon 
 him, is maintained mainly by prayer. A man comes to 
 Christ by prayer in the first instance ; coming to Christ by 
 prayer may be the very first exercise of faith ; faith indeed 
 is just a believing look of the soul to Christ, and this look 
 itself is prayer. The soul may begin the form of prayer 
 without faith, and may continue the exercise of prayer, in 
 form, without faith ; and ordinarily the soul, when first 
 convinced of sin, does begin in this way ; begins prayer 
 jgnorantly and in unbelief, before it looks to Christ, and 
 rests on Christ, and finds Christ, savingly and by faith. 
 
 The first time a soul cries out Lord have mercy on me, 
 it does not always see Christ. It may use the language 
 of one looking towards Christ, but at first it is in great 
 blindness. Nevertheless, the instructions in the gospel 
 are so plain on this point, every soul is pointed so directly 
 to Christ, and all ministers and Christians and new con- 
 verts unite with such earnestness in urging the convicted 
 sinner to the Saviour, that a soul with the least degree of 
 sincerity cannot help endeavoring to find Christ, cannot 
 help looking in that direction, however ignorantly and 
 blindly. Although scarcely knowing as yet what to make 
 of Christ, and feeling as though it were addressing a deity 
 
110 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 in the dark, a being of whose existence it is hardly con- 
 vinced, or has hardly any conception, the wounded soul 
 nevertheless cries out in bitterness, Lord have mercy on 
 me ! j 
 
 Now it is ordinarily while in this attitude, while in the 
 repetition of these efforts after Christ, while endeavoring 
 thus, according to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the 
 Word, to look towards Christ, that the soul of the sinner 
 catches the first real, believing, understanding glimpse of 
 Christ. It begins to find him in prayer, and in most cases, 
 the discovery is very gradual ; it is not a sudden finding, a 
 burst of light from heaven, but a light that comes little by 
 little, often increasing like the dawn. With every sincere 
 effort of the soul in prayer there is more and more knowledge 
 and comfort, more and more spiritual discernment, more 
 and more sight of Christ, and not a mere feeling after him, 
 if haply the soul might find him. Thus the soul becomes 
 acquainted with him in prayer, learns the language and 
 experience of the Christian in prayer, has the affections 
 drawn out after Christ in prayer, is educated by the Holy 
 Spirit in prayer, grows up into the Christian life in prayer, 
 becomes exercised, drilled, so to speak, as a soldier, in the 
 Christian conflict in prayer, passes the Red Sea, by faith, 
 in prayer. 
 
 All this discipline, with some, is more gradual, with 
 others more rapid ; but ordinarily it begins in blind and 
 self-despairing efforts ; efforts in which the soul experiences 
 nothing but the sense of sin and unbelief, insensibility and 
 blindness, and seems to itself, even in the work of prayer, 
 to be almost an atheist, to be praying without even believ- 
 ing in the being of a God or a Saviour. It is thus taught 
 how great a thing is faith, how divine a gift of God to the 
 soul, and how much faith it needs simply to believe that 
 God is, and that he is the rewarder of all who diligently 
 seek him. Ordinarily the practical conscious life and 
 comfort of the soul in prayer, and the experience of faith in 
 prayer, and the growth of the soul in the sight and know- 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. Ill 
 
 ledge of Christ in prayer are as gradual and from as hidden, 
 small, and blind beginnings, as the growth of a plant from 
 the imperceptible and decaying germ in the earth, decay- 
 ing, yet quickening, and showing itself to sight, first the 
 little, delicate, tender blade, then the ear, and after that 
 the full corn in the ear. So the beginnings of Christ in the 
 soul grow out of the decaying of self and the quickening 
 of grace, and they show themselves and are found out and 
 developed in the exercises of the soul in prayer. 
 
 Then having thus found Christ in prayer, the soul con- 
 tinues to commune with him in prayer, to throw itself 
 upon him in prayer, daily, to walk with him by a life of 
 faith in prayer, and to serve him by prayer, obedience, 
 and the watchful performance of duty. It does all this 
 now, more and more, not to find Christ, but as having 
 found him, not to purchase anything, but out of love, as 
 loving him, and being loved by him, not to gain pardon 
 and heaven, by merit, but to obey Christ and to please 
 him, to be made more; and more like him, and to be filled 
 more and more with his fulness, in his knowledge and love. 
 This is the life of faiih, entered into and maintained, 
 mainly through the instrumentality of prayer. Prayer 
 itself is a life. 
 
 But now, here is another path, although apparently the 
 same way. Another man attempts to come to Christ by 
 prayer, but without faith ; to come to Christ and to enter 
 heaven by prayer, just as you would expect to enter to the 
 enjoyment of a feast or the exhibition of a great picture, 
 by having bought your ticket, and presented it at trie door 
 of entrance. Every time such a soul comes to prayer, it 
 is s.o much work done for wages expected. There is no 
 humble, penitent looking of the soul to Christ in this case, 
 and no sincere endeavor to look to him and rely upon him ; 
 and therefore, while this is the attitude of the soul, there 
 can be no sight of him, no finding of him, no acquaintance 
 with him. Christ is not what the soul is seeking, in such 
 a case, but safety ; not holiness and healing by Christ, but 
 
112 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 a policy of insurance. This is a mere Romish way of 
 prayer, as a staircase of penance, and of observances in the 
 way of merit. It is coming to Christ just only as a super- 
 stitious soul goes to the priest with moi^ey to buy itself out 
 of purgatory, or to get a bill of exemption. This may be 
 coming to prayer, but it is not coming to Christ by 
 prayer. 
 
 It is just an attempt to gain heaven by works, by self- 
 righteousness. The soul is on entirely a wrong track, not 
 towards Christ but away from him, not of repentance and 
 faith, but of pride and unbelief. And yet it may seem to 
 be the same track of prayer. Nay, it might be in the 
 very same words of prayer. The self-same expressions, 
 used by the soul in the first supposed instance, as expres- 
 sions of faith and love, might be written or printed in a 
 book, and might be repeated and renewed by the soul in 
 this second supposed instance, just as often and with just 
 the same assiduity as in the first ; and yet in the second case 
 it would be a going away from Christ, while in the first 
 case it was a coming to him ; in the second case it would 
 be a growing ignorance of Christ, while in the first case it 
 was a growing acquaintance with him ; in the second case 
 it would be a course of selfishness and unbelief, while in 
 the first case it was a process of humility and faith ; in the 
 second case it would be the ruin of the soul, while in the 
 first case it was its salvation. In the one case it would be 
 an attempt to be saved by works, which would be destruc- 
 tion ; in the other an endeavor to be saved by Christ, 
 which would be salvation. 
 
 This is the meaning of Paul, when he showed that the 
 believing Gentiles, throwing themselves on Christ, were 
 saved and became holy, when the unbelieving Jews, 
 throwing themselves on their own merits in having kept 
 the law, remained unholy and were lost. "What shall 
 we say then ? That the Gentiles, which followed not after 
 righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the 
 righteousness which is of faith. But Israel, which followed 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 113 
 
 after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law 
 of righteousness. Wherefore ? Because, they sought it 
 not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For 
 they stumbled at that stumbling-stone in Zion." Even so, 
 a man following righteousness to get Christ, makes right- 
 eousness his Saviour, and rejects Christ, throwing himself 
 on his own righteousness, which in such a case is miserable 
 pride, in unbelief, ignorance, and sin, not accepting Christ. 
 But a man following Christ without righteousness, but to 
 get righteousness in Christ, confesses and feels his own 
 utter guilt and vileness, and throws himself on Christ 
 alone, to be saved by grace, by faith, the mere, free, rich, 
 sovereign, and undeserved gift of God's love. 
 
 Thus it is that the doing of precisely the same things 
 may lead in the one case to Christ, in the other away from 
 him ; may be in the one case piety, in the other sin ; may 
 lead in the one case to heaven, in the other down to hell. 
 Precisely the same things ! The same steps taken, the 
 same words uttered, in the same number of times, with the 
 same observances, and the same labor and care, may be 
 salvation in the one case, and ruin in the other. Because, 
 in true religion all is faith, and all depends on the state of 
 the soul, and prayer is not prayer, which is offered as 
 purchase money, or maintained as merit and hire, and 
 because there must be love, or there is neither holiness 
 nor heaven. 
 
 So it is, that precisely the same way may be taken to 
 cross the Red Sea, but in the one case it will be death, 
 though in the other it was life. It may be apparently by 
 the same stepping-stones, and the proud chariot wheels of 
 the Egyptians may run in exactly the same tracks on the 
 bottom of the sea, with the rude carts of the Israelites ; 
 but there is all the difference that there is between salva- 
 tion and perdition, between holiness and sin. And yet, 
 precisely the same way ! It may be as precisely the same, 
 as the words of prayer repeated from a prayer-book, and 
 the same words uttered from the heart ; which in the first 
 
114 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 case might be the labor of an unbelieving hireling, or even 
 the sport and mockery of a scoffing fool, but in the last, 
 the humility and penitence of a sincere Christian. So 
 great is the difference between the prayer of faith and 
 prayer without faith, or prayer rolled over like the beads 
 of a Pagan, or the chariot wheels of the Egyptians. And 
 as they are heaven-wide different in themselves, so in their 
 results. The same sea that prayer and faith keep open, 
 self-merit and self-complacency bring down in great 
 drowning billows on the soul. This sea of guilt and con- 
 demnation, through which a man must pass to Christ, 
 must be crossed by faith, can be crossed in no other way ; 
 and God only can open it, can keep back its billows from 
 drowning the soul. True faith is small at first, and 
 trembles and is afraid, but at length is encouraged by 
 God's Word, and from one step is led on to another in 
 safety, humbly casting all on Christ. So the sea is crossed, 
 and the soul stands on the other side, and looks back in 
 wonder, gratitude, and joy, and can hardly yet believe its 
 own experience. But it has found Christ in prayer, and 
 knows how to rest upon him. 
 
 Pride and unbelief, on the other hand, tread at first very 
 confidently ; they are as haughty and speedy as the Egyp- 
 tians ; they say, We will make the same passage, we will 
 be saved by doing so and so ; but down comes the sea ; it 
 is only faith that finds in prayer the way to Christ. And 
 Christ and his gospel to the believing soul are a savor of 
 life, but to the unbelieving soul only of condemnation and 
 death. It is not the steps that a believer takes that save 
 him, but it is Christ that saves him, and if he does not 
 look to Christ, the very same steps will but destroy him. 
 The Egyptians do not see who opens the way, who holds 
 back the billows ; they think if they take the same steps, 
 that the route will carry them also safely, the path will 
 save them. So they rush on confidently, but it is only 
 to be choked in the waters. So unbelief will, as it were, 
 take heaven by storm ; a storm of duties, merits, observ- 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 115 
 
 ances ; and it rushes on, but soon finds itself buffeting the 
 tempest, sinking like a stone, the waters too deep to be 
 forded. Unbelief, setting out to be its own saviour, destroys 
 all possibility of salvation, and encounters destruction. 
 Faith, in self-despair, trusting all to Christ, finds strength 
 and security. Unbelief, exalting self, and keeping that 
 alone in view, falls into the arms of Satan ; while faith, 
 abasing and excluding self, falls into the arms of the 
 Redeemer. Unbelief seeks its own life, and finds death ; 
 while faith, entering on the death of self, finds life eternal. 
 A great and learned man once labelled a volume of 
 Socinian Tracts in his library with this inscription : 
 " Salvation made easy, or every man his own Redeemer." 
 It was a good satire ; but the true title would be, Salvation 
 made impossible, and every man his own destroyer. This 
 mistake of self-salvation comes from ignorance and un- 
 belief of self-ruin ; for no man ever dreams of- saving him- 
 self who is made truly sensible that he has ruined himself. 
 Real conviction of sin must either lead to despair or to 
 Christ, and certainly to despair if not to Christ. And 
 that self-salvation which seemed easy at first without con- 
 viction of sin, only plunges the soul into the depths of 
 misery. A man who goes info despair now because of 
 conviction, may come to Christ afterwards ; his very des- 
 pair may drive him to Christ ; just as the Israelites, shut 
 up in utter hopelessness at the Red Sea, were compelled to 
 throw themselves on God. But a man full of self -confi- 
 dence now, for 'Want of conviction, is sure to come to 
 despair in the end. So let a man try to ride in the chariot 
 of his own works, prayers, goodness, amiableness, upright- 
 ness, into heaven, or over the Red Sea of his guilt ; he 
 may set out with great expectations, and may have an 
 army with him ; but God speedily takes off his chariot 
 wheels, and he drives heavily, and then what he trusted in 
 for support and safety xmly entangles him and sinks him, 
 when God lets loose the billows. His armor and his har- 
 
116 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 ness carry him down like lead in the mighty waters. His 
 self-righteousness is even worse for him than his sins. His 
 sins might bring him to Christ, if he felt them ; but his 
 self-righteousness is the very blind of ^Batan over his soul ; 
 it keeps him from seeing either his sins or his Saviour. 
 His faith in self makes him an unbeliever at once in sin, 
 in Christ, and in Satan ; he thinks he has no sin but what 
 he can cure by his own reformation ; he thinks he needs 
 no Saviour but that cure ; and he thinks, consequently, 
 that for him there is neither devil nor hell. If he believed 
 heartily, truly, experimentally, either in sin, or Satan, or 
 Christ, he would renounce self, and hold to Christ only ; 
 but believing in self, there is nothing else in which he can 
 or will believe, except as a part of self, or auxiliary to it. 
 Yea, the indictment in Isaiah may be taken up and issued 
 against him. Thou hast trusted in thy wickedness ; thou 
 hast said, None seeth me. Thy wisdom and thy know- 
 ledge, it hath perverted thee ; and thou hast said in thy 
 heart, I am, and none else beside me. Thou settest thy- 
 self as the egotist and idol of the universe, thine own only 
 object of belief and adoration. Therefore shall evil come 
 upon thee ; thou shalt not know from whence it riseth ; 
 and mischief shall fall upon thee ; thou shalt not be able to 
 put it off ; and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, 
 which thou shalt not know. Stand now, with thine 
 enchantments, thou god of thine own creation, and with 
 the multitude of thy sorceries, wherewith thou hast 
 labored from thy youth ; if so be thou shalt be able to 
 profit, if so be thou mayest prevail. Thou art wearied in 
 the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, 
 the star-gazers, the monthly prognostic ators of thy divinity, 
 the calculators and vouchers for the horoscope of thy self- 
 righteous theology, stand up and save thee from these 
 things that shall come upon thee. Behold they shall be as 
 stubble ; the fire shall burn them ; they shall not deliver 
 themselves from this power of the flame. Thus shall they 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 117 
 
 be unto thee, with whom thou hast labored ; thy merchants 
 from thy youth in the wares of thy flattery, thy self- 
 delusion ; none shall save thee. Moreover, because ye 
 have said we have made a covenant with death, and with 
 hell are we at agreement, your covenant with death shall 
 be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not 
 stand. For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch 
 himself upon it, and the covering narrower than he can 
 wrap himself in it. Vast as the robe of a man's self- 
 righteousness may be, it was never yet large enough to 
 cover the sinful soul. 
 
 So then, there is no agreement that can stand, but an 
 agreement with God for Christ's sake. Salvation is 
 wholly of Christ, by faith, not of him that willeth, nor of 
 him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. The 
 race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but to 
 the contrite soul that trembleth at God's Word, and out of 
 weakness is made strong. If thou standest at the Red 
 Sea, and thinkest that thou wilt cross in thine own chariot, 
 thou art an Egyptian, and the waters will cover thee. If 
 thou hast no fear, it is because of thine ignorance. There 
 are many things that unbelief does not tremble at, and 
 that do not stagger the man of sense, but at which faith 
 trembles, knowing the difficulties and dangers. Unbelief 
 resorts to sense for encouragement, but faith to Christ. 
 Sense is always visible, but Christ is not. Sense is a 
 beast that starts fair, but throws its rider, or founders in 
 the Slough of Despond, and is lost in the blackness of 
 darkness. Faith seems to sense to be walking in darkness, 
 but issues in everlasting light. The very essence of faith 
 is to walk by things unseen. Faith regards an unseen 
 Saviour, and this is the very trial of the soul. Art thou 
 ready, God says, and willing, to quit self and sense, and 
 at the foot of the cross cry for mercy and trust for mercy, 
 as a lost sinner ? Wilt thou make application to Christ, 
 wilt thou trust in him, wilt thou rest upon him, simply as 
 
118 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 thou findest him revealed in God's Word ? That is the 
 very first exercise of faith, such a belief in an unseen 
 Saviour as makes you apply to him for mercy ; this done, 
 there follows more, there springs up ai^ experience, out of 
 which thenceforward springs a greater faith. " Whom, 
 having not seen, ye love ; in whom, though now ye see 
 him not, yet believing, ye rejoice, with joy unspeakable and 
 full of glory." It is in this sense that faith is described 
 as the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things 
 not seen. The moment faith is exercised, then there is an 
 experimental demonstration to the soul, a manifestation to 
 faith of that Saviour and those realities, which sense can- 
 not see. Then arise love, joy, peace, all the fruits of the 
 Spirit ; but they all wait for faith ; they wait till the soul 
 rests on Christ, and if the soul waits for them, as a sort of 
 sensible encouragement to come to Christ, it will wait in 
 vain, it will never come to him. The soul's encourage- 
 ment to come to Christ is in its own ruin out of Christ, 
 its utter guilt and misery, and not in any fancied grace 
 that it will have before it comes to him, as a sort of 
 swimming-belt on which to venture to him. No ! all the 
 grace it wants before coming to him is that of faith in its 
 own guilt and ruin ; that is the only faith in self to be 
 allowed, to be tolerated for a moment. We come to 
 Christ out of self-ruin. Lord, save me, I perish. Nay. 
 we come to Christ out of the death of self, and when self 
 is weakest, then faith is strongest, and in proportion as 
 self is lost sight of, Christ becomes visible, Christ rises on 
 the soul, as the Sun of Righteousness, and floods the soul 
 at length with his light, and takes possession of the soul 
 for ever and ever. 
 
 What am I? 
 
 A poor sinner ! 
 
 Lord, my life is waste and wanted. 
 
 THOU must be the sole beginner 
 
 Of that mighty death to self, 
 
 In which Life again is planted. 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 119 
 
 Then shall I, 
 A poor sinner, 
 
 Like the plant from dying kernel, 
 Rise with Thee, my Life's beginner, 
 Find in Thee my second self, 
 Reign with Thee in Life Eternal. 
 
 This is the language of an humble, contrite, believing 
 heart. Self-confidence is all gone, a simple reliance on 
 Christ and humble love to him have taken the place of 
 everything else in the soul. How beautifully the Poet 
 Cowper describes the happy change in one of his un- 
 affected, child-like hymns ! 
 
 No strength of nature can suffice 
 
 To serve the Lord aright ; 
 And what she has, she misapplies, 
 
 For want of clearer light. 
 
 How long beneath the law I lay 
 
 In bondage and distress ; 
 I toiled the precept to obey, 
 
 But toiled without success. 
 
 Then, to abstain from outward sin 
 
 Was more than I could do, 
 Now, if I feel its power within, 
 
 I feel I hate it too. 
 
 Then, all my servile works were done 
 
 A righteousness to raise ; 
 Now, freely chosen in the Son, 
 
 1 freely choose his ways. 
 
 " What shall I do," was then the word, 
 " That I may worthier grow ?" 
 What shall I render to the Lord ? 
 Is my inquiry now. 
 
 To see the Law by Christ fulfilled, 
 
 And hear his pardoning voice, 
 Changes a slave into a child, 
 
 And duty into choice. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Counterfeit Bills continued. Formalism and Faith, Pride and Contrition in 
 contrast. The power of the element of self-despair. 
 
 THE parables and narratives of Christ are wonderful things 
 in their many-sided reflections and emanations of the light. 
 The sunbeams fall in shafts of beauty and power through 
 both characters and facts, illustrating Divine Truth, and 
 making it live before us. Spiritual abstractions come 
 forth in definite form and outline ; the different graces of 
 the Spirit are seen in action ; the feelings of the heart and 
 moods of opinion and habits of life in whole classes receive 
 a realization through the portraits of individuals. 
 
 The Divine sketches of the Pharisee and Publican at 
 their devotions, each in his own way, are worth whole 
 volumes of dissertations on the workings and evidences of 
 a contrite spirit, and the essence of justifying faith and 
 acceptable prayer. Of the Pharisee it is said, He stood 
 and prayed thus with himself. It is not lightly that this 
 description has been chosen. He stood and prayed thus 
 with himself ! Aye, and himself only ! There was the 
 name of God, but no god but self in the prayer. Two 
 men went up to the Temple to pray. "Two went to 
 pray ?" asked the Poet Crashaw ; 
 
 Two went to pray ? O rather say 
 One went to brag, the other to pray ; 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 121 
 
 One stands up close, and treads on high, 
 Where the other dares not lift his eye: 
 
 One nearer to God's altar trod, 
 The other to the altar's GOD. 
 
 Altar prayers are common, and we have heard of prayers 
 offered to an audience, the most eloquent prayers ever 
 addressed to an enlightened audience. There have been 
 such things reported. But here is a man praying to him- 
 self ! To pray to an altar, or an audience, instead of God, 
 is a singular and obstinate superstition. But then, how 
 strange, how ridiculous, in secret to pray to oneself, pre- 
 tending to pray to God ! ^t is difficult to say which would 
 be worse ; it is not difficult to say which is most common. 
 God, I thank thee ! Divine human nature, I thank thee ! 
 Self-respect and dignity of my soul, I thank thee ! The 
 god he was addressing was as much the god of his own 
 fancy, as if it had been a stamped wax wafer held before him. 
 It was a thing that had grown up and been formed among 
 the corruptions of his own heart ; no better than the idols, 
 which in times of old they stole from one another, and hid 
 among their household stuffs, and sat upon them. It was a 
 conception of his own, a self-flattering deity, down among 
 his own thoughts, that he prayed with, communed with ; 
 dignifying it with the mere intellectual idea of God, 
 gathered from the Hebrew Scriptures, and revealed in the 
 state-religion of his country. 
 
 Now for one prayer addressed to an audience, there are 
 probably very many addressed thus to self. This is as 
 common, to say the least, as the character of a Pharisee ; 
 and we are all Pharisees, unless we are Publicans. Indeed, 
 if we, be even sincere Christians, and yet have our hearts 
 wandering upon other things, while we-seem to be address- 
 ing God, what is that but praying with oneself ? But that 
 is not what is here meant ; not the mere wandering of the 
 thoughts from God in the midst of prayer, but the prayer 
 
 6 
 
122 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 of self-deception, pride, self-complacency, and hypocrisy. 
 He stood and prayed thus with himself : " God, I thank 
 thee that I am not as other men are." How did he know 
 what other men were ? His own outside, and the outside 
 of other men, was all he was thinking of. And he thought 
 God would be deceived by the mockery of such a com- 
 parison. He was deceiving himself, and who in the 
 universe should have a keener discernment than he ! 
 
 Not as other men are, nor even as this Publican ! This 
 is not a rare spirit. "Well, I thank God, let my follies be 
 what they may, I am not such a fool as these Methodists. 
 I can at least be decent in my religion. I have sense 
 enough to prefer a good prayer To illiterate mysticism and 
 groans." And then there is another form of thanksgiving 
 that some might think right the reverse of the Pharisee's, 
 but which is just the same thing : " Well, I thank God, 
 let my follies be what they may, I am no hypocrite ; I 
 don't make a profession of religion and then go away and 
 cheat my neighbors.'"' No, but you can cheat them with- 
 out any profession, and you would do it, with a strong 
 enough temptation, if left of God. Yea, perhaps you are 
 eating up the sins of God's people, and crying out at the 
 same time, I thank God this is not my food. This liturgy 
 of the Pharisees has a great many forms. It w r as much 
 longer than that of the poor Publican. 
 
 God, I thank thee that I am not as other men, nor 
 even as this Publican. I do not come up to the temple to 
 pray, without having performed the other duties of religion. 
 I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. 
 I stick fast to the traditions of the elders. I build the 
 tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the 
 righteous. I pay tithe of mint, anise, and cummin. I 
 never eat bread without washing my hands. I make 
 broad my phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of my gar- 
 ments. My fellow-men respect me, and call me Rabbi, 
 and give me the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief 
 seats in the synagogues. God, I thank thee for all this. 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 123 
 
 My heart overflows with gratitude. What a blessing that 
 I am not as other men, as this Publican ! 
 
 See now the writing that comes out upon the wall in 
 answer to all this ; hear now the inaudible voice in the 
 Temple from the Holy of Holies. Woe unto you, Scribes 
 and Pharisees, hypocrites, whited sepulchres, graves that 
 appear not, and men walk over them, not in the least 
 aware of the rottenness that festers beneath. Woe unto 
 you, righteous outwardly, but within full of hypocrisy and 
 iniquity. Woe unto you, paying tithes of mint and rue 
 and all manner of herbs, but trampling upon justice, 
 mercy, and faith ; making clean the outside of the cup 
 and platter, but your inward part is full of ravening and 
 wickedness. Woe unto you, with your uppermost seats 
 and greetings and prayers ! for which ye shall receive the 
 greater damnation. And for you all, except your righteous- 
 ness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and 
 Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of 
 heaven. 
 
 Such is the sum of this man's prayers, the end of this 
 man's righteousness. He returned to his house with a 
 proud and rotten heart, a man of a class ; condemned by 
 their very prayers, and abandoned as reprobate by Christ 
 himself, in the most burning and tremendous denunciations 
 ever uttered. 
 
 Now turn to the other, the poor, trembling, self-despair- 
 ing Publican. God be merciful to me a sinner ! There 
 is nothing of self here but self-despair. This man is not 
 praying with himself, nor to himself, counting over the 
 roll of his observances, his tithes, his fastings, the coats 
 of paint and gilding over the rotten sepulchre of his heart. 
 This man prays to God, out of the depths of guilt and 
 misery ; his soul can do nothing but groan after God. 
 For thy name's sake pardon mine iniquity, for it is great. 
 And so was his prayer great ; a great prayer, though in 
 but half a dozen words. It was prayer to God, from the 
 
124 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 depths of a penitent heart, and he went down to his house 
 justified, rather than the other. 
 
 Nevertheless, he was not justified by his prayer, nor 
 saved by his prayer. He did not hinpself expect to be. 
 He did not come up to the temple for that, purpose, but 
 just to confess his sins, and throw himself on God's 
 mercy. He was justified and saved only by God's mercy, 
 not by his own prayer, nor his own repentance. He could 
 not have been justified and saved without repentance, but 
 he was not saved by it. Just as the lepers could not have 
 been cleansed without going to the priests, but were not 
 saved by going, but by Christ ; and just as Paul's ship and 
 company could not have been saved without the soldiers 
 abiding in it, but yet were not saved by that, but by God's 
 mercy; just so this poor Publican could not have been 
 saved without that broken-hearted prayer, without that 
 contrition of soul which impelled the prayer, but yet he 
 was not justified and saved by that, but by Christ' only. 
 His humility was excellent, his contrition excellent, his 
 prayer excellent, but he never dreamed of that, and it was 
 nothing of that that saved him, but only Christ. And if 
 he had dreamed of that, if he had worked himself up into 
 this groaning after God, to bring that frame into the temple 
 as a ground of justification, it would have spoiled the whole. 
 His prayer would have been no whit better than the 
 Pharisee's. He would have stood and prayed with him- 
 self, just like the Pharisee, God, I thank thee that I have 
 such excellent prayers to bring thee, and not the poor 
 miserable formalism and heartless tithe-gatherings of this 
 Pharisee. There are such dealings of pride, sometimes, 
 even with groans and prayers, such merchandise made of 
 tears and importunities, by which deluded souls think to 
 merit heaven. And the mistake sometimes is not dis- 
 covered even by souls truly convinced of sin, till after 
 much struggling in the mire of their own guilt and misery. 
 
 Now this picture of these two persons going up to the 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 125 
 
 temple to pray shows us in the first place our complete 
 misery, ignorance, blindness, and helplessness in ourselves. 
 Self-despair is a great grace; and a great and blessed 
 discipline it is, cost what it may, that brings a man to it. 
 Self-despair is the first ^tep in the ladder of faith and grace 
 in Christ Jesus, whose top reaches to heaven. But oh, 
 what a discipline of buffeting and inward suffering and 
 misery it sometimes costs to bring a man to this step. 
 Yea, most men are very far from this first step ; wandering 
 over the earth, not like Jacob, sleeping with stones for 
 their pillows and dreaming of heaven, but wide awake in 
 all the heedlessness of self-confidence ; planning for self, 
 living for self, cultivating self, refining self, polishing self, 
 burning incense to self, cajoling self, worshipping self, 
 puffing up self with pride, blinding self, deceiving self, 
 seeking self, raising self, by self, to heaven, and thus ex- 
 cluding self from heaven, and making nothing certain for 
 self but self, which really is nothing but hell. The Pharisee 
 goes up to the temple, and up to heaven, as he thinks, by 
 self; but it is his way down to hell. The poor publican 
 goes down to hell, as he thinks, by self, and he really sees 
 and feels the intolerable corruptions of his nature so 
 deeply, so truly, so self-despairingly, that he seems in the 
 abyss of woe ; but it is his way up to heaven ; for he that 
 exalteth himself shall be abased, while he that humbleth 
 himself shall be exalted. The Pharisee, by the discipline 
 of self, is full of self-pride ; the publican, by the discipline 
 of self under grace, is full of despair ; the publican has 
 his foot on the first round of the ladder that lifts him out 
 of self and hell into Christ and heaven ; the Pharisee is 
 clean the other side of the globe, going down to Satan. 
 
 This picture shows us again the great danger of a 
 counterfeit piety. The very duties of religion, if self be 
 the soul of them, are nothing but guilt ; they are the wolf 
 in sheep's clothing ; nay, they are the wolf dressed up like 
 a proud lion. Where there is faith, there is humility ; but 
 where there is not faith, there is nothing but pride and 
 
126 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 self-deceit. Therefore, whatsoever is not of faith is sin. 
 Now this counterfeit is easily made. It costs indeed much 
 labor, and is made with a very sincere desire and determina- 
 tion to have it available. And it may seejn hard that it should 
 not be available, that it should be So severely rejected and 
 penaltied. But consider that it is of base material ; and 
 what would become of the circulating medium of heaven, 
 if this false, vile, spurious coin of self, with heaven's 
 forgery, should get prevalent ? Moreover, whose fault, 
 whose will, whose obstinacy is the self-deceit and the 
 counterfeit ? It is the soul's own, against God's instruc- 
 tions, God's warnings. It is just because the soul will 
 not give up self to God, that the counterfeit imposes on it. 
 A soul that chooses God, Christ, and heaven's will, instead 
 of self, will hate the counterfeit, will loathe the production 
 of self; if that coinage gets into the Christian's purse, it 
 will burn in it like fire, it will create misery, it will make 
 him hate it. 
 
 And if a soul is so blind, that it cannot discern between 
 self and Christ, between prayer manufactured as a ticket 
 of entrance to heaven, and prayer which is just the 
 humble confession of sin, the expression of a penitent 
 reliance on Christ, and the breathing of an humble soul 
 after him, where does this blindness come from ? Why, 
 from the adoration of self, from the utter disregard of God 
 and supreme regard to self, from the love of sin and the 
 disrelish of holiness. Can God accept the counterfeit 
 money that such a soul receives and passes ? Admit that 
 it be coined with groans and tears, that it be not the mere 
 going up to the temple, and reading over the catalogue of 
 one's duties ; that it be self-penance and cryings out for 
 mercy ; yet if there be no faith, what can be done with it ? 
 What is it worth ? The ground may with great labor 
 have brought forth nettles, but for what are they good, but 
 to be burned ? The monks of a superstitious creed may 
 have spent days and nights in groanings and scourgings; 
 but the character is not a whit altered. After a night's 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 127 
 
 sleepless watchings and sacrificings, can the counterfeit 
 coin be any the more worth acceptance ? 
 
 Counterfeit money always costs labor. Some gangs of 
 counterfeiters labor harder on the productions of their 
 base coinage, than the most industrious men for the good 
 of society. And they always have a mixture of good 
 metal. But all the great cost, pains, toil, self-denial, labor, 
 and danger they have undergone cannot shield them from 
 the penalty, nor make the coin go. If the die be not that 
 of the government, it must be condemned. And so, if 
 prayers and tears and labors after heaven have not Christ's 
 signature, the bills are forged, and must be condemned. 
 And this the more severely, because Christ always stood 
 ready to give his signature, had it been asked ; had the 
 bills been given, up to him, to do with them as he pleased, 
 and not used for self without regard to him, they should 
 have been accepted. He would have put his own name 
 on the back of them, and so made them good, even though 
 before they were worthless. The very act of bringing 
 them to him would have legalized them. But as self- 
 possessions, self-complacencies, and self-riches, they are 
 forgeries and vile. 
 
 We see, then, our entire dependence upon Christ. It is 
 this which self-despair teaches. In ourselves how blind, 
 ignorant, proud, deluded, self-seeking, helpless, hopeless. 
 At every point turned away from God, and unlike him ; 
 dependent on him for grace to see Christ, even when 
 Christ is directly before us. And even when convinced 
 of sin, and anxious after heaven, still so blinded by selfish- 
 ness, that we think we will gain heaven by praying, labor- 
 ing, scourging, mourning, anything, everything, rather than 
 letting all things go in self-despair, trusting to Christ ; 
 blinded thus until God opens our eyes. What wretched, 
 lost, utterly miserable sinners ! 
 
 Do we exaggerate in all this ? God forbid. It is not 
 possible. And the worst of all is, that we do not see nor 
 feel this misery. But in the midst of it all, we march up 
 
128 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 to the temple with the Pharisee, and though we have 
 nothing but groans, and forced confessions of guilt 
 misery to bring with us, yet even out of these we extract 
 the plea of self-confidence and self-yighteousness. We 
 pray thus with ourselves, God, I thank thee.that I can at 
 least bring sorrowful penance and good desires, and am 
 thus on the way back from my sins, the way of salvation. 
 Certainly, God, thou wilt have mercy on me after such 
 long groaning and praying. What perpetuated, insidious, 
 insinuating, hidden, subtle forms and wiles of self! And 
 what misery, what wretchedness, to be thus under the 
 dominion and deceptions of this lying, sinful, selfish self! 
 Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me! 
 
 ,Aye ! here is the point of self-despair, the soul sinking, 
 lost, undone, convinced of it at length, and out of the very 
 stress and agony of the consciousness of sinking into hell, 
 crying out to Christ for mercy ! Here is the very point 
 where mercy can come, safely, lastingly. Here self is 
 down, abased, quitted, lost ; nothing left but a mere outcry 
 of despairing faith to Christ. It is just such utterly lost 
 souls that Christ came to seek and to save. And is not 
 this infinitely better than to take a soul's counterfeit 
 money? Is not this a merciful refusal on the part of 
 Christ, and a most merciful and gracious discipline, to 
 strip the soul of self before blessing it ? You perhaps 
 think Christ a hard master, because he says, Deny thyself, 
 and, He that seeketh his life shall lose it ; but he can be a 
 kind and good master in no other way. If he should let 
 you into heaven before you have been beaten down into 
 this despair of self, and crucified, it would be no heaven to 
 you. You must indeed be crucified with Christ, before 
 you can be saved in Christ. 
 
 And now, art thou willing to learn this by experience ? 
 Dost thou wish to be thus humbled, and crucified, and self- 
 despairing in Christ ? Then come to Christ. For he only 
 can be the beginning of humility, freedom, and mercy to 
 thy soul But alas, this way of salvation for us is only too 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 129 
 
 easy. If we were shut up to the law alone, and the 
 burden of guilt were thrown and left upon us at the gates 
 of hell, and no Saviour offered, perhaps then we would be 
 crying out for a Saviour. If the way of salvation had 
 been so plain to Luther at the beginning, in the midst of 
 his ignorance, as it is to us in the midst of our light, very 
 likely we should never have heard of Luther's religious 
 experience. That experience grew out of self-despair/ 
 
 My God ! how perfect are thy ways ! 
 
 But mine polluted are ; 
 Sin twines itself about my praise, 
 
 And slides into my prayer. 
 
 When I would speak what Thou hast done 
 
 To save me from my sin, 
 I cannot make thy mercies known, 
 
 But self-applause creeps in. 
 
 Divine desire, that holy flame, 
 
 Thy grace creates in me ; 
 Alas ! impatience is its name, 
 
 When it returns to thee. 
 
 This heart a fount of evil thoughts, 
 
 No constant rest can know, 
 While self upon the surface floats, 
 
 Still bubbling from below. 
 
 Let others in the gaudy dress 
 
 Of fancied merit shine, 
 The Lord shall be my righteousness, 
 
 The Lord for ever mine. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Faith guided of God. Unbelief left to itself. The separating pillar. Sun- 
 shine and darkness in the same dispensation. The source of infidelity. 
 
 IF there are no great incidents on a journey, little ones 
 may be useful. Every day's occurrences have their 
 purpose, trifling though they may seem. My trunk shuts 
 with a spring. One day in travelling, after I had opened 
 my trunk, I carelessly threw the key upon the top of the 
 articles in it, and then, forgetting this circumstance, I shut 
 down the lid, and there it was, fast closed, with the key 
 itself inside. I could not get it open in any way, but had 
 to send for a locksmith. I was thinking afterwards what 
 possible good could come out of this accident, which cost 
 me on a journey some loss of time, and seemed very 
 foolish. In the first place, the locksmith and I entered 
 into a religious conversation, while he was at work upon 
 the trunk. Some good, very possibly, came out of that. 
 In the second place, it might teach me to be more careful. 
 In the third place, it made me think of the need and office 
 of faith, for the use of our knowledge. 
 
 Faith is to the understanding with its treasures of sacred 
 knowledge, what a key is to a well filled trunk. You 
 cannot get at these treasures, for the use of them, without 
 violence, but by the exercise of faith. It is faith which 
 opens the understanding, and shows God and divine 
 things in it, and the divine meaning of the things which 
 the understanding encompasses. But faith is above the 
 understanding. Now some men make it inferior. They 
 
GRACE AND TRUTH, CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 131 
 
 put the understanding uppermost. They shut down the 
 lid of the understanding upon faith, which is about as bad 
 as my shutting up the key of my trunk inside of it. The 
 key was of no use whatever in that position, and all my 
 goods and wearing apparel, and books besides, were of no 
 use to me while thus shut up, if I could not get at them. 
 And just so, though a man possess all knowledge, yet if he 
 have not faith to get at its true meaning, and make a right 
 application of it, it is of no use ; he must have the key. 
 But some religionists wish to pack all mysteries into their 
 understanding, and the key besides. When this is the 
 case there is no way but to have it taken to the locksmith. 
 And the locksmith can tell any man that his trunk is a 
 finite thing, yea, though he should bring to be mended a 
 trunk as big and as splendid as St. Paul's Cathedral. It is 
 a finite thing, and cannot hold all mysteries, but only some 
 fragments and germs of truth, some beginnings of know- 
 ledge, something given to him of God, and some poor and 
 partial guesses of his own. And the bigger he thinks it is, 
 and the more he prides himself upon it, the less of real 
 truth it will hold, and the more easily it gets out of order, 
 and then he himself can do nothing with it. 
 
 When the heart gets out of order, only he that made the 
 heart can set it right. Only he who knoweth all its 
 springs, sees precisely what is wrong, and knows just 
 where and how to apply the remedy. Even when God 
 has given us faith, and the key of the trunk is not lost, the 
 lock itself may be out of order. A constant waiting upon 
 God is necessary. 
 
 For Reason still, unless divinely taught, 
 Whate'er she learns, learns nothing as she ought. 
 The lamp of Revelation only shows 
 What human wisdom cannot but oppose, 
 That man, in nature's richest mantle clad, 
 And graced with all philosophy can add, 
 Though fair without, and luminous within, 
 Is still the progeny and heir of sin. 
 
132 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 Thus taught, down falls the plumage of his pride, 
 He feels his need of un unerring guide, 
 And knows that falling he shall rise no more, 
 Unless the power that bade him stand restore. 
 This is indeed philosophy ; this know}), 
 Makes wisdom, worthy of the name, his own, 
 And without this, whatever he discuss, 
 Whether the space between the stars and us, 
 Whether he measure earth, compute the sea, 
 Weigh sunbeams, carve a fly, or split a flea, 
 The solemn trifler, with his boasted skill, 
 Toils much, and is a solemn trifler still. 
 Blind was he born, and his misguided eyes, 
 Grown dim in trifling studies, blind he dies. 
 
 There is no help for this, but in God's grace, and He 
 who is the Light of the World has said, " For judgment 
 came I into the world, that they which see not might see, 
 and that they which see might be made blind." And this 
 is a declaration which is but the counterpart of the saying, 
 " I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repent- 
 ance. They that are whole need not a Physician, but they 
 that are sick." The first thing is for men to be convinced 
 that they are sick and blind ; they who say that they see 
 and that they are whole, must, by Christ's coming and 
 judgment, be made sick and blind ; then will they cry, 
 Lord, heal me ! Lord, that I may receive my sight ! And 
 then the Great Physician gives health and sight. 
 
 But even after this, sin still works derangement, and if 
 there be. carelessness, great and disastrous derangement. 
 He who, by his own sweet and powerful grace, sets the 
 mind in order, he it is alone, who by the same grace can 
 keep it in order. This the beloved Christian Poet, Cow- 
 per, whom we have quoted above, knew from experience. 
 
 Man is a harp whose chords elude the sight, 
 
 Each yielding harmony, disposed aright. 
 
 The screws reversed (a task which, if he please, 
 
 God in a moment executes with ease), 
 
 Ten thousand thousand strings at once go loose, 
 
 Lost, till he tune them, all their power and use. 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 133 
 
 Very many things are to be guarded against ; God's 
 Word is to be constantly and carefully hidden in the heart, 
 and self-love and self-prejudice are to be watched as one 
 would watch an enemy ; for it is only in God's light that 
 we can continue to see light. 
 
 " I once saw," said Mr. Cecil, " this subject forcibly illus- 
 trated. A watchmaker told me that a gentleman had put an 
 exquisite watch into his hands, that went irregularly. It 
 was as perfect a piece of work as was ever made. He took 
 it to pieces and put it together again twenty times. No 
 manner of defect was to be discovered, and yet the watch 
 went intolerably. At last it struck him that possibly the 
 balance-wheel might have been near a magnet. On 
 applying a needle to it, he found his suspicion true. The 
 steel-work in the other parts of the watch went as well as 
 possible with a new wheel. If the soundest mind be mag- 
 netized by any predilection, it must act irregularly." 
 
 Who has not seen a humanly magnetized mind thus 
 working, and the more powerful and active, the greater 
 the wrong and the error. The pride of the mind in such 
 a case makes it quite blind, and it sometimes does but 
 make sport for the Philistines, instead of advancing the 
 kingdom of God ; and at the last, when it thinks that by a 
 mighty effort it is pulling down the temple of error upon 
 the heads of the followers of Dagon, it does but bring the 
 fragments of truth upon itself. The ways of the Lord are 
 right, and the just shall walk in them ; but the transgressors 
 shall fall therein. And the just walketh and liveth in them 
 by his faith, not by the pride of his understanding. To the 
 eye of faith, and to the eye of the natural man, or to faith 
 as magnetized and obscured by the influence of the natural 
 man, the same truths and ways of God present a spectacle 
 wholly different. 
 
 In this view, how full of beauty are the lessons of the 
 miracle wrought of God between the camp of the Egyp- 
 tians and the camp of Israel, and how full of sacred 
 lessons are the glory and beauty of the miracle ! " And 
 
134 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, 
 removed, and went behind them ; and the pillar of the 
 cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them. 
 And it came between the camp of th Egyptians and the 
 camp of Israel ; and it was a cloud and darkness to the 
 Egyptians, but it gave light by night to Israel ; so that the 
 one came not near the other all the night." 
 
 The light of this miracle shines through our whole 
 Christian life. When the children of Israel took their 
 departure from Egypt, and journeyed from Rameses to 
 Succoth, God led them. At first the way was plain, so 
 plain, that no visible angel needed to march before them to 
 point out the direction. They were to make haste out of 
 Egypt the nearest way towards the region whither God 
 would bring them ; that done, God would go before them 
 more visibly. So when a man leaves his native City of 
 Destruction on the pilgrimage towards heaven, he must 
 flee from the wrath to come, following in the nearest way 
 what light he sees already in God's Word, that light always 
 shining in the way to Christ ; and when he has once 
 heartily started, he will find God day by day more visibly 
 interposing and guiding him. When they took their journey 
 from Succoth, and encamped in Etham in the edge of the 
 wilderness, then the Lord went before them by day in a 
 pillar of cloud to lead them the way ; and by night in a 
 pillar of fire to give them light, to go by day and night. 
 He took not away the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the 
 pillar of fire by night, from before the people. It was 
 always a light and guidance for them, and in the approach 
 of difficulty, it was a protection to them from their ene- 
 mies. On this great occasion of the passage of the Red 
 Sea, it went behind them, and stood between them and 
 their enemies, and all night long, in that encampment by 
 the sea, the same cloud was a pillar of light to the Israel- 
 ites, dispelling their fears and pouring a bright radiance 
 over the whole scene before them, while it was a double 
 darkness to the Egyptians, filling them with dread, and 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 135 
 
 making it impossible to stir from their lines till morn- 
 ing. 
 
 Now this was a very significant and beautiful emblem 
 or symbol of what takes place between the soul and God, 
 just according to the character of the affections. The 
 way of the Lord is strength and light to the upright, but 
 destruction to the workers of iniquity. Whoso is wise, 
 and he shall understand these things ? prudent, and he 
 shall know them ? For the ways of the Lord are right, 
 and the just shall walk in them ; but the transgressors shall 
 fall therein. So in Isaiah, Sanctify the Lord of hosts him- 
 self ; and let him be your fear and let him be your dread. 
 And he shall be for a sanctuary ; but for a stone of 
 stumbling and a rt>ck of offence to the unbelieving and 
 disobedient. So precisely the same gospel, and the same 
 way of the Lord in it, shall be a savor of life to the 
 believing soul, of death to the unbelieving. Not another 
 and different way, but the same way. This pillar of cloud, 
 and the same pillar, was a guide and a light to the believ- 
 ing, but a darkness and terror -to the unbelieving. In the 
 approach of difficulty, it was both a protection to one and 
 a destruction to the other. 
 
 This is the simple working and result of faith and un- 
 belief. It is not any arbitrary arrangement on the part 
 of God, but the presentation, on the part of man, of dif- 
 ferent qualities, elements, an*d actions, to the operation of 
 the same attributes. The same truth, that saves a believ- 
 ing soul, destroys an unbelieving. Not a different side of 
 the same truth, but precisely the same side ; as, for instance, 
 God's forgiving mercy in Christ to the sinner, offered to 
 two men, precisely in the same way, proves, to the one 
 who believingly accepts of it, salvation both from sin and 
 from misery, but to the other, who simply does not accept 
 of it, but remains just as before, a deeper guilt and a 
 greater misery. Precisely the same salvation is changed, 
 by unbelief, from a blessing, into condemnation and a 
 curse. And offer what side of truth you will, it is the 
 
136 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 same. It is not because the believer experiences one side 
 of truth, and the unbeliever another and an opposite side, 
 that there is to them all the difference between life and 
 death, but because they both experience the same side, but 
 offer to its operation qualities in themselves entirely dif- 
 ferent. One sees the same truth as the other, and in the 
 same position ; but with different feelings, different sensi- 
 bilities, a different character; and therefore the appearance 
 and effect of the same truth must in each case be totally 
 opposite. 
 
 Just so, it was not because a particular side of the pillar 
 of cloud was turned towards the Egyptians that the whole 
 appeared a thick and frightful darkness ; for if the pillar 
 had been turned with the other side" towards the Egyp- 
 tians, then that would have been equally dark, while the 
 side towards the Israelites would have been bright. It is 
 faith that makes the difference. The pillar of God's Word 
 is bright to faith, but dark and threatening to unbelief ; its 
 demands are easy to faith, but difficult to unbelief. This 
 was realized in the passage of the Red Sea. The same 
 way of the Lord was strength to his own people, but 
 destruction to the workers of iniquity. By faith his peo- 
 ple passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, which the 
 Egyptians assaying to do were drowned. 
 
 So it is with all the principles, doctrines, elements, and 
 craggy passes of God's WorcT ; rugged or smooth, plain or 
 difficult, they are all impassable except to faith. There is 
 no light in them to unbelief, while to the upright there 
 ariseth light in the darkness. The mere intellect may see 
 no light in them, while the heart sees clear light. The 
 intellect may not be able to understand them, except 
 through the heart, to which it often has to come for 
 counsel and interpretation. A believing, loving heart, 
 purified by faith, is the medium of divine knowledge. 
 The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he 
 will show them his covenant. It is love that brings light ; 
 it is faith working by love, and love is as the atmosphere 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 137 
 
 for light. There would be no light in our world were it 
 not for the atmosphere ; and just so it is with the soul. 
 Love is the atmosphere through which light reaches the 
 inmost vision of the soul. God's word must be viewed 
 through the atmosphere of love, or nothing is seen truly 
 and rejoicingly in it. The Word is always shining, and 
 always the same ; for as God is light, and in him is no 
 darkness at all, so is his Word ; but if the Word shineth 
 in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not, there 
 is no atmosphere of love for it to irradiate, and no vision 
 of faith to see it. He that followeth me, said the Lord 
 Jesus, shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light 
 of life. While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye 
 may be the children of light. Without this faith, working 
 by and through love, receiving the truth in the love of it, 
 we are mere children of sense and of darkness, mere 
 Egyptians ; and the Word, instead of being a pillar of fire 
 by night, a flame of holy animating light, is a cloud of 
 thick judgment and terrible darkness. There are nothing 
 but elements of condemnation in it. 
 
 Now if it is so with God's Word, it must be the same 
 with God's Providences ; for God's Word is but the record 
 of his Providences, and of the principles by which they 
 are unfolded, on which they are founded, and which they 
 are intended to illustrate. There is a bright side to them, 
 and a dark one ; not, indeed, in themselves, for with 
 reference to God they are all bright, as revelations of his 
 attributes and parts of his administration. But to the view 
 of different souls, and to the experience of God's creatures 
 as submissive and believing, or unsubmissive and un- 
 believing, as selfish and dark, or loving and bright, God's 
 Providences are all just like that pillar of cloud and flame. 
 It was only the side towards God's own people that was 
 bright ; that is. the side towards faith ; but the side towards 
 the Egyptians was darkness ; that is, the side towards un- 
 belief. So it ever is, and must be, with all God's dispensa- 
 tions. They have two sides, a bright and a dark side ; but 
 
138 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 the bright side is bright only to faith, and the dark side is 
 dark only to unbelief. Put faith on the dark side, and it 
 Would appear bright ; put unbelief on the bright side, and 
 it appears dark. Take the same Providence ; suppose it 
 be a severe illness ; suppose it be the loss of property ; 
 suppose it be the sickness and death of a dear one in the 
 family. It is on all sides, in all respects, in all circum- 
 stances, one and the same. Go about it and examine it 
 curiously in every direction, as one might have done with 
 the pillar of cloud, to find what there was in it that shone so 
 strangely in one direction, while it darkened in the other ; 
 and you find precisely the same elements, the same 
 materials ; precisely the same, and yet to a believing soul, 
 and an unbelieving, it is wholly different. 
 
 Set the same pillar down in a household of faith and a 
 household of prayerlessness and unbelief, and while in one 
 case it will be a pillar of bright flame, in the other it will 
 be darkness. It is because of the different position and 
 frame of the soul towards God, not because of any different 
 elements in the providence. In the soul submissive and 
 loving, the providence is seen, received, and read, under 
 the light of that bright star of faith in the promises, All 
 things work for good, and are meant for good to those 
 who love God, and of that other bright star, As many as I 
 love I rebuke and chasten. But in the soul selfish, un- 
 submissive, and unbelieving, there is no such light, no such 
 interpretation, no such promise before, or rainbow after 
 the storm, but all is storm and all darkness. 
 
 The believing soul has a key to God's providences in 
 his Word, and there studies them. And it may be said 
 that there is a series of telegraphic signals, by which the 
 Spirit of God in the heart of the believer communicates 
 with God's providences, and knows them afar off as friends, 
 and receives them as ships laden with a freight of blessing ; 
 while the unbelieving heart puts the coast in defence 
 against them, and makes them necessarily enemies, by 
 treating them as such. In all things God is love, if men 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 139 
 
 will leave God to dictate, God to arrange, God to deter- 
 mine, God to execute his sovereign will, as little children 
 leave the care and ordering of all things to a loving 
 Father. But if the child sets up its qwn will, the creature 
 its short-sightedness and self-preferences, then the love 
 itself must assume the form of rebuke and chastisement, 
 and if the self-will continues, of punishment. Then the 
 pillar of light becomes darkness, and self-will and distrust, 
 continued, shut up the soul in the prison of hell to the 
 blackness of darkness. 
 
 God's Word in connexion with his providential dispen- 
 sations is like a glorious pavilion of transparencies, which 
 you must enter, and study it on the inside, where God has 
 drawn in living colors and wondrous figures the revela- 
 tions of his mercy to the soul. Standing within the 
 inclosure of his purposes, you see them passing into 
 realities, aiad the light shining through them, to be used for 
 your enjoyment and growth in grace. Standing without, 
 you see nothing at all but a thick blurr. It is like the 
 view of stained glass in the sides of a great cathedral, 
 wrought with religious figures; you see their light and 
 know their meaning when within the sanctuary ; you see 
 nothing while without it. So it is with God's dispensa- 
 tions. Within his word, his sanctuary, his covenant, 
 within the inclosures of his love, the temple of his grace, 
 under the teachings of his Spirit, who takes of the things 
 that are Christ's, and shows them to the soul, his dispensa- 
 tions are as windows filled with high and sacred meaning, 
 through the colors of which God's own light shines in 
 upon the soul. But to one without faith, and outside the 
 word of God, they are all dark and confused, just as out- 
 side the walls of the cathedral, the glass is without mean- 
 ing. We must obey God's directions, and possess God's 
 Spirit, and have faith in God's promises, if we would see 
 God's sights. 
 
 Undoubtedly, much depends upon the different states 
 of the mind at different times, even with the Christian ; 
 
140 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 just as in seeing the objects of nature, much depends upon 
 the state of the atmosphere. It is not a thing belonging to 
 the mountains, but between them and the eye, so that 
 whatever darkness there may be in t^ie atmosphere, it can 
 make no alteration in the mountains. And just so, the 
 intervening mists and clouds before the truths in God's 
 Word belong not to those truths, but are between those 
 truths and the mind. The mind may change, and the 
 modes of viewing those truths, the dispositions with which 
 it looks at them, may change, but not the truths themselves. 
 
 Because you do not see those truths clearly to-day, it is 
 no proof that you may not see them clearly to-morrow. 
 An interval of prayer may change your whole atmosphere. 
 There may be a change of weather, a breeze from the 
 Paradise of God, a gale of the Holy Spirit, that shall 
 sweep all the clouds from your sky, and you will see what 
 you could not see before, though you knew that it existed. 
 The scenery was not gone, merely because you could not 
 see it. The fact of the mists being there does not throw 
 any doubt over the mountains being there. Neither ought 
 it to have any such influence ^in divine things, in faith, 
 in the intercourse of the soul with God and eternal realities. 
 You believe, and therefore you know. You believe, and 
 therefore speak, knowing. We walk by faith, not sight, 
 and are always confident, knowing. Knowledge is pro- 
 duced by faith, not sight. It is an error to go by frames 
 and feelings, when we ought to make frames and feelings 
 go by the Word of God. The pillar of cloud by day and 
 of fire by night is not to be guided by the impulses of the 
 people of God, whether to go or stay, but their impulses 
 and movements are to be directed and determined accord- 
 ing to the leadings of the cloud and the fire. 
 
 The appearance of the Word to our souls depends much 
 upon the habitude of the soul in looking to Christ and set- 
 ting the daily life after him. In God will I praise his 
 Word ; in the Lord will 1 praise his Word, says David. 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 141 
 
 In thy light shall we see light. A person whose life is hid 
 with Christ in God sees all things as God sees them, 
 praises God's Word in every part, in every shade, turn, 
 and application of it ; sees and rejoices in God's will in his 
 Word, beholds his attributes, bright, lovely, and glorious 
 in all his testimonies, and esteems all his precepts concern- 
 ing all things to be right. Thy Won? is true from the 
 beginning, and every one of thy righteous judgments is 
 true and righteous for ever. All the aspects of God's 
 Word are light and loveliness to such a soul. And all the 
 precious influences of God's Word have their full and 
 blessed effect upon such a soul. It grows in grace, in the 
 symmetry and beauty of grace ; every faculty of the soul, 
 every power of the mind, as well as the feelings of the 
 heart, grow in the presence of Christ, beneath his eye, his 
 light, his care. 
 
 Walking one summer's day into a forest towards the 
 North, on coming back I was struck with the mosses 
 gathered on the North sides of the trees, while the South 
 and sunny sides were all smooth and bright. It suggested 
 at once a resemblance and a contrast between the growth 
 of spiritual things in man, and mere vegetable life in 
 nature. This latter is a fixture, but the other a voluntary 
 intelligence. But suppose that men kept only a part of 
 their being towards the Sun of Righteousness ; and then 
 the consequence would be that all the rest would soon be 
 covered with mosses and dead bark. And so in a Church 
 of Christ you can see life in that portion only which is 
 turned towards the Sun. And so with our affections as 
 individuals ; they must be turned towards Christ, and must 
 grow in his light and love ; and every part of our thought- 
 ful nature, that is not so turned towards him, speedily 
 grows moss-covered and almost palsied, if not dead and 
 perverted. Our affections must be like the face of the 
 flower, always turning to the Sun, and not like a forest of 
 trees, never seeing the Sun but on one side. Looking unto 
 
142 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 Jesus must be the position of the Christian, whatever be 
 the circumstances of his soul. 
 
 But here perhaps I am addressing some in the camp of 
 the Egyptians, who are ready to say, O, this is all very 
 well to those who see the Word of God as you Christians 
 see it ; but for us on the dark side, of what use is it ? 
 What can we do, while the Word of God is to us a sealed 
 book, or nothing but a pillar of salt or of darkness to us ? 
 Why, we will tell you. Come over upon our side. Come 
 with us and we will do you good. Change your position. 
 Leave your Egyptian encampment, and come over upon 
 Israel's borders, and trust in Israel's God, and then you 
 will see the Word from the same side that we do, and it 
 will be all bright and glorious. Why is there any dark 
 side at all ? The darkness is in you, and not in God's 
 Word. It is because you stand afar off, on your side, not 
 God's, and at a distance. "Is the Spirit of the Lord 
 straitened ? Are these his doings ? Do not my words do 
 good to him that walketh uprightly ?" What can we, or 
 God's Word, or all evidence do for you, or even God him- 
 self, so long as you leave not your present position and 
 habitude of heart, but stay in it, putting yourself on the 
 side of God's enemies, the side on which you see nothing 
 in God's Word but a flaming sword, turning every way 
 against you at the Gate of the Paradise of Life ? 
 
 Indeed, it is the heart of the sinner that must change, 
 or the Word of God can never be otherwise than as that 
 flaming sword. A man will find it life to his soul only in 
 Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Sealed as 
 it may be to you now, there is enough in it, plain as the 
 daylight, which you not only may understand, but which 
 you cannot help understanding, and which condemns you 
 utterly. Come to it in Christ, come applying to him as 
 your teacher, and you will speedily find it both plain and 
 full of interest. You will see and feel its evidence as 
 God's Word. It will speak to you as to the prophets. It 
 will come between you and every evil. It will be not only 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 143 
 
 a revelation from God, but the revelation of God to your 
 soul, and in God's light you will see light. You will take 
 the part of God in all things, and God will take your part. 
 You will esteem all his precepts concerning all things to be 
 right, and you will hate every false way. You will be 
 able to say, " Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." 
 You will find his Word to be the daily food of your soul ; 
 and the difficulties that now perhaps press upon you will 
 be changed into occasions of adoration and of faith. The 
 hard places of Scripture, that seem to you, seen through 
 the atmosphere of guilt, with dreadful faces thronged, and 
 fiery arms, will wear the aspect of glorious guardian angels. 
 All things will put on, towards you, the look and disposition 
 of your soul towards God. If that be a frame of love, .all 
 things will come to you as ministers and messengers of 
 love. If your affections go out after God, all things will 
 be full of him, in his Word, and in his Works, and in his 
 Providence, and everything in which you see him will fill 
 you with sacred delight. 
 
 And thou, sad sufferer under nameless ill, 
 
 That yields not to the touch of human skill, 
 
 Improve the kind occasion, understand 
 
 A Father's power, and kiss his chastening hand. 
 
 To thee the day-spring and the blaze of noon, 
 
 The purple evening and resplendent moon, 
 
 The stars that, sprinkled o'er the vault of night, 
 
 Seem drops descending in a shower of light, 
 
 Shine not, or undesired and hated shine, 
 
 Seen through the medium of a cloud like thine. 
 
 Yet seek Him ; in his favor life is found, 
 
 All bliss beside, a shadow or a sound. 
 
 Then, heaven eclipsed so long, and this dull earth, 
 
 Shall seem to start into a second birth ; 
 
 Nature, assuming a more lovely face, 
 
 Borrowing a beauty from the works of grace, 
 
 Shall be despised and overlooked no more, 
 
 Shall fill thee with delights unfelt before, 
 
 Impart to things inanimate a voice, 
 
 And bid her mountains and her hills rejoice. 
 
144 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 The secret cause of infidelity is perhaps invariably a 
 darkness in the mind produced by wrong affections, by the 
 love of sin in the heart, by such a state of things there, 
 that the soul feels anxious and uneasy in the presence of 
 God, and gloomy beneath the light of his attributes. 
 Nothing but God's Spirit can overcome that. Such a 
 state of things will bring a pillar of cloud and darkness 
 between the soul and God, and will make the soul desire 
 and endeavor to see God in other lights than those in which 
 he shines in the Word of the truth of the gospel. Hence, 
 the beginning, the existence, and the increase of error. 
 If there were a clear, open, frank, trusting, sunny heart 
 towards God, there would be a clear, unmistaken, Scrip- 
 tural view of God. And hence the pointed condemnation 
 we everywhere meet with in God's Word, against error 
 and infidelity, as being not only the consequence of guilt, 
 but in itself guilt. 
 
 All religious error, that involves the soul in a conflict 
 against the God and the piety of the Scriptures, is sinful, 
 and leads to sin. There are indifferent points, in regard to 
 which it may be said, Neither if we eat are we the better, 
 neither if we eat not, are we the worse. And there may 
 be errors in judgment, even with the best intentions ; 
 although, if man were not a fallen being, it may be doubted 
 whether there would ever have been any error, even in 
 that. But a loving, humble heart, that comes to God in 
 his Word for light, God will never suffer to go seriously 
 astray. And indeed a loving, humble heart not only has 
 the light of God's Word to go by, but possesses also the 
 Interpreter of God's Word, dwelling in the soul, even the 
 Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because 
 it seeth him not, neither knoweth him, but who will guard 
 the soul from error, and lead it into all truth. Without 
 this, the soul's speculations are presumption. 
 
 And while she dotes, and dreams that she believes, 
 She mocks her Maker, and herself deceives ; 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 145 
 
 Her utmost reach, historical assent, 
 
 The doctrines warped to what they never meant. 
 
 The truth itself is in her head as dull 
 
 And useless as a candle in a skull ; 
 
 And all her love of God a groundless claim, 
 
 A trick upon the canvas, painted flame. 
 
 So whenever any soul departs from the truth, we shall 
 find the beginning of such departure, in the neglect of that 
 Divine Spirit, and in human prejudice and pride. A man 
 flatters self instead of consulting God, submitting to God, 
 and thence comes a perverted judgment, a crooked sight, a 
 partial, prejudiced view of things ; and a very little decli- 
 nation from the truth, followed on, will lead the soul fear- 
 fully astray, after long following. And then a man dreams 
 that his very errors are marks of originality, independence, 
 and intellectual greatness. Just as if a man with strabis- 
 mus should fancy that he has a more perfect eye than all 
 his neighbors, because he sees cross-wise, while they see 
 only straight forward. 
 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The trials of faith. Trials of character, and trials to mend character. 
 Inward and external trials. Christian sympathy. 
 
 IT is singularly beautiful to behold the sacred light that 
 shines through periods of sorrow. Some of the simple 
 hymns of Cowper transmit that light as an opal ; for they 
 were the childlike record of his own experience, and they 
 have given a household language, as familiar as that of 
 childhood, to some of the dearest processes of the Divine 
 life. 
 
 Trials must and will befall ; 
 
 But with humble faith to see 
 Love inscribed upon them all, 
 
 This is happiness to me. 
 Trials make the promise sweet, 
 
 Trials give new life to prayer, 
 Trials bring me at his feet, 
 
 Lay me low, and keep me there. 
 
 Trials are among the most signal way-marks in the 
 Pilgrimage of Faith, trials at the beginning, trials in the 
 continuance, trials at the end. Yet not trials always, nor 
 trials unmingled, but enough constantly, or at intervals, to 
 prove thee and show thee what is in thy heart, and to lead 
 that heart fqr healing and rest to God. 
 
 When comforts are declining 
 He grants the soul again 
 
 A season of clear-shining, 
 To cheer it after rain. 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 147 
 
 In holy contemplation, 
 
 We sweetly then pursue 
 The theme of God's salvation, 
 
 And find it ever new. 
 
 The history of Faith, and of God's discipline for its 
 increase and perfection, ever has been and ever will be a 
 record of trials. Character is read and known in the 
 temper of the soul sustaining them, and they themselves 
 are the costly instruments of God in refining and establish- 
 ing the soul. We are in the shop of the Great Jeweller, 
 preparing for our places in his palace above ; and they 
 whom he means to make the most resplendent, said Leighton 
 in this beautiful figure, he hath oftenest his tools upon. 
 Until this discipline of God have been applied to him, a 
 man knows not of what elements his nature is composed, 
 nor what hidden evils may be festering in his bosom. God 
 must bring them out, and redeem him from them, or he 
 can never be prepared for the kingdom of heaven. A 
 Jeweller may find, in making up a casket, a magnificent 
 stone, in which there seems to be a flaw. If it extends 
 through the stone, it is useless for his purpose, and must 
 be laid aside for some inferior end. Therefore he begins 
 to file it to see how deep it goes, and it may be that after 
 a little of this operation, it will show itself clear ; but if 
 not, then it is unfit for the place he had designed it to fill. 
 So it is with God in making up his jewels ; there is much 
 filing needed to prepare them for their heavenly setting. 
 Sometimes there are such flaws, that a Christian's useful- 
 ness here is well nigh destroyed, even if his hope of 
 happiness hereafter be not ruined. How deep the interest, 
 while the fires of God's discipline are at work upon a man 
 to burn out his dross, or some keen file is applied to remove 
 the evils in his character. 
 
 God sometimes sends trials not for general sanctification 
 merely, but to thwart and break up particular schemes 
 which were wrong, but which the Christian was trying to 
 persuade himself he might lawfully accomplish. God may 
 
 
148 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 send a particular trial, on purpose to do this ; it may be 
 such a trial as removes away from a man's power some 
 dear thing on which he had relied for the prosecution of 
 his scheme. A man is driving on, apd God takes off his 
 chariot wheels, so that he drives heavily ; withdraws the 
 linch-pin, as it were, or takes away the main spoke in the 
 wheel of his plan, so that he is compelled to lay it aside. 
 But ordinarily God proceeds more indirectly. 'He does 
 not speak in a voice from heaven ; he is not going to say 
 from the sky, or in a supernatural dream by an angel, You 
 must not go this way or that, or do this or that. He relies 
 upon the common sense of his children for the right 
 interpretation of his providences, and he leaves every 
 man to draw his own inferences ; only he says, Be ye not 
 as the horse, or as the mule, that are void of understanding, 
 whose mouths must be held in with bit and bridle ; that 
 is not the way God takes to guide his children, but deals 
 with them as free moral agents, and sometimes relies 
 greatly upon their tenderness of conscience to see and 
 feel quickly his meaning. " To this man will I look, even 
 to him that is of a lowly and contrite spirit, and who 
 trembleth at my Word." 
 
 And doubtless, one of the first things which a child of 
 God who trembleth at his Word, will do in affliction, must 
 be to examine himself, and see what course he has been 
 pursuing, what sin he has been cherishing, what selfish 
 scheme indulging, or what idol he has set up in his heart, 
 and to suspect that that is the thing that God means. But 
 a man may easily deceive himself if he will ; he may deal 
 violently with his conscience, and shut his eye against the 
 lessons God is teaching him, even in the midst of affliction ; 
 and if he does this, he will come out of his affliction a 
 more selfish man than before, and with a radical injury 
 done to his character, instead of a benefit. The flaw in 
 that stone holds on, after all its cutting and filing ; nay, it 
 has become more conspicuous, and if God does not have 
 to throw it away, he will be able at most to use it merely 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 149 
 
 to fill up a chink in some obscure place, instead of putting 
 it where it would have shone brightly to his glory. 
 
 It is a very precious thing, a very heavenly attainment, 
 to have a quick and keen perception of God's meaning in 
 his discipline, a tender and holy consciousness of its pur- 
 port, and a sweet readiness to understand and obey its 
 intimations, without forcing God to use greater violence. 
 There is a childlike simplicity in the soul of a man walk- 
 ing closely with God, that finds out his meaning, even 
 when others do not see how he is indicating it ; just as a 
 little child, when it is doing wrong in company, will under- 
 stand even a gesture of its mother, and not wait to be 
 spoken to. It is tempting God, when a man hardens him- 
 self in his adversity. And for a child of God to wait to 
 be spoken to more plainly, when the finger of God's warn- 
 ing providence is lifted in affliction, argues an obstinacy of 
 temper, which God must conquer, or that child will be lost. 
 If God's covenant love is set upon him, God will make him 
 learn obedience by the things which he suffers, or, if he 
 does persevere in his own way, God will put such ingre- 
 dients into his fancied cup of happiness, as shall turn it 
 into wormwood. . 
 
 Temptations or trials, the endurance of which an apostle 
 tells us is blessed, may be of two kinds, inward and ex- 
 ternal, and without them a man may know nothing of 
 himself, but the hidden evils of his heart may be com- 
 pletely concealed from him. God varies this discipline 
 according as he sees the state of his people and the 
 accomplishment of his object in the perfecting of their 
 character, requires. Inward trials are the hardest to bear, 
 and external trials indeed are light things, if a man's 
 inward state be holy and happy, if he have the clear 
 shining of the Saviour's countenance, and a sense of the 
 approbation of his God. And there are so many and such 
 precious promises made to those who are in affliction ; afflic- 
 tions, rightly received, are so clearly represented as a 
 proof of sonship, and if endured for Christ's sake, are so 
 
150 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 evidently considered as the greatest of blessings ; that 
 when the heart is in the enjoyment and exercise of God's 
 love it is very easy to endure. But when the inward state 
 is wrong, when the soul has departed from God and grace 
 is declining, then external trials are terrible. The mind 
 is not at all prepared for them, they rouse up a sense of 
 sin, and fill the soul with the anguish of conviction, and 
 such a man feels, in his departure from God, when over- 
 taken by such evils, as if he had no friend or reliance 
 either for this world or the next. 
 
 External trials in such a case are oftentimes the only 
 means of salvation, the means of awakening, of conviction 
 and repentance. We love our own ease, and in an easy 
 state, if God lets it continue, we may worship our own 
 idols without being aware of it. On the other hand, to a 
 soul that is following hard after God, living near to him, 
 external trials are a great help to its advancement, a great 
 assistance to its graces. External trials in such a case are 
 sometimes as the very windows of heaven to the soul ; the 
 light and blessedness of the celestial world come down 
 through them. And they call grace into exercise, and 
 strengthen it ; they work patience, faith, submission, 
 and all the graces that are to be learned in no other 
 school but that of affliction. They are a great means of 
 power in prayer. 
 
 Inward trials are of very various kinds, and they some- 
 times come even in answer to prayer. Sometimes God 
 leaves his dearest children to such a perception and 
 experience of the devices of Satan, the temptations of his 
 malice, and the dreadful evils of the heart, that they are 
 well nigh overwhelmed and in despair. We have referred 
 already to some instances of such experience as this, 
 recorded abundantly in the Psalms. And the fruits of 
 such trials are blessed. Blessed is the man that endureth 
 such temptation ; we mean, endureth it by fleeing to 
 Christ with it. It is in such trials that the loftiest and 
 most spiritual exercise of faith is called for ; and it is 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 151 
 
 out of such trials that there arises a rich, deep, and 
 lasting experience, with strong and blessed points of 
 Christian character. Such trials are good even in the 
 commencement of one's Christian course, better then 
 perhaps than ever, for so they early teach the preciousness 
 of Christ and the habit of profound reliance on him, as 
 nothing else can. Therefore let no one be discouraged in 
 passing through such trials. Who is among you that 
 feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, 
 that walketh in darkness and hath no light ? Let him trust 
 in the name of the Lord, and stay himself upon his God. 
 It is comparatively at an early stage of his progress that 
 Bunyan has put that terrific conflict of Christian with 
 Apollyon in the Valley of Humiliation, and the scene of 
 his difficulties in the Valley of the Shadow of Death lies 
 near at hand. With this delineation agrees that admirable 
 hymn of Newton : 
 
 I asked the Lord that I might grow 
 In faith, and love, and every grace ; 
 Might more of his salvation know, 
 And seek more earnestly his face. 
 
 'Tvvas he who taught me thus to pray, 
 And he, I trust, has answered prayer ; 
 But it has been in such a way, 
 As almost drove me to despair. 
 
 Sometimes a man is called to endure temptation in a 
 succession of little things, that are more difficult to be 
 borne than great things. It is the rarest of all grace, 
 which is carried into daily, hourly exercise in the common- 
 place business and intercourse of life ; we are so disposed 
 to put off the exercise of grace to great occasions, and to 
 let nature and not grace have its perfect work on all 
 common ones. But it is a most wise remark of one of 
 the Apocryphal books, He that despiseth little things, by 
 little and little shall he fall. Our piety will be destroyed 
 
152 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 by small temptations, if we do not call it into exercise on 
 small occasions. Let this be remembered in the common 
 walks of life. Let it be remembered in the daily occupa- 
 tions of the household, and in all our intercourse one with 
 another. 
 
 Christian communion and sympathy is of great value 
 and comfort to a tempted soul. It is especially in spiritual 
 things that as iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth 
 the countenance of his friend. But there are cases in 
 which a man hardly dares believe that ever any other person 
 experienced such assaults and evils as his own soul has to 
 pass through. There are cases in which he is very un- 
 willing to repose confidence in any human being, and can 
 go to none but God. And sometimes the more exclusively 
 he is shut up to God, the better. 
 
 There is an affecting and instructive delineation in the 
 picture drawn by Bunyan of Christian in the Valley of 
 the Shadow of Death. When Christian had travelled in 
 this disconsolate condition some considerable time, he 
 thought he heard the voice of a man going before him, 
 saying, Though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow 
 of Death I will fear no ill, for thou art with me. Then 
 was he glad, and that for these reasons. First, because he 
 gathered from thence that some who feared God were in 
 this valley as well as himself. Secondly, for that he per- 
 ceived God was with them, though in that dark and dismal 
 state ; and why not, thought he, with me ; though by 
 reason of the impediment that attends this place I cannot 
 perceive it. Thirdly, for that he hoped, could he overtake 
 them, to have company by and by. So he went on, and 
 called to him that was before ; but he knew not what to 
 answer for that he also thought himself to be alone. And by 
 and by the day broke. Then said Christian, " He hath 
 turned the shadow of death into the morning." And thus 
 is God able at any time to turn the shadow of death into 
 the morning. When he giveth peace, who then can make 
 trouble ? But until he be pleased to give peace, the soul 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 153 
 
 must trust submissively to him, even in the darkness. 
 Because there seems to be no light, but only darkness, that 
 may not be any positive proof that God is not with the 
 soul. The soul may not be able to perceive it, by reason, 
 as Bunyan expresses it, of the impediment that attends the 
 place ; and yet God may be guiding and blessing the soul, 
 even in such thick darkness. When my spirit was over- 
 whelmed within me, said David in such a case, then THOU 
 knewest my path. 
 
 God of uiy life, to thee I call, 
 Afflicted at thy feet I fall, 
 When the great water-floods prevail, 
 Leave not my trembling heart to fail. 
 Friend of the friendless and the faint ! 
 Where should I lodge my deep complaint? 
 Where but with thee, whose open door 
 Invites the helpless and the poor ! 
 
 Did ever mourner plead with thee 
 And thou refuse that mourner's plea? 
 Does not the word still fixed remain 
 That none shall seek thy face in vain ? 
 That were a grief I could not bear, 
 Didst thou not hear and answer prayer ; 
 But a prayer-hearing, answering God 
 Supports me under every load. 
 
 Fair is the lot that's cast for me ; 
 I have an advocate with thee ; 
 They whom the world caresses most 
 Have no such privilege to boast. 
 Poor though I am, despised, forgot, 
 Yet God, my God, forgets me not, 
 And he is safe, and must succeed, 
 For whom the Lord vouchsafes to plead 
 
 7* 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Faith still put to the test. Is it faith in sight, or faith in God ? Three days 
 in the wilderness. Light out of darkness, strength out of weakness. The 
 discovery of God in self-disappointment and abasement. 
 
 IT is a great thing to learn to trust God. "And a man does 
 not learn it, ordinarily, till he passes through affliction, and 
 oftentimes he has to experience much affliction in order to 
 learn. He has to be stripped of his self-reliance, and the 
 props and crutches, on which he has supported himself 
 and his virtues, have to be taken away, together with the 
 dear things in which he trusted for comfort and happiness ; 
 and then it is to be seen whether his soul relies on God. 
 A man may have the principle of reliance, but habits of 
 reliance are not to be formed at once ; and so a man may 
 have the principle of submission, but the habit of submis- 
 sion, the grace of resignation, is a thing of time and dis- 
 cipline and gradual formation. It is easy to trust God in 
 prosperity, and a man may think he has formed the habit 
 of trusting him ; but let him be overwhelmed with adver- 
 sity, and then how often does he find his piety deserting 
 him, and that he has yet to learn this simple lesson of 
 dependence on God. 
 
 We have said that inward trials are sometimes better at 
 the very commencement of one's Christian course than 
 ever, more experience being gained from them then, than 
 ever afterwards. Yet it is not till the lapse of some time, 
 ordinarily, that the soul learns to read and understand 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 155 
 
 such trials aright. And always the soul is a learner, as a 
 little child, and even old lessons are new ones. 
 
 let me then at length be taught 
 What I am still so slow to learn, 
 
 That God is Love, and changes not 
 Nor knows the shadow of a turn. 
 
 Sweet truth, and easy to repeat! 
 But when my faith is sharply tried, 
 
 1 find myself a learner yet, 
 
 Unskilful, weak, and apt to slide. 
 
 We find it recorded immediately after the Exodus of the 
 Israelites out of Egypt, that they went three days in the 
 wilderness, and found no water. It was a sharp and 
 sudden teaching of their dependence on God. Three days 
 in the wilderness and no water! A multitude of some 
 hundreds of thousands of people must have suffered much 
 under these circumstances. To realize their suffering, to 
 have an adequate idea of it, we should need to be put in 
 their situation, beneath a burning sun, a cloudless sky, 
 surrounded by the bare, dry, grey, shining desert. Three 
 days and no water! This seemed indeed a deplorable 
 commencement of their journey. They thought, when 
 God had brought them safely through the Red Sea, that 
 that was the way in which he would cause them to triumph 
 continually. They knew very little of themselves, still less 
 of God. They knew very little of God's methods of disci- 
 pline, very little of their own need of that discipline. They 
 could sing God's praises, on occasion of a great deliverance, 
 provided Moses would prepare an ode for them ; just as 
 the most careless and irreligious of men might pray to God 
 with the voice, if a form of prayer were prepared and 
 printed for them, without the least degree or beginning of 
 the Spirit of prayer in their hearts. But their obligations 
 to God and their dependence upon him they had scarcely 
 begun to realize. All the discipline of faith they were yet 
 
156 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 to experience. They were just entering on a school, the 
 lessons of which were to be of forty years' duration. Pro- 
 bably they thought, when the Red Sea was between them 
 and their enemies, and they had beheld Pharaoh and his 
 host (for dread of whom they had stood shivering) all 
 whelmed in the returning billows, that now there was no 
 more for them to do, but just to march straight, without 
 hindrance or difficulty, into the promised land of freedom 
 and of plenty. Little did they know how little they were 
 prepared for it. Little did they know what there was in 
 their own hearts. 
 
 And therefore, after the first triumph, after God had 
 brought them safely out of Egypt, and across the Red Sea, 
 their first experience was trial and disappointment. The 
 course which they thought was to be one of constant 
 advancement and victory, they speedily found to be one 
 of self-mortification and delay. They plunged at once 
 into the wilderness ; not a wilderness in our sense of the 
 term, which to them would have been comparative security 
 and repose; not a region of wild woods and thick pathless 
 shades of the undisturbed primeval forest ; but an open, 
 uninhabitable, barren, parched desert, which to most of 
 them, who had scarcely ever stirred from the green banks 
 of the Nile in Goshen, must have been a strange and 
 gloomy experience. Such is the first disclosure of self to 
 a soul escaping from its native city of destruction. Such 
 is sometimes the early unexpected experience of the 
 converted soul setting out on its pilgrimage to heaven. 
 Such, too, is sometimes the experience of old saints in new 
 Christian enterprises. 
 
 And they wandered on three days through this desert, 
 and found no water. They began to forget and almost to 
 doubt their experience of God's mercy at the Red Sea, 
 though as yet they did not go so far in their murmurings 
 as to accuse Moses of having brought them into the 
 wilderness to perish with hunger. But now they are 
 coming to a green spot, and certainly there will be water. 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 157 
 
 They press on eagerly ; the report runs through the whole 
 host to the furthest outskirt of the multitude. Water ! 
 water ! Green trees and living water ! The foremost 
 press to the fountain ; but what a fearful disappointment ! 
 The water is so bitter that it cannot be used ; nay, perhaps 
 it is poisonous. And now the people begin to despair and 
 murmur, for if they have not water they must die. And 
 now again God interposes, as when he opened for them 
 the Red Sea. He heals this bitter fountain in the desert, 
 and makes it sweet for the thirsty multitude. This is 
 God's doing, and thus by mingled trial and mercy they 
 are to be taught their dependence upon God. Their trials 
 shall prepare them for their blessings, and their blessings 
 shall prepare them for their trials, and in all things they 
 shall know God. 
 
 Three days in the wilderness and no water constitutes 
 one form of the trials of faith. It may be construed 
 temporally or spiritually ; but be it the deprivation of 
 expected and needed blessings either way, it is hard to 
 bear. Be it water for the parched tongue, or water for the 
 thirsty soul, it is terrible to be without it. But despair is 
 much worse. Famine may cut the soul off 'from God's 
 present mercies, but despair cuts the soul off from God. 
 Bunyan's account of Hopeful's conversion is instructive. 
 Did you do as you were bidden, said Christian, when 
 Faithful taught you to pray ? Yes, over, and over, and 
 over. And did the Father reveal the Son to you? Not 
 at the first, nor second, nor third, nor fourth, nor fifth, no, 
 nor at the sixth time neither. What did you do then ? 
 What ! why, I could not tell what to do. Had you not 
 thoughts of leaving off praying ? Yes, and a hundred 
 times twice told. And what was the reason you did not ? 
 I believed that that was true which had been told me, to 
 wit, that without the righteousness of this Christ, all the 
 world could not save me ; and therefore thought I with 
 myself, if I leave off I die, and I can but die at the throne 
 of grace. And withal this came into my mind, If it tarry, 
 
158 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 wait for it, because it will surely come and will not tarry. 
 So I continued praying, until the Father showed me his 
 Son. 
 
 Here for Hopeful were the three days in the wilderness 
 and no water. Just thus it is with many, Who start fair from 
 Egypt, thinking to accomplish all good things speedily ; 
 then comes the check, the first trial of faith, when many 
 turn back, like Pliable, at the first difficult and painful 
 experience. But if present disappointment be painful, 
 unbelief, despair, and the turning back of the soul, are 
 perdition. Perseverance in faith loses no present blessing, 
 but gains an eternal crown. t 
 
 Bitterness in the fountain to which we run for refresh- 
 ment constitutes another form of the trials of faith on our 
 pilgrimage. This perhaps is worse than the first. It 
 would be hard to choose, but bitter, poisonous water is 
 certainly worse than none at all. You come to a water- 
 course, and find it a deceitful brook, gone to nothing, 
 perished. The troops of Tema looked, the companies of 
 Sheba waited for them. They were confounded because 
 they had hoped ; they came thither and were ashamed. 
 Such were Job's friends, and such was Job's disappoint- 
 ment. So the reeds on which we lean often break and 
 pierce us. The fair apples we desire to taste prove ashes. 
 The distant waters we thought we beheld, while travelling 
 in the desert, are only a delusive mirage, a reflection of 
 the sky in the sands at the horizon. It is a great trial 
 when this is the case, even with friends and earthly bless- 
 ings merely. Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of 
 trouble is like a broken tooth and a foot out of joint. But 
 it is a far greater anguish to the soul, when expected 
 spiritual refreshments turn out to be naught, when you 
 come to a spiritual fountain, and find nothing but bitter- 
 ness. Sometimes there is such a disappointment to the 
 soul at the very table of the Lord, sometimes in the exer- 
 cise of prayer, sometimes in the Word of God, sometimes 
 in the service of God's sanctuary. Instead of going from 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 159 
 
 strength to strength, the soul seems passing from weakness 
 to weakness. Mine eyes fail for thy Word, saying, When 
 wilt thou comfort me ? All the wells that are digged, the 
 Philistines fill them with earth, and when the soul thinks it 
 has found another well of springing water by digging, 
 there is such a strife for it or about it, and such uncer- 
 tainty in the possession, that its name becomes Esek and 
 Sitnah, contention and hatred. This assuredly is a great 
 trial of faith. 
 
 But all such forms of trial are necessary. They are a 
 part of our discipline at the hand of God, and however 
 severe they may seem, they are a merciful discipline. In 
 the course of every great enterprise for God there must be 
 difficulties. God himself will interpose with them, if man 
 does not ; for without difficulties, great enterprises would 
 be without permanence and depth. Difficulties are as the 
 ballast to keep the ship in trim. They are the cold days 
 that set the vegetation, when uninterrupted sunshine and 
 heat would bring it preternaturally forward. The work 
 of setting out for heaven, and of finding God, is a great 
 enterprise. The work of building a church for God is both 
 temporally and spiritually a great enterprise. The work 
 of establishing and sustaining a Christian mission is a 
 great enterprise. In all such undertakings, personally and 
 unitedly, we must expect difficulties ; and if they do not 
 come at one stage, they will at another. Sometimes they 
 come at the very outset. There is a Red Sea to be 
 crossed ; and if God helped us over that sea, so that, 
 although it was very terrible to look at and anticipate, yet 
 it proved nothing in the crossing, then come immediately 
 afterwards three days in the wilderness, and no water. 
 Here is perhaps the first severe lesson of faith. 
 
 We expected the wilderness, for we saw that it lay right 
 in the way of our duty. But we expected water also. 
 We thought of course God would secure to us that pro- 
 vision. We were ready to press on in the journey, though 
 it were a wilderness, a desert ; but we never dreamed that 
 
160 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 God would refuse us water, that he would leave us without 
 that. We expected encouragement and refreshment by 
 the way. Instead of that, we are perhaps plunged at once 
 into suffering. We expected sight, ancj. God begins at 
 once to teach us the great lesson of faith. It is very 
 easy, even for the carnal mind, to live half by faith and 
 half by sight. It is easy to go on for God, when God 
 goes on before us and for us, opening the Red Sea by a 
 miracle as fast as we come up to it, and making water- 
 springs to gush out whenever and wherever we feel thirsty ; 
 but when God withdraws his visible support, and seems to 
 leave us to ourselves, when he is pleased, indeed, really to 
 leave us to ourselves, to find out our own weakness, then 
 we begin to discover that it is not so easy living by 
 faith as by sight ; we begin to discover how little true faith 
 we possess ; we are even inclined to stop in our journey, 
 and not go a step by faith, till we have sight for faith to 
 walk by. The ability to walk in simple reliance on God 
 alone, and his promise, is a great ability ; it is not the 
 earliest thing, by any means, but contrariwise, a very 
 advanced and tried grace in Christian experience. 
 
 Yet we talk much of walking by faith, not sight ; we 
 propose it as the very simplest thing in the Christian life ; 
 we put it forth as a spiritual truism. There are different 
 kinds of sight, and we may be just walking by one kind, 
 when we think we are walking by faith ; because another 
 kind, the kind to which we have been accustomed, is not 
 with us. There is a spiritual sight, as well as a spiritual 
 faith ; a sight and experience of God's comforts, as well as 
 a faith in God's promises. Now it is easy to walk when 
 God's comforts surround the soul, when the soul mounts 
 up as on eagles' wings, when God, as it were, takes the 
 soul by the hand, and hurries it forward as the angels took 
 Lot, and hurried him out of Sodom to Zoar. When " the 
 candle of the Lord " shines bright upon us, when he fills 
 our hearts with his love, and shows us the glory, certainty, 
 and blissfulness of his covenant, this is sight rather than 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 161 
 
 faith, this is experience and enjoyment ; it is the " earnest 
 of the Spirit." It is easy to believe God, when we thus 
 see and feel the presence of God, when he sends forth the 
 Spirit of his dear Son into our hearts, and makes us cry, 
 Abba, Father. But when those sensible comforts are with- 
 held or withdrawn, then to rely upon God's promises, and 
 go forward in duty just as if we experienced them, that is 
 true faith, great faith, unmingled faith. 
 
 And that is the faith taught by trial. Blessings will 
 teach gratitude, but not this kind of faith. Blessings, 
 indeed, are so apt to accustom the soul to sight, that 
 except by the very peculiar care and discipline of God's 
 grace, a long uninterrupted continuance of them unfits the 
 soul for faith ; so that when the accustomed tide of bless- 
 ings begins to fail, and a discipline of want or darkness 
 intervenes, the soul begins to imagine itself deserted of 
 God, begins to faint, forgetful of the exhortation which 
 speaketh as unto children concerning the rebukes of God ; 
 perhaps stops short in the course of duty, just as if God's 
 comforts and not God, were its guide, its support, its index, 
 and its impulse. 
 
 But that is faith in sight, not faith in God. Faith in 
 God must be taught, as well as rejoicing and gratitude in 
 God's comforts. The soul must be taught to toil on in the 
 wilderness, without repining, water or no water, confident 
 in God. For this purpose, to teach this habit of faith, the 
 three days in the wilderness without water may be needed 
 at the very outset ; and it may be necessary for God to 
 repeat them, cutting off the soul from every earthly and 
 sensible stay, and even from every sensible spiritual stay, 
 and throwing it entirely and only upon God and his pro- 
 mises. This is the faith, of which the example is so 
 beautiful in Habakkuk. " Although the fig-tree shall not 
 blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines ; tffe labor of 
 the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat ; the 
 flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no 
 herd in the stalls ; yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy 
 
162 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 in the God of my salvation." This is faith in God, and 
 not merely in God's blessings ; it is faith and joy in God, 
 irrespective of his blessings. 
 
 This is the faith inculcated in Isaiah : " Who is among 
 you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his 
 servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light ? Let 
 him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his 
 God." Yes ! when he can see and feel nothing of good, 
 then let him trust in the name and attributes of goodness, 
 even in the name of the Lord, which is pledged for his 
 deliverance ; so doing, he trusts in the reality of goodness, 
 and is stayed upon his God. Let Jehovah, though invisible, 
 let God in Christ, though now hidden for a season, yet the 
 God of mercy, of redemption, of salvation to sinners, be 
 the stay and support of the soul. But let it not run, in 
 the midst of spiritual darkness, to sensible supports, or to 
 the guidance and comfort of lights and fires manufactured 
 for that purpose, and not of God. Let it not run to self- 
 gratification, or to men's promises or flatteries, or to 
 anything out of God's Word. For God hath said, by the 
 side of the same command for the soul to be stayed upon 
 himself, Behold, all ye that kindle a fire (in such a time of 
 darkness), and compass yourselves about with sparks (your 
 own poor, miserable fire-works) ; walk in the light of your 
 fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled ; but to do that 
 is your delusion and destruction ; it may be rejoicing in 
 self for a little time, but the end is death ; for this shall 
 ye have at my hands ; ye shall lie down in sorrow. 
 
 Sorrow indeed it is to be left of God, left to self, sinful, 
 miserable self ! But this trust in the simple name of God 
 as revealed in his Word is faith, genuine faith, acceptable 
 faith. It is faith in God, not merely in God's comforts. 
 It will be^seen at once that this comprises submission, a 
 disposition sweetly resigned to God's will. If He leave 
 but himself, the afflicted, sorrowing soul says, he may take 
 what he will away. And he cannot take away himself. 
 His Word forbids that. He has never promised in his 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 163 
 
 Word any particular comforts, at the particular times of 
 my will ; but he has promised himself to all who put their 
 trust in him ; and come what may, my soul resteth upon 
 God. My soul, rest thou only upon God, for my expecta- 
 tion and my hope are from him ! 
 
 Now this is a thing that we learn only from experience ; 
 for ordinarily we set out with very different expectations. 
 We know the theory of faith, and we speculate well, and 
 mean to act accordingly ; but when trial and difficulty 
 come, we are very much surprised at it. " By and by they 
 are offended'' Particular navigation on the seas of life 
 by God's Word is a very different thing from the study 
 of spiritual trigonometry and quadrants at school. When 
 overtaken by a storm, instead of saying, Now is the time 
 foretold, when God would exercise my faith, now is the 
 time to prove my trust to be in him, and not in calm 
 weather, we say, How shall I get rid of this trial ? How 
 clear up this storm, or fly from it ? We think too much 
 of present quietude and peace, look too much after it, and 
 regret its loss too bitterly. Like Jonah, we are apt to be 
 exceedingly glad of the gourd when it comes, and exceed- 
 ingly angry when it is taken away. 
 
 But God does never too long continue his trying disci- 
 pline ; it is not all work and no play, but simply toil and trial 
 for the purpose of teaching faith, arid when that is somewhat 
 accomplished, God's wisdom and love are glad to bestow 
 blessings. He healed the fountain of Marah in the desert, 
 when his people could not drink of it until he had poured 
 his blessing upon the waters. It was infinitely better to 
 have bitter water with God's healing, than the best of 
 water without God. The very trials and disappointments 
 of a Christian, if God comes with them, are better than all 
 the blessings of the worldling. It was better to have the 
 disappointment at first, and God's interposition afterwards, 
 than to have found a sweet fountain at once. And then, 
 at the next move, they were brought of God to a most 
 
164 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 refreshing and desirable station, where were twelve wells 
 of water, and three-score and ten palrn trees. 
 
 Their bitter disappointment at first, and God's merciful 
 interposition, had begun to teach themjthat everything of 
 good must come from God. They were beginning to learn 
 this great lesson of faith ; and now these twelve wells and 
 seventy palm trees were from him also ; and his previous 
 discipline with them made them feel this. And if they 
 should again forget this dependence, God would again 
 have to bring them to their senses by severe trial. It is 
 one of the lessons of faith the most seldom or at least 
 perhaps the latest learned, and also it is one of the greatest 
 proofs of faith, to receive our daily mercies as from God. 
 This is the life of faith amidst sense. What are our daily 
 mercies, but daily miracles, daily and remarkable interposi- 
 tions of God's mercy, preventing the ordinary course of 
 nature ? We need to see and to feel this. The ordinary 
 course, seeing that we are sinners, would be for God's 
 wrath to descend upon us, and all our mercies to be taken 
 away. It is quite out of the course of nature for us, a 
 rebellious race, to receive mercies, and it is only by God's 
 interposition in Christ that we do receive them ; a greater 
 miracle by far, than when God interposed to heal the 
 fountain in the desert. Justice to the full would be the 
 course of nature, but the supernatural cross intervenes, 
 and miracles of mercy are wrought for us. Our life is a 
 perpetual miracle. It is a proof of faith to feel this, and it 
 is a blessed life of faith to live thus upon God. 
 
 But the things we are familiar with seem things of 
 course ; we lose the sense of novelty, and when that is 
 gone, of God's interposition. While that sense of novelty 
 lasts, blessings may seem something miraculous. And if 
 we could carry into life only a child's sense of the marvel- 
 lous, we should have more faith, we should see God more 
 clearly. But we lose the sense of freshness in God's 
 mercies, and then the sense of God. Just so it was with 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 165 
 
 the Hebrews. Forty years, every morning, they found the 
 ground covered with manna for their food. They almost 
 ceased to think of it as a miracle. And indeed our ex- 
 perience of God's mercy in every way is almost as miracu- 
 lous as theirs of God's daily manna. But after a while it 
 becomes so familiar, that we almost cease to remember 
 God in it. Yet we ought to live upon God, and not by 
 bread alone ; we ought to see God in all our mercies. 
 They are given to lead us to God, given as links of inter- 
 course with him, given as a discipline, leading to some- 
 thing better. ; 
 
 The purpose of these mercies, especially our spiritual 
 mercies, is not so much present enjoyment, as strength to 
 go on. God's love, in this world, is a discipline. The 
 Mount of Transfiguration, if we are admitted to it, is not 
 a place to stay in, but to be refreshed in, for the trials and 
 duties of our pilgrimage. There may be an encampment, 
 but that is all. We must strike our tents, and go on. 
 Our Blessed Lord said, as he was about to be betrayed 
 into the hands of sinners, and just as he was establishing 
 the sacred sacramental institution as a gift of remem- 
 brance, of refreshment, of strength, of spiritual life, for his 
 church in all ages, With desire have I desired to eat this 
 passover with you, before I suffer. May we not suppose 
 that with this desire of such solemn and sweet communion 
 with those whom Christ so tenderly loved, there was 
 mingled the feeling that that sacred season and ordinance 
 itself celebrated at that hour, would prove, even for him, a 
 preparation and support for the great conflict and agony 
 even unto death, on which he was now to enter for their 
 sakes ! 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Faith an in-working law, with the obedience voluntary ; not a despotism, with 
 the obedience compulsory or irresistible. God working in man both to will 
 and to do. Deceitfulness and danger of the idea of perfection attained. 
 
 THE only true theory of our mental philosophy is that 
 which represents the will as co-present, and co-active in 
 all the movements of the understanding and the affections. 
 There can be no separation ; otherwise, the mind is 
 insane. Our whole character, our whole habit, style, and 
 continued activity of being, are voluntary ; nor is this 
 voluntariness in the least intermitted or suspended by the 
 operations of Divine Grace, no more than the current of 
 a river is intermitted, when its channel, and perhaps its 
 properties, are entirely changed. It may have flowed 
 muddy, and now flows clear ; it may have flowed North, 
 towards the pole, and now flows South, towards the 
 tropics ; but the current and its law of activity are the 
 same. And so it is with the everlasting, indestructible 
 activity of our personal free will. It is never so active as 
 when God acts in it, and is the fountain of its power. 
 
 So Paul says, in Colossians i. 29, in allusion to the 
 advancement of the work of God's grace in men's souls, 
 " Whereunto I also labor, striving according to his work- 
 ing, which worketh in me mightily." There is in this pas- 
 sage, taken in connexion with two other grand illustrious 
 passages from Paul's Epistles, a remarkable epitome of the 
 way of God's grace with man's will, God's sovereignty 
 with man's free agency, God's Omnipotence with man's 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 167 
 
 co-operation. Paul has, more distinctly than any other 
 sacred writer, brought these two things together, shown 
 the point where these two seas meet and become one ; and 
 he has illustrated the same in his own experience. In 
 Philippians ii. 12, 13, he states the theory of Divine Grace 
 under the form of a command. " Work out your own 
 salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who work- 
 eth in you both to will and to do, of his good pleasure." 
 In 1st Corinthians xv. 10, he gives a striking commentary 
 upon, and illustration of, this theory, from his own ex- 
 perience, " By the grace of God I am what I am ; and his 
 grace, which was bestowed upon me, was not in vain ; but 
 I labored more abundantly than they all ; yet not I, but the 
 grace of God which was with me." Colossians i. 29, the 
 verse before referred to, presents the same idea in a 
 somewhat different form. Add to these passages the ex- 
 hortation in 2d Corinthians vi. 1, " We then, as workers 
 together with Him, beseech you also that ye receive not 
 the grace of God in vain ;" and we have a very clear and 
 comprehensive view of God's great method in the work of 
 grace ; a method infinitely wise and condescending, not 
 only of regenerating, but of sanctifying, educating grace ; 
 not only of imparting good dispositions, but of training the 
 soul into them, and in them, as voluntary habits. 
 
 God's way of blessing the soul is in making it holy. But 
 holiness is not a made thing, but a voluntary life, and an 
 active experience ; a gradual, growing life, and an ex- 
 perience from less to greater. This life and experience 
 are all from God, and the regenerated and sanctified soul 
 is his creation. " If any man be in Christ, he is a new 
 creature ; old things are passed away ; behold all things are 
 become new ; and all things are of God." Yet all things 
 are not of God in such an exclusive sense that some of 
 them are not also of man ; not of man apart from God, but 
 of God in man, and of man co-operating with God, by 
 God's own Spirit dwelling and working in man. Holiness 
 is a habit, wrought by the Spirit of God, but voluntary in 
 
168 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 man, at every step and degree in its progress. It cannot 
 be merely God's gift, but it must be also the soul's own 
 life ; the life of God in the soul of man, but still the soul's 
 own life, and not another's. And yet,jin another view, it 
 not only can be, but is, merely the gift of God, having no 
 other possible origin, source, or sustaining power but 
 God's ; and yet it is not God's gift as an endowment 
 handed to the soul out of heaven, but as a life, quickened 
 and wakened within the soul, by the indwelling of God's 
 Spirit, a law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus ; a law, 
 not a despotism ; a principle of freedom, not a bondage. 
 
 Hence results the gradual method of God's grace, for he 
 will proceed no further than the voluntary habit and co- 
 operating energy of the soul proceed with him. Hence 
 the fact that our own expectations are often disappointed 
 and astounded in observing and experiencing the discipline 
 of God with our own souls. Perhaps we pray earnestly 
 for grace, and are astonished that our prayers are not 
 answered, when we find, afterwards, that God was really 
 answering them, by drawing us on to more prayer, and 
 exciting within us those mighty desires, which, in some 
 respects in our own view, the stronger they grow, the less 
 they seem to be answered, for the more the soul sees the 
 boundlessness of the heights and depths of glory before it, 
 and the greatness of its own deficiencies. Indeed, the 
 more the soul longs to know what is the length, and depth, 
 and breadth, and height, of the love of Christ, the more it 
 finds that that love passeth knowledge ; so that, though it 
 seems as if prayer were unanswered directly, yet by the 
 very discipline of the heart in prayer, by the very urgency 
 and vastness of its desires, it is being filled, or preparing to 
 be filled, with all the fulness of God. Holiness is becom- 
 ing the soul's habit, through the very desire after holiness ; 
 desires and attempts being nearly all we can have in this 
 life, which is a life of active labor after God, and for God, 
 not of rest in the possession of God. I shall be satisfied 
 when I awake, with thy likeness ; and I must be satisfied 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 169 
 
 now with being enabled and drawn on by grace to labor 
 after it. There is thus a ceaseless spiritual exercise 
 within the soul, a life developed, a passing of theoretical 
 truth into practical experience, a formation of the soul's 
 habit of working, while God is working in the soul, both to 
 will and to do. 
 
 I thought, says the soul, in my romantic dreams of 
 heaven without toil and suffering, without the need of 
 purifying fires endured, that my path was to be all the way 
 through the land Beulah. I never dreamed of the crucible, 
 nor of the mortifying discoveries of dross, instead of Christ 
 dross which must rise to the surface before it could be 
 removed, and which, in so rising to be removed, might 
 conceal Christ from the soul, even while it was the virtue 
 of. Christ's grace in the soul that was separating the dross 
 from it. To me it seemed all dross, when I was expecting 
 solid gold and silver. I thought my Lord would new- 
 create me at once into a jewel, without the fires and files 
 and cutting instruments of such sharp discipline. 
 
 I thought that in some favored hour 
 At once he'd answer my request, 
 And by his love's constraining power 
 Subdue my sins and give me rest. 
 
 But how can all this be done ? God must make the 
 soul itself the instrument in all this, if he would have the 
 holiness of the soul to be a habit, and not an exotic, set as 
 it were in a hot-house. The natural soil, in the air and 
 climate of this world, must produce the plant, which God 
 sows, which God causes to spring up, which God waters, 
 if the plant would live and thrive. Or, if it is too much 
 to say that the natural soil must produce it, we must say 
 at least that it must be produced by grace in the natural 
 soil, and in spite of it, and it must be able to grow under 
 all varieties of air and climate, or it will never be fit to be 
 transplanted to heaven. The grace which is not good for 
 conflict here, will not be fit for rest hereafter. 
 
 8 
 
170 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 God works in us to will and to do ; a complete, thorough, 
 continuing habit and life, begun from within. The clock 
 must be one that goes by inward machinery ; not the mere 
 face of a clock, by which the mastqr must stand himself, 
 and turn the hands, according to his own time, that they 
 may seem right. They must go themselves, by the 
 working of the main-spring. So the renewed creature's 
 holiness must be a clock that goes, a holiness that lives 
 from Christ living in it, a life and not an imitation, a 
 growth from within, and not a mere index from abroad ; it 
 must be a labor, as Paul says, according to his working, 
 which worketh in me mightily. 
 
 There is, therefore, a great deal of hard work, which the 
 soul must encounter and endure in the process of growth 
 in grace, under the discipline of God in answer to prayer, 
 and in becoming holy. There is a great deal of hard 
 work, as we have said, which the soul prays for, when it 
 asks the Lord that it may grow in faith and love and 
 every grace. Possibly the soul is even praying for great 
 trials. The Hebrews cried to God for deliverance from 
 their bondage ; they were really asking for all the perils 
 and trials of the wilderness. God knows the end from the 
 beginning ; we do not. He knows every step of the way 
 beforehand ; we do not. He says, Rise up and walk, and 
 you shall come to a bright palace, and sweet gardens, and 
 running streams. We rise up and walk, and lo ! we come to 
 what seems a boundless desert, and we see as yet, nothing 
 of the palace, nor the sweet gardens, nor the flowing 
 waters, and our souls are much discouraged because of the 
 way, and we faint for thirst, and are ready to die in the 
 wilderness ; and still God says, Walk on, and you shall 
 come to the palace. 
 
 Now we might have known at first, had we known any- 
 thing of our own hearts, that we should get into the desert, 
 that the desert lay between us and the sweet gardens, and 
 the palace, and the living fountains. But God does not say, 
 Rise up and walk, and you shall come to a great desert ; 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 171 
 
 for if he did, we should never set out ; but he says, Come 
 to the sweet rest ! And when, in obedience and faith and 
 hope, we have risen up and lost ourselves in the desert, 
 then he lets us know that it was necessary, before we 
 could come to the place of our rest, that he should lead us 
 through the wilderness, to prove us and show us all that 
 was in our hearts, and that, without such disciplinary 
 wanderings and discoveries, we never could come to the 
 palace, nor be fitted to go in at its gates. 
 
 There is, we say again, at the end of this prayer, which 
 the soul of the Pilgrim sends forth for grace, for God to 
 work his work in the soul with divine power and glory, a 
 great, and often intense conflict and labor. There is the 
 Hill Difficulty, over which that prayer is sure to lead us, 
 in climbing which, the soul seems sometimes as if it would 
 fall and die from very weakness and weariness. Bunyan's 
 Christian, in going up that hill, set out almost with run- 
 ning, so full was he of zeal and hope, of animation and 
 impulse. But he soon got to walking, and thence fell to 
 climbing upon his hands and knees, and that with such 
 weariness, that it seemed as if he could not go on. Now 
 here is imaged a period of discipline, which every soul 
 sooner or later encounters, in which perhaps the very sim- 
 plest duties of the Christian pilgrimage are irksome ; when 
 the soul cleaveth unto the dust and melteth for heaviness, 
 or is become like a bottle in the smoke, and begins to think 
 that it never knew what were the very beginnings of 
 divine life ; when even prayer is a fatigue, so that to take 
 step after step is like climbing a savage, inaccessible 
 mountain, or like travelling on one's hands and knees up 
 the pyramids. 
 
 And what now shall the soul do ? Will it give up for 
 weariness and weakness, and say I can go no further ? 
 Is it not the very trial of one's growth in grace now, to 
 go directly to God with this weariness, and cast the bur- 
 den on him, and even while disinclined to prayer, to pray 
 the more earnestly for God's assistance ? It was as bright 
 
172 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 a proof as could be given of David's growth in grace, 
 when, though compelled to cry out, My soul melteth for 
 heaviness, we find him at the throne of grace pleading for 
 the divine mercy. His importunity ifi such a case is a 
 greater proof of grace, than his heaviness is of the absence 
 of grace. Ah yes ! the very trial of grace, and the pro- 
 cess of growth in grace now in such a case, is, not to have 
 bright hope and joy and peace in believing, but to climb 
 on, even in faintness and gloom, to keep climbing, though 
 ready to die, faint yet pursuing ; and, that trial success- 
 fully and faithfully gone through, the growth in grace is 
 far greater, than if an equal period of time had been spent 
 in a sunshiny quiet sweet walk beside still waters in the 
 green pastures of salvation. Do you think, O David, that 
 you are any better in the 23d Psalm than you are in 
 the 88th ? Any better when you can say, He leadeth 
 me in green pastures, than when you have to say, While 
 I suffer thy terrors I am distracted ? Are you really grow- 
 ing in grace faster in the green pastures than under the 
 terrors ? Why, on the contrary, you will find that the 
 change here is of God's discipline, not of your goodness, 
 and that the submissive endurance of God's terrors 
 requires much more of faith and patience, and indeed 
 almost every grace, than a walk in green pastures. 
 
 And do you think, O man of God, who art rejoicing in 
 the light of his countenance, and walking and leaping and 
 praising God, that you are any better Christian, with your 
 light and peace and joy, or any more growing Christian, 
 than the poor, dejected, weary, weeping traveller beside 
 you, who is ready to sit down and die with a broken heart 
 in the midst of the Hill Difficulty ? Aye, you are very 
 apt to think so. And he that is ready to slip with his 
 feet is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at 
 ease. But very much mistaken you are indeed. And the 
 world is very apt to think so ; but all is not gold that 
 glitters ; neither, because the mineral beside you seems 
 just now almost all earth, is it certain but that one of the 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 173 
 
 most costly of heaven's jewels is coming out of it, when 
 God has worked upon it a while longer. 
 
 And do you think, poor, faint-hearted, discouraged 
 pilgrim, because you are bowed down now, and step after 
 step in your pilgrimage ^is not only without comfort, joy, 
 peace, but even with great weariness, weakness, and irk- 
 someness, that therefore God has deserted you, that he has 
 not heard your prayer, that you will never reach heaven, 
 never have 'either the possession or the evidences of grace ? 
 Aye, we are very apt to think so, and to seek for comfort 
 rather than patience ; but still, your present stage in the 
 pilgrimage may be further on towards the perfect day of 
 heaven, than that of him who is just now running like an 
 arrow. At any rate, if you hold on your way, and still 
 labor, step after step, crag after crag, in this difficult pas- 
 sage, God is causing you to grow in grace, and preparing 
 you for a comfort and peace that shall not be transitory, 
 but abiding for ever. For the Lord will not cast off for 
 ever, but though he cause grief, yet will he have compas- 
 sion, according to the multitude of his mercies. When a 
 man is bearing the yoke of his God upon him, he sitteth 
 alone and keepeth silence, or perhaps he saith, My strength 
 and my hope is perished from the Lord. But it is good 
 that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the sal- 
 vation of the Lord. 
 
 This view of the Christian life is one that should pre- 
 vent discouragement, and excite to great perseverance, 
 even though now for a season, if need be, you are in 
 heaviness through manifold temptations. If so, it is only 
 that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than 
 of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, may be 
 found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of 
 Jesus Christ. This need bs is exceedingly precious and 
 encouraging ; this is the way God must take with you ; it 
 is a need be on your account, not on his ; a need be by 
 reason of your weakness and of his great goodness ; and 
 if you persevere waiting upon him, your heaviness, under 
 
174 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 such circumstances, is quite as good a seal and proof of 
 your sonship, of your belonging to God, as another per- 
 son's rapturous enjoyment under different circumstances. 
 Only be anxious to please Christ ; onty wait on him. And 
 remember that when you prayed that God would make 
 you holy, you did really pray that he would take whatever 
 means might be necessary for the accomplishment of this 
 prayer. When you send for a physician, you expect that 
 he will put you on some course of treatment ; and the 
 course may be longer or shorter, easier or more difficult, 
 according to the nature of your case ; but you do not give 
 up in despair, or conclude that he does not know your 
 case, or does not design your restoration, because the 
 medicine you take to-day does not restore you to health 
 to-morrow. Perhaps even a long voyage, and a journey 
 among the mountains, may be necessary for you. 
 
 And let it be remembered that God has particular forms 
 of discipline requisite for the production of particular 
 forms of faith in the soul. And indeed he varies it very 
 much according to the different stations he intends his 
 children to occupy, and the work he has for them to per- 
 form. As in this world the education of one son in the 
 household for a farmer, another for a merchant, another 
 for a teacher, and another for a lawyer, will in some 
 respects be very different ; so it is with God's dealings 
 with his people ; no doubt they are varied, according to 
 the work which he means to accomplish by them, and the 
 place in his kingdom which he will have them occupy. 
 One stone is to be set in this place, another in that ; and 
 they must be shaped and cut and polished according to 
 their intended setting. 
 
 It may seem gloomy and forbidding to say that the 
 Christian, in praying for growth in grace, prays for much 
 hard work in the pilgrimage, not comfort, and perhaps for 
 no little trial. But who, in his senses, expects to find, all 
 the way, green pastures and a flowery road to heaven ? 
 The amount of trial shall be as God pleases, who will try 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 175 
 
 no child of his above that he is able to bear, but will, with 
 the trial, send the needed strength to bear it, or make a 
 way of escape. But the discipline itself is essential, as 
 the foundation of the full experience of God's goodness. 
 That was a beautiful and most instructive fable of Esop, 
 where the dying old man, who knew his sons were much 
 disposed to indolence, leaving them a farm to cultivate, 
 called them to his bedside, and told them that in a certain 
 portion of one of his fields there was a great treasure hid- 
 den, and they must find it out. So they tilled every part 
 of the farm with such extraordinary care to find the 
 treasure, that it produced, in the end, a harvest of great 
 worth. Thus God, when we come to him for grace, does 
 not bestow his treasures directly, but draws the soul into 
 such efforts, that they are produced even while we are 
 seeking for them ; and the grace thus gained is far more 
 sure and permanent. 
 
 Now this view of the work of God's grace in the mind 
 and the affections (and we think it is the Scripture view) 
 puts one very much upon his guard against the mistake of 
 perfection, against the monstrous idea that the Christian 
 has ever attained a state, in which he has no need of con- 
 fession for sin, or in which there is not a higher state 
 before him that he ought to attain, or in which he is 
 entirely cured of the malady of sin. The very statement 
 of such a thing sets a humble Christian heart at once 
 against it ; not that it is not infinitely desirable to be 
 perfectly freed from sin, for this would be a very heaven 
 on earth ; and perfect freedom from sin is what the new- 
 born soul will long after and struggle after, in Christ. But 
 perfect freedom from sin, we may very safely say, is never 
 attained in this world. The supposition, the imagination, 
 the belief of it, is almost inevitably the parent of pride, 
 and so of every evil. This faith in one's perfect freedom 
 from sin, while God's own discipline is going on to beat 
 down sin, and is still needed in the soul, takes the place of 
 faith in Christ, and plunges the soul into sin. So has that 
 
176 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 great master of the human heart, and of the workings both 
 of nature and of grace in it, John Bunyan, presented the 
 consequences of the self-flattering idea of perfect freedom 
 from sin. The Flatterer may seem a Bright, glorious man, 
 in a white robe, with white shining wings, without us ; 
 but he is the dark, deceitful old man within us, and in his 
 boastful walk towards heaven makes a clean, wide, imper- 
 ceptible sweep, like the gradual turning of a great steamer 
 in the sea, round about from heaven, so that one not look- 
 ing narrowly at the compass shall not know the change. 
 But when he has got us thoroughly into his net, then the 
 bright robe and shining wings drop off, and a dark form 
 of Satan stands developed. 
 
 How absurd to speak of perfection, while the cause of 
 evil remains. The most perfect man on earth, left to him- 
 self, would go away to Satan. Left to himself, then self 
 alone, and the Satan in self, would be developed. What 
 sort of perfection is that ? Suppose you meet a lame man, 
 said to have been entirely recovered. " Why, I thought 
 you were perfectly well." " So I am." " But why then 
 do you keep your crutches ?" " Oh, the physicians say 
 that if I laid them aside, the disease would immediately 
 come back again." " Well then you certainly are not 
 cured yet." No indeed, a man is not cured, until he is 
 done with medicines and the physicians. Grace in this 
 world is medicinal, curative, as long as the \vorld stands. 
 In heaven only is it the result, as well as the cause, of 
 health. In this world there is never the absolutism of 
 perfection. 
 
 Now the application of this chapter is almost equally to 
 those who hope, and who do not hope, in Christ. If you 
 do hope, you see your calling. You see that while God 
 worketh in you, you must work. The only proof that 
 God is working in you is your working. It is hard work- 
 ing, and you cannot lawfully entertain hope, nor possibly 
 make any progress in grace without it. Work you, and 
 God is working. Work hard, and God is working in you 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 177 
 
 mightily. Labor more abundantly than they all, and God's 
 grace is laboring in you. You are not to wait for God, 
 but to work ; for God is beforehand with you, all the while. 
 You are to wait upon God, but you are not to wait for 
 God, before you obey his command to work, for God is 
 already waiting for you, and always working. Work 
 while the day lasts, work in reliance upon God, work in 
 expectation of a glorious harvest, and the more you work, 
 and the more earnestly you work, the easier it will be ; 
 and by and by your reward and your rejoicing shall be 
 great in the Lord. 
 
 And you who do not hope ; if ever such a one shall read 
 this chapter ; you see your calling also. If you ever do hope, 
 it cannot be without your own efforts ; not your efforts 
 without God, nor your efforts before God, but your efforts 
 according to God's working. God is always working, 
 working while the day lasts, as he tells you to work. But 
 the night cometh. God's time of working lasts no longer 
 than your time of probation, and you know not when that 
 may close. Therefore begin at once, for if God ceases to 
 work, you never will begin. You are not to wait for God, 
 for you cannot tell, you never will be able to tell, except 
 from God's Word, in your first efforts, whether it is God 
 or you. If you should go for the first time, and begin to 
 pray, it might seem to you that you are alone, that there 
 is nothing of God in that, that it is your miserably poor 
 impulse and effort, not God's ; and yet, if you thus really 
 begin to work, in reliance on God in Christ, it is God 
 working in you, and the first discovery of God, the very 
 first proof of God working, is your work. The first hope 
 of God's work begun for you, is your working after God. 
 After God in two senses ; seeking for him. and working 
 because he works, because he begins the work and you fol- 
 low. But if you wait for him, instead of working for him, 
 then there is no hope. Begin, and it is your proof that 
 God has begun ; work, and work on, trusting in the Lamb 
 of God, and you may be sure that he is working in you, 
 
 8* 
 
178 GRACE AND TRUTH, CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 both to will and to do. Work, trusting, and you may sing* 
 rejoicing : 
 
 Lord, I believe Thou hast prepared 
 
 (Unworthy though I be) 
 For me a blood-bought free reward, 
 
 A golden harp for me ! 
 
 Tis strung and tuned for endless years, 
 
 And formed by power divine, 
 To sound in God the Father's ears 
 
 No other Name but Thine. 
 

 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Faith working by Love. Assurance not an attainment, but a result. Not a 
 direct gift, but the consequence of Christ in the affections. Not a direct 
 duty, but the companion of duty, and its after-part. 
 
 DR. MALAN somewhere says beautifully, in giving an 
 account of his own earliest Christian experience, that the 
 Lord Jesus awakened him, as a mother does her sleeping 
 babe, with a kiss. So sweet and gentle were the Saviour's 
 dealings with his soul. He was taught faith, as it were, 
 by a kiss, and looking up, beheld the face of love divine 
 bending over him ; and then that language of faith and 
 submission began to be taught him, Lord, what wilt thou 
 have me to do ? This is always the language of faith, 
 hope, and love, which graces, if either of them be genuine, 
 all go together, and all carry the soul not merely to Christ's 
 feet, but to Christ's service. And the soul's disposition 
 and desire to serve Christ, and delight in that service, are 
 the best genuine proofs and fruits of faith, hope, and love. 
 These graces are bestowed and kept alive, for self-disci- 
 pline, for exercise, for results, from glory to glory, till we 
 reach the church above. 
 
 There are two cases of conversion in the Scriptures of 
 the New Testament, strikingly similar in some points of 
 view, and illustrative of divine grace, the one before, the 
 other after, the ascension of our Blessed Lord. The one 
 is of a man whose Pagan name, under* the baptism of 
 Satan, was Legion ; the other is of Saul of Tarsus. They 
 
180 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 both were possessed of many devils ; they both met Christ 
 unexpectedly, not knowing him ; they both were brought 
 to their right mind with a word ; they both were at once 
 set to work in Christ's service ; they jpoth caused all men 
 to marvel at their preaching ; they both we.re illustrations 
 of the purpose of God in the bestowment of faith, and of 
 the happiness and glory of self-denying love. 
 
 Heaven doth with us, as we with torches do, 
 Not light them for themselves. 
 
 If we ever think otherwise, think we are lighted for our- 
 selves, then if we are really lighted, our Lord will show us 
 our mistake, and teach us how to let our light shine for 
 others ; and if it do not shine for others, it is not lighted 
 at all. 
 
 It is said of that wild man among the mountains, in the 
 swinish country of the Gadarenes, that when our Saviour, 
 after healing him, was come into the ship, he that had been 
 possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be with 
 him. He would have gone with Christ to the ends of the 
 earth, to stay with him. Howbeit, Jesus suffered him not, 
 but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them 
 all how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath 
 had compassion on thee. Our first lesson in this case is 
 of the certainty and earnestness of desire with which a 
 new-converted soul turns to Christ, and longs after him. 
 Christ is its first happiness. But our second lesson is of 
 the way in which this first desire, if genuine, will certainly 
 work, and the way which the Lord Jesus has appointed 
 for proving and sustaining it. The lessons from Paul's 
 case are similar, but the wild man of the mountains saw 
 Christ before him in the ship ; Paul did not. 
 
 There are two things in the Christian Life ; labor and 
 happiness. We put labor first, happiness second. This 
 is the true ordeV, the great principle, at least for depraved 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 181 
 
 beings, under a necessity of coming back to God, denying 
 themselves, and seeking happiness in his service. Labor 
 in heaven is unknown, in the sense in which we think of 
 it in this world, connecting it as we do with ideas of 
 weariness, painfulness, and difficulty. But all the saints 
 in heaven have done with labor in this sense, and there 
 they all rest from their labors. In the celestial world all 
 labor, work, business, all activity for God, is mere sacred, 
 unmingled, absorbing delight ; it is happiness itself, and 
 not an introduction to it, or mere preparation for it. But 
 in this world labor is labor, and as such it goes before 
 happiness, must go before it. It is the only gate to happi- 
 ness. There is no green lane. A man must labor to get 
 into the kingdom of heaven. " If any man will come after 
 me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." 
 A man labors under the burden of his sins, when he sees 
 and feels himself to be out of the kingdom of heaven. 
 " Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and 
 I will give you rest." 
 
 But when a man is once in the kingdom of heaven, 
 even in this world, then the order seems to be reversed. 
 Then, ordinarily, the first thing he experiences is happiness. 
 It is not always so, for sometimes in the soul's very first 
 experience in the Christian life there is more of conflict 
 than relief, more of labor than rest, more of fear than hope. 
 But generally, and in proportion to the clearness with 
 which the soul sees Christ, and the hearty faith with which 
 it throws itself upon him, there is happiness uppermost in 
 the man's heart. There is the healing of his diseases, tho 
 deliverance from his burden, the pardon of sin, a calmed 
 and holy conscience, a peaceful heart, a sweet stillness 
 after the tempest, a clear, soft, lovely sky, Christ shining 
 the world beneath his feet, the power of temptation brokei . 
 Satan and his angels withdrawn, heaven opening, the patV 
 way of the soul traced clear, bright, blissful, into the gaU.-s 
 of the New Jerusalem. 
 
182 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 The opening heavens around me shine 
 
 With beams of sacred bliss, 
 When Jesus shows his mercy mine, 
 
 And whispers I am his. 
 
 This is the first state, the first experience. It is so 
 sweet, so grateful, such a foretaste of heaven, often so 
 ravishing, that the soul sometimes sits and weeps for very 
 joy. It is so sweet for one that has all his life been a 
 madman, to come and sit, clothed, and in his right mind, at 
 the feet of Jesus ! Sometimes a pardoned soul sits like 
 Mary before Christ, washing his feet with her tears and 
 wiping them with the hairs of her head, and feels as though 
 it could do this for ever. Sometimes with this joy there 
 is a trembling apprehension of losing it, of encountering 
 temptation, of going forth anywhere among men, the world 
 is so full of sin, and of the soul's enemies. Sometimes, 
 indeed, the first type of character, the first manifestation 
 of grace, is somewhat different. Along with this joy, 
 there comes an irresistible desire to bring others to experi- 
 ence the same, and the soul feels as if it could go up and 
 down the world singing and preaching, Come to Christ ! 
 Come to Christ ! But in general the experience of this 
 man among the mountains comes first, and is the first type 
 of character, and the soul does not, at once, begin to think 
 of laboring for others. It begs to stay with Christ. Oh ! it 
 would have nothing to do henceforth but to look at him, to 
 love him, to commune with him, to abide with him, to sit 
 at his feet, singing and making melody in the heart unto 
 the Lord. We say not that this is the best type, although 
 it is the instinctive impulse of the new-born soul, in a 
 sense of its weakness and dependence upon Christ, to hide 
 beneath the shelter of his wings, and get some little experi- 
 ence of strength in him, that it may begin to work for 
 him. The new regenerated soul, as a new-born babe, 
 desires the sincere milk of the Word, that it may grow 
 thereby. And this growth, of necessity, is gradual, so 
 that the young convert cannot at once go forth as a full 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 183 
 
 grown experienced soldier of Christ to fight for him, but 
 is wise, at first, to go tremblingly, little by little, into the 
 conflict. David was not sent at once to fight with 
 Goliah, but at first kept sheep in quiet landscapes, and 
 met the bear and the lion, in the circuit of his own experi- 
 ence, much less dangerous to contend with than savage 
 men out of it. This was the way in which he was taught 
 confidence in God, and was prepared for the great work 
 God had for him to do. Not that a great faith in God, at 
 once, at the outset, and a great instant desire to win souls 
 to Christ, is not a higher type of character, for it certainly 
 is. And when it comes from God, and is not mingled with 
 human confidence, God will send such a Great-Heart at 
 once upon its mission. 
 
 But we say, in general, the new convert desires, and 
 wisely desires, to be with Christ alone, and must learn 
 gradually the great lesson that labor for Christ is the only 
 way to keep with Christ. But sometimes the soul indulges 
 this spiritual luxury longer than the call of duty permits. 
 It stays so long in the mere exercise of prayer and praise, 
 that active labor becomes distasteful ; it shrinks back. 
 The spiritual energy, which would have grown by action, 
 is weakened. Difficulties have time to spring up. The 
 first love declines a little, before the first habit of self- 
 denying love in labor is formed. And then conscience, 
 little by little, is injured, by the soul staying inactive with 
 Christ, when it ought to have gone out and worked for 
 him. And so the very happiness of the Christian life at 
 first may be the occasion of darkness afterwards ; the occa- 
 sion, though not the cause, for sin is the cause. 
 
 After the Christian life is begun, there is no such thing 
 as happiness without labor. Happiness may come first in 
 the Christian life, may be the first experience ; but labor 
 must come second, or if it does not, happiness flies away. 
 And ever in this world the order is somewhat reversed 
 from what it is in the celestial world ; labor must come 
 first, happiness second, then labor and happiness go hand 
 
184 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 in hand. Christ gives the soul deliverance, and then says 
 to it, Go work in my vineyard. Christ gives the soul a 
 sense of pardon and a taste of his preciousness, and then 
 says to it, Learn to rely on me, and ifc the strength of this 
 mercy go forth on your pilgrimage of duty. If ye love 
 me, keep my commandments. Go home to thy friends, 
 and tell them, and tell all the world, how great things the 
 Lord hath done for thee, and as you go, I will be with 
 thee. But if you go not, I depart from you. This is your 
 world of labor ; I have called you to labor. It is labor of 
 love, but still it is labor. Be faithful, and I will shine upon 
 you. He that seeketh his life shall lose it ; but he that 
 loseth his life for my sake, shall find it. Be thou faithful 
 unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life. 
 
 Now this wild man taken from the mountains and the 
 tombs and made to sit at the feet, of Jesus, is a beautiful 
 illustration of Christian experience. He prayed Christ 
 that he might be with him, but Jesus suffered him not. 
 It seemed strange, did it not, that he should reject so 
 touching an appeal ? Poor, wretched maniac ! torn for 
 years of devils, and the worst devils of all were those of 
 his own passions, how natural it was, nay how right, how 
 beautiful, what a lovely proof of gratitude and love, for 
 him to wish thenceforth to stay with his heavenly deliverer. 
 O let me never, never depart from thee ! Lord, let me stay 
 with thee. Let me never go back to the world, nor enter 
 again my native city of destruction, but, oh ! let me stay 
 with thee, let me stay with thee ! In my right mind, let 
 me stay with thee, let me stay with thee ! 
 
 Poor, distressed, simple, but now happy being ! The 
 Lord Jesus Christ was the first human face divine that he 
 had looked upon with a ray of intelligent sympathy, per- 
 haps for years. And oh ! how ravishing it was to him ! It 
 was the first face that had looked on him with kindness, 
 and it was the kindness of one who loved him so much as 
 to die for him. It was a face of love like the face of an 
 angel, like an opening into heaven, like the face of God ; 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 185 
 
 nay, it was the face of God in Christ, reconciling the soul 
 unto himself, and looking on it in his own renewed image 
 Poor madman ! He had been in the mountains and among 
 the tombs, and men had done nothing with him but to 
 beat him and chain him and fly from him, and he had been 
 crying and cutting himself with stones ; and now there 
 was a being looking on him, that loved him ! and he was 
 clothed and in his right mind, and Christ had clothed him, 
 and Christ had given him this right mind, and Christ had 
 driven away the demons that had possessed and torn him ! 
 And he knew it was Christ that had done this ; and it was 
 so sw r eet, so ravishing to him to sit and look at Christ, and 
 wonder at himself in his new array, in inward and out- 
 ward quietude, no fiends within him, nor angry passions, 
 but all peace ; no savage men nor swine around him, but 
 Jesus, his healer, his Redeemer, his Lord, his all ! Indeed, 
 it was not strange that he desired to be with him ; it had 
 been strange, if he had not. 
 
 But our Blessed Lord had much for him to do, and 
 knew what was best for him. He must now make use of 
 his restored, regenerated reason, in bringing others to their 
 senses. And he told him, Go home to thy friends, and tell 
 them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and 
 hath had compassion on thee. And now the humble happy 
 man shows another proof of true piety. He is ready to do 
 just what his Lord bids him. Lord, what wilt thou have 
 me to do ? His desire to stay with Christ had been a 
 proof,' at first most delightful of his piety ; for no man 
 would love and long to be with Christ, without divine 
 grace in his heart. But now his willingness to go instantly 
 and do Christ's work was a still more blessed proof of 
 sincere piety. And he departed and began to publish in 
 Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him. And 
 all men did marvel. 
 
 And no wonder that they marvelled. What descriptions 
 he would give of Christ ! In what melting accents would 
 he speak of his tenderness ! How he would urge all to 
 
186 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 come to him ! How he would prepare Christ's way in 
 the heart ! And this the madman of the mountains ! He 
 was a most successful preacher, we doubt not. He told 
 his story so truly, so tremblingly, and preached Christ so 
 winningly, that all men marvelled. And his story never 
 lost its freshness. We should like to have seen him again 
 with Christ, to have watched him in another interview, as 
 very probably he had many. But the last we see of him 
 is preaching, laboring, publishing. We shall see him 
 again in glory, and doubtless, when we see him there, we 
 shall see many a soul around him, won to Christ by his 
 faithfulness. The world marvelled at the change in him ; 
 perhaps some thought him crazier than before ; they 
 thought his madness had taken a new type indeed, but it 
 was still madness. But others believed him, and saw that 
 now indeed he was in his right mind, and came to Christ 
 themselves through his saying, to be healed. 
 
 Now the lessons we may draw from our Saviour's 
 loving kindness to this man are very sweet, very beautiful, 
 very important. In the first place, it is clear that in this 
 world labor is better, more precious, than happiness. Labor 
 should be our object, fruit for Christ, rather than happiness, 
 other than enjoyment. To do good, and to win souls to 
 Christ, should be our work, leaving happiness to follow, if 
 it will, and if not, work on. Our Lord's method of disci- 
 pline with this man, and the routine of duty marked out for 
 him, rebukes the life of quietism, monkery, or mere medita- 
 tive holiness. It commends, exalts, and commands the 
 life of active love. It rebukes those who are too exclu- 
 sively or too anxiously seeking for assurance, and it tells 
 them that love and labor for Christ are better than assur- 
 ance. Nay, assurance cannot be but by love and labor, 
 otherwise it is mere imagination. Frames of feeling may 
 be delusive, even when we seem to be sitting at the feet 
 of Christ, if there be nothing to try them of the nature of 
 self-denial ; but laboring in Decapolis when, though self 
 would rather not, Christ bids us, is not so likely to prove a 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 187 
 
 mistake. If we strive to stay with Christ as a selfish 
 thing, we lose Christ. But if in love we go forth to obey 
 Christ, we carry him with us everywhere, and he stays 
 with us for ever. We may seem to be leaving our privi- 
 leges, or denying ourselves what seems necessary for 
 Christian enjoyment, but if Christ calls, all this will be 
 more than made up to an obedient disciple. 
 
 There is a beautiful parable related of a holy ancient 
 recluse, an inmate, like Thomas A'Kempis, or like the 
 devout Luther, of a house mistaken in that age as the gate 
 to heaven, which illustrates these truths, and is more than 
 mere fancy. The pious old monk, it is said, one day 
 when he had been unusually fervent in prayer, found his 
 darkened cell suddenly illuminated by an unearthly light, 
 and there stood before him a vision of the Saviour, his 
 countenance beaming with love, his hands outstretched 
 with a gesture of kind invitation. At that same moment 
 the peal of the convent bell began to sound, which called 
 the monk, in the regular course of his duty, to take his 
 turn in distributing alms to the poor at the gate. For an 
 instant he hesitated, so absorbed in the rapturous vision as 
 to question whether he should not stay to enjoy it, and 
 leave some one else to look after the poor, but the next 
 instant found him, true to his vow of charity, on his way 
 to the gate. As soon as he had finished his work of 
 relieving the poor, his self-denying work of humble love, 
 he returned in sadness to his cell, not doubting that the 
 heavenly vision had taken flight. But to his surprise and 
 joy, it was still there, and the face was beaming upon him 
 with a smile even more full than before of divine beauty 
 and ineffable love ; and there came from the celestial 
 vision these words, " Hadst thou stayed, I had fled." Thus 
 it is that the Saviour stays with those, and shines upon 
 them, who imitate his own example of self-denying love. 
 To' obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the 
 fat of rams. 
 
 We are taught by the wild man's experience as well as 
 
188 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 Paul's, that as Christ, in healing us, has an object beyond 
 ourselves, a wider purpose of benevolence, so we ought to 
 look beyond ourselves, endeavoring to fulfil Christ's pur- 
 poses of mercy. Let every man, says the apostle, look not 
 upon his own things, but also on the things of others. 
 Every measure of grace imparted to us we are to consider 
 as given not for ourselves alone, but as stewards for others. 
 That is the very expression which the apostle uses. As 
 every man hath received the gift, even so minister the 
 same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold 
 grace of God. All true piety is forgetful of self, and 
 anxious to make others holy and happy. And all acquisi- 
 tions in piety that do not tend that way, or that stop with 
 self, or nourish spiritual indolence and pride, or that lead 
 to anything like self-exaltation on account of high spiritual 
 frames, or great spiritual enjoyment, are very likely to be 
 spurious, or if not spurious may be occasions of advantage 
 to the tempter of the soul. Whatever leads to spiritual 
 theories of perfection, rather than to humble, diligent, 
 benevolent action, or to self congratulation, rather than 
 the exaltation of Christ, is suspicious and dangerous. 
 
 The nature and purpose of the Christian ordinances, 
 which God gives us, receive a beautiful illustration in this 
 light of active love, especially such an institution as that 
 of the Lord's Supper. We enjoy it not for ourselves 
 merely, but for others, and Christ manifests himself to us 
 here, and renews our assurances of pardon, and gives the 
 communications of his grace, that in the strength and joy 
 of such an interview with him, we may go away with 
 animation to our work of love, go to exercise patience 
 under difficulties, go to tell how great things Christ can do 
 for the soul. Having received grace we go to minister 
 the same as stewards. Hence the feeling experienced 
 sometimes of unwillingness to go down from mounts of 
 vision and enjoyment such as these into a world of trial 
 may not always be of the best sort. We are to feel that 
 these are refreshments granted on our pilgrimage to 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 189 
 
 strengthen us for future progress. These are arbors 
 amid the Hill Difficulty, where we may sit down to rest, 
 but not lie down to sleep. If, like Christian, we get 
 satisfied with ourselves, and so amuse ourselves with reading 
 our roll, we are likely to fall asleep even at the moment of 
 our most precious privileges, and then the night comes on, 
 and we have to walk in the darkness. Thus the place and 
 season even of spiritual enjoyment may prove a means of 
 self-indulgence. Peter's unwillingness to go down from 
 the mount, where he had enjoyed such a rapturous view 
 of the glory of the Saviour, was natural, it was praise- 
 worthy, it was almost inevitable. But Peter would have 
 stayed there all his lifetime, and forgetting a world lying in 
 wickedness, and the need of his efforts in it, and the great 
 purpose of the Saviour's sufferings and death. Sufferings 
 and death were the last things Peter was thinking of just 
 then, although death had been the theme of the scene of 
 transfiguration. But he knew so little about it, that the 
 very next day, when our Lord, in preparation for their 
 journey to Jerusalem, and for the things that should befall 
 them there, preached to them concerning his sufferings 
 and resurrection, they understood not one syllable of all 
 that he uttered, and about the same time disputed amonff 
 themselves who should be the greatest. So little did they 
 know their own hearts, and so little certain connexion 
 there was between the enjoyment of a sight of Christ's 
 glory in the Mount, and the spirit of humility and of 
 patient toil for Christ. 
 
 It could not have been much more than a week either 
 one way or the other, from this scene, when Peter so 
 openly and with so much self-confident assumption began 
 to rebuke our Lord for the prediction of his sufferings, and 
 to dissuade him from his work of self-denying love. And 
 our Lord called him Satan, and told him to get out of his 
 sight, so earthly and offensive was his spirit. So we see 
 that ravishing views of Christ are not necessarily proofs 
 of a readiness to labor for Christ, or to suffer for him. And 
 
190 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 such instances ought to make us very careful how we 
 indulge ourselves in self-congratulation on account of 
 remarkable seasons of spiritual enjoyment, or elevated 
 visions on the Mount* or think ourselves near to perfection 
 because of our sweet frames of feeling. James and John, 
 the other companions of the Saviour in the Mount, were 
 also so far from possessing his spirit, that a short time 
 after this they engaged in the same quarrel about the 
 superiority, and when the Samaritans would not receive 
 our Lord, they were for burning up the whole city and all 
 its inhabitants. Perhaps this intense, fiery zeal grew in 
 part out of the very view they had had of our Lord's glory 
 in the transfiguration. Ye know not what spirit ye are 
 of! There may have been much of self and pride mingled 
 with their enjoyment on the Mount, and the self and pride 
 came out, when the glory and excitement of the Mount 
 had departed. So we should be upon our guard, remem- 
 bering that all true enjoyment and real attainment in 
 piety will leave the heart more humble, gentle, patient, 
 kind, and self-distrustful than before. 
 
 Perhaps there has been a great mistake made about 
 assurance. It is not a thing designed to be labored after 
 
 an end, but a thing that can only come by the way, in 
 >ring after Christ. Doubtless it is too much sought, 
 too anxiously desired, for itself, for enjoyment, for comfort ; 
 while holiness, growth in grace, likeness to Christ, is not 
 enough sought for itself, or for Christ. The end is put for the 
 means, and the means for the end ; that is, holiness, which 
 should be an ultimate object with the Christian, and like- 
 ness to Christ, which is the end of all discipline, is sought 
 as the means of assurance, of comfort ; and assurance, 
 which is but the means of holiness, is made the great end. 
 This is a sad mistake, and yet very prevalent. 
 
 Now in proportion as there is likeness to Christ, there 
 will, ordinarily, be assurance, as one result, a thing by the 
 way. But it is not so certain that in proportion as there 
 is what is called assurance there will be holiness, likeness 
 
CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 191 
 
 to Christ. Knowledge, says the apostle, puffeth up, but 
 charity buildetk up, charity edifieth. Love to Christ is too 
 much occupied with him and his service, to be over-anxious 
 for self-enjoyment or assurance ; and where Christ is reign- 
 ing supreme in the affections, and bringing every thought 
 into captivity to his love, the soul desires no other assurance 
 than the beholding of him. It is the contemplation of the 
 Saviour, and not of self, that is our source of power and 
 liberty. We all, with open face, beholding as in a glass 
 the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image 
 from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. 
 
 There will be other changes on earth, and doubtless they 
 are necessary for this great change. " The sensible com- 
 fort," said Mr. Berridge in a characteristic letter to Lady 
 Huntingdon, " will not last always nor long. In the pre- 
 sent state of things a winter is as much wanted to continue 
 the earth fruitful, as a summer. If the grass was always 
 growing, it would soon grow to nothing ; just as flowers, 
 that blow much and long, generally blow themselves to 
 death. And as it is thus with the ground, so is it with 
 the laborers too. Afflictions, desertions, and temptations, 
 are as needful as consolations. Jonah's whale will teach 
 a good lesson, as well as Pisgah's top ; and a man may 
 sometimes learn as much from being a night and a day in 
 the deep, as from forty days on the mount. I see Jonah 
 come out of a whale and cured of rebellion ; I see Moses 
 go up to the Mount with meekness, but come down in a 
 huff, and break the tables. Further, I see three picked 
 disciples attending their Master to the mount, and fall 
 asleep there. Jesus has given you a hand and heart to 
 execute great things for his glory, and therefore he will 
 deal you out a suitable measure of afflictions to keep your 
 balance steady." 
 
 This is truth taught by experience, the growth of God's 
 Word. It is not theory, nor imagination, but sober reality ; 
 reality in a world not of unclouded light, but of discipline 
 to prepare for light, and of the trial of the soul to see what 
 
192 GRACE AND TRUTH, CHRIST IN THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 it will do, what is its stay and assurance, when everything 
 seems to fail. The experience of the Christian soul is 
 beautifully expressed by Cowper. 
 
 1 
 When darkness long has veiled my mind, 
 
 And smiling day once more appears, 
 Then, my Redeemer, then I find 
 
 The folly of my doubts and fears. 
 Straight I upbraid my wandering heart ; 
 
 And blush that I should ever be 
 Thus prone to act so base a part. 
 Or harbor one hard thought of Thee. 
 
 let me then at length be taught 
 What I am still so slow to learn, 
 
 That God is love, and changes not, 
 
 Nor knows the shadow of a turn. 
 Sweet truth, and easy to repeat ! 
 
 But when my faith is sharply tried, 
 
 1 find myself a learner yet, 
 
 Unskilful, weak, and apt to slide. 
 
 But O my Lord, one look from Thee 
 
 Subdues my disobedient will ; 
 Drives doubt and discontent away, 
 
 And thy rebellious worm is still. 
 Thou art as ready to forgive, 
 
 As I am ready to repine ; 
 Thou therefore all the praise receive, 
 
 Be shame and self-abhorrence mine. 
 
DEVELOPMENT, DISCIPLINE, 
 
 AND 
 
 FKUITS OF FAITH, 
 
 PART THIRD. 
 
 GRACE AND TRUTH. 
 CHRIST INTHE LIFE. 
 
WINDINGS OF THE RIVER, 
 CONTINUED, 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Illustrations of the Life of Faith in Christ's Apostles. The Life of Faith a 
 Missionary Spirit at the very outset, and a life of Love continued. 
 
 THE first instances of faith, of conversion, and of the 
 commencement of the Christian life in the New Testa- 
 ment, are recorded in the first chapter of the gospel of 
 John. We there behold John the Baptist introducing to 
 Christ the earliest among his chosen disciples, and there also 
 we find the first instance of that beautiful and comprehen- 
 sive designation of the life of faith, as following Jesus. 
 Instead now of going into a speculative tracery or calen- 
 dar of the various virtues in the life of faith, or attempting 
 to compose in essays a directory of religious ethics, we 
 shall just, for the present, contemplate the life of faith, or 
 Christ in the life, as illustrated in the experience of John, 
 Peter, Andrew, Philip, and Nathaniel. The previous 
 training of these disciples, the evidence before them, the 
 decisiveness and results of their faith, the manner of its 
 working and ruling in their life, the experience and trials 
 of Peter, the creed of doubt, and the creed of faith, as by 
 himself manifested, with the reproof and instruction of the 
 
196 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 Saviour's mercy, are points which may occupy us with 
 more of novelty, and possibly more of profit, than an 
 enumeration of rules or precepts for the Divine life, 
 whether after the manner of the fe-ntique or modern 
 religious guide-books or philosophers. Indeed, what are 
 all things that do not bring us to Christ, and throw us upon 
 him, but vanities ? There are three things in the Life of 
 Faith, and they all begin and end with Christ, COME UNTO 
 ME, FOLLOW ME, ABIDE IN ME. Whatsoever there be with- 
 out these three things, there is nothing of regeneration, nor 
 of Christ. There may be a coming to the Church, and a fol- 
 lowing of the Church, and an abiding in the Church ; there 
 may be a coming to the sacraments, and a following of end- 
 less genealogies, and an abiding in the rubrics of form, after 
 the commandments and traditions of men ; but if Christ be 
 not the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first 
 and the last, there is nothing of true religion. God pronounces 
 a woe upon those, whose fear towards him is taught by the 
 precepts of men ; and Christ says, In vain do they worship 
 me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. 
 
 There were three sayings of that noble martyr and saint 
 of Jesus Christ, Bishop Hooper, that are worthy to be 
 written in gold. " The Church of Christ," said he, " the 
 more it was and is burdened with man's laws, the further 
 it is from the true and sincere verity of God's Word." 
 And again he said, " It is mine opinion unto all the world 
 that the Scripture solely, and the Apostles' Church, is to 
 be followed, and no man's authority, be he Augustine, 
 Tertullian, or even Cherubim or Seraphim." And again, 
 " I had rather trust to the shadow of the Church which 
 the Scripture teaches, than to all the men's writings since 
 the death of Polycarp." 
 
 But now we are to look for a moment at the Apostles' 
 lives, the example of their faith and obedience. It is 
 recorded that on one occasion John stood and two of his 
 disciples on the banks of the Jordan, in the midst of his 
 baptizing ministry introductory to Christ. And looking 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 197 
 
 upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of 
 God ! And the two disciples heard him speak, and they 
 
 FOLLOWED JESUS. 
 
 The period of this most interesting and solemn occur- 
 rence was when John the Baptist had been exercising his 
 ministry about half a year. It was soon after the event 
 of the Baptism of our Blessed Lord, at the conclusion of 
 the nearly two months which elapsed during the tempta- 
 tion in the wilderness, when John was baptizing and 
 teaching in Bethabara beyond Jordan. These disciples of 
 John, with all his followers, had been baptized preparatory 
 to the coming of the Messiah, with the baptism of repent- 
 ance for the remission of sins. This baptism was intended 
 and regaided as their introduction to the enjoyment of the 
 blessings of Messiah's reign. His coming was expected 
 speedily, and John's baptism of repentance was a prepara- 
 tion of heart and of life for him. 
 
 Although all the disciples of John were not serious, or 
 praying, or penitent persons, but multitudes came to him 
 without any true piety in their hearts, we have reason to 
 believe that the particular persons here mentioned were 
 already under the disciplinary power of divine truth and 
 grace. We have reason to believe that they were devout 
 Jews, seriously attentive to all the duties of the Jewish 
 religion. They were faithful to the service of the Temple. 
 There they waited, as humble, expectant worshippers, at 
 the proper times for going thither to wait upon God. 
 There they saw the sacrifices offered, and felt the power 
 of the Law in their consciences, and their need of a 
 Redeemer to take away their sins. On the great days of 
 propitiation, and on other days, they stood gazing upon the 
 ceremonies of the offerings for sin, so solemn, so signifi- 
 cant, and expected the great coming atonement to take 
 away transgression. 
 
 We may suppose them to have been attentive to all the 
 duties of God's sanctuary, whether in the Temple, or in 
 the synagogues with the assemblies of the people, on the 
 
198 GRACE AND TRUTH. 
 
 Sabbath or on other days. Their instructions hitherto 
 had been those of the law and the prophets. Supposing 
 them to have waited upon these instructions with prayer, 
 they might have learned much concerning the great 
 sacrifice. The law taught them their guilt, and the 
 ceremonial law showed their need of an atonement. But 
 as demonstrated in the Epistle to the Hebrews, it simply 
 prefigured an atonement and a Saviour to come, and was 
 designed for faith ; it was a schoolmaster to lead them to 
 Christ, and if it produced, in their approaches to God, that 
 frame of mind, which prepared them to receive, humbly 
 and believingly, the gift of salvation in God's way through 
 Christ, that was the accomplishment of the schoolmaster's 
 de>sign, that was all that the schoolmaster could perform. 
 It was under the power of all such instruction in the Old 
 Testament that these disciples of John waited upon him 
 for light. Thus waiting, convicted, humble, prayerful, 
 John appeared to lead them to Christ. If their hearts 
 were thus prepared by grace, they were ready to receive 
 John's revelation. And John, with his instructions, and 
 his baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, was 
 for them, as it were, the bridge between the Old and the 
 New Dispensation. 
 
 The instructions of John appear to us singularly evan- 
 gelical. Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the 
 sin of the world ! But in truth this is neither more nor 
 less than the voice of the law and the prophets, beginning 
 then to be rightly interpreted. The Old Testament, with 
 the veil taken away, is as evangelical as the New. We 
 are not sufficiently aware, or we do not sufficiently 
 remember, that this voice, Behold the Lamb of God, is the 
 voice of the Old Testament as well as of the New. In 
 the Old, before the coming of Christ, it was not, indeed, 
 plain, as after his coming, and could not be ; because no 
 prediction can be understood before it is fulfilled so plainly 
 as it can afterwards. But still it might be clearly recog- 
 nised by humble hearts that had been looking through the 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 199 
 
 types to the reality and substance. The voice and mean- 
 ing of the Old Testament are the same as those of the 
 New, with this difference, that in the Old the voice respects 
 the future and the unseen, Behold the Lamb of God that 
 is to come, but in the New it respects a reality already 
 witnessed, which was, and is, and is to come ; in the Old, 
 a transaction to be performed, in the New, the great tran- 
 saction finished. John's words to the two disciples regarded 
 a Saviour directly before them in person ; but yet the 
 meaning of the Lamb of God they could understand but 
 indistinctly until the crucifixion. At this moment they 
 understood no more than they had learned from the Old 
 Testament and from John. When they heard the words 
 of John, Behold the Lamb of God ! and saw the being 
 whom he pointed out to them, the sight of Christ just then 
 gave them no more insight into the character and work of 
 Christ as their Saviour than they had had before ; for they 
 were not as yet acquainted with him. But they knew 
 from John that he was the Messiah, and thenceforward it 
 was their duty to trust in him, and to become acquainted 
 with him. 
 
 And now we are to mark the instant and ready obedience 
 of the soul instructed by the Spirit and the Word of God. 
 They followed Jesus. This was now their work. The 
 whole expectation, anxiety, doubt, faith, uncertainty, of all 
 their preceding life, had come to a sudden stop and point 
 of determination. All the instructions of their youth, 
 all the lessons of a thousand years from the prophets and 
 the law, all the teachings of the temple and the synagogue, 
 all the predictive rites, forms, and ceremonies, were at an 
 instant pause before this Divine being, and would bear them 
 no further, but had to come to the limit, beyond which they 
 could not go, beyond which revelation itself could not 
 throw a ray of light, nor disclose a path of duty. The 
 stream had borne them to their landing place, and they 
 must step on shore, and follow Jesus. The Word of God 
 without them, the Spirit and the Word within them ; the 
 
200 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 Old Testament ; John, whose mission as a prophet they 
 felt, knew, and acknowledged, and the teachings of God's 
 Spirit in their hearts, all directed them to follow Jesus. 
 They were to do this as their one grafld business and duty 
 of existence. They were to become acquainted with him, 
 to be instructed of him, submissive to him, to have their 
 sins taken away by him, to see more and more of his 
 character and glory, and to give themselves up entirely, 
 unquestionably, to his disposition and guidance. Their 
 light might be found faint at first, but it should increase : 
 they were simply, confidingly, to follow Christ, and they 
 should not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. 
 The Messiah having come, they were no longer their own, 
 but must obey and follow him. All the struggles for light 
 and knowledge in the world ceased with that ; all the wis- 
 dom of the world became foolishness, that did not lead to 
 that ; that did not, as it were, take the soul and throw it 
 down at the feet of this Divine Saviour. All the beaten 
 paths of revelation came to that ; all evidence, all pro- 
 vidence, all prophecy, all history, all faith, all knowledge, 
 all hope, centred there. 
 
 Now if this was the case with them and their situation, 
 how much more is it the case with us and ours ! It would 
 be for us the greatest happiness, if we would bring our- 
 selves precisely to the point, if we would let divine truth 
 and grace bring us just there, where these two disciples 
 were brought through the instrumentality of their inspired 
 teacher, just at the gate of this simple duty, to follow 
 Christ and learn of him. It is for us, as for them, the 
 gate that we must all pass through, or for us there is no 
 futurity but one of darkness. Our evidence, as theirs, 
 brings us just to this point, and leaves us there ; it shuts 
 us up to Christ. Up to that point, it is all light, all clear- 
 ness ; paths of light, paths of glory, all converging there ; 
 but beyond that point, anywhere but through the gate of 
 Christ, through him who is the Door, the Way, the Truth, 
 the Life, it is utter darkness darkness and despair. 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 201 
 
 Now let us look at the superior and increasing nature 
 of that evidence, which brings us just where these two 
 disciples stood before Christ, thrown with their whole 
 existence, for time and eternity, upon him. Christ had not 
 yet died and risen again. They saw not the scheme of 
 redemption as we see it. They could not, as yet, behold 
 the evidence of the Old Testament, which had brought 
 them to Christ, in the light of Christ's crucifixion ; but the 
 light of the Old Testament had simply brought them to 
 Christ, to be instructed by him as to the nature of that 
 work which he was to accomplish as the Saviour of the 
 world. We see the work accomplished; we behold the 
 Old Testament Scriptures themselves in the light of the 
 Cross which they predicted, and with the bright interpret- 
 ation of that Saviour, whom they foreshadowed to the 
 inquiring mind. We have the evidence of his death, his 
 resurrection, his Church established, his promises fulfilled, 
 his Spirit poured down, his inspired word in the Gospels 
 and Epistles, and the practical explanation and demonstra- 
 tion of the system of redemption by his cross, in thousands 
 and millions of instances. The whole of this evidence, 
 instead of diminishing, has been increasing with every 
 generation. It is evidence multiplied by experiment in 
 thousands on thousands of clear cases, evidence proved 
 by successive testimony of the most credible witnesses 
 who have ever lived, the best men, the most enlightened, 
 upright, honest, and unimpeachable, of all their race, who 
 have themselves tried the experiment of belief demanded 
 in the Word of God, and been saved from sin and death 
 by it. 
 
 They who first made this experiment stood alone. They 
 stood only on God's Word ; they had nothing else to stand 
 upon ; they believed in Christ simply on God's testimony, 
 and they themselves became the first human witnesses for 
 God. We believe also on man's testimony, and in the 
 nature of things, by the constitution of the human mind, 
 we cannot help it. It is not in our power to throw off 
 
 9* 
 
202 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 the accumulated weight of the testimony of the Church 
 of Christ in all ages, nor to measure the increased power 
 of the Word, or rather the increased facility of faith in it, 
 through that, testimony. And though if we are true 
 Christians, if we have the Spirit of God within us, we also 
 could stand upon the Word of God alone, even if all things 
 else were taken away from us, it is nevertheless difficult 
 for us to conceive the power of that faith, the greatness 
 and sublimity of that solitary act of faith, which, prior to 
 all human experience, could believe in Christ Jesus and 
 rest on him for salvation, on the simple and sole testimony 
 of the Word of God. There is much significance in that 
 passage in one of Paul's Epistles, where it is said that God 
 of his good pleasure and purpose gave to the then saints 
 the inheritance and adoption of children, that they should 
 be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. 
 Those who first trusted were certainly the greatest triumphs 
 of grace. 
 
 As soon as the revelation was made to these two disci- 
 ples, Behold the Lamb of God, they followed Jesus. It 
 was no desertion of John on their part, but a simple 
 obedience to his directions ; for this was the Great Being 
 of whom he had told them before, that he should baptize 
 them with the Holy Ghost and with fire, and now it was 
 their business and duty to follow him. Then Jesus turned 
 and saw them following, and said unto them, What seek 
 ye ? He would try them, what sort of inquirers they 
 were, what spirit they were of. He would set them to 
 self-examination, that they might know their own hearts in 
 the matter they were entering on, and not be deceived. 
 He would prove those who came to him, and would show 
 them their own hearts. He told the multitude on one 
 occasion, when they followed him, that they were seeking 
 him not because they had seen the miracles which he did, 
 and were convinced by the evidence of his Messiahship, 
 but because they had eaten of the loaves, and were filled. 
 The motive in religion is everything; it determines the 
 

 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 203 
 
 character. These disciples might have followed Christ by 
 name, and yet not have sought nor followed the Lamb of 
 God who taketh away the sin of the world. It was im- 
 portant that they should themselves inquire and know 
 what they were seeking. 
 
 Then, said they unto him, Master, where dwellest thou ? 
 They would know his residence, that they might know 
 when and where to resort to him. Then he saith unto 
 them, come and see. It was a friendly invitation to his 
 dwelling-place. He would not merely tell them where he 
 could be found, but would bring them and go with them, 
 if they were ready to go, at once. Come now, and see. 
 Acquaintance with Christ is a matter of personal experi- 
 ment. The voice of the gospel always is, Come and see, 
 come and make the experiment, come and know your 
 Saviour, come and drink, come and live. So these dis- 
 ciples came. They came and saw where he dwelt, and 
 abode with him that day. He invited them, and they 
 abode with him, for it was towards evening, and the day 
 was far spent. Here they listened to his instruction for 
 hours. What a sacred, blessed season as the guests of 
 Christ, enjoying his heavenly conversation ! They took 
 their evening meal with him, and he expounded unto them 
 the Scriptures, and at night led them to God in prayer 
 around the family altar. It was indeed a sacred, blessed 
 season. 
 
 Thus it is that Christ deals with the souls that come to 
 him. He would have them stay with him at once, and 
 learn of him, listen to him, commune with him, be taught 
 of him in prayer, and in the Word of God, and in all 
 spiritual duties. He would have an acquaintance at once 
 with the soul that comes to him. And the soul that comes 
 should come to stay, should come once for all, to stay as 
 long immediately with Christ as he chooses, or to go at 
 once and work for him, like the missionary in Decapolis, 
 the converted madman of the mountains. But these 
 disciples stayed quietly with him for the present, sitting at 
 
204 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 his feet like Mary, and hearing his words. They had 
 everything to learn ; they were to be at school as pupils, 
 before they could be prepared to go forth as teachers, as 
 apostles ; and Christ began with them this very afternoon 
 and evening, that night and the next morning ; and the 
 next day they went forth with him upon his missionary 
 work. In that work they were to follow him, behold his 
 example, learn his manner and habits, be imbued with his 
 instructions, and baptized with his Spirit. From the 
 moment of that evening's abode with him, they were his 
 disciples, belonging to him, and were beginning to learn in 
 what way they must leave all and follow him. 
 
 Also, we cannot fail to remark, in the very outset they 
 began their own missionary work, that work which is the 
 whole business of Christianity towards man, and the fruit 
 of the Christian life towards God. Even in their first 
 coming to Christ themselves, they brought others with 
 them. It was a delightful example of the practical, social, 
 sympathizing, working power and tendency of true piety, 
 and of the direction and manner in which it works. One 
 of the two who heard John speak and followed him, was 
 Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first findeth his own 
 brother Simon, and saith to him, We have found the 
 Messias, the Anointed of God, the Hope of Israel, the 
 Desire of all nations ! It is he ; there can be no doubt of 
 it ; we know that we have found him ; come and see. And 
 so he brought him to Jesus. 
 
 Now this was the very Spirit of Christianity. Return 
 to thine own house, and tell thy friends and relatives how 
 great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had 
 mercy on thee. It seems there was no need of this com- 
 mand of Christ in the case of Andrew ; his own heart led 
 him in that very way, and it was a lovely development of 
 character in him. No doubt he was thinking of his 
 brother all the way to the dwelling of Jesus, and no sooner 
 had he and John arrived with Christ, and entered the 
 house, to abide with him that day, than he thought within 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 205 
 
 himself, I must go and find Peter first, and we will be here 
 together. Perhaps he said as much to Christ ; Lord, suffer 
 me first to go and find my brother. On one occasion, 
 when Christ had called one to follow him, and he said, 
 Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father, Christ had 
 answered him with a refusal ; Let the dead bury their 
 dead, but come thou and preach the kingdom of God. But 
 now it was the very work for which he had called 
 Andrew, that Andrew asked permission to go upon, Suffer 
 me first to go and find my brother ; and doubtless our 
 Blessed Lord was well pleased with this affectionate and 
 faithful trait in Andrew's character. 
 
 The place where they then were was not the birth-place 
 of Andrew and Peter, but a town near the river Jordan, 
 perhaps Bethabara, whither they had come as John's 
 disciples, where John was then baptizing. Andrew easily 
 found Peter, and still more easily brought him to Christ. 
 They had doubtless often communed together concerning the 
 Messiah, and were animated by the same views and wishes, 
 and had been baptized with the same preparatory baptism 
 of John ; so that Andrew knew that he was carrying a page 
 of glad tidings to Peter, which would be gladly received. 
 Hence the confidence with which he cries out on first see- 
 ing his brother, We have found the Messias, even him, 
 of whom Moses in the Law, and the prophets did write. 
 There was no persuasion needed, after this, to bring him 
 to Jesus ; and Christ's declaration to him on receiving him 
 was the adoption of him at once as a disciple. These three 
 then spent the day with Christ together, Andrew, Peter, 
 and John, John being without doubt the other of the two, 
 first mentioned, the one not mentioned by name ; so that 
 we have here an account of the first calling of three of 
 great note among the apostles, Andrew, Peter, and John. 
 For the present they remained with Christ, but afterwards 
 for a season returned to their homes and their occupation 
 in fishing, in which employment our Saviour found them 
 busied, when he came to call them to his ministry as his 
 
206 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 constant attendants. He may have instructed them 
 beforehand that they were to return to their worldly 
 calling, and abide in it at present, till such time as they 
 should hear from him authoritative!^ again, and receive 
 from him their effectual call to the ministry, which they 
 must then instantly obey. The account of this effectual 
 calling is given in Matthew iv. 18-21, and also in Mark i. 
 16-21, and also, on a different occasion, in Luke v. 111, 
 or the same occasion, with a more full and minute relation 
 of the circumstances. 
 
 Now the conduct of these faithful disciples is a great 
 rebuke to those who are hesitating about following Christ. 
 No matter what may be their reasons for such hesitation ; 
 there is no difficulty in which the situation of these men 
 will not match them. They may be in doubt ; but if so, 
 they doubt in the presence of far greater, clearer evidence 
 than Peter, James, Andrew, and John possessed, who 
 nevertheless on the ground of that evidence left every- 
 thing and followed Christ. The truth is, these disciples 
 did not make light of it, whereas men now do ; and there 
 is the great difference. These disciples came in a most 
 serious, seeking, prayerful, pondering frame, and in this 
 frame they found Christ. If any man will come like them 
 now, he will find Christ. 
 
 And then, having found him, the business of life is to 
 follow Christ. In following our respective callings, we are 
 to follow him. We may follow him as closely as Peter, 
 and yet be the most of our time in our ships mending our 
 nets, or casting them for fishes, if that be the calling in 
 which we are called to the Lord. The change is, that 
 whereas we mended our nets, and gathered our fishes, and 
 sold them, before, for our selves , now we do it all in a sweet 
 reference to Christ, all in looking to him, all that we may 
 follow him. We burned incense to our own net before, 
 now we give up net, business, profits, all to Christ. We 
 must do this, or we are not Christ's. We may not, per- 
 haps, be called away from our counters like Matthew, or 
 
CHRIST FN THE LIFE. 207 
 
 our ships and nets like Peter and John, or our law-studies 
 like Paul, but we must give up ourselves, in all these pur- 
 suits, if we stay in them, to Christ, and must pursue them 
 for Christ, and pursue him in them, or we are none of his. 
 Moreover, we shall have to beware, in abiding in the 
 same calling wherein we are called, lest we fall back to 
 the pursuit of that calling on the old mere worldly princi- 
 ples. There is this powerful temptation, by which the god 
 of this world succeeds in alluring and destroying many souls 
 now, which had but little w r eight with those who were 
 called entirely away from their employments to follow 
 Christ personally. At the same time let it be remembered 
 that if this temptation be resisted, if the soul does faith- 
 fully follow Christ and labor for him in pursuing a worldly 
 calling, it is a great and blessed triumph, and shall have 
 a great crown. If a man lays all his plans of earthly 
 business, and prosecutes them, with a sacred supreme 
 regard to his duty as Christ's steward, gathering and using 
 his money for Christ, his faith is great, and his reward will 
 be great. A merchant, for instance, who is truly an exam- 
 ple for Christ, who truly pursues his business for Christ, 
 and maintains always a frame of heavenly-mindedness, 
 
 Like ships at sea, while in, above the world, 
 
 may be so far forth a greater Christian, than a minister of 
 the gospel, who pursues his business for Christ ; there 
 being more to be overcome in the former case, greater 
 difficulties in the way, and perhaps greater temptations. 
 And certainly a man's crown of glory by and by will be 
 determined not by the position he filled, but the manner 
 in which he filled it, whatever it might be ; the sacrifices he 
 made, whatever they were. So in many cases the last 
 shall be first and the first last. 
 
 So the poor Widow with her two mites may have in 
 heaven a brighter crown than even rich Joseph of Ari- 
 mathea, and Joseph of Arimathea may have a brighter 
 
208 GRACE AND TRUTH, CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 
 
 crown than some of those who preached the gospel to him. 
 The sacrifices that seemed but little things in this world 
 only two mites may be found great things in that ; may 
 be found to have really been in themselves comparatively 
 great things here, and to be in their results infinitely 
 greater there. But ah ! we will not talk about sacrifices, 
 for we make none in comparison with Christ, and we have 
 none but in him ; the great thing is to follow Christ, to 
 have the sweet readiness to give up all to him. We will 
 not undertake to compare the brightness of one crown and 
 another, though it be true that one star differeth from 
 another star in glory ; but we will strive to gain the 
 crown at any rate. 
 
 SEE THAT NO MAN TAKE THY CROWN. 
 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 The calling of Philip, and Philip's work upon Nathaniel. The social power 
 and impulse of Christianity. Desirableness of Love to Christ as the reign- 
 ing feature in the character. 
 
 WE proceed in our investigation. " The day following, 
 Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and 
 saith unto him, Follow me. Now Philip was of Bethsaida, 
 the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip findeth Nathaniel, 
 and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses 
 in the law, and the Prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, 
 the son of Joseph." In considering this comprehensive 
 notice, it is of some importance to determine our localities. 
 At this time, as we have seen, Jesus was at Bethabara on 
 or near the river Jordan, some thirty miles east from 
 Jerusalem. John, Andrew, Peter, Philip, and Nathaniel 
 were all at the same time in this same village, having 
 gathered thither as attendants of John's ministry, and with 
 the feeling that the time for the coming of the Messiah 
 was drawing nigh. Bethsaida and Bethabara were some 
 sixty miles apart, Bethabara on the Jordan being between 
 sixty and seventy miles south from Galilee and the Sea or 
 Lake of Tiberias, where, at Bethsaida, most of these disci- 
 ples had their residence. They had travelled all this 
 distance from that village, to attend upon the teachings, or 
 partake in the baptism of John, perhaps moved by an 
 inward impulse like that which directed the wise men of 
 the East in pursuit of the new-born King of the Jews. 
 Our Blessed Lord had already called Peter, Andrew, 
 
210 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 and John, and made them familiar with his residence and 
 himself, this being the morning after their first sacred 
 interview with him. They had been his guests the pre- 
 ceding night, as it would seem, halving abode with him, 
 because it was so late in the day when they entered his 
 dwelling. And now this morning they were all to set out 
 with Christ on a journey back into Galilee, from which 
 region they had all come, in attendance on John's baptism. 
 They were not now to follow Christ as his apostles and 
 commissioned ministers, but were first to return back for 
 a season to their usual occupations. 
 
 Before leaving Bethabara for Galilee, Jesus found Philip, 
 another of John's disciples, who had likewise come down 
 from Bethsaida with the same purpose as the others, to 
 enjoy more of the instructions of John, and if possible to 
 discover the Messiah. Philip, Andrew, and Peter were 
 fellow-townsmen, and had probably been in habits of inti- 
 macy from their childhood. They seem to have been of 
 the same occupation, and they had evidently received the 
 same education in the sacred Scriptures, and in the lessons 
 of the temple and the synagogue, common to the nation. 
 They were fishermen of Bethsaida, on the borders of the 
 lovely sea of Galilee. In their study of, and acquaintance 
 with, the law and the prophets, and by the providential 
 discipline and grace of God, they were alike prepared for 
 the revelation of the Messiah. They had been now led, 
 by Divine Providence, to Bethabara, for this very purpose, 
 that there they might meet the Lord Jesus ; and for this 
 very purpose Christ himself had come to Bethabara at this 
 time, to show himself to those who were prepared for him, 
 to receive particularly these disciples from John's instruc- 
 tions, and to return with them into their native province, 
 where, on the borders of their native lake, he would after- 
 wards give them their final call to the ministry. 
 
 But there was yet another to be gathered, and Philip 
 himself was to begin his own missionary work by gather- 
 ing him. Nathaniel was of the village of Cana of Galilee, 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 211 
 
 a town about fifteen miles from Bethsaida, between the 
 lake of Galilee and the Mediterranean Sea, and about ten 
 miles north from Nazareth. Nathaniel was an acquaint- 
 ance and friend of Philip, and probably likewise of Andrew, 
 Peter, and John. By the same heavenly impulse with 
 which Andrew, the preceding day, went in search of 
 Peter, Philip now, this morning, before setting out for 
 Galilee, went in search of Nathaniel. Christ was now 
 gathering his disciples, his Apostles, and it is remarkable 
 with what a fervent spirit of love, and happy, holy, zealous 
 labor, they set out. It does not appear that Christ gave 
 Philip any special instructions on this point, but Philip's 
 own heart led him. When our Lord told Philip that they 
 must that day set out from Bethabara on their return to 
 Galilee, Philip may have said, as Andrew did in the case 
 of Peter, Lord, suffer me first to go and find Nathaniel. 
 Having found the Messiah himself, he could not, would 
 not, delay communicating the glad tidings to his friend 
 from Cana. 
 
 All these men had come from Bethsaida and Cana to 
 Bethabara, to be more fully instructed of John. They 
 were fellow-students and disciples under John ; they were 
 to be so, likewise, under Christ. They were about the 
 same age, nor is it likely that any of them were more 
 than thirty. Having all come from Galilee, and three or 
 four of them being fellow-townsmen, and united in the 
 same occupation, they were intimate and enthusiastic in 
 their opinions. They were evidently of the better class 
 in Galilee, much above the ordinary character and attain- 
 ments of their countrymen. And the great reason was, 
 that their minds had been excited and drawn out in regard 
 to the day of redemption for Israel ; they had been study- 
 ing the Word of God, and waiting on his law in the 
 Temple, and looking and longing for the coming of the 
 Messenger of the Covenant, the Desire of Nations. Now 
 it matters little how much darkness and how many wrong 
 views to be corrected, there may have existed, mingled 
 
212 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 with these expectations ; the excitement of their minds 
 and the enkindling of their desires on this subject tended 
 to raise their character. How often in the stillness of the 
 cloudless nights on the lake of Galilee, beneath the moon 
 and the stars, while they were busied in casting their nets, 
 or in the intervals of quiet, they may have meditated on 
 the rising of the promised Deliverer, and conversed about 
 him, with hearts burning within them, and with desires 
 increased by such communion, for the freedom of their 
 country. 
 
 Among these four, the narrative indicates that Philip 
 was particularly intimate in friendship with Nathaniel. 
 It is very possible that they two may have come from 
 Galilee in company ; and therefore Philip would not leave 
 Judea without Nathaniel, more especially as their object 
 in coming must have been the same. And we may add to 
 the remarks above made on the character of these disci- 
 ples, that the endearing intimacy of such men as Philip and 
 Nathaniel evidently were, from the testimony of Christ in 
 regard to Nathaniel particularly, is itself proof of more 
 than ordinary refinement, and may indicate high qualities 
 both of feeling and of intellect. Philip's first mission, after 
 finding Christ himself, was to find Nathaniel for Christ, to 
 tell him of Christ. And his first declaration to Nathaniel 
 was out of the Old Testament. We have found him, of 
 whom Moses in the law, and the Prophets, did write, Jesus 
 of Nazareth, the Son of Joseph. 
 
 The manner of this address intimates several things. 
 It was such, in the first place, as to argue that the Messiah 
 had been the subject and object of their united expecta- 
 tion and search. They had together looked for him in the 
 Old Testament Scriptures, in the Law and in the Prophets. 
 And without any doubt they had searched the Scriptures 
 with prayer. How many intensely interesting hours 
 they may have spent together, pondering over the sacred 
 records, comparing promises with promises, searching what 
 or what manner of time the Holy Spirit had signified, and 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 213 
 
 noting also the signs of the times, especially since John 
 began his remarkable mission and his baptism. How many 
 hours they may have spent in prayer for light, and how 
 many times they may have helped and encouraged each 
 other in their investigations. 
 
 It would intimate also that the very object of their 
 journey to Bethabara had been some indefinite expectation 
 that Christ himself would or might even then and there 
 appear. They thought he might come at any time. The 
 whole people were in expectation of him, and began to 
 muse in their hearts whether John himself were not the 
 Christ. And now Philip comes to Nathaniel, crying, We 
 have found him ! we have found him ! Him of whom 
 Moses in the law, and the Prophets, did write ; the same 
 for whose coming we have watched, and searched, and 
 waited for so long. It is He ! There is no more doubt 
 \vhatever in regard to it. It is not John, but He, whom 
 John, by the Spirit of God, hath showed us. 
 
 And who was he, if not John ? Who was it that John 
 had pointed out as the Messiah, and that Philip was now 
 resting upon with such unhesitating confidence, as indeed 
 the Christ ? The manner of Philip's address intimates also 
 that Jesus himself was not unknown, at least by reputation, 
 to both Philip and Nathaniel, even before this visit to 
 Bethabara. We have found him, cried Philip, and it is 
 Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. This mode of 
 announcement indicates evidently that they had heard 
 before of Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. There 
 had already been something very remarkable in his cha- 
 racter and actions, which had drawn the notice of the 
 villages and people round about his native village upon 
 him. Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph, was one, of 
 whom Nathaniel had heard in Cana, and Philip in Beth- 
 saida. And now Philip comes to Nathaniel with the 
 extraordinary announcement, that the very Messiah, the 
 Christ, the Anointed of God, is this Jesus of Nazareth, 
 the son of Joseph. He does not seem to have had the 
 
214 liRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 least fear that his message would be disbelieved, that either 
 his glad tidings would be doubted, or the manner of them 
 be received with any incredulity ; and so he makes no 
 difficulty of announcing at once that the revealed Messiah 
 is simply Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. This 
 shows in a very vivid light, the greatness of Philip's faith, 
 the complete, triumphant, unquestioning assurance in his 
 own mind that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. And the 
 manner in which the same conviction took possession of 
 Nathaniel's soul, after he had also seen Christ, shows the 
 same extraordinary power of faith in him. But upon the 
 manner of Nathaniel's reception of the news we will not 
 dwell any further at present, but will leave the whole 
 company of these newly gathered, and fervently believing 
 disciples with Christ, in their joyful, happy communion 
 with him and with one another, drinking in his instruc- 
 tions. Meantime we proceed to gather up some of the 
 lessons arising thus far out of our examination of their 
 behavior. 
 
 There is here depicted the very soul and life of Chris- 
 tianity, in its loving, social, missionary, sympathizing spirit. 
 These men had been struggling in the darkness, and now 
 they saw the dawn and the bright day together. They 
 had sympathized with each other in their fears, desires, 
 perplexities, prayers, and now they thought of one another 
 and not of themselves alone, when relief began to appear. 
 They began to see the Sun of Righteousness arise, for 
 whose appearance they had been watching at times all 
 night long ; and the first who beheld the light, ran to 
 report it to the other. Its revelation to them was the 
 very fulfilment of the promise with which the Old Testa- 
 ment closes, " Behold, I will send my Messenger, and he 
 shall prepare the way before me : And the Lord, whom ye 
 seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messen- 
 ger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in. And unto you 
 that fear my name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise, 
 with healing in his wings ; and ye shall go forth, and grow 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 215 
 
 up as calves of the stall." This was literally fulfilled, first 
 of all, in these believing, fearing, loving disciples. And 
 in them was fulfilled that other passage in the same predic- 
 tion, where God says, " Then they that feared the Lord 
 spake often one to another : and the Lord hearkened and 
 heard : and a book of remembrance was written before 
 him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon 
 his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, 
 in that day when I make up my jewels ; and I will spare 
 them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him." 
 
 This beautiful passage had its accomplishment first of 
 all in these same disciples, that they might be to the glory 
 of God, who first trusted in Christ. Even before Christ's 
 manifestation to Israel they had feared the Lord, and 
 thought upon his name, and spake often one to another, 
 and in this humble, anxious, gentle, teachable, fearing 
 frame, they had come to John, the messenger and fore- 
 runner of Christ, and now the Lord had claimed them as 
 his own ; now when he was beginning to make up his 
 jewels, he received these jewels from John, as among the 
 brightest in the crown. 
 
 These happy disciples were now united in conversion, 
 and each one was made the instrument of blessing the 
 other. Philip and Nathaniel, Andrew, Peter, and John, 
 co-operated with Christ, and with the work of the Holy 
 Spirit. It was a most delightful, simple, thorough, hearty 
 work of Christian love. Friends began with friends, 
 relatives with relatives. Presently we see the circle 
 enlarging, but here it is small and distinctly visible. Each 
 rising wave is apparent, and we see how it spreads, each 
 circling ripple on the lake of love, before there are so many 
 of them, and so vast and deep and widening, that we can 
 no more trace them but as one common impulse, one grand 
 heaving and waving in the mighty sea. In this simple 
 early life of Christianity, every infant, missionary impulse 
 of sympathy and love is visible, and can be counted. 
 First come John, Andrew, and Peter, then Philip, then 
 
216 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 Nathaniel ; and then the wave that starts at Bethabara 
 from the person of Christ, spreads all over Galilee and 
 Judea, and then over the world. It is a Missionary wave, 
 and here is the very life of Christianity, the very essence 
 of discipleship, and the very way of the world's evange- 
 lization. Nothing can be more beautiful than the working 
 of this principle of the socialism of grace, the social prin- 
 ciple and power of Christianity. It is a sympathizing, 
 impulsive, progressive, diffusive life. It is the leaven of 
 the world, which will work till the whole is leavened. 
 And it works, where it works at all, with an accumulating, 
 accelerating tendency and power. 
 
 We learn, moreover, from this examination of the early 
 conversion of the Apostles, the need of a preparation in 
 the heart for the clear perception of the glory of the 
 Redeemer's character, and for the hearty, cordial submis- 
 sion of the soul to him in affectionate confidence and 
 obedience. It is evident beyond doubt that these disciples 
 and apostles, to whom Christ was thus made known, were 
 prepared for the revelation of him, and prepared to receive 
 him with joy, by previous humiliation, discipline, study, 
 and prayer. They were not plucked from carelessness 
 and indifference as by a sudden miracle, just as if God 
 had raised up children unto Abraham from the stones in 
 the street. They were selected because there had been 
 going on that previous, secret, unnoticed, unknown process 
 of discipline with them, and of sacred anxiety in their 
 minds and hearts. They had been religious inquirers, of 
 a long time, and it was fit that the light should first fall 
 upon them, as they were the nearest to it, and best pre- 
 pared for it. 
 
 Nor were they illiterate men, as is commonly charged 
 upon them, that is, ignorant, rude, rabble-men. But they 
 were men, to a good degree, of cultivated minds, suscepti- 
 ble of strong friendships, and men of much refinement of 
 the social qualities, not the refinement of the fashionable 
 world in manners, but of the natural feelings, of true sim- 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 217 
 
 plicity of character, of happy family affection, and of pure 
 morality. They were not coarse men, of hardened feel- 
 ings and manners, but they were gentle in their character, 
 though some of them impetuous, and they were regardful 
 of each other's happiness ; and in such respects they were 
 truly refined, however incongruous we might regard the title 
 of gentlemen as applied to them. 
 
 They were united in the study of God's Word. They 
 were not ignorant of that which was the only source of 
 true wisdom then on earth. And no man could have been 
 called ignorant who was acquainted with the Scriptures, 
 whatever of human learning might have been a blank. 
 Their Scriptural learning alone would have kept them from 
 grossness, and made them educated. Neither could any 
 man or men have been, or been called, gross or hardened, 
 who could at once see and appreciate, as they did, the 
 beauty of our Blessed Lord's character, and the internal 
 power of the evidence thence resulting of his being indeed 
 the Messiah. The very fact of their intuitive perception 
 of that evidence, their deep, all-subduing sense of the 
 power of it, shows a quality of mind and character, a 
 habit of discernment, a wisdom of the understanding, an 
 illumination of the soul, far above that of the common 
 multitude. 
 
 For it is to be remembered that they had no miracle 
 to rest upon, but simply the sight of Jesus in his sim- 
 plicity and lowliness, his benevolent meekness and love. 
 But that sight carried away all their prejudices, and toge- 
 ther with the testimony of John, the conversation of Jesus 
 completely subdued and assured them. This would have 
 been by no means so remarkable, had Christ wrought a 
 great miracle on the spot, as he did a few days afterwards 
 in Cana of Galilee, where many believed in him in conse- 
 quence of that miracle. But here was no miracle. Had 
 Christ chosen to work one, then without doubt a multitude 
 among the crowd that were gathering after John might 
 have flocked to Jesus, very few of whom, if any, would 
 
 10 
 
218 GRACE AND TRUTH. 
 
 have seen, as Andrew, Peter, John, Philip, and Nathaniel 
 saw, the celestial and convincing glory and beauty of 
 Christ's own character and conversation. But these men, 
 becoming experimentally acquainteji with Christ, began at 
 once to feel that he was in himself a greater, more con- 
 vincing miracle, in his own nature as God manifest in the 
 flesh, than any miracle he himself could have wrought for 
 their conviction. They came personally to Christ, and 
 there was the end, as there always is, on such acquaint- 
 ance, of all their hesitation and unbelief. 
 
 Now this was to them the greatest of all blessings, for 
 heaven was opened to them in the face of Jesus Christ, 
 and thenceforth they rested on him with an affectionate 
 confidence, that nothing ever could or did diminish or 
 shake. Their attachment was intense ; indeed it was sub- 
 lime, though so completely unawares and unostentatious ; 
 and the production and sustaining of it was a sublime and 
 beautiful exhibition of the power of Christ's character, of 
 the Saviour's infinite loveliness. No other being but he, 
 could, under such circumstances, so have won and retained 
 their affections. For he beat down all their pride, 
 destroyed all the illusions they had entertained, all their 
 fond hopes of a temporal deliverer, and preached to them 
 plainly his own and their sufferings. He taught them that 
 his kingdom was not of this world, but of heaven, not 
 temporal but spiritual, not of ease and plenty here, but 
 poverty and trial. He taught them that through much 
 tribulation they must enter into that kingdom. He re- 
 buked their prejudices, chastised their worldly expecta- 
 tions, and bade them take up the cross daily, and follow 
 him. And yet, how fervently they loved him ! It was 
 the work of God's Spirit in their hearts, but it was 
 developed thus strongly and at once, from the outset, in 
 ardent love to Christ, because they had been disciplined 
 and prepared beforehand, their hearts had been softened, 
 and fitted by the spiritual influences of the Old Testament 
 dispensation and Scriptures, to receive Christ's image, the 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 219 
 
 impress of his lovely character ; and the Spirit of God 
 made it shine and live within them. 
 
 Their hearts came to Christ through the devout paths 
 of the law and the prophets, taught and led by them as 
 their heavenly schoolmasters, and thus prepared, this con- 
 straining love of Christ became evermore the reigning 
 feature in their characters. Desirable beyond expression 
 it is, that such should always be the introduction of the 
 soul to Christ, such and so clear the beholding and appre- 
 ciation of the loveliness and glory of his character from 
 the outset. Desirable beyond expression it is that the 
 belief of the soul should not rest in any external evidence, 
 either of miracles or anything else, but in Christ, in an 
 experimental knowledge of him, in the individual, personal 
 discovery of the truth of such a Saviour. The path of a 
 soul that sets out thus, in, with, and from a lively attach- 
 ment to Christ, will be (if this love continues, as it did, in 
 the case of these early, interesting converts) a path shin- 
 ing more and more unto the perfect day. And indeed it 
 is this personal absorbing love to Christ that we want 
 greatly in our modern Christianity. 
 
 Furthermore, we remark it as a clear thing that the call 
 of Christ must be obeyed, and men must come to him, or 
 they cannot expect to be saved. The things connected 
 with him, and with the salvation of the soul by him, must 
 be the things of greatest, yea, of absorbing interest, to 
 which men must be willing to give time, attention, study, 
 and heart. If they are not ready to do this, they can 
 expect no benefit from Christ. They cannot expect to be 
 plucked against their own will from their occupations, and 
 compelled into Christ's house, but they must come when 
 invited, come to him, and follow him, and then shall they 
 know, if they follow on to know, the Lord. These simple- 
 hearted, interesting men, are examples. To find Christ, 
 they of their own accord left their occupations, and it 
 must have been at a costly sacrifice in their business, for 
 they depended on that for their subsistence, and yet they 
 
220 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 left all, and travelled with and after John the Baptist into 
 Southern Judea, and there they were abiding in their pur- 
 suit after Christ, when Christ met them. Now such 
 simple, sincere, earnest devotion td> their great object, 
 could not but be successful. It always is. And if half 
 this holy diligence, this determined self-denying earnest- 
 ness, were exercised by men now, in pursuit after Christ, 
 never an individual would fail in finding him. But where 
 is the man who would leave his worldly business for a 
 week for the matter of his salvation, on grounds of such 
 evidence as these blessed men went upon ? Where is the 
 man, who would leave his business for a week, and go to 
 a distant part of the country, to attend the ministry of an 
 Evangelist, from whom his soul might get some light 
 respecting Christ ? We accuse the Jews of hardness of 
 heart and blindness of mind, but truly these Jews set us 
 an example, which would to God the men of this day 
 would follow. Would to God there were half the sim- 
 plicity of heart in the multitude now that there was then ! 
 There must be this simplicity of devotion to the business 
 of seeking Christ, or how can men be expected to find 
 him ? 
 
 And Oh ! for that constant, childlike trust in the 
 Redeemer, that ever follows this simple obedience to his 
 call. Let the soul keep near him, that hath come to him. 
 Let not that humble trust be spoiled by self-confidence, or 
 choked by earthly weeds of vain desire. Let not the 
 world creep back again into that heart, which has itself 
 come out from the world to find and follow Christ. With 
 the same earnestness with which you come to him, yea, 
 and with a far more steady and sustained intensity of 
 purpose, you are now to follow hard after him, and his 
 right hand shall uphold you. 
 
 I thirst, but not as once I did, 
 
 The vain delights of earth to share ; 
 Thy wounds, Emmanuel, all forbid 
 
 That I should seek my pleasures there. 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 221 
 
 It was the sight of thy dear cross 
 
 First weaned my soul from earthly things, 
 
 And taught me to esteem as dross 
 
 The mirth of fools, and pomp of kings. 
 
 I want that grace that springs from Thee, 
 
 That quickens all things where it flows, 
 And makes a wretched thorn like me 
 
 Bloom as the myrtle or the rose. 
 
 Dear fountain of delight unknown ! 
 
 No longer sink below the brim, 
 But overflow, and pour me down 
 
 A living and life-giving stream. 
 
 For sure, of all the plants that share 
 
 The notice of thy Father's eye, 
 None proves less grateful to his care, 
 
 Or yields him meaner fruit thaii I. 
 
 COWPER. 
 
them lor trie worn, ui m 
 Apostles. The process, as it proceeds, is still more inte- 
 resting. 
 
 Nathaniel was a man of great integrity and true sim- 
 plicity of character. The description given of him by our 
 Lord is truly wonderful, considered as pronounced upon a 
 mortal by him who trieth the reins and searcheth the heart. 
 Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile ! That is, 
 Behold a humble, and believing mind, a man of a contrite, 
 upright spirit, who trembleth at God's Word, and is wait- 
 ing and longing for the consolation of Israel, even like 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 228 
 
 Simeon in the Temple. It was the description of a true 
 Christian, a man who lived by faith, although the Redeemer 
 had not yet been made known to him. a just man, who 
 waited upon God, and on whose path God was shining. 
 And God's light shone upon him in answer to prayer, for 
 Nathaniel was a man of prayer. He had been engaged 
 in prayer just before Philip found him. There was a 
 retired place beneath the thick broad shade of a spreading 
 fig-tree, where he, and in all probability sometimes Philip 
 with him. was accustomed in secret to pour out his soul 
 before God, or to meditate, Isaac-like, at evening-tide, and 
 think upon his country and its redemption. It was there 
 that Philip found Nathaniel. It was there, at this early 
 hour in the morning, before setting out for Galilee, that he 
 went first of all to seek him, there in the place of prayer. 
 
 The calin retreat, the silent shade, 
 With prayer and praise agree, 
 
 And seem by thy sweet bounty made, 
 For those who worship Thee. 
 
 Sweet indeed, under Oriental climes, are such retirements 
 for the worship of God. 
 
 Nathaniel was prepared by his communion with God 
 for an interview with Christ, for the sight and assurance 
 of his Divine character, and for the hearty reception of 
 his grace, as the soul's only Saviour. " No man can come 
 to me, except the Father which hath sent me, draw him." 
 God had been drawing Philip, and now he was drawing 
 Nathaniel. He had been drawing them both, by his Word, 
 and preparing them, by the earnest, humble study of the 
 prophets and the law, to behold him, of whom Moses in 
 the law, and the prophets did write. He had been draw- 
 ing and preparing them by his Spirit and with his Word, 
 and Philip had found Christ, and this was the day in which 
 Christ was to be revealed to Nathaniel, and the revelation 
 was made in answer to prayer. In prayer Nathaniel had 
 
224 GRACfi AND TRUTH, 
 
 been drawing nigh to God ; in prayer the eye of the 
 Omniscient Saviour had been fixed upon him. Jesus 
 beheld him under the fig-tree, and as it was said of Saul, 
 Behold he prayeth, go therefore, anql disclose to him his 
 Lord, so now of Nathaniel, Behold he prayeth ; and Philip's 
 own heart, under the guidance of the Spirit of God and at 
 the word of Christ, led him to Nathaniel praying, to tell 
 him of the Saviour. It is interesting and instructive to 
 trace these introductory steps, this introductory discipline. 
 
 But Nathaniel's first exclamation is that of apparent 
 incredulity. Can any good thing come out of Nazareth ? 
 " We have found him," said Philip, " of whom Moses in the 
 law, and the Prophets did write. We have certainly found 
 him. And whom do you think it can be ? None other 
 than Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph !" Nathaniel 
 evidently did not expect such an announcement as this. 
 He partook of the common prejudice against Nazareth, 
 and remembered and felt that prejudice at once, when 
 Jesus of Nazareth was mentioned. But notwithstanding 
 that, he made no further objection than was contained 
 in his question. And the fact that this prejudice existed 
 in his mind so strongly, sets more strikingly in view the 
 greatness of the faith, by which afterwards, on the sight 
 of Christ himself, he overcame it. 
 
 Philip entered into no argument with him ; he was too 
 much in haste to bring him immediately to Christ. He 
 knew that the knowledge of Christ personally would do 
 for him what it had done for himself, remove all difficulty, 
 and fix his heart. He cared nothing about his objections, 
 so he could but get him to Christ, for that, he knew, would 
 clear up all. Can any good- thing come out of Nazareth ? 
 Come and see, answered Philip ; only come and see ! 
 There was a triumphant gladness and haste in Philip's 
 manner. It was the gladness of an assurance without 
 doubt in his own mind ; it was the triumph of faith in a 
 heart that had found its resting-place, and felt that it could 
 convert the whole world, could it only bring the world to 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 225 
 
 Christ. Come and see, said Philip, that's all. No time 
 now to discuss our difficulties. Jesus is going to-day to 
 Galilee. Come and see ! So he laid hold upon him and 
 hurried him away to Christ. 
 
 Now the Blessed Saviour had seen all this ; seen Na- 
 thaniel under the fig-tree, seen Philip coming to him, seen 
 with delight the happy zeal of his disciples. And now he 
 beheld Nathaniel coming, and to show him that he knew 
 him, he said, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no 
 guile ! Nathaniel, astonished at this announcement, said 
 to him, Whence knowest thou me ? He had never met 
 with Jesus, whatever he might have heard said in Galilee 
 concerning the son of Joseph, and he knew that he him- 
 self was unknown personally to Jesus. And he knew not 
 what to make of this declaration. But Jesus answered 
 and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when 
 thou wast under the jig-tree, I saw thee. Nathaniel, con- 
 vinced by this manifestation of supernatural knowledge on 
 the part of the being before him, and powerfully affected 
 at the appeal to his own thoughts, to the exercises of his 
 soul in secret prayer, felt at once that Philip's message to 
 him was the truth, and that he had indeed found the 
 Messiah. The image of all that his soul had been seeking 
 after, all that had been revealed and foreshadowed in the 
 Scriptures, rose up before him, and he saw in Christ real- 
 ized the idea of that Being, of whose nature, form, glory, 
 and character he had been striving to gain a more definite 
 conception and knowledge. He was convinced at once ; 
 his doubts and difficulties vanished ; he felt somewhat as 
 the two disciples did, when the risen Saviour was made 
 known to them in the breaking of bread. It was the 
 Messiah, the Anointed of God ! It was he, whom his soul 
 had been seeking, he whom God had promised to Israel. 
 He felt it, he knew it, he surrendered his whole soul to the 
 rapturous conviction. And he answered and said unto 
 him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God ; thou art the King 
 of Israel ! 
 
 10* 
 
226 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 Had not Nathaniel been indeed the Israelite without 
 guile, as our Lord had described his character, his faith 
 would not have been thus unhesitating. But to the up- 
 right there ariseth a light in the darllness. Nathaniel had 
 come to the light, and believed in the light, for his heart 
 was seeking light, and was open to conviction, and this 
 was a great declaration of his faith, greater perhaps, and 
 more explicit than any disciple had as yet attained to. 
 And thereupon followed the approving smile and welcome 
 of his Saviour. For Jesus answered and said unto him, 
 Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig-tree, 
 believest thou ? Thou shalt see greater things than these. 
 And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, here- 
 after ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God 
 ascending and descending upon the Son of man. This 
 was the close of the present interview, or rather, this is 
 all that is recorded of the present conversation ; a con- 
 versation, however, which doubtless was continued in much 
 greater detail than we have any account of. 
 
 They were now to set out with Christ from Bethsaida, 
 all these five disciples, John, Peter, Andrew, Philip, and 
 Nathaniel, leaving John the Baptist still baptizing in Jor- 
 dan, and teaching the people concerning the kingdom of 
 heaven. It was a happy journey after this, their journey 
 back into Galilee. How constantly, and with what deep 
 earnestness and interest would they converse by the way ! 
 What sacred instruction would our Blessed Lord pour into 
 their minds, or cause to distil softly like the dew upon 
 them, as they were able to bear it. We know his method 
 of teaching, so familiar, so illustrative, so simple. Every 
 incident, by the way- side, every aspect of nature, every 
 homely, well-known truth of the physical world, he would 
 draw into spiritual wisdom. Beneath the clear sun of 
 Judea, amidst the ripening corn fields and luxuriant vine- 
 yards, they travelled towards Galilee. They were to stop 
 at Cana, and there the Saviour was to manifest the first 
 outshining demonstration of his glory to the public eye ; a 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 227 
 
 demonstration, however glorious, yet far inferior to that, 
 which these dear disciples were now enjoying daily. But 
 we leave them for the present, and return to gather up 
 some of the lessons presented in the conversion of 
 Nathaniel. 
 
 And first, all that we have previously said concerning 
 the elevated character of the disciples finds here a cor- 
 roboration. Nathaniel was evidently a man of prayer, a 
 student of the Scriptures, a devout man, a man of refine- 
 ment of feeling. The character given of him by our 
 Blessed Lord is such, that no man who possessed it could 
 fail of being a man held in high estimation by his country- 
 men and those who knew him. He was unquestionably a 
 man of education and respectability. The piety of his 
 mind and life was such, that Christ himself remarked it. 
 It must therefore have been uncommon and peculiar ; 
 but it was altogether of grace, acting upon a childlike, 
 natural substratum of character, and preparing it for the 
 Saviour's kingdom. The disciples were all thus fitted for 
 his service. They were not chosen at hazard, as it were, 
 from the rough material of human nature, but they had 
 been in training by the Spirit and the Word of God for 
 years. And they were all selected, likewise, for particular 
 natural, but varied features of character, which, under the 
 dominion of grace, would be developed for the glory of the 
 Saviour in advancing his kingdom. If Nathaniel's cha- 
 racter was thus remarkable, we are to remember also that 
 Philip was evidently his near, dear, intimate friend, and 
 therefore of some similarity of character, taste, and attain- 
 ments. A man is known by his company, and next to the 
 testimony of Christ himself as to Nathaniel's great excel- 
 lence, vould be the assurance, as to Philip, that he was 
 beloved of Nathaniel, the intimate friend of Nathaniel. 
 We are justified in supposing that both these men were 
 men of rare excellence of character. 
 
 And though they were men of genuine simplicity of 
 nature, they were also men of quick discernment, and not 
 
228 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 to be imposed upon. The}' saw the evidence of Christ's 
 divinity at once, and felt, and rested upon it. They saw 
 in a moment that he was no pretender, nor any ambitious, 
 or ostentatious, or presuming leader, but the genuine 
 heavenly glory of his character shone with power upon 
 their understandings and hearts. Children, and men of 
 true simplicity of mind, are the quickest intuitive judges 
 of character in the world. Perhaps such persons may not 
 be able to trace the process by which they come to a con- 
 clusion, but the conclusion is almost always right. They 
 form their opinion often at first sight, but it is unerring. 
 Philip and Nathaniel were guided not only by their 
 natural intuitive simplicity and frankness of disposition, 
 but they- had been imbued with the knowledge of the 
 Scriptures, were men of prayer, and were taught of the 
 Holy Spirit. 
 
 Moreover, we see here the power of faith, the power of 
 personal experience, in surmounting difficulties. All 
 Philip's difficulties had been removed by his interview 
 with Christ. But it was not certain that another mind 
 would view the thing exactly as he did, though he felt sure 
 that Nathaniel would form the same judgment as himself. 
 Still, it was an experiment, and we may conceive of 
 Philip's joy at the sight of the effect of the knowledge of 
 Christ upon Nathaniel. We are so constituted that one 
 Christian soul is always much impressed by the experience 
 of another ; there is great sympathy, great encouragement ; 
 and hence the salutary power of good religious biographies. 
 Rightly used, they are next to the Bible. Philip's faith 
 was very strong, but we may be sure it was still stronger 
 when he saw that Nathaniel felt just as he did, viewed the 
 Saviour just as he did. It was just what he expected 
 when he said to Nathaniel so triumphantly, Come and see. 
 
 And we may conceive of him as afterwards delightfully 
 reminding Nathaniel of his first incredulity. Well ! and 
 what do you think of Jesus of Nazareth now ? he would 
 say to him. No matter, Nathaniel would answer, whether 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 229 
 
 he be of Nazareth, or Capernaum, or Samaria itself. I 
 know not and care not; I have seen him, and known him, 
 and am satisfied. One thing I know, that he hath opened 
 mine eyes, and whereas I was blind, now I see ; I see him 
 and his glory, the Lord of my soul, the Son of God, the 
 Messenger of the Covenant, my King, my Redeemer, him 
 of whom Moses in the law, and the Prophets did write. 
 
 This is always the effect of genuine spiritual experi- 
 ence, the effect of the assurance of the soul, produced by 
 seeing Christ in faith, and feeling his preciousness. This 
 is evidence that can stand against all the malignant powers 
 in the universe arrayed against" it ; evidence, against 
 which neither the gates of hell nor the temptations of 
 Satan can ever prevail. There may have been a thousand 
 difficulties unanswered. There may be conceived a thou- 
 sand more, even under this assurance ; difficulties, with 
 which the soul could not at present grapple, should it try. 
 But this experimental assurance in the sight of Christ is 
 proof against them all. This experimental assurance 
 makes them all wait, till that light and explanation, which 
 the soul knows will come, shall come, and makes them 
 quietly wait, without troubling the soul. This experi- 
 mental assurance, produced by the Spirit and the Word 
 of God, is knowledge of the highest kind. It is like the 
 intuition of truths which you cannot prove. Nothing can 
 shake the soul. 
 
 There were a great many difficulties, which Philip and 
 Nathaniel had to propose, and which they would have had 
 to settle, had they stopped with difficulties, instead of 
 coming to Christ, and which, nevertheless, they never 
 could have settled except by coming to Christ. For 
 example, this very matter of Christ being of Nazareth 
 would have been an insurmountable ^difficulty, if not 
 explained. If Nazareth were the birth-place of Jesus, and 
 so it seems to have been reputed, how could he possibly 
 be the Messiah, since the Scripture had said that Christ 
 should come of the seed of David, and out of the town of 
 
230 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 Bethlehem. This question itself afterwards made a great 
 division among the people. But the direct way to settle 
 it was to come to Christ, and to Christ Philip and 
 Nathaniel came with all their questions. 
 
 Now it is clear that this is the only successful course, 
 the only course of true wisdom,, and of life and salvation, 
 for any and every soul. Philip's voice to Nathaniel, 
 Come and see, is the voice at once both of common sense 
 and of the gospel. And yet men act on this subject very 
 much as if they had with one common determination 
 agreed, when they come to the business of religion, to 
 throw all common sense away from them. On all other 
 subjects they make experiment. They talk much of their 
 Baconian philosophy, how wonderful a creature is man, 
 who gathers facts and makes experiments before he will 
 believe ; how wonderful an advance in science the great 
 Anglo-Saxon princes of the earth have made in discarding 
 mere theories, and basing all their conclusions on the 
 inductive system of facts and experiments. And indeed 
 in earthly things, in this matter, men are consistent with 
 their experimental philosophy. If a man intends to buy 
 five yoke of oxen, he will go and prove them. If he is to 
 take shares in a coal mine, he will examine the coal and 
 the indications of the veins. If he is buying stocks, he 
 will see to his securities. If he is buying flour, and has 
 reason to fear it is adulterated, he will prove it, and make 
 sure. If he is called to put faith in a system of astronomy, 
 he will have that demonstrated by experiment. If he is to 
 take passage in a ship, he will see for himself what the 
 ship is. You would not find him engaging in a discussion 
 concerning the very existence of the ship, without going 
 to see it. But in religion men are fools, are madmen. 
 The last thing they do is that which ought to be the first, 
 the experiment. They will discuss the evidences of 
 religion, when they have never attempted the personal 
 experiment with one of them. They will question and 
 doubt and hesitate and argue, and swing pendulum-like 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 231 
 
 between belief and disbelief in regard to a matter in which 
 the only possible way of determining the truth is to make 
 personal experiment. 
 
 Religion, in its very essence, is a thing of trial, not mere- 
 ly of evidence ; and all the evidence in the world will not 
 convince a man without the trial. If a man is not willing 
 to make the trial, he will remain unconvinced, till experi- 
 ence convinces him by his eternal ruin. He will know 
 the value of the soul, by the soul's eternal loss. Religion 
 must be a matter of original, individual, we might almost 
 say lonely experiment. The awakening step may be 
 evidence, must be evidence of some kind, but the convic- 
 tion and conversion are experience ; the coming to Christ 
 and the assurance of his mercy and grace are experience. 
 A careless man strays into the house of God, and hears 
 an awakening pungent sermon from Richard Baxter. He 
 hears of things, which, if true, are adapted to distress him ; 
 and it is evidence to which he is listening. He is awaken- 
 ed at first on the evidence of the preacher. But this is 
 not belief. This evidence is given, is applied, is spread 
 before him, to induce him to make the trial for himself, to 
 induce him to come and see. He hears that he is lost, 
 that Christ can save him, and only Christ, and that he 
 must go to Christ in penitence and prayer. He may be 
 alarmed, but until he goes to Christ, he cannot tell for a 
 certainty, from his own experience, the truth of the 
 preaching ; unless indeed he believe with the heart in 
 God's Word, which no man does with his heart, but by 
 going to Christ. He must make this experiment. 
 
 He might spend his life in arguing whether the things 
 of the preaching are true ; but if he will go himself to 
 Christ, he can tell at once. Let him come and see. " He 
 may think nothing good can come out of Nazareth ; let 
 him come and see. But if he judges beforehand, he judges 
 against evidence, and in the contempt and neglect of 
 evidence. It is evidence which God has graciously given 
 him, to induce him to make the experiment ; evidence 
 
232 GRACE A\D TRUTH, 
 
 abundant, evidence enough for any sane mind; and the 
 experiment itself is so simple, so easy, that he need not 
 waste nor hazard anything, nor lose either time or well- 
 being in making it. Conscience goes with the evidence, 
 so that it is evidence within as well as without. Every- 
 thing calls on him to make the experiment. If now he 
 does not make it, he must abide the consequences ; he 
 chooses the alternative, and chooses all the results that 
 wait on the alternative, of not making it ; and the loss and 
 the ruin are his own. 
 
 Without coming to Christ and seeing him for ourselves, 
 there is plenty of room for cavilling, distrusting, arguing, 
 and theorizing ; but there is no possibility of religion in 
 experience, in exercise, in possession. The religion of 
 the gospel is neither a succession from the apostles, nor a 
 diploma in the church, but a life in Christ ; and such a 
 thing as piety there cannot be, neither in the church nor 
 out of it, but by a personal acquaintance with Christ. 
 There may be knowledge, but not experience, not love. 
 
 A man may dwell in the porch of the temple all his 
 life long, and never see the interior. A man may be 
 employed upon the external evidences all his life long, and 
 may array and combine them with great power, and yet 
 never possess that indispensable article of personal experi- 
 ence, to which they are intended to lead, and without 
 which they are worthless. A man may even be delighted 
 with the logic, the symmetry, the fulness and minuteness 
 of the demonstration, may be charmed as a reasoner, may 
 eloquently descant upon the power of the evidences of 
 our religion, and yet know nothing of the power of the 
 religion itself. The personal religion is a thing totally 
 separate from the external evidence. The evidence may 
 lead to it, may be an introduction into it, but is no part of 
 the thing itself, of the personal experience. There was a 
 long row of sphinxes in Egypt, leading to the great temple 
 of Karnak in Thebes, but the sphinxes were not the 
 temple. A man might walk up and down the sphinxes for 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 233 
 
 years, and never enter into the temple. So with the 
 introductory evidences of religion. And a man might get 
 within the temple of Karnak, without going through the 
 line of sphinxes ; nay, a stranger might do this, coming 
 from the desert side, without ever having even heard of 
 them. He might be in the temple first, and see the 
 sphinxes afterwards ; might go from the temple into the 
 midst of the sphinxes, instead of coming through the 
 sphinxes into the temple. 
 
 So it is with true piety.' A man may come to Christ, 
 without ever having so much as heard of the evidences 
 that he is the Christ, while another man may walk up and 
 down amidst those evidences, and consider and admire 
 them, and yet never come to Christ at all, nor even know 
 him as a Saviour. A man may come to Christ first, and 
 enter into the evidences afterwards, or he may come 
 through the evidences to Christ ; albeit he can never truly, 
 fully, see and feel their power till he comes to Christ, and 
 sees everything in Christ's light, everything as leading to 
 Christ. A soul may be deeply imbedded in the Saviour, 
 and yet know nothing of the train of argument by which 
 he is proved to be the Saviour. A soul may come to 
 Christ, and take all its evidence from him, first and alone. 
 And this is certainly the highest style of faith, the most un- 
 assailable faith, the most powerful faith. Now we believe, 
 not for the saying of the woman, but because we have 
 seen him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ 
 which should come into the world. 
 
 All the mightiest array of evidences is for the mind but 
 wood, hay, and stubble, if the heart come not to Christ. 
 Philip and Nathaniel, John, Peter, and Andrew, might rise 
 from the dead and repeat their story, but it could not bless 
 or benefit men, who come not themselves to Christ. And 
 men may perish even with the testimony of the dead and 
 living before them, the Word of God^or themselves, and 
 the work of the Spirit in others ; they may perish, even 
 like a ship brought by her pilot to the very mouth of the 
 
234 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 harbor, and there thrown upon the rocks. No advantages 
 can prosper any soul, if it go not to Christ, but the very 
 exaltation to heaven may cast a man down to hell. 
 Evidences, churches, fathers, apostolical successions, 
 baptisms, all are but so much useless lumber, or burning 
 condemnation, to the soul that does not go to Christ. 
 
 Multitudes of souls walk up and down the avenue of 
 Christian Faith, and admire it, but never enter the 
 Christian temple nor behold Christ. Suppose a man were 
 asked, Did you ever go into the Cathedral of St. Peter's ? 
 and he should answer, No, but 1 lived for years where I 
 could see the dome. The proximity of the man's residence 
 would be but an exasperation of his ignorance. Just so it 
 is with the gospel. Men live for years in sight of it, but 
 never come near it, never try it. But alas ! the nearer the 
 temple in this life, the further from God in the next, if 
 your privileges, your light, your knowledge, have not 
 brought you to the Saviour. Did you come to Christ 
 amidst all these avenues of mercy ? No, but we have 
 eaten and drunk in his presence, and he has taught in our 
 streets. Alas, what good will that do you, when you stand 
 in judgment before him, to answer for your treatment of 
 his offers of salvation ? 
 
 Did you come to Christ, did you know Christ, did your 
 soul love him, and trust in him, and obey him ? No, but I 
 was a child of the kingdom, by right and title from Abra- 
 ham, I had all the privileges of the Christian dispensation, I 
 worshipped with a church that held succession from the 
 apostles, nay, and I was myself a member of the same, I 
 lived beneath the light of the gospel, and was never a poor 
 miserable heathen. I tell you, says our Saviour, that they 
 shall come from the east and the west and the north and 
 the south into the kingdom of heaven, but the children of 
 the kingdom, they whose right it was, if they would only 
 have received it, they who lived in it on earth, but disre- 
 garded it, shall be cast out. If external privileges and 
 ordinances are all that men have to rest upon, then they 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 235 
 
 have no Saviour. John Newton's Hymn on Moonlight is 
 a good representation of the ritual and sentimental piety 
 that separates the mind from God and starves the heart. 
 
 The moon has but a borrowed light, 
 
 A faint and feeble ray ; 
 She owes her beauty to the night, 
 
 And hides herself by day. 
 No cheering warmth her beam conveys, 
 
 Though pleasing to behold ; 
 We might upon her brightness gaze 
 
 And perish still with cold. 
 
 Just such is all the light to man 
 
 Which reason can impart; 
 It cannot show one object plain, 
 
 Nor warm the frozen heart. 
 Thus moonlight views of truth divine 
 
 To many fatal prove : 
 For what avails in gifts to shine, 
 
 Without the light of love ? 
 
 The gospel, like the sun at noon, 
 
 Affords a glorious light ; 
 Then fallen reason's boasted moon 
 
 Appears no longer bright. 
 And grace, not light alone, bestows, 
 
 But adds a quickening power ; 
 The desert blossoms like the rose, 
 
 And sin prevails no more. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 The Creed of Doubt. 
 
 IT was deep midnight on the lake of Tiberias, and there 
 was a storm in the darkness. The lonely ship into which 
 Jesus had put the disciples, while he went up into a 
 mountain to spend some hours in prayer, was out amidst 
 the waters tossed and struggling with the tempest. But 
 there need have been no fear for that, so long as Jesus 
 had sent them into the midst of it. He would be sure to 
 be with them, and accordingly in the depths of the tem- 
 pestuous night, he, whose eye had been upon them, whose 
 heart had been wrestling for them in prayer, came to them 
 walking on the sea, the troubled sea. They should have 
 rejoiced at this sight, but they were more troubled at it 
 than the sea itself. That majestic form, radiant in the 
 darkness, coming to the ship, terrified them more than the 
 tempest, so that they cried out for fear. The appearance 
 of incarnate divine holiness and goodness is sometimes 
 more terrible to men distressed with sin than darkness and 
 tempest. With what gentle kindness did Jesus reassure 
 them ! Be of good cheer, it is I, be not afraid. Then 
 Peter, in one of his sudden impulses of mingled faith and 
 self-confidence, determined to try an experiment. Lord, 
 if it be thou, bid me come to thee upon the water. And 
 he said come. And when Peter was come down out of 
 the ship, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 237 
 
 he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid. And beginning 
 to sink, he cried saying, Lord, save me. And immediately 
 Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him, and saith 
 unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou 
 doubt ? 
 
 We have already dwelt upon the early manifestation of 
 strong faith in Christ on the part of these disciples. We 
 have also in a former chapter noted the nature of their 
 prayer, Lord, increase our faith, and we have seen how 
 little at that time they really knew what faith was. We 
 have now before us a particular example of the trial of 
 their faith by the Divine Wisdom and Love of the 
 Redeemer. In the deeply interesting account of this 
 storm upon the sea, we have the practical position of the 
 disciples after near two years of discipline and teaching 
 on the part of our Blessed Lord. We have a most instruc- 
 tive instance of the workings both of faith and doubt ; an 
 example of the wavering or oscillation of the soul between 
 these two states of belief and unbelief, and the consequent 
 practical effects of such alternating and diverse experience. 
 Let us examine this unbelief of Peter, or rather this 
 mixture of faith and unbelief, and learn what it teaches. 
 
 There was a mixture of faith and doubt. If it be the 
 Lord, Peter said within himself, I care for nothing, I can 
 do everything. Only let me be assured that it is he. But 
 our Blessed Lord had just told Peter with all the disciples, 
 that it was he. IT is I, BE NOT AFRAID. Christ himself 
 had spoken, and what greater evidence could Peter have, 
 or ought he to ask for, than Christ's own word, and that 
 evidence itself accompanied by a miraculous work an- 
 nouncing the Lord of the creation ? And yet, Peter did 
 not believe. Lord, if it be thou. It is I, said Christ. 
 Lord, if it be thou, said Peter, bid me come to thee on the 
 water. A singular mixture both of faith and unbelief. 
 Lord, if it be thou ! As much as to say, Lord, I doubt thy 
 word, or rather, I doubt the word, whether it may not be a 
 demon that has spoken ; nevertheless, if it be indeed Christ, 
 
238 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 I am afraid of nothing. Only give me evidence. Now 
 assuredly this asking for more evidence under these 
 circumstances, was the fruit of unbelief. It was the first 
 stage of Peter's unbelief in this instance. 
 
 Then there was the second. Our Blessed Lord vouch- 
 safed the sign which Peter required, or rather which 
 Peter's unbelief required. He gave him the new evidence 
 which he asked, by bidding him come. And now for an 
 instant, strengthened by such extraordinary encourage- 
 ment, Peter's faith gets the uppermost, and he gets down 
 over the side of the ship, even in the midst of the tempest, 
 and begins to walk on the water to go to Jesus. But he 
 only took a step or two, when he began to be frightened, 
 even at his own courage. And when he saw the wind 
 boisterous, he was afraid. But did he not see the wind 
 boisterous before he stepped out of the ship ? What was 
 there to prevent his continuing the enterprise, that there 
 had not been to prevent his engaging in it ? He had faith 
 enough to set out, but not enough to persevere. And yet 
 the arguments for persevering, and the reasons for en- 
 couragement, grew stronger at every step. The sea did 
 not open to swallow him up, though he had ventured the 
 experiment of walking on it. And if he could take but 
 two steps without sinking, this was an immeasurably 
 greater addition to his evidence that Christ was there, and 
 it ought to have inspired him with such courage, that he 
 would have been ready, even in the darkness of midnight, 
 to walk alone, at Christ's word, across the whole Lake of 
 Tiberias, even in the storm. 
 
 But even after this wonderful and successful experi- 
 ment, his doubts returned. Or rather this time it was his 
 fears that mastered him, and sunk his faith. This second 
 unbelief was greater than the first. Assured by double 
 evidence that it was Christ, and having his Lord's express 
 command to come, he should have been afraid of nothing. 
 Though Satan himself had risen up in bodily shape before 
 him, he should have kept on. It was more his duty to 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 239 
 
 persevere, than it had been to begin. In fact, it required 
 less faith to persevere than it did to begin. For all the 
 grounds of faith were strengthened, every moment. The 
 very fact that he did not sink was enough. 
 
 And mark this point. If Peter's attention had continued 
 fixed on Christ, he would have persevered, nay, he would 
 have seen nothing to be afraid of. But his attention being 
 drawn away from Christ to the strong wind, Satan had 
 the advantage of him ; all his unbelief came over him 
 again, and down he sank like lead in the waters. A heart 
 without faith is always like lead, and sinks to the bottom. 
 But faith is buoyant ; it is as a life-preserver ; and while it 
 is whole and strong, he who has it cannot, will not sink. 
 Peter believing had seen Christ, and the waves and the 
 wind went for nothing ; Peter losing sight of Christ, saw 
 nothing but the waves and the wind, and sank instantly. 
 
 Thus, how often do men begin a work for Christ, and 
 stop short in it for want of faith ! They begin it perhaps 
 in the exercise of a faith and an ardor like Peter's, but 
 when they see the wind and the waves boisterous they 
 begin to sink. Although the Lord upholds them at first 
 setting out, their faith fails afterwards. This is he that 
 received seed by the way-side, he that heareth the Word, 
 and anon with joy receiveth it ; yet hath he no root in 
 himself, but dureth for a while ; for when tribulation or 
 persecution ariseth, by and by he is offended. It is a 
 great thing to persevere. Add to your faith patience. 
 That the trial of your faith, though it be much more 
 precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with 
 fire, may be found unto praise and honor and glory at the 
 appearing of Jesus Christ. A man ought not to set out in 
 any enterprise, but by faith in Christ ; but being set out 
 by faith, in faith he ought to continue. Methinks the 
 whole world might be likened to a great sea, in which are 
 many ships and boats, and Jesus walking on the water, and 
 everywhere men getting down out of their ships to go to 
 him. Some persevere, but the greater part are sinking. 
 
240 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 Faith holds out with some, but with the greater part the 
 winds and waves conquer. And a great many who seem 
 to be exercising faith, and getting down out of their ships 
 to go to Jesus, do it not, but keep themselves secretly 
 attached by a rope to the ship, not trusting all to Christ, 
 not even beginning to trust, not cutting loose from every- 
 thing. If Peter's experiment of faith had been made with 
 a rope round his waist, he could not have taken a single 
 step. But there was real faith in Peter at first, and a 
 hearty committal of everything to Christ, though after- 
 wards unbelief conquered. If it be thou, is the Creed^of 
 doubt. 
 
 This unbelief of Peter is contrasted strongly with his 
 impetuous faith at a more advanced stage in his Christian 
 experience. Then, when he only heard that it was the Lord, 
 he girt his fisher's coat, and cast himself at once into the 
 sea to go to Jesus, asking no questions, giving way to no 
 doubts. A contrast, which shows strikingly how the 
 evidence of Christianity depends on the state of mind and 
 heart in the individual to whom it is presented, and at the 
 time when it is presented. The evidence which Peter had 
 at first, and rejected, was incomparably greater than that 
 on which he afterwards acted without any hesitation. A 
 vast amount of evidence may fail to convince an un- 
 believing mind, when a hundredth part of it will produce 
 assurance in a humble mind, disposed to receive it. When 
 the evidence of the Scriptures is rejected, it is rejected 
 by unbelief, not by reasoning ; and indeed unbelief is the 
 most unreasoning and unreasonable thing in the world. 
 Unbelief reasons by sense, and therefore sinks in error. 
 Peter reasoned by sense, and sank, like a thing of sense. 
 He reasoned by the winds and waves, and left out of view 
 the great ground and assurance of all reasoning. If he 
 had reasoned aright, he would have argued within himself 
 that the same Saviour, who had made him walk two steps 
 upon the water without sinking, could and would make 
 him walk the whole distance safely. But instead of this, 
 

 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 241 
 
 he deserted Christ, and his own experience, and all the 
 true grounds of reasoning by faith, and argued with his 
 own heart concerning the winds and waves, and so he 
 found himself sinking. 
 
 Now this state of mind is just an example of that which 
 may be often seen in unconverted persons, and in those 
 who are Christians. Sometimes Satan has had such long 
 and successful power in blinding the mind and hardening 
 the heart, that a sinful man, even when convinced of sin, 
 and looking about anxiously for deliverance, will not even 
 believe so far as to pray, or if he does attempt it, says only, 
 Lord, if it be thou! If the things of the Bible are true, 
 if I must be regenerated in order to be saved, show it to 
 me, that I may believe. Which is as much as to say, 
 Lord, if thou art not false, if God be not a liar, and if his 
 word is not a great fable and falsehood, show it to me, and 
 then I will believe. This state of mind may be more 
 common than we are apt to imagine. But what would be 
 thought of the insolence of a poor ragged man, whom the 
 Queen of England should meet at the gate of the palace, 
 and promise to bestow upon him a costly gift, if he would 
 go to a certain place and accomplish a piece of work ; and 
 he should say, I suspect you of lying in all this, and must 
 have your note of hand, together with a certificate that 
 you are the Queen of England whom you pretend to be ; 
 and on condition that you give me this demonstration, I 
 will go ! Such is, in fact, the language of an unbelieving 
 heart towards God and Christ. It will not take God's 
 Word, and act accordingly. It will not, on God's simple 
 authority, make the experiment which God requires. The 
 soul has God's own word, in which he has set forth both 
 the terms of salvation and the necessity of it, both the 
 character of the sinner and the character of Christ, and 
 yet it is not content with this evidence, and will not act 
 on these grounds. But God hath said, He that believeth 
 not the record that God gave of his Son, hath made him a 
 liar. 
 
 11 
 
242 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 Now suppose an unconverted person, encompassed by 
 such doubts, and distracted by his unbelief, as Peter was 
 by the winds and waves around him. Suppose such an 
 one finding himself sinking, and n^>t beholding ChrisJ, 
 seeing, in fact, nothing real but his own cjarkness, doubt, 
 almost atheism and despair. What is the duty of such an 
 unconverted person in such a state ? Assuredly, to treat 
 those doubts as the work of him who is a liar from the 
 beginning, and to confess them and mourn over them as 
 sinful, and to ask the forgiveness of God. It is every 
 man's duty to submit to God's evidence. It is every man's 
 duty to make trial, crying out, Lord, I believe, help thou 
 mine unbelief. If a man does this sincerely and persever- 
 ingly, he is sure to be successful. Let him come confess- 
 ing his sin, his darkness, his blindness, and crying out, 
 Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean, and there is 
 no question that light will spring up within him, and there 
 will be experience of the mercy of Christ in submissive- 
 ness, in peace, in the assurance of pardon. 
 
 There was one, of whom an account is given in the 
 gospel, who came to Christ in this state of unbelief to 
 gain his interposition in behalf of a beloved child. The 
 man seems to have regarded our Saviour with a half sus- 
 picion of his being an impostor. His mode of address to 
 him was this : Lord, if thou art able to do anything. He 
 was not only ignorant of the glorious character of our 
 Blessed Lord, but there seems to have been absolute 
 scepticism, so that his application was a sort of despairing 
 venture of unbelief, just as he might have come to a quack 
 doctor in a last resort. Nothing could be done in such a 
 state of mind. The Lord answered him therefore, If thou 
 canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. 
 This seems to have brought about an entirely new state 
 of feeling, in the mind of the applicant. It threw him 
 upon the state of his own heart in regard to Christ, and 
 made him suddenly see and feel that in order to be saved 
 by Christ, in order to gain his merciful interposition, there 
 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 
 
 must be a true reliance upon him on his own part. He 
 must come throwing everything upon Christ, with a sub- 
 missive hearty confidence in his power and willingness to 
 save. This conviction, and his intensity of feeling in 
 behalf of his child, working together, threw him into a 
 paroxysm of mingled faith and doubt, desire and despair, 
 to put an end to which, making a great effort to cast 
 everything, as he should do, upon Christ, he cried out with 
 tears, Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief. 
 
 And an excellent prayer and a great triumph of faith 
 over unbelief was that. When a man comes to that 
 heartily, the difficulty is at an end. For faith once really 
 commenced, is a growing principle. It may be as a grain 
 of mustard seed at first in the soul, but it shall grow and 
 spread, till it becomes like a strong overshadowing tree. 
 That despairing application for Christ's mercy is worth 
 everything, despairing, we mean, of self, and self-healing, 
 and throwing all upon Christ. This now had become the 
 man's only resort. His sudden discovery of his own 
 weakness and unbelief became as sudden a source of 
 strength, in throwing himself upon Christ's strength. This 
 was doubtless the beginning of an entirely new life in the 
 soul of this man, an entirely different and superior experi- 
 ence. And so it is always. The experience of divine 
 things is as different from mere speculation, as life is 
 different from death ; it is no more to be understood by 
 mere speculation than life is to be understood by counting 
 the bones of a skeleton, or tracing the nerves. 
 
 And now, wherever there be a soul struggling to get to 
 Christ, let that soul learn a lesson from Peter. If you 
 would get to Christ, you must fix your eye, your mind, 
 your heart, your whole purpose upon him. You must not 
 mind winds, waves, tempests, but through them all make 
 your way straight and steadfast to Christ. Sometimes 
 Satan raises a storm at once, when he sees a soul getting 
 down out of the ship of self and of this world to go to 
 Christ, and if you are terrified by such a storm, whether 
 
 
 
244 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 inward or external, and lose sight of Christ, you will sink. 
 But step on boldly. Fix your eye, your heart, on Christ, 
 and then every step, though it were upon Satan's own 
 fires, will be a victory. You may walk through fire and 
 tempest unscathed, looking only to Christ. But if you 
 look away from Christ to the fire, it will burn you ; to the 
 winds and waves, they will swallow you up. Look to 
 Christ, step forward to Christ, and Satan can do nothing ; 
 all his diabolical agencies will be baffled. 
 
 But sometimes Satan creates a calm around the soul 
 which he sees getting down out of the ship, anxious, con- 
 vinced of sin, and ready to flee to Christ. Take care of 
 that. Beware lest Satan lull you, and make your purpose 
 itself lukewarm, your heart secure, away from Christ. 
 There is no safety for you, till you get to him. You 
 should fear quietness more than an inward tempest, away 
 from him. 
 
 For more the treacherous calm I dread, 
 Than tempests bursting o'er my head. 
 
 Let nothing, neither calm nor tempest, keep you away 
 from Christ. And let nothing, either of darkness or doubt, 
 interrupt your confidence in Him, for he is the same, 
 yesterday, to-day, and for ever. While darkness and 
 doubt may well make you distrustful of self, and prevent 
 you from leaning to your own understanding, they should 
 drive you to Christ, as the only Author and Source of 
 everlasting truth and certainty. 
 
 A man who gives way to doubt in divine things and 
 suffers himself to be mastered by it, acts more like a brute 
 or insane person than a rational creature. He rejects 
 clear and positive evidence, unanswerable argument, and 
 permits his conduct to be determined by doubt. This is 
 somewhat as if in a deliberative assembly or constituted 
 state, the will of the majority should be rejected, and that 
 of a small minority adopted as the rule. Sometimes men 
 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 245 
 
 will permit their doubts on some points to paralyse the 
 clearest acknowledged truths on others. To escape from 
 such an inveterate obliquity of mind, a man should fix his 
 attention on positive acknowledged truth, and, as it were, 
 entrench himself behind it. If he will play faithfully a 
 single great gun of truth behind that entrenchment, he 
 may keep off a whole army of doubts. Let him play the 
 artillery-man and stick to his cannon. But if he leave his 
 entrenchment and go down into the plain to fight with the 
 doubts on their own ground, which is always the lying 
 depravity and unbelief of a man's own heart, they will 
 take him captive, strip him of his armor and trample 
 him under foot. Or if he permit them to get within his 
 own entrenchment, they will spike his guns, and render 
 them useless. There is acknowledged and undoubted 
 truth enough to save him, and put a complete end to his 
 doubts, if he will throw himself behind the truth ; but if 
 he neglect the truth and follow the doubts, he will wander 
 in a wilderness of nettles, till he come to the congregation 
 of the dead. 
 
 Under the disastrous influence of evil teaching, some 
 minds become perplexed with doubts in regard to the 
 atonement and divinity of Christ. If a man, neglecting 
 or shutting out from his view the clear positive argument 
 gives way to such doubts, and rejects Christ, he is cut off 
 from the possibility of faith or salvation. What then is a 
 soul to do while thus perplexed ? Let a man search the 
 Scriptures, and not follow human guides, and let him 
 carry to God in prayer the passages which directly teach 
 the truths on which he doubts, and so doing, his mind will 
 soon be clear. Let him not carry them to express doubt 
 in regard to them, not to ask God if they are true, but to 
 say, Lord, I believe all that is contained in these Scrip- 
 tures. Help thou me to understand them, and show me the 
 great things contained in them. Give thou the light of thy 
 Holy Spirit upon them, and then shall I see. A man 
 
246 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 must come acknowledging his blindness and helplessness, 
 and crying out. to God to enlighten him. 
 
 We have said that if Peter's attention had continued 
 fixed on Christ, he would have persetered, but being dis- 
 tracted and divided from Christ, his enterprise went to the 
 bottom. There is here a great instruction for all who are 
 in any way engaged in the enterprises of the Christian 
 Life. We are, as it were, walking on the water to come 
 to Jesus. Except Christ make our foundation firm, it will 
 be unstable as water, and we cannot excel. And indeed 
 if he were to leave us to ourselves, we should sink at once. 
 Just so, if our attention is distracted from Christ, we are 
 sure to sink. Our only safety is in aiming direct and 
 steady at Christ, trusting in him. If we neglect him, it 
 will not need boisterous winds and waves to sink us ; we 
 shall go down of our own accord. Even calm weather, 
 smooth seas, and external success may be our ruin if we 
 do not aim solely at Christ, advance steadily to him, and 
 trust only in him. Satan may drown the soul, and drown 
 a church, more easily in calm prosperous weather than in 
 a tempest, if it be not fixed upon him, supported and built 
 up by his grace. There is the greatest need of watchful- 
 ness and prayer. 
 
 If for a time the air be calm, 
 
 Serene and smooth the sea appears, 
 And shows no danger to alarm 
 
 The inexperienced landsman's fears. 
 But if the tempest once arise, 
 
 The faithless water swells and raves ; 
 Its billows, foaming to the skies, 
 
 Disclose a thousand threatening graves. 
 
 My untried heart thus seemed to me 
 (So little of myself I knew) 
 
 Smooth as the calm unruffled sea, 
 But ah ! it proved as treacherous too. 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 247 
 
 The peace of which I had a taste 
 
 When Jesus first his love revealed, 
 I fondly hoped would always last, 
 
 Because my foes were then concealed. 
 
 But when I felt the Tempter's power 
 
 Rouse my corruptions from their sleep, 
 I trembled at the stormy hour, 
 
 And saw the horrors of the deep. 
 Now on presumption's billows borne, 
 
 My spirit seemed the Lord to dare ; 
 Now, quick as thought, a sudden turn 
 
 Plunged me in gulfs of black despair. 
 
 Lord, save me, or I sink, I prayed ; 
 
 He heard, and bid the tempest cease; 
 The angry waves his word obeyed, 
 
 And all my fears were hushed to peace. 
 The peace is his, and not my own, 
 
 My heart, no better than before, 
 Is still to dreadful changes prone, 
 
 Then never let me trust it more. 
 
 NEWTON. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The Creed of Faith. 
 
 THE experiences of Peter during that night of storm and 
 trial on the deep, were a greater revelation of himself to 
 himself, and of his relations to Christ, than he had had 
 before during his whole life-time. Courage and fear, pre- 
 sumption and disappointment, self-confidence and ruin, 
 faith and self-despair, and faith again growing out of that, 
 succeeded each other as rapidly and violently in his soul as 
 the mountain waves that threatened to engulf him. The 
 first natural expression of the whole man breaks out in the 
 cry, Lord, save me. He was afraid, and beginning to sink, 
 he cried, saying, Lord, save me ! A very different experi- 
 ence is here recorded from that in which Peter set out in 
 this movement. 
 
 In the exercise of his faith in the first instance, when he 
 began to walk on the water to go to Jesus, there may have 
 been something mingled of vain self-confidence ; and if so, 
 that was enough speedily to finish his experiment. If so, 
 it was not the winds and the waves that overwhelmed him, 
 nor even his fear of them, but his own ignorant reliance 
 on himself, and perhaps on his imagined great attainments 
 in faith. A person may possibly have a misplaced confi- 
 dence in his own faith, instead of Christ. But faith is 
 good for nothing in itself, good for nothing, except as lay- 
 ing hold of Christ ; and if faith instead of Christ is one's 
 reliance for salvation, there will be a shipwreck. 
 
 Now in this second outcry of Peter there was real faith, 
 unmingled with any self-confidence, whatever there may 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 249 
 
 have been in his mind and heart when he set out from the 
 ship. One can easily conceive that then there may have 
 been, with all his confidence in Christ, a side glance at his 
 fellow fishermen, and a willingness to be seen outdoing 
 them in his intimacy with Christ and his devotedness to 
 him. Whatever there was of that character, it went far 
 to spoil his faith, and prepare him for sinking. Accord- 
 ingly, in one or two steps his faith is all gone, at least that 
 of which he would make a display, the faith of superero- 
 gation, in the possession of which a man might feel as if 
 he had something to boast of, and he was reduced down to 
 common beggary. He sinks like a common, unbelieving 
 man. 
 
 And now begins a real, unaffected, heartfelt, saving 
 faith ; not the faith of miracles, but the faith of a sinful, 
 dying soul, despairingly crying out for mercy. Lord, save 
 me, I perish ! Nothing affected in that, nothing of dis- 
 play, or pride, or self-confidence in that ; but a genuine, 
 submissive faith, w r rought out from the anguish of a soul 
 in self-despair, that, forgetting everything else, relinquish- 
 ing everything else, falls helpless at the feet of Christ for 
 mercy. It is not improbable that Christ permitted Peter 
 to go so far, in order to show him what was in his heart ; 
 this was one of the many occasions of discipline and trial 
 which Peter had to go through for the refining of his 
 character. And it must have been followed with great 
 searchings of heart on the part of Peter. He sat down 
 in the ship that night and pondered much concerning the 
 workings of his mind, and the nature of efficacious faith 
 in Christ. And he began to see that faith was a greater, 
 and yet a more simple thing than he had ever imagined. 
 He may have thought, at first, that he had great faith. 
 And doubtless his fellow disciples thought so too, when they 
 saw him getting over the side of the ship in that tempest, 
 and beginning absolutely to walk on the water to go to 
 Jesus. But he and they thought differently as soon as he 
 began to sink ; and Christ thought so very differently after 
 
 11* 
 
250 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 the whole transaction, that he set him down at that period 
 in his Christian life as Little-Faith. 
 
 There is great instruction to the Christian from this 
 entire representation. It is not in unconverted man 
 only, who is vexed and tempted and cast into prison of 
 unbelief. The Christian is troubled daily, and sometimes 
 grievously, almost to the destruction of his soul, with this 
 distressing evil of our corrupt nature. He often says with 
 Peter, Lord, if it be thou, when he should say, Lord, it is 
 thou. It is perhaps only through experiences like this of 
 Peter that any soul ever arrives at a firm, fixed, lasting faith 
 in Christ, a faith which is the result of a practical know- 
 ledge both of our own weakness and of Christ's strength, 
 our own guilt and Christ's mercy and grace ; a faith like 
 that of Paul's, When I am weak, then am I strong. 
 
 A man can walk through great trials calmly, if he only 
 sees Christ, only feels that Christ is with him. Great trials 
 may be met with in the path of duty, and in great enter- 
 prises. The Christian is to count the cost, and throw 
 himself on Christ. And in counting the cost, the Chris- 
 tian must put Christ and his promises at the foundation. 
 
 He and his family may be in a furnace like that of the 
 three Hebrews under Nebuchadnezzar ; but if they see a 
 form like unto the Son of God walking with them, if they 
 are blessed with the privilege of sweet uninterrupted com- 
 munion with Christ, what is there that they cannot do, 
 what is there that they will not cheerfully suffer ? If in 
 the midst of trials, a man's soul is absorbed in Christ, 
 then he thinks comparatively little of the trials, but 
 looks above them and away from them, and is only 
 anxious that Christ's blessed will may be accomplished 
 by the purifying of the soul through such affliction. 
 If he be walking on the water to go to Jesus, the tem- 
 pests that rise only hurry him the faster to Christ, 
 provided it be Christ alone that his affections are fixed 
 upon. But if his attention is drawn away from Christ, 
 and fixed upon the dangers that are rising around him, 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 251 
 
 then he easily becomes frightened. Nothing can terrify 
 him while Christ fills the eye of his soul. He can over- 
 come all enemies, can do all things through Christ strength- 
 ening him. He may conquer all his sins, if he looks to 
 Christ, but if he look to his sins only, they will conquer 
 and kill him, and he will sink in them. 
 
 So that this looking to Christ, direct to Christ, is the 
 secret of safety amidst obstacles and dangers. Sleep- 
 walkers will often perform the most amazing feats of 
 dexterity, and walk safely where, if wide awake, they could 
 not venture without destruction. It is because they do 
 not see the dangers around them, but only their own step 
 and purpose, and therefore go firmly, without trembling, 
 and so without evil. So it is with the soul looking only 
 to Christ. It does not seem to regard dangers at all, at 
 which other men are full of terror. And this is true wis- 
 dom, being fixed upon one's course for Christ, to regard 
 only one's own step and purpose for him, and take it 
 firmly, as if there were no more dangers than are seen by 
 the eye of a sleep-walker. For safety consists in faith and 
 courage, and danger consists often in fear. The sea bears 
 up the steps as long as Christ is in the eye, but when the 
 eye is on the waves and the wind, the sea opens, and 'the 
 soul sinks. Paul, looking to Christ, could say, None of 
 these things move me. He was ready for anything. He 
 would adventure himself in the theatre among wild beasts 
 in the shape of men at Ephesus, and if he had gone in, he 
 would doubtless have come off safe. But if 'he had not 
 looked to Christ, he would have been timid, thrown off his 
 balance, not self-possessed, perhaps terrified, and unable to 
 accomplish anything. Self-possession is a great result of 
 the love of Christ filling the soul, and taking away all fear 
 but the fear of displeasing Christ. With a courage made 
 up of such elements a man can do anything. " Have I 
 served the Lord of Life these thirty years," said the holy 
 Mr. Fletcher to a highwayman who put a pistol to his 
 breast, " that I should now be afraid of death ?" The 
 
1252 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 calm courageous answer, the benevolent look, and the 
 fearless reproof, disarmed the murderer, and the man, we 
 believe, became a Christian. There are many such in- 
 stances of Satan being bound by the^ calm, self-possessed, 
 unyielding courage of faith in Christ. 
 
 A man's word, in such cases, must not be that of Peter, 
 Lord, if it be thou. That if could never bind Satan, nor 
 disarm death of its terrors. Yet, many times a Christian 
 can get no further than this, If it be thou. But this is 
 unbelief. A man is more apt to say this in trying times, 
 than in prosperous ones. In the endurance of God's 
 chastising discipline, he is sometimes tempted to despair, 
 as if God had given him over to Satan, and he trembles 
 in fear of what is coming next, and can only say, Lord, if 
 it be thou, bid me come unto thee ; and then waits to see. 
 But he should say, It is the Lord, and though he should 
 slay me, yet will I trust in him. When my spirit was 
 overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path. 
 
 To have a sense of God's presence, in trials, is a sweet 
 triumph of faith. But we sometimes feel that it is God, 
 without feeling that it is God as our Father and Friend. 
 This again is unbelief, and here again comes up the lan- 
 guage of Peter, IF it be thou. But a Christian is bound to 
 trust. He has nothing to do, under God's discipline, in 
 God's service, with his ifs. Provided he trusts in God, he 
 is really a Christian, and provided he be a Christian, then 
 there is no doubt that all things are working together for 
 his good. So in no circumstances of trial is he justified 
 in saying, IF it be thou; for it always is the Lord. 
 Although he be overwhelmed in sickness, death, loss of 
 friends, disappointment, poverty, evils of any or every 
 kind, it is the Lord, and the Lord for good, and the soul 
 must say with Job and David, It is the Lord, let him do 
 what seemeth him good. What seemeth good to God is 
 good ; what seemeth good to man oftentimes is but evil. 
 Christ may come in the night, in the storm, upon the sea. 
 When the winds are up, and the waves roar, and there is 
 

 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 253 
 
 a tumult of the people, it may be a preparation for a calm, 
 majestic, midnight walk of the Lord to the ship, to the 
 church, to the hearts of his people. They should not be 
 too fearful of events that seem untoward. If God orders 
 them, God will come with them, and will show his glory 
 by them. If as evil he permits them, he can, notwith- 
 standing, bring greater good out of them. 
 
 Rejoice, believer, in the Lord, 
 
 Who makes your cause his own ; 
 The hope that's built upon his Word 
 
 Can ne'er be overthrown. 
 Though many foes beset your road, 
 
 And feeble is your arm, 
 Your life is hid with Christ in God, 
 
 Beyond the reach of harm. 
 
 Weak as you are, you shall not faint, 
 
 Or fainting, shall not die ; 
 Jesus, the strength of every saint, 
 
 Will aid you from on high. 
 Though sometimes unperceived by sense 
 
 Faith sees him always near, 
 A Guide, a Glory, a Defence ; 
 
 Then what have you to fear? 
 
 God may come to the believer in the night of affliction. 
 He may have appointed the affliction, in order that he 
 may come in it. It may be his chariot of love to the soul. 
 Thy way is in the sea, thy paths are in the great waters, 
 and thy footsteps are not known. Some of God's greatest 
 mercies to his church and to individuals have been 
 conveyed in this way. By terrible things in righteousness 
 wilt thou answer us, O God of our salvation. Affliction 
 indeed is not good in itself, but only when God comes in 
 and with it. Therefore no man is required to desire 
 affliction, or to pray for suffering, even for Christ's sake, 
 but if God sends it, to faint not, but to receive and bear it 
 as his discipline for good. There is always a need be 
 connected with it ; and those who are the subjects of such 
 
254 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 discipline, " kept by the power of God," are enabled greatly 
 to rejoice in the promises of God, though now for a season, 
 " if need be," they are in heaviness through manifold 
 temptations. They may thus even cpunt it all joy when 
 they fall into divers trials, because, in the. endurance of 
 such trials, God dealeth with them as sons, and their faith 
 and patience are perfected. The seeds of a harvest of 
 holiness are sown, and the causes are set in motion, which 
 will work out an exceeding and eternal weight of glory. 
 For, though no chastening for the present seemeth to be 
 joyous, but grievous, nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the 
 peaceable fruit of righteousness to them who are exercised 
 thereby. 
 
 Undoubtedly, suffering for Christ's sake is the most 
 desirable of all suffering. Paul and Peter both speak of it 
 as a privilege vouchsafed. Not a thing to be sought for, 
 but when it comes in the course of one's duty, to be thank- 
 ful for, and to glorify God on this behalf, that unto you it 
 is given, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for 
 his sake. If ye suffer for righteousness sake, happy are 
 ye. Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's 
 sufferings ; that when his glory shall be revealed, ye may 
 be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be reproached for 
 the name of Christ, happy are ye ; for the spirit of glory 
 and of God resteth upon you. And if any man suffer as a 
 Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God 
 on this behalf. Paul even speaks of his desire to be made 
 to know the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ. But it 
 does not appear that he ever sought for sufferings or 
 prayed for them, but that he might bear them for Christ. 
 He never rushed into danger, except where duty called 
 him, nor courted either suffering or martyrdom ; but having 
 been shown how great things he must suffer for the name 
 of Christ, he never shrank from duty because such suffer- 
 ing was connected with it, but went forward to duty, 
 moved by none of these things. He would not bring 
 suffering upon himself for Christ by imprudence, but as far 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 255 
 
 as might be consistent with duty, avoided suffering ; but 
 when it came in the path of duty, he thanked God for it. 
 And Paul was made of such material, that of two courses 
 of duty, open before him, both to all appearance equally 
 profitable for usefulness, he would probably have chosen 
 that course, which involved in it the most of difficulty, of 
 danger, and of suffering. He would have done this out of 
 love to Christ, the sense of his own unworthiness, and 
 from the feeling that it was the greatest of all privileges to 
 be made a partaker of the sufferings of Christ. But he 
 would neither have courted suffering, nor acted unneces- 
 sarily in such a way as to bring suffering. 
 
 Thus far the exercise of the faith of which we have 
 been speaking is comparatively easy. But there is a case 
 in which it becomes exceedingly difficult ; the case of evils 
 which we have brought upon ourselves, by our own folly, 
 disobedience, or madness. But here again, if the soul flees 
 to Christ ; if with humble sorrow for sin, and for the .sins 
 which have brought suffering, and not for the suffering 
 merely, a man goes to God ; then he may be sure that God 
 is in those evils, and will direct and temper them, and 
 bring good out of them. And a man is not to shut himself 
 up in an iron cage because of them, nor to say, My life is 
 extinct, my breath is corrupt, my hope is for ever cut off 
 from the Lord. He must not doubt of God's goodness, 
 because of God's chastisements, nor say, Lord, if it be thou, 
 bid me come to thee, but he must still cry, God be merciful 
 to me a sinner. I will bear the indignation of the Lord, 
 because I have sinned against him. 
 
 Suffering of this kind is indeed dreadful. Such suffer- 
 ings as Samson experienced, when his eyes were destroyed 
 by his enemies, and he was thrown into the prison-house 
 of the Philistines, were probably a lively image of the 
 suffering of the world of woe. And if God did not prevent 
 it by his grace, probably many a man under such torment 
 would, like Judas, destroy himself. But if the soul humbly 
 and repentingly trusts in God, God is in and with even such 
 
256 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 sufferings, and can and will bring good out of them, and a 
 man should say, It is the Lord. For He it is, although in 
 the very castle of Giant Despair. His sufferings may have 
 been brought upon him by his own tfolly, and they may 
 have come even after he has, like Peter, walked some steps 
 on the water to go to Jesus. And in such a case nothing 
 can be done, but simply the use of Peter's outcry, Lord, 
 save me ! Indeed, in all our failures this is all that we can 
 do. We can neither make up for past deficiencies, nor 
 atone for present or past sins ; but we can avoid the great 
 additional guilt of present unbelief; we can cry out, Lord, 
 save me, and that is the very creed of faith, in three words. 
 There was once written by a great sufferer from the 
 habit of taking opium, and a man of great poetical genius, 
 exquisite sensibility, vast learning, and extraordinary 
 powers of mind (Mr. Coleridge), the following paragraph 
 of remarks upon a passage in the Table Talk of Luther. 
 " When Satan saith in thy heart, God will not pardon thy 
 sins, nor be gracious unto thee ; I pray, said Luther, how 
 wilt thou, as a poor sinner, raise up and comfort thyself, 
 especially when other signs of God's wrath besides do beat 
 upon thee, as sickness, poverty, desertion of friends ? 
 And that thy heart begirmeth to preach and to say, Behold 
 here thou livest in sickness, thou art poor and forsaken of 
 every one, and miserable and wretched, what canst thou 
 answer ? Can any but Christ raise thee up ? Oh how 
 true, how affectingly true, is this ! And when, too, Satan 
 the Tempter becomes Satan the Accuser, saying in thine 
 heart, this sickness is the consequence of sin, or of sinful 
 infirmity, and under such evidence of God's wrath, how 
 canst thou expect to be saved ? Well may the soul cry 
 out, Who shall deliver me from the death that lives and 
 tyrannizes in my body ! But the gospel answer, There is 
 redemption from the body promised ; only cling to Christ. 
 Call on him continually, with all thy heart and all thy soul, 
 to give thee strength, and be strong in thy weakness, and 
 what Christ doth not see good to relieve thee from, suffer 
 
 
CHRIST IN THE LITE. 257 
 
 in hope. It may be better for thee to be kept humble and 
 in self-abasement. The thorn in the flesh may remain, 
 and yet the grace of God through Christ, prove sufficient 
 for thee. Only cling to Christ, and do thy best. In all 
 thy love and well-doing gird thyself up to improve and use 
 aright what remains free in thee, and if thou doest aught 
 aright, say and thankfully believe that Christ hath done it 
 for thee. Oh what a miserable, despairing wretch should 
 I be," adds Mr. Coleridge (for it was he who wrote this 
 record), " if I gave up the faith that the life of Christ would 
 precipitate the remaining dregs of sin in the crisis of death, 
 and that I should rise in purer capacity of Christ, blind, to 
 be irradiated by his light, empty, to be possessed by his 
 fulness, naked of merit, to be clothed by his righteousness !" 
 
 This is the creed of faith, Lord, save me ! To this we 
 must all come in the end. All our power is reduced 
 down to this, Lord, save me ! Tne greatest Christian has 
 nothing but this ; the weakest one may and must throw 
 himself upon this. We must all come to this. We ought 
 to begin, continue, and end with this. It was Peter's 
 mistake, in the case before us, and in all his after failures, 
 that he'did not begin with this; if he had, he might not 
 have found himself sinking ; he ought to have begun, 
 where he had to end, in self-despair. We must find our 
 whole strength in this, Lord, save me ! Whether we 
 undertake our own or others' salvation, this must be our 
 motto, Lord, save me ! We must persevere in this, relying 
 on nothing else. 
 
 We are to observe that Peter, when he found himself 
 sinking, did not abandon his enterprise, nor turn back to 
 get again into the ship, which he had left for Christ. 
 Whatever were his faults, he was not one of your Pliables, 
 who, having put their hand to the plough, turn back, and 
 are seen getting out of the Slough of Despond in the way 
 back to the City of Destruction. Neither did he call out 
 to his fellow seamen to cast him a rope, or do anything for 
 him, though he must have been nearer to them, seemingly, 
 
258 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 than he was to Christ ; but he cried out after Christ, none 
 but Christ. Indeed, Christ was shining in the darkness in 
 this hour of peril, while the ship to him was nothing but a 
 black hulk, tossed and in danger. ?So he cried out after 
 Christ. There was a singularly interesting mixture of 
 faith, unbelief, self-confidence, and self-despair, succeeding 
 one another. But self-despair and faith gained the 
 victory, after all, looking only to Christ, exalting only 
 Christ. 
 
 See the difference between the Creed of Faith and the 
 Creed of Doubt. If it be thou, is the Creed of Doubt ; 
 Lord, save me, is the Creed of Faith. It is truly said that 
 Doubt may bring an objection in five words, or even in 
 one, which it will take Faith a great many words to 
 answer. There is truth in this ; and yet the Creed of 
 Doubt is the longest and the most difficult. The believer 
 has fewer things to believe than the infidel. The believer 
 trusts only in God ; the infidel in the devil and his own 
 sinful heart. The infidel swallows things that demand the 
 credulity of idiots and fools ; the believer accepts things 
 that demand simply the highest exercise of an enlightened 
 reason. The infidel, having swallowed his portion, is 
 always in doubt and fear, even in regard to things that he 
 disbelieves. The believer, having accepted God's evi- 
 dence, knows the things that are freely given to him of 
 God. The infidel, even here, has the devil's portion, to 
 tremble, though Satan keeps him from believing, till it be 
 too late for ever, till belief is only the experience of suffer- 
 ing. The believer, even here, has the saints' and angels' 
 portion, to rejoice, to love and to rejoice although as 
 yet he is not permitted to see, but simply believes, and 
 that too perhaps amidst trial and suffering. Yet in Christ, 
 though now he sees him not, believing, he rejoices with joy 
 unspeakable and full of glory. 
 
 And then the end, what a difference in the end ! That 
 of faith, everlasting blessedness, receiving the end of your 
 faith, even the salvation of your souls. That of unbelief 
 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE, 259 
 
 everlasting misery, a dying in your sins, and a living in 
 the penalty of them for ever. He that believeth on the 
 Son shall never perish, but hath everlasting life. He that 
 believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of 
 God abideth on him. 
 
 How blest thy creature is, O God, 
 
 When with a single eye, 
 He views the lustre of thy Word, 
 
 The day-spring from on high ! 
 Through all the storms that veil the skies, 
 
 And frown on earthly things, 
 The Sun of Righteousness he eyes, 
 
 With healing on his wings. 
 
 Struck by that light, the human heart, 
 
 A barren soil no more, 
 Sends the sweet smell of grace abroad, 
 
 Where serpents lurked before. 
 The soul, a dreary province once, 
 
 Of Satan's dark domain, 
 Feels a new empire formed within, 
 
 And owns a heavenly reign. 
 
 The glorious orb, whose golden beams, 
 
 The fruitful year control, 
 Since first obedient to thy Word 
 
 He started from the goal, 
 Has cheered the nations with the joy 
 
 His orient rays impart ; 
 But JESUS, 'tis thy light alone 
 
 Can shine upon the heart ! 
 
 COWPER. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 The Reproof of Mercy. 
 
 WE are apt to judge of character from bold and animated 
 profession ; it is the mistake of the world generally. But 
 the reality of character is determined only by the result ; 
 the measure and gauge of a man's virtues can be accurate- 
 ly taken, only when it is seen how they wear, and not by 
 the piece out of which he professes to have cut them. 
 After all Peter's apparent drafts on the great Bank of 
 Faith, he was still Little-Faith. And immediately Jesus 
 stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto 
 him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt ? 
 
 If it had not been for Christ's delineation of Peter's faith, 
 we might have supposed, perhaps, that it was very strong, 
 that it was, indeed, a most miraculous faith ; for he walked 
 on the water to go to Jesus. We may have seen other 
 persons set out in the same bold manner, and stop and 
 sink as suddenly. This is not uncommon ; self-presump- 
 tion, self-reliance, or reliance even on experience of grace, 
 instead of Christ, may easily lead to this. 
 
 If a man say within himself, I have stock of grace 
 sufficient for such and such an enterprise, my capital will 
 enable me to trade so far, I was born at such a time ago 
 into Christ, and my established piety, my strength of soul 
 in Christ, will hold me up; it is a great mistake. Past 
 experience alone will not sustain a man, either now or for 
 the time to come. Past experience will justify a man in 
 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 261 
 
 trusting Christ now and for the time to come, but not 
 in trusting in his own strength, not even his strength 
 of grace. The manna must be gathered daily, and as for 
 the future, it must be left to faith. Experience, as Henry 
 Martyn used to say, rots on one's hands, if a man trusts 
 to that instead of Christ ; just as the manna of the 
 Israelites bred worms, if they hoarded it up for the morrow, 
 instead of trusting in God for a new supply. This was a 
 striking lesson of faith in the wilderness, and we too must 
 come to Christ daily for our bread, trusting not in yester- 
 day's strength of grace, or in what remains over, but in 
 Christ. Christ, who has supplied, must still supply it, or it 
 will all fail. So a man must say, I have nothing, can do 
 nothing, am nothing, but in Christ. 
 
 Peter himself became strong, as well as Paul, only in 
 proportion as he learned this lesson, When I am weak, 
 then am I strong, doing all things through Christ strength- 
 ening me. Peter sinking was really nearer to Christ, than 
 Peter walking on the water. The very failure of our 
 enterprises may sometimes bring us nearer to God, than 
 success in them, and prepare us the better for future 
 conquests. If Peter had reached Christ in the frame of 
 mind in which he started, he might have been further from 
 him in reality than he was before he left the ship, and 
 more in danger from pride and presumption in his own 
 heart, than he could be from all the winds and waves on 
 the ocean. He was here gaining an experience in Christ, 
 which would indeed be lasting ; the experience of his own 
 weakness ; a kind of manna which a man may keep by 
 him without danger of its spoiling ; and the experience of 
 Christ's strength, equally good to keep for remembrance 
 and faith. After Christ's word, of which Peter had been 
 so doubtful, the foundation of faith was the experience of 
 his own weakness and of Christ's strength. 
 
 O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt ? Let 
 us see how this question could have been answered by 
 Peter, or how it could be answered by any one now, in 
 
262 GRACE AND TRUTH. 
 
 any similar situation, either in the Christian life, or setting 
 out upon it. Can any man tell any good reasons that he 
 has for doubting? Could Peter give any satisfactory 
 answer to Christ's question ? Or qan any man, required 
 to trust simply in Christ, and march to duty at his com- 
 mand, give any satisfactory reason for doubting ? 
 
 Suppose we begin with the evidence, which was the first 
 thing at which Peter seems to have stumbled. Lord, if it 
 be thou ! What greater evidence could Peter have, what 
 greater can any man have, than God's Word ? If Christ 
 says, It is I, be not afraid, come unto me, what evidence 
 can be greater, or could be better, than that ? Is the 
 evidence of sense more trustworthy ? Is there any 
 evidence which is trustworthy, not based upon God's 
 Word. The experience which has not that for its founda- 
 tion, must be false. If you cannot rely upon God's Word, 
 there is nothing that you can rely upon. God's Word is 
 the highest of all evidence, and if that fails, if you cannot 
 rest upon that, you have nowhere else to go. This was 
 Peter's experience at a later time. Lord, to whom shall 
 we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life ! If a* man 
 cannot come to Christ and trust Christ on his word simply 
 and solely, there is no being, or place, or reality, or 
 evidence in the universe, that he can go to for relief, or 
 trust in for assurance and deliverance. The word of 
 Christ should be at once the assurance of faith, the des- 
 truction of doubt, the guide and unshaken confidence of 
 the soul. If it be not, what can a man do ? Whether he 
 be in the ship or on the waves, it makes no difference, he 
 is lost, there is no refuge for him. For if he cannot rely 
 on God's Word, and trust in Christ accordingly, there is 
 no foundation for his soul, nor anything stable or true, nor 
 any evidence that he can rest upon, nor any possibility 
 of peace or happiness in the universe. 
 
 Wherefore didst thou doubt? There could not be 
 stronger evidence than that of God's Word ; if anything 
 be more convincing to any soul than that, it is because of 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 263 
 
 something wrong in the soul ; evil, blindness, the distortion 
 of depravity and unbelief. If you cannot rely upon Christ, 
 and the evidence of his cross, and of God's Word in him, 
 in regard to your duty, and your support and safety in the 
 performance of your duty, there is nothing that you can 
 rely upon, but you are lost. Your only salvation is the 
 acceptance of God's evidence, and the casting of your 
 whole being upon Christ. 
 
 But perhaps, dismissing the evidence, or accepting of 
 that unhesitatingly, you and Peter will answer to the 
 question, Wherefore didst thou doubt ? that it was your 
 sins, your own unworthiness and great guilt that made 
 you doubt. But whom did it make you doubt ? Just the 
 being, on whom it ought to have thrown you in the most 
 submissive confidence. Your sins are good reasons for 
 doubting yourself, but not Christ. They are reasons for 
 self-despair, but the reason of all reasons for trusting 
 Christ. Your sins are the reasons why you must come to 
 Christ, not why you should doubt Christ. The greater 
 your guilt, the greater your plea for mercy, the more 
 suitable your case for his interposition ; and the greater 
 your guilt the greater the reason why you should not 
 doubt him, but amidst winds and waves fly to him. Sin 
 should make every man distrustful only of himself, trustful 
 in Christ, unbelieving only in himself, believing in Christ. 
 Sin is in fact the sinner's claim on Christ ; he has no 
 other. It is not the bar in the way' of mercy, but the 
 reason for mercy. So the sinner must believe, not in 
 spite of his guilt, but because of it ; he must beg for par- 
 doning mercy, not, notwithstanding the greatness of his 
 guilt, but by reason of it. For thy name's sake pardon 
 mine iniquity, for it is great. His sins are the great 
 reason of faith, so many arguments for believing, so many 
 grounds for faith to rest upon. So instead of answering 
 to the question, Wherefore didst thou doubt? Because 
 of the greatness of my guilt ; that is to be alleged as the 
 very reason for believing. If you are asked, Wherefore 
 
264 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 do you believe, you may well say, Because I am a sinner, 
 a guilty, lost sinner, and the gospel is just for me and my 
 case, and none but an Almighty Saviour could have 
 contrived it for me, or brought it Ho me. The gospel 
 belongs to me, and Christ belongs to me, and is mine, 
 because I am so great a sinner. You may put the 
 adversary of the soul to flight with this argument, when his 
 powerful malice will be overcome by none other. When 
 he presents your guilt as the reason of unbelief, do you 
 present it as the ground of faith. 
 
 And so in all your enterprises for Christ, if tempted to 
 despair, because of your unworthiness and unfitness for 
 the work Christ calls you to do, or the errand he sends you 
 upon, make tha,t an argument of faith ; an argument indeed 
 for self-despair, but for casting all upon Christ, and for 
 going forward cheerfully, boldly, fearless of the conse- 
 quences, throwing all upon him. Your guilt is not a 
 reason for not engaging in his service, but for casting 
 yourself entirely upon his grace in that service. Your 
 weakness is not a reason for abandoning your enterprise, 
 or doing little for Christ, but it is a reason, the great 
 reason, for coming to Christ perpetually, that his strength 
 may be manifested, perfected, and glorified in your 
 weakness. 
 
 Cheer up, ray soul, there is a mercy-seat 
 Sprinkled with blood, where Jesus answers prayer ; 
 There humbly cast thyself beneath his feet, 
 For never needy sinner perished there. 
 
 Lord, I am come ! thy promise is my plea ; 
 Without thy word I durst not venture nigh; 
 But Thou hast called the burdened soul to Thee, 
 A weary, burdened soul, O Lord, am I ! 
 
 Bowed down beneath a heavy load of sin, 
 By Satan's fierce temptations sorely pressed, 
 Beset without, and full of fears within, 
 Trembling and faint, I come to Thee for rest. 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 265 
 
 Be Thou my Refuge, Lord, my hiding-place ! 
 I know no force can tear me from thy side, 
 Unmoved I there may all accusers face, 
 And answer every charge with JESUS DIED. 
 
 Yes, Thou didst weep, and bleed, and groan, and die, 
 Well hast Thou known what fierce temptations mean ; 
 Such was thy love, and now, enthroned on high, 
 The same compassions in thy bosom reign. 
 
 Lord, give me faith ! He hears what grace is this ! 
 Dry up thy tears, my soul, and cease to grieve ! 
 He shows me what he did, and who He is, 
 I must, 1 will, I can, I do believe. 
 
 NEWTON. 
 
 But again, perhaps you and Peter, when Christ asks, 
 Oh ! thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt ? are 
 ready to answer, The dangers, the dreadful dangers, the 
 tempests, the winds boisterous, the waves raging. Again, 
 here is a reason for trusting Christ, not for disbelieving. 
 A reason for pressing towards Christ, not for resisting, 
 staying away, or turning. For, who can overcome these 
 dangers, or save you from them, but Christ ? Whom will 
 they obey, but him only ? Who knows them perfectly, or 
 can control them, but he ? Besides, your business is with 
 Christ, dangers or no dangers, irrespective of everything. 
 What hast thou to do with the dangers, if thou hast the 
 command of thy Lord in thy course, and plain duty ? In 
 such a case the dangers are nothing to thee ; they are not 
 to be considered ; they are Christ's business, Christ's care. 
 Thy care must be Christ's work, his is thy life and protec- 
 tion. Thou art setting out in duty. Now perhaps the 
 wind begins to rise, but what is that to thee ? Thou must 
 still take thy steps towards Christ and for Christ. Hast 
 thou taken one step ? What must thou do next ? Stand 
 still, and gaze about upon the dangers ? Oh no ! but look 
 for the next step. Look to Christ, and take the next step. 
 
 It may be it is the Slough of Despond that thou art 
 
 13 
 
266 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 passing through, and thy soul is cast down within thee. 
 Look for the steps, scripture steps, promises and directions. 
 On them step forward to Christ, and thou art safe, even 
 amidst that Slough of Despond and those dangers. Thou 
 wilt be out of it soon, and on the side towards the shining 
 light. But even if thou miss the steps, and sink deeply, 
 thou hast still nothing to do but to struggle towards Christ. 
 When Christ is the end and aim of all effort, a man is sure 
 of safety and success. It may not be success according 
 to the flesh, but it will be, according to the spirit. Christ's 
 mercy shall be exalted and manifested, and Christ's glory 
 shall be accomplished in all his dealings with the soul that 
 in all things aims at him. Aiming at Christ, making him 
 your end, there can be no such thing as final defeat or 
 disappointment. The dangers that surrounded you shall 
 accomplish only his object and your good, while your soul 
 is stayed on him. 
 
 But again, perhaps you answer to the question, Where- 
 fore didst thou doubt ? Because you are in darkness. The 
 dangers you think would be nothing, if you only enjoyed 
 the light, but you are in darkness, and therefore do you 
 doubt. Doubt whom ? Should darkness in yourself make 
 you doubt Christ ? Oh no, it is rather an argument for 
 faith ; for in him is light and in him only ; in him is light, 
 and no darkness at all ; and therefore, the greater the 
 darkness that you find elsewhere, the more earnestly ought 
 this to make you be pressing on towards Christ, till in him 
 you find light. It will always be darkness out of him. 
 Come to him, therefore, for light. The darker it is with 
 you, the darker around you, and the darker in your own 
 soul, the greater the reason for relying on the Lord. It 
 will not help you to stay where you are, it will not help 
 you to brood over the darkness, it cannot make your case 
 worse to go forward to Christ, and in fine, trusting in 
 Christ, waiting on him is the only thing you can do. It is 
 the very thing you are commanded to do. Who is among 
 you that, hearing the voice of God's Word, walketh in 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 267 
 
 darkness and hath no light ? Let him trust in the name 
 of the Lord, and stay himself upon his God. But in truth 
 a man can never say that there is no light. When all 
 other light fails, and there is none inward and none exter- 
 nal, there is light in God's Word. If there is no light in 
 the soul for it to enjoy, there is light in God's Word for it 
 to be guided by. Let it follow that, and there will be light 
 in the soul. 
 
 Darkness is a reason for doubting everything but Christ, 
 but a reason for trusting in him, drawing near to him, and 
 keeping .close at his side. Darkness is a reason for dis- 
 trusting oneself, and walking warily in prayer, and crying 
 out for Christ's help, but certainly not a reason for unbelief. 
 When Peter was in darkness, nothing but darkness around 
 him, darkness within him, and the waves opening to swal- 
 low him up, Christ was shining, and the only light that 
 could be seen that night was in him. It is always so. 
 We may seem to have light in ourselves, but it may be 
 mere ignorance and pride ; or if there is real light it is 
 only because Christ is shining within us, and upon us, and 
 some reflection is seen of his own light. Darkness in our- 
 selves, and darkness around us, is no reason for doubting the 
 light, but for believing in it, loving it, and pressing forward 
 to it. I am the light of the world : he that followeth me shall 
 not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. 
 While ye have the light, believe in the light, that ye may 
 be children of the light. Walk while ye have the light, 
 lest darkness come upon you ; for he that walketh in dark- 
 ness knoweth not whither he goeth. Again we say, though 
 at the hazard of repetition, darkness is no reason for doubt, 
 but a strong reason for faith ; for it is plain that though a 
 man may be in darkness, and have great reason to distrust 
 himself, that is no reason for distrusting Christ, but for 
 pressing after him ; for all the real light of the world is in 
 him, and he that followeth him shall not walk in darkness, 
 but shall have the light of life. Why art thou cast down, 
 O my soul ? Hope thou in God. 
 
268 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 Be still, my heart ! these anxious cares 
 To thee are burdens, thorns, and snares; 
 They cast dishonor on thy Lord, 
 And contradict his gracious Word. 
 Brought safely by his hand thus far, 
 Why wilt thou now give place to fear ? 
 How canst thou want, if He provide, 
 Or lose thy way with such a guide 1 
 
 When first before his mercy-seat 
 Thou didst to Him thy all commit, 
 He gave thee warrant, from that hour, 
 To trust his wisdom, love, and power. 
 Did ever trouble yet befall, 
 And He refuse to hear thy call ? 
 And has he not his promise passed, 
 That thou shalt overcome at last ? 
 
 He who has helped thee hitherto, 
 Will help thee all thy journey through, 
 And give thee daily cause to raise 
 New Ebenezers to his praise. 
 Though rough and thorny be the road, 
 It leads thee home apace to God ; 
 Then count thy present trials small, 
 For heaven will make amends for all. 
 
 NEWTON. 
 
 Now the consideration of our Blessed Lord's question 
 shows us that there is such a faith as to exclude doubt ; 
 that in respect to Christ it always ought to exclude doubt, 
 doubt in regard to him being the consequence of sin, and 
 in itself a sinful state of mind. This entire faith, exclud- 
 ing all unbelief, ought to be the possession of every 
 Christian. No Christian ought ever to entertain a doubt 
 of Christ's promises, Christ's forgiving mercy, Christ's 
 supporting presence and all-sufficiency. Every Christian 
 ought to have the fullest confidence of Christ's presence 
 in his path of duty, and ought to tread that path without 
 fear, and with the fullest faith, even though in darkness. 
 The secret of this faith is simply an eye single to Christ 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 269 
 
 and his glory, with which the whole body shall be full of 
 light. If self be out of the way, and the heart looking 
 only to Christ, anxious only to please him and advance his 
 kingdom, then there is no opportunity for darkness, and 
 nothing at all but light and glory in the prospect. Every 
 Christian ought so to believe in Christ, and so to follow 
 him, as to have the light of life. It is a most remarkable 
 expression, this light of life. He shall have light upon 
 his life, and the experience and enjoyment of that life, 
 which itself is light. Life in Christ, a partaking of his 
 holiness, a quickening sense of his preciousness and pre- 
 sence, an eye single to him, is itself a light upon every- 
 thing, and invests everything with light. Love itself is 
 light, and the light of life is love. When love reigns, 
 faith reigns, and there is no room for doubt or darkness. 
 Even the commencement of such a state in this world is 
 blessed, but what must the perfection of it be in heaven, 
 where every holy soul will love as it is loved, and see as it 
 is seen. A man should aim to live as habitually in this 
 state as possible, here upon earth, for it is the only state 
 of power, usefulness, and happiness. 
 
 The case of these disciples of Christ, and especially of 
 Peter, teaches an interesting lesson as to the gradual 
 growth of the Christian graces, and perfection of the 
 Christian character. Take Peter as he was in the gospels, 
 especially in the early part of his career of discipleship, 
 and compare him with Peter in the epistles, and what a 
 surprising change ! What humility and meekness, what 
 richness of knowledge and love, what calmness, gentleness, 
 and stability of faith, his unbelief all gone, his faith the 
 source of joy unspeakable and full of glory. So may any 
 and every sincere Christian, sincerely striving after Christ, 
 hope that the dross of unbelief shall at length be purged 
 away. Peter's faith was wavering even till after the cru- 
 cifixion of his Lord ; it would utterly have failed, but for 
 Christ's mercy, in the hour of temptation and suffering. 
 But I have prayed for thee, said the gracious Saviour, that 
 
270 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 thy faith fail not. He who caught Peter and raised him 
 up when sinking in the sea, raised him up also when he 
 had fallen beneath the temptations of Satan, who would 
 have him to sift him as wheat, tjad not Christ prayed 
 for him, he would never have been raised up from that 
 fall ; he would not even have had faith to cry, Lord, save 
 me ! 
 
 All depends on Christ ; faith, strength, grace, persever- 
 ance, success, hope, life, everything, all depends on Christ. 
 The end of the Word of God, and of all preaching and 
 writing /row that Word, is Christ ; the object and end of 
 the Sabbath and all its ordinances, is Christ ; the purpose 
 of all God's providence and grace, is Christ ; the object, 
 end, and soul of every Christian enterprise, is Christ. He 
 is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and Omega, the 
 first and the last. A man must be in Christ, and have an 
 interest in Christ's prayers, a portion in Christ's love, or, 
 though he have all knowledge, he is nothing ; nay, he is a 
 sinful, self-willed possessor of the element of evil, powerful 
 for nothing but evil, and good for nothing but to be burned. 
 He might have power to live a thousand lives in one, or to 
 ward off the stroke of death for a thousand years ; he 
 might walk on a thousand raging seas unharmed, and have 
 power to defy all the elements ; he might have at his com- 
 mand the riches of a thousand worlds ; but, unacquainted 
 with Christ, he is a sinful, miserable, lost soul. The "pro- 
 blem of a man's whole existence, therefore, is to find 
 Christ, to come to Christ, to be found in Christ. 
 
 Of all the gifts thy hand bestows, 
 
 Thou Giver of all good, 
 Not heaven itself a richer knows, 
 
 Than my Redeemer's blood. 
 
 Faith, too, the blood-receiving grace, 
 
 From the same hand we gain ; 
 Else, sweetly as it suits our case, 
 
 That gift had been in vain. 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 271 
 
 Till Thou thy teaching power apply, 
 
 Our hearts refuse to see, 
 And, weak as a distempered eye, 
 
 Shut out the view of Thee. 
 
 Blind to the merits of thy Son, 
 
 What misery we endure ! 
 Yet fly that hand, from which alone 
 
 We could expect a cure. 
 
 We praise Thee, and would praise Thee more ! 
 
 To Thee our all we owe ; 
 The precious Saviour, and the power 
 
 That makes him precious too. 
 
 COWPER. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Justification by Faith, and obedience after it. The Law of the Spirit of Life 
 in Christ Jesus. 
 
 THE windings of the River of the Water of Life, sup- 
 posed as a stream on which the soul is sailing, land a man, 
 at whatever point he would effect a landing, only on the 
 ground of Justification by Faith. Many a man has en- 
 deavored to save himself by a new life of his own, by 
 the careful, costly manufacture of a morality, by which he 
 would fain meet the demands of a violated law, but has 
 come to the discovery that what he needs is a new life in 
 Christ, with Christ and not self, as the soul of it. What 
 he needs is first of all a Saviour, not a helper, for that 
 merely could do him no good, but a Saviour ; a Saviour 
 for him in his sins, and without any morality ; a Saviour 
 from his sins, and then, thus saved, thus justified, before 
 there is any the least imaginable ground of justification in 
 himself, love produces a morality which self could not 
 produce, a morality which is true piety, a morality which 
 is the consequence of Christ in the soul, and not a propi- 
 tiatory bribe to induce him to come to the soul. He comes, 
 and then there is true morality ; but there is no morality 
 until he comes. 
 
 There may be great and painful efforts after it ; waxen 
 figures wrought out and exquisitely painted, and great 
 endeavors to breathe the breath of life into them ; but all 
 
GRACE AND TRUTH, CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 273 
 
 such attempts do but increase the anguish in any man'? 
 soul, who is truly in earnest as Luther was, and do but 
 unveil to him more clearly his guilt and misery. The 
 effort is like pouring oil upon a house in flames. All 
 attempts at self-amendment and salvation apart from 
 Christ are like that sick woman's physicians, on whom, 
 before Christ came, she had spent all her living, and never 
 grew better, but rather grew worse. While refusing to 
 submit to God's way of salvation through and in Christ, 
 every resort, expedient, and effort of the soul, and its very 
 anguish and restless fever of anxiety and inward conflicts, 
 are but a disclosure of sin perpetually increasing, and of 
 the obstinacy of a self-will still holding out against God. 
 These things only return back upon the hardened sinner 
 to increase the already intolerable weight upon his soul. 
 So that in endeavoring to mount the ladder of his own 
 repentance and morality towards heaven, a man is like 
 those who mount the scaling-ladders against an impregna- 
 ble besieged castle, only to have the ponderous ladders 
 themselves thrown back upon them to crush them. A 
 man must quit his physicians and his scaling-ladders, and 
 throw himself only upon Christ. 
 
 There are three great laws, or forms of law, to which 
 our immortal being bears an inevitable and eternal rela- 
 tion. These are, first, the Law of God, for our govern- 
 ment ; second, the Law of Sin and Death in our depraved 
 nature ; third, the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ 
 Jesus. Under the first we are, as immortal beings, 
 eternally responsible ; under the second we are, if not 
 redeemed by grace, eternally in bondage ; under the third 
 we are not in subjection naturally, but may, by divine 
 grace, if we will, be brought beneath its blessed power, 
 redeemed by it from sin for ever. 
 
 By the two first of these laws there is nothing but con- 
 demnation. God's law itself is a law of sin and of death, 
 because it convinces of sin, and can give to the sinner 
 nothing but the penalty. It is a law of sin, because it 
 
 13* 
 
274 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 makes sin appear. It discovers the guilt of transgression. 
 The light, though it is a law of transparency only, might 
 be called the law of colors and of shadows, because it 
 reveals colors, and is the occasion for shadows to appear. 
 So the law of God, though in itself holiness, and a law of 
 holiness, may be called a law of sin, as showing what sin 
 is, and demonstrating its existence. It is a law of sin, 
 showing man to be a sinner. And it is a law of death, 
 because it adjudges him to death. 
 
 By the second of these laws, or forms of law, there is 
 both condemnation and execution, and nothing else ; for 
 the law of sin and death in our nature is an active, 
 indwelling principle. It is a life, which itself is sin and 
 death, in our mind, heart, will, conscience ; in our habits 
 of alienation from God, in our selfishness and unbelief. It 
 is character ; and the law of fixed character is as stable 
 as the law of the universe. It is a voluntary, innate, 
 permanent, active, habitual tendency and disposition. 
 This being a disposition to sin, our chosen corrupt nature 
 is to us a law of sin and of death. We are slaves to it, 
 and the fact of its being a voluntary bondage makes it 
 incomparably more disastrous. We are alive only to evil, 
 and dead only to good. Left to ourselves, we are unceas- 
 ingly under an evil self, as our law, and of course under 
 condemnation of God's law. By nature, in our evil will, 
 we are children of wrath. Our bondage is chosen and 
 self-inflicted, and therefore the worst that possibly can be. 
 The principles of our nature are the law of our nature. 
 If the principles of our nature are selfish, and the habits of 
 our nature correspondent, supreme selfishness is more 
 certainly the law of our nature, than if there were for us, 
 as an external law, the precept, Thou shalt love thyself 
 supremely. If it were the voluntary principle and habit 
 of our nature to steal, this world would be a surer, stronger 
 law to us, than if it were a precept of our decalogue, 
 Thou shalt steal. Of all forms of law, an evil will is the 
 most certain in its operation. 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 275 
 
 This is the dread law to which the Apostle Paul refers, 
 as the law of sin and of death. Of all conceptions, or 
 imaginations, or realities, or possibilities of evil, it is the 
 worst. Of all forms or essences of hell, that ever entered 
 into the field of thought, vision, or superstition, swept over 
 by an angry conscience, the dominion of such a law, the 
 existence of such a nature, is infinitely the most horrible. 
 All the miseries in the universe do not amount to any 
 possibility of comparison with the misery of being under 
 such a law. All the blessings of the universe, though we 
 were put in possession of them, could do us no good, could 
 make no alleviation of our state of unescapable woe 
 beneath this law. It is a law that makes evil triumphant 
 over good, and converts good into evil. For a being of an 
 evil nature there is no possibility of good ; the evil will 
 come out and conquer. This nature will be developed, 
 will burst up out of all restraints and artificial conceal- 
 ments, and over all dykes, and will rule supreme above 
 everything. The element, as the element of fire, if not 
 eradicated, will conquer. 
 
 It is under restraint now, the restraint of a state of 
 probation, the restraint of God's mercy in the arrange- 
 ments of the scheme of redemption, the restraints of the 
 gospel, of the Word of God, of Divine Providence, of 
 grace, of prudence, of friends, families, neighbors, of fears 
 and hopes, of human laws and hindrances. It is modified, 
 balanced, checked, repressed, concealed ; but it is still the 
 law, the ruling principle, the principle of nature and of 
 destiny ; and when all surrounding influences are gone, 
 when the arrangements of a probationary state no more 
 encompass the soul, when nothing but evil encompasses it, 
 and exasperations and developments of evil principle, then 
 it will show itself supreme and eternal. We may be insen- 
 sible to it now, we may deny it now, and demand more 
 evidence ; but let it be remembered that full evidence 
 would be our ruin. Full evidence, compulsory evidence, 
 the evidence of complete experience, and demonstration 
 
276 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 by experience, would be the entire development and con- 
 quest of the evil principle, converting earth itself into 
 hell, a world of probation into a world of consequences, 
 ourselves into demons, our state int<> that of unalterable 
 sin and despair. 
 
 It is the very peculiarity of our evidence, that it is evi- 
 dence for future action, evidence from God's Word and 
 our own partial experience, and not demonstration in 
 experience filled up and finished, which would be simply 
 our ruin in hell. It is evidence of tendency, sure, unalter- 
 able tendency, given in a world of probation and mercy, 
 for warning and recovery. The partialness of the evi- 
 dence is the very result of God's mercy, that we may fly 
 while it is partial, before we are in the burning deep, to 
 him who only can save us from that deep, to which the 
 law and tendency of our nature is rapidly and surely con- 
 ducting us. Therefore, to make the partialness of this 
 evidence a reason for denying it, is to make the very 
 mercy of God the means of our destruction. And yet 
 there are those who deny the essential depravity of their 
 hearts and of all mankind, because it does not break out 
 in nothing but depravity ; because, they say, your doctrine 
 makes men demons ; your doctrine is, that men hate God, 
 and if it were so, the world would be filled with nothing 
 but enmity, whereas there is in it a vast deal of goodness, 
 of benevolence, of kindness, of the recognition of God's 
 bounty, and regard to his laws. And who does not see 
 that it could not be otherwise, if God maintains a state of 
 probation, if he checks, restrains, and softens human 
 depravity so far by goodness and merc}^, as to render the 
 offer of the gospel possible and appreciable ; if he does not 
 let the tendency and law of human nature go on to its 
 completion, to make indeed a hell on earth, in which there 
 would be no possibility of change. Who does not see 
 that the evidence of entire depravity in man must be par- 
 tial except on God's authority, if God in mercy stops that 
 depravity in its mid-career, and does not let men yet 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 277 
 
 become demons in their enmity, in order that, being 
 warned, and a time given them, they may fly to Christ to 
 take away that enmity, and train them up for heaven. 
 The perversion of this state of things into an argument 
 against God's own declaration that the carnal mind is 
 enmity against God, and that men in their corruptions are 
 children of wrath and children of the devil, is one of the 
 most terrible and guilty tramplings on divine goodness, into 
 which Satan ever trapped a human soul. No man who 
 values the possibility of salvation will be deceived by such 
 reasoning. No man of any fairness to himself,, but will 
 take God's Word as sufficient assurance that the law of 
 his nature, out of Christ, is a law of sin and death. 
 This is the condition of every one of us, by voluntary, 
 free, habitual nature. It is not a law imposed upon us, but 
 a law growing out of our wilful being. It is our own law, 
 the law of our choice, instead of God's law; the law of our 
 selfishness, our guilt, our distrust, our unbelief ; our self- 
 indulgence, self-worship, and pure love of sin. It is a 
 development as sure to conduct us to eternal misery, as our 
 accountable existence is sure to conduct us to eternity 
 itself. This is our work, even if God had nothing to do, 
 and would do nothing, in the execution of the penalty of 
 his law. We are the authors and artificers of our own 
 ruin. 
 
 Now if there were no remedy for this, if we saw 
 ourselves and all mankind growing into such a state of 
 immutable sin and death, and proceeding to such an inevi- 
 table, eternal result, no words could describe, no imagina- 
 tion could conceive, no created mind could measure the 
 horrors of the spectacle. It would be agonizing, infernal, 
 intolerable ; it would cover our province of the universe 
 with the blackness of darkness ; it would paralyse the soul 
 with despair. And such would have been our condition, 
 but for the system of redemption by the Cross of Christ. 
 
 This is the very state of misery, from which Christ 
 came to deliver us. Here is at once the cause and the 
 
278 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 glory of his interposition ; an interposition in behalf of 
 beings under a self-originated and self-sustained law of 
 enmity against God ; and so much the more glorious, so 
 much the more wonderful, in its conception and its execu- 
 tion, by as much as our depravity was deeper, more 
 voluntary, more inimical. It is no honor to God, nor any 
 release of his Word from the charge of a gloomy theology, 
 to deny the fact of entire human depravity. But it does 
 immeasurably exalt the great transaction of the Atonement, 
 and sets the wonderful love and mercy which inspire that 
 scheme in a manifestation incomparably brighter, when the 
 fact of that deep and deadly depravity is taken as it is set 
 down in the Scriptures. The denial of it fills all theology, 
 human and divine, with inexplicable difficulties ; the accept- 
 ance of it is at once not only a justification of the ways 
 of God to man, but a demonstration of the wisdom and 
 love of God in Christ such as nothing else could furnish. 
 Under the system of atonement, the greatness of this 
 depravity stands not in the way of God's mercy, but is a 
 glorious occasion for its exercise. 
 
 And here comes in the great law of deliverance growing 
 out of Christ's redeeming interposition ; the law of the 
 Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus, setting us free from the law 
 of sin and death. The great glory of it is that it conquers 
 our voluntary evil nature, and sets us free from the law of 
 it, by the introduction in its place, or the exchange for it, 
 of an equally voluntary holy nature in Christ. The evil 
 nature has Satan to set it on fire, to tempt it, to co-operate 
 with it ; but the holy nature has Christ as its origin and 
 support, and is a participation in Christ's own nature. 
 The work of grace shall conquer the work of depravity ; 
 the law of the Spirit of life in Christ shall set free the soul 
 from the law of sin and death. Nothing else could do it, 
 nothing external to the soul ; no outward law of excellence 
 could do it, nothing that did not work within the soul as a 
 living principle of life and action. By this new principle 
 introduced, this new determination of the will in accord- 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 279 
 
 ance with divine grace, the man is set free from the evil 
 dispositions of the unregenerate heart, from its inbred, 
 habitual, long cherished, long growing, and powerful cor- 
 ruptions ; he is set at liberty to serve God out of love, no 
 longer bound in slavery to the law of sin and death in an 
 evil nature. This is the great deliverance ; this is freedom 
 indeed ; instead of the death of sin, a death to sin, a 
 redemption from its indwelling -power by the working of 
 an opposite power of holiness and life, which, as Christ's 
 own life, imparted to the soul, becomes the habit of the 
 soul. But it is too low an expression when we say 
 imparted to the soul, for in order to work this freedom, this 
 regeneration, this new creature-ship in Christ, Christ him- 
 self takes up his abode within the soul, and works in it. 
 So the man says this freeman of Christ I live, yet not 
 I, but Christ liveth in me. This new life in the soul is not 
 only a life in Christ, but the life of Christ. Now the 
 Lord is that Spirit ; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, 
 there is liberty, liberty from the bondage of corruption, 
 from the law of sin and death, liberty of life, liberty of 
 holiness, liberty to serve God, not as a slave but as a child, 
 not with the Spirit of bondage to fear, but with the Spirit 
 of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba Father. And thus the 
 Spirit itself beareth witness with our Spirit that we are 
 the children of God ; carries, as it were, our spirit, as the 
 fruit of Christ dwelling and living in us, to God, for a 
 witness that we are God's children. 
 
 By this law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, we are 
 set free not only from the law of sin and death in our 
 depraved natures, but also from the condemnation of God's 
 law. We are set free from God's law as a law of sin and 
 death, and in that freedom are brought back under God's 
 law as a law of holiness. We are brought back to serve 
 the law in newness of spirit, spontaneously, out of love, not 
 out of fear ; from gratitude and faith, as an offering of the 
 fruit of love, the fruit of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, 
 and not as a task, a work of the law, a merit. It is a work 
 
280 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 of love obeying the law, a work of the Spirit of Christ 
 showing the transformation of the heart in conformity 
 with the law, in obedience, inward, inwrought, permanent, 
 spiritual, spontaneous obedience to ' the will of God ; 
 obedience from the Spirit in the heart ; not from the hand 
 of the law laid upon the heart, or the rod held over it, but 
 from that Spirit of holiness, of which the law is merely 
 the expression, that Spirit of holiness as free as heaven, 
 and which itself would learn to obey the law as God's will, 
 or carry it into act as the expression of love to him, and 
 as the work of holy freedom, even if it were not written 
 in God's Word, nor expressed in precept. The work' of 
 the law is accomplished in love, even though there were 
 no obligation of direct command. Love forestals com- 
 mand, love performs duty from delight, from spontaneous 
 devotion, before the question of duty comes up, and not 
 waiting for the pressure of the law or the urgency of 
 conscience. 
 
 Now there is no language that can fully describe the 
 blessedness of this religion, the religion of justification by 
 faith, the religion of love ; and its infinite superiority over 
 every form of religion by works, the religion of compul- 
 sion and of fear, to which men are driven by conscience 
 without love. Every form of religion by works, salvation 
 by works, is a denial and rejection of the gospel, and a 
 dismal, scrupulous, slavish system. It is a religion of 
 bargain and purchase, and not of love, a religion of selfish- 
 ness from beginning to end, and a destruction of the very 
 possibility of disinterestedness. When a man's religion 
 becomes one of merit, so much done and so much demand- 
 ed for it, all true merit is annihilated, the merit of love, 
 and of self-consecration. The moment you introduce the 
 idea of merit as the purchase of salvation, you destroy the 
 idea of piety, the conception of holiness. You reduce 
 holiness down to the level of a commercial traffic. Your 
 holiness might be like that of an angel, but if you maintain 
 it for reward, as merit, to entitle you to an inheritance, 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 281 
 
 and not out of love, surely you do it not for God. You 
 may do it for God's reward, for God's salvation, for God's 
 heaven, but not for God. And if you do that to make 
 merit for yourself, to procure safety for yourself, to pur- 
 chase an inheritance of happiness for yourself which you 
 would not do from love, or which you do not do from love, 
 what does this prove but selfishness ? You are proceeding 
 on mercantile principles, as you might give a sum of fifty 
 thousand dollars for the construction of a ship to pro- 
 mote your interests, which sum you would never dream 
 of giving to your workmen without the equivalent re- 
 turned. 
 
 On mercantile principles, in the case of men with fellow 
 men, this is just enough and honest ; but in your relation 
 to God, to whom you owe supreme love, and all things in 
 love, it would be naught but selfishness. As a merchant 
 with God, the balances of deceit and of selfishness are in 
 your hands. For, you are merely God's steward, to take 
 care of his goods, and you cannot be a merchant with him, 
 for you have nothing of your own to offer him, nothing of 
 your own to give him, but your own heart, and that 
 belongs to him, that you owe him ; and you can have no 
 merit in giving* him that which is his own, you can 
 demand nothing from him in return for that which belongs 
 to him. If you do not give it to him, you withhold from 
 him that which is his due ; you rob God ; and if you give 
 it to him merely because you bargain for a reward, it is a 
 transaction of mere selfishness ; it is no longer the heart 
 that you give him, for you destroy the heart in this trans- 
 action, and take away the possibility of love, by making it 
 a purchase of benefits, an offering for reward. It is on 
 your part a deceitful transaction, for you profess to bring 
 your heart, while the terms on which you bring it make 
 it anything but a heart. The stipulation for reward takes 
 everything of heart out of the transaction. It is a mercan- 
 tile transaction. So it is none but Christ that can put a 
 heart into your offering, the heart of faith and love, and he 
 
282 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 does that merely of his own free grace, and justifies you 
 on his own merits, not yours. 
 
 Now suppose we take a very simple, obvious, familiar 
 illustration. Here is a basket of peajches, which you have 
 reared with great care in your own garden to present 
 them to a dear friend, to whom you are under obligation 
 for inestimable favors, to whom indeed you owe it that 
 you have a house to live in and a garden to cultivate. 
 Your friend does not need your offering, but your offering, 
 though small, is a thing of love. It is precious for that 
 only. It has no worth, even in your own eyes, but as a 
 gift of love. There is no other motive in it but gratitude 
 and love. It was your friend, whose great kindness made 
 it possible for you to be the possessor of that garden, and 
 while you feel that you have exerted all possible care in 
 getting this basket of fruit in all possible perfection to 
 present to your benefactor, after all, it is of his own that 
 you have given him. It is nothing but love that makes it 
 precious. It is an offering of gratitude and love. 
 
 Now here is another man with a basket of fine ripe 
 peaches, better, perhaps, in themselves, than yours, which 
 he purchased, as of peculiar rarity, at a great expense, and 
 is going to present them to the same friend, your friend, 
 because he also expects, or is trying to gain from him, a 
 great favor. There is a lawsuit pending, in which is 
 involved this man's whole fortune, and by some mysterious 
 means, this your friend is able to procure a decision either 
 for or against this man ; and this basket of costly fruit is 
 one of the many bribes by which he is seeking to win his 
 favor. Now is there any "value as an offering, in that 
 costly fruit ? Suppose the man is guilty, and takes this 
 mode of gaining favor as a guilty man, and your kind 
 friend knows it. Will he take the fruit ? No, he will not 
 take it. he cannot, as an upright judge, take it. Yet he 
 took yours, and this man's seems superior, and cost much 
 more. But a cup of cold water from you, out of gratitude 
 and love, would be of more value to your friend than all 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 283 
 
 the fruits from the other that could be purchased with the 
 wealth of Cresus. 
 
 Now here is just a simple symbol of the difference 
 between a religion of works apart from Christ, and a 
 religion of faith and love. Your basket of fruit, which is 
 the gift of gratitude and love, represents the offering of the 
 heart and life to God under the influence of the law of the 
 Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, setting the soul free from the 
 law of sin and death, and producing a spontaneous and 
 humble piety, as fruit, not as merit, as an offering of grati- 
 tude and love, not a purchase of favor. The other basket 
 represents the offering of a guilty conscience, not recon- 
 ciled to God in Christ, not believing and not forgiven, but 
 seeking forgiveness and eternal life by the deeds of the 
 law, by the observances of an artificial morality, as the 
 ground on which heaven is to be granted. Say it were 
 Luther in his cell scourging himself, and fasting, and 
 giving alms, and praying night and day by the force of a 
 restless conscience and a restless anxiety for peace with 
 God. What is Luther doing, but gathering a basket of 
 costly fruit to offe*, instead of faith in Christ, as a bribe or 
 purchase-offering to the Judge of all the earth, for pardon, 
 peace, and admittance to heaven ? Is this piety ? O no ! 
 it is the working of the law of sin and death. 
 
 What then can be done? Cannot Luther help himself? 
 Is there nothing that he can do to extricate himself, and 
 can none of the priests help him, and are all his weeping 
 self-denials, and even a pilgrimage to Rome, and the 
 blessing of the Pope, and all harrowing austerities that 
 make men look on him with pity, of no avail ? Of none 
 but to discover sin. Luther can do nothing. He has tried 
 the path of self-help, and it has brought him again to be 
 stunned with the thunders and burned with the lightnings 
 of Sinai, and there is nothing that he can do. No ! But 
 he can fall helpless into the arms of his Redeemer, and 
 arise a new man, a man of grace, a man justified by faith ; 
 and this every man must do, or he is lost. He hears and 
 
284 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 understands the import of that powerful sentence, The just 
 shall live by faith ; he falls prostrate before his Saviour, 
 submissive, heart-broken, penitent, believing ; and from 
 that moment the law of the Spirit qf life in Christ Jesus 
 sets him free from the law of sin and of death, and makes 
 him one of the mightiest, cheerfulest, heartiest apostles of 
 the glorious free gospel of life by faith that has trodden the 
 earth since the day of Pentecost. And is not this a most 
 wondrous, most triumphant deliverance and transforma- 
 tion ? And who, that can experience the same, can be 
 willing to remain as the slave of Satan, beneath the con- 
 demnation of God's law around and above him, and in the 
 power of the law of sin and of death within him ? 
 
 In the work of our salvation, Christ must do all, every- 
 thing, absolutely all. 
 
 Banish every vain pretence, 
 Built on human excellence. 
 Perish everything in man, 
 But the grace that never can ! 
 
 There can be no such thing as purchase, no such thing 
 as merit, no such thing as disinterested motive, no such 
 thing as gratitude and love, and consequently, no such 
 thing as true morality, apart from Christ, nor until the 
 exercise of Christ's forgiving mercy, until the law of the 
 Spirit of life in Christ Jesus makes the soul free from the 
 law of sin and of death. The religion preached in the 
 gospel is one entirely of free grace, grace free in the gift, 
 grace that makes free in the exercise ; Christ Jesus is not a 
 half-Saviour, leaving our works to do the rest ; for our best 
 works, even when we have been forgiven, tried by the 
 law, would condemn us again, and he must save us from 
 our very works of piety, as well as our ways of sin, from 
 the guilt of our very efforts to obey the law, as well as 
 from the condemnation of the law originally. In all things 
 we must be new creatures in Christ Jesus, who of God is 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 285 
 
 made unto us our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, 
 redemption. 
 
 How lost was my condition, 
 
 Till Jesus made me whole ! 
 There is but one Physician 
 
 Can cure the sin-sick soul ! 
 Next door to death he found me, 
 
 And snatched me from the grave, 
 To tell to all around me 
 
 His wondrous power to save. 
 
 From men great skill professing 
 
 I thought a cure to gain, 
 But this proved more distressing, 
 
 And added to my pain : 
 Some said that nothing ailed me ; 
 
 Some gave me up for lost; 
 Thus every refuge failed me 
 
 And all my hopes were crossed. 
 
 At length this great Physician, 
 
 How matchless is his grace ! 
 Accepted my petition, 
 
 And undertook my case : 
 First gave me sight to view Him, 
 
 For sin my sight had sealed ; 
 Then bade me look unto Him ; 
 
 I looked, and I was healed ! 
 
 A dying, risen Jesus, 
 
 Seen by the eye of Faith, 
 At once from anguish frees us, 
 
 And saves the soul from death. 
 Come then to this Physician ; 
 
 His help he'll freely give ; 
 He makes no hard condition ; 
 
 'Tis only look, and live ! 
 
 NEWTON. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 The Cross daily. The Morality of Faith the only true and constant Morality. 
 Faith the element of power in Prayer. 
 
 WE have already dwelt somewhat at large on the duty of 
 coming to Christ, and what is implied in it, the nature of 
 a living faith, and the law of the Spirit of life in Christ 
 Jesus. But this is only the beginning of spiritual life. 
 Coming to Christ is one thing, following Christ daily is 
 another. We have dwelt upon the vanity, worthlessness, 
 and selfishness of all morality away from Christ, or 
 regarded as the means of coming to him. Human morality 
 is a bridge over the gulf of our depravity, of which you 
 may advance even to the centre, but will find it sawed off. 
 And the virtues with which we think to swim the stream 
 are only as floating bladders that carry us beyond our 
 depth, and then break, and let us down into the deep of our 
 own iniquities. Every refuge of lies, every relief from an 
 angry conscience, every attempt to flee from hell and 
 enter heaven, without Christ, is as if a man did flee from a 
 lion, and a bear met him ; or went into the house, and 
 leaned his hand upon the wall, and a serpent stung him. 
 Every staff without Christ is a broken, sharp, poisonous 
 reed, that pierces the soul. 
 
 We must now dwell, in contrast with this, upon the 
 exceeding value, the blessedness, and the absolute neces- 
 sity of a holy morality, which is the effect of coming to 
 Christ, the proof that the soul has come to him, and the 
 
GRACE AND TRUTH, CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 287 
 
 essential business of following him. It is one thing to 
 come to Christ by faith ; we cannot do that by morality, 
 though we had the morality of an angel ; we cannot come 
 by any holiness of our own, having none to come by. 
 But it is another thing to follow Christ, which we cannot 
 do without a holy morality that shall be the fruit of faith 
 and love, the product of God working in us both to will 
 and to do. Christianity stands on the proudest elevation 
 of pure morality, that is, the Christianity of justification 
 by faith, true Christianity, above every other form and 
 appearance of goodness. Christianity begins with nothing, 
 but embraces and produces everything. Self-reliance 
 begins with everything, and ends in nothing. Follow 
 Christ ; that will make morality, that will produce works. 
 Talk they of morals ? O thou bleeding Lamb ! the sole 
 morality is love of Thee ! Follow Christ. You cannot 
 follow him without a religion of works, the soul and 
 heavenly inspiration of which is faith and love. Come to 
 Christ, that you may receive grace from him ; come empty, 
 that you may be filled ; come worthless, that in him you 
 may be made worthy ; come ignorant, that in him you 
 may be enlightened ; come without works, that in him you 
 may be made rich in good works. 
 
 Having come thus to Christ, you are, in the same 
 dependent manner, to follow him ; and a great point in 
 the morality which you are thus to sustain, a morality and 
 self-denial which must have Christ as its Inspirer or it is 
 worthless, is this, that it is a daily morality, a daily self- 
 denial, a daily following of Christ. The work of religion 
 is not a work that is performed at once for a lifetime, by 
 coming to Christ ; but in it you are to wait on him, to 
 observe his movements, his ways, his words, his example, 
 continually. If there is an air of strictness and severity 
 in this work of self-denial daily, there is also great 
 encouragement in the daily cross, encouragement in its 
 dailiness. You are not required to accomplish all at once, 
 but to follow on. You are not to have all the light at 
 
288 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 once, but to follow on. Sufficient unto the day is the 
 grace and strength thereof. You can follow Christ, only 
 by the same grace that brought you to him ; but, trusting 
 in him, that is always vouchsafed. J 
 
 Some persons seem to be always trembling at the 
 thought of the mightiness of becoming a Christian, concen- 
 trating in their own minds, in the idea of becoming a 
 Christian, almost the whole amount of a lifetime of self- 
 denial, conflict, effort, watchfulness, work upon self and 
 others. But that is all to be left to Christ and his grace. 
 All the strength necessary for future obedience must be 
 given by him, and when the time comes for its exercise, he 
 will give it to the soul that is waiting on him. But at 
 present you have only present duty to perform. You are 
 to follow Christ for to-day ; that is duty, that is Christianity. 
 Christ must renew your strength every day, and every 
 day you must come to him, saying, Give us this day our 
 daily bread. If you think that becoming a Christian 
 requires in you the exercise of a grace and strength suf- 
 ficient to last you through life, it is a great mistake indeed. 
 Becoming a Christian requires only present submission 
 and trust, a willing heart, and a waiting on the Saviour 
 now, without any respect to the future, except in the article 
 of trusting in him for it. Out of that present trust springs 
 the future. You are not required to produce the future, 
 but to put the seed of it into the ground, as Christ gives it 
 to you. The husbandman is not required to produce the 
 harvest, but to begin with the first steps and to follow 
 on, trusting in the Lord of the harvest. Your trust and 
 obedience to-day are the seed and bud of to-morrow, and 
 out of the blossoms of to-morrow shall spring other buds 
 and blossoms, and so on, until your daily existence shall be 
 filled with fruit unto life eternal. The man who trusts 
 in the Lord shall be like a tree planted by a river, her 
 roots always nourished with moisture, her leaf ever green, 
 not careful in the year of drought, nor ever ceasing at all 
 from yielding fruit. 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 289 
 
 But all this is the quiet growth of faith and patience. 
 It is not required at once, nor possible at once, but only 
 the principle of it, ceaselessly working. Miss Jane Tay- 
 lor's story of the discontented pendulum, is admirable in 
 this application ; we would call it, for our purpose, the 
 unbelieving pendulum. Reflecting upon the amount of 
 future duty it had to perform, and going into a calculation 
 what number of times it must swing every hour, and 
 multiplying that by the hours in the day, and then the 
 days in the month, and then the months in the year, and 
 finding what an enormous multitude of times it must strike 
 with the most perfect precision, punctuality, and persever- 
 ance in the year, ceaseless, always at its duty, it was so 
 distressed and terrified with the responsibility, that it 
 suddenly stopped ; nor could the clock be set in motion 
 again, till the pendulum was reminded that though in a 
 year's time it would of course perform so many vibrations, 
 if faithful, yet it was never called to perform but just so 
 many in a minute, and only one in each present second, 
 and that it had nothing to do with the future, but to take 
 care of the present. Take care of the minutes, and the 
 hours will take care of themselves. And just so, take care 
 of the days in Christ's service, day by day, in the minute 
 duties of following Christ, and the months and years will 
 take care of themselves. Christ will keep the clock in 
 motion to-morrow, if the pendulum obeys him to-day. 
 Each day we are to come to him for each day's grace. 
 
 Sometimes a soul with a trembling hope that it has been 
 born again is so pressed with a sense of the greatness of 
 being a true Christian, and of following Christ faithfully, 
 and perhaps so tempted of Satan with unbelief, and need- 
 less causes of fright, that it shrinks back from the duty of 
 a public profession of faith in the Saviour, and thus gives 
 the adversary of the soul a great advantage. Instead of 
 looking to this present step of duty, as a step that comes 
 right in the highway of following Christ, a step included 
 in the present business of taking up the cross daily and 
 
 13 
 
290 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 following him, such persons are sometimes looking to the 
 great things that are to be expected of them, or that will 
 be duty for them, in after life, and so they halt, hesitate, 
 tremble, and stop in confusion. } 
 
 Sometimes they never get over this difficulty ; giving 
 way to their fears at first, fear instead of faith becomes 
 the habit of the mind, and they never enjoy Christ, nor ever 
 conquer sin, because they never go forth trustingly to fol- 
 low Christ, taking up his cross daily, and casting all their 
 care on him for time to come. They never go forth to 
 him without the camp, bearing his reproach. They look 
 at the future with fear and unbelief, instead of looking 
 simply at the present, with humble, trustful obedience, con- 
 cerning themselves with present duty. If they would take 
 the present steps of duty that are plain, others would be 
 plain in succession, and easy also, as fast as they come up 
 to them. But it is foolish, wrong, and unbelieving, to 
 burden the present with more than belongs to the present. 
 Christ does not say, Let a man take up the crosses of all 
 the days in the next year, and follow me, but his daily 
 cross, the cross of each day, as it comes. If a man had a 
 long journey before him, and a burden to carry in the first 
 stage, and another burden in the second stage, and another 
 in the third, and so on, and he should send forward, and 
 have the burden belonging to the second or third stage in 
 his pilgrimage brought back to be taken up at the first 
 stage, he would never go on, never even set out. Just so 
 it is with all our duties, and all our undertakings. 
 
 Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, the labor 
 thereof, and the grace thereof. We are permitted, in 
 general, to see only the beginning ; if we saw the whole, 
 before habits of great faith, prayer, and energy were 
 formed in us by God's gradual grace, and by gradually 
 coping with difficulties as they come up, we should be 
 frightened, and deterred from duty. If a little child could 
 count the multitude of steps it would have to take in grow- 
 ing up to manhood, it would stop learning to walk. If a 
 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 291 
 
 boy at school could calculate the multitude of steps he 
 would have to take, the multitude of distinct efforts of 
 attention and will' it would cost him to master the science 
 of Algebra, or the Greek language, he would throw down 
 his mathematics and his dictionary in despair. If a young 
 minister of the gospel were told at his ordination that in 
 such a number of years, living so long, he would have to 
 prepare say one thousand sermons, and were to get his 
 mind morbidly fixed upon that, he would stop at once. If 
 the children of Israel had been told, when they undertook 
 to go out of Egypt for Canaan, that they would have to 
 wander forty years in the wilderness, they would not 
 have stirred a step. But God makes everything gradual 
 to us, and by present faith, everything easy, everything 
 leading on gently and without violence to the next thing, 
 the next duty ; like a running stream and not a rough sea ; 
 like the changes of the seasons, imperceptible in their 
 progress from day to day, yet perfect and complete ; 
 impossible to bear, if they come suddenly, but healthful 
 and delightful in their quiet approaches, and gliding 
 gradually into one another. So duties grow out of duties, 
 gradually and gently, and Christian graces and self-denials 
 glide into one another like the braids of a silken chain ; 
 and by this chain of love and duty the soul is bound about, 
 and strengthened, in and for Christ. Only trust in Christ, 
 and follow him. 
 
 As it is with duty, so it is with light. It does not come 
 all at once, but gradually. But Christ's rule is, He that 
 followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the 
 light of life. And the path of the just, the just who live 
 by faith, is as the shining light, which shineth more and 
 more unto the perfect day. But you cannot expect all 
 your light now ; enough, if you have a little of it ; enough, 
 if you have sufficient to see to-day's duties, to-day's path. 
 You are not to be anxious either about light or comfort for 
 the future, but anxious only to follow Christ truly for this 
 day. Follow Christ, and comfort will follow you ; but if 
 
292 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 you follow comfort chiefly, you will lose sight both of 
 comfort and of Christ. 
 
 The cross daily, and follow me. Daily duties are not 
 only to be performed, but performed daily in obedience to 
 Christ, with a supreme regard to him, under the power of 
 his love. Everything must be done for Christ, done in 
 following him ; that is the main point. Taking the cross 
 daily would be no piety at all, except in following Christ. 
 If you separate the cross from Christ and his love, and put 
 it in any other service, you make another religion than 
 that of Christianity. The end and right way of all duties, 
 all self-denials, all crosses, is simply, Follow me. Follow 
 Christ daily. Walk as he walked, daily. Seek the things 
 which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of 
 God, daily. Let the same mind be in you which was also 
 in Christ, daily. Walk in love, as he also hath loved us, 
 daily. It is manifest that this precept runs into the 
 minutest actions and feelings of life, daily life, domestic 
 life, social life, business life, public life, private life. Let 
 your daily deportment, conversation, temper, and disposi- 
 tion of mind, habitudes of existence, be a copy of the 
 same sweet and lovely holiness, which shone in the daily 
 life of Christ. Each day must have the Christian graces 
 woven into it, running through it, the threads of the great 
 pattern continued, the colors visible, the figures growing ; 
 precept upon precept, line upon line coming out, here a 
 little, and there a little. See, saith he, that thou make all 
 things according to the pattern showed thee in the Mount. 
 
 We are here reminded of the manufacture of the rich 
 Gobelin Tapestry. When they undertake a piece, they 
 have the subject, the original figure, from the hand of a 
 great master, constantly before them, and every thread, 
 every shade of color, is put in with reference to that, and 
 so the work goes on patiently, little by little, day by day, 
 till it is finished. But if they did not daily study the 
 original picture, having it constantly before them, and 
 doing everything with reference to that, they would at 
 

 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 293 
 
 once go astray. They might produce a picture of some 
 sort, but it would not be the copy or resemblance of the 
 great picture given them for their pattern. So with the 
 character of Christ, which we are to imitate and follow. 
 Everything in us daily must grow up into him, who is the 
 Head. Everything must be done with reference to him ; 
 nor is there anything so small or unimportant, which may 
 not bear its proportionate shade of sweet coloring drawn 
 from him. The daily conquests of our temper, the daily 
 patience, meekness, charity of spirit and of action, the 
 daily gentlenesses, kindnesses, forbearances, forgivenesses 
 of life, the daily experiments and practices of faith, the 
 daily services of grace in prayer, the daily lookings to 
 Christ, like the flower that follows the sun, the daily sub- 
 missions of everything to him, the daily effort to find him, 
 and to grow in his knowledge and love, the daily feeding 
 on a portion of his Word, the daily endeavor to do good as 
 we have opportunity, winning souls to Christ, the daily 
 attention to our business under Christ's love, the daily 
 subduing and denial of self, in bringing everything to him, 
 for him and not self to stamp and seal it as his own, imbu- 
 ing it with his Spirit, the daily rejoicing in his goodness, 
 and thanksgiving for his mercy ; all these things daily, 
 and all these things each day for itself, and not put off to 
 the morrow, nor the morrow thrown upon to-day. Our 
 work for Christ and our walk with him are to be continued 
 daily. Each day we do not know that we shall have ano- 
 ther morrow, do not know but that this may be the last 
 of our sweet privilege of walking with Christ, and working 
 for him. It is perhaps but a little that we can do in a 
 day, but a little every day will accomplish much in a year, 
 and we are not required to crowd a year into a day, but 
 to take the days, as they come, and by giving each one to 
 Christ, to string them all, as it were, in one thread of pre- 
 cious pearls for him. By arid by you will find them in 
 your own coronet of life. 
 
 We have said that if we separate the cross from Christ 
 
294 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 and his love, and put it in any other service, we make 
 another religion than that of Christianity. This may be 
 done in various ways, such as those designated by the 
 Apostle under the names of will-WJorship, and voluntary 
 humiliations and mortifications, and the -Worshipping of 
 saints and angels as the way into heaven, or the purchase 
 thereof. Some men put the mere image of the cross in 
 the place of him who suffered for our sins upon it ; and 
 some put devotion to the cross as a form, in place of the 
 love of Christ constraining us. Some misguided souls 
 deny themselves for the Virgin, some for the grandeur of 
 St. Peter, some to get an interest in the prayers of some 
 patron saint, and some to build, in one mode and another, 
 a stairway of merit to climb towards heaven. But per- 
 haps the greatest example of false self-denial the world 
 ever saw is that of the Jesuits, who have sometimes made 
 a wonderful use of the principle of self-abnegation under 
 the cloak of religion, for earthly purposes. In this order, 
 and in the Romanism from which it issued, we can show 
 the most complete sacrifice of self to an earthly master, 
 producing miracles of morality, self-denial, alms-giving, 
 zeal, martyrdom, bodies to be burned. Their rule is, not, 
 Follow Christ, but, Follow your superior, as a dead body, 
 governed by him, in obedience, not to be questioned, to 
 him. Be as a dead body, in respect to any will of your 
 own. Ask no questions, but obey. They carried this 
 principle out so fully, linking it to the throne of Rome, 
 and binding the wills of many into one iron will for the 
 sway of that throne, that they shook the world by it. 
 
 The same energy carried to Christ, the same training of 
 submission to him, would have been salvation to every one 
 of them ; but carried to any other than him, it was death. 
 The sacrifice of their own will for any other than Christ, 
 and out of any motive but love and duty to him, was the 
 destruction of their being for ever. Their trust was in 
 a human Saviour. They applied to human beings and a 
 human system that supreme consercation of the will and 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 295 
 
 confidence of the soul, which God claims exclusively and 
 solely for himself, and which for another to arrogate is 
 blasphemy. Cursed be the man who trusteth in man, and 
 maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the 
 Lord. For a man to divest himself of his own moral 
 responsibility, by throwing it on a fallen creature, and not 
 trusting it with God, is impiety and idolatry. It renders 
 true piety impossible, and sin inevitable. Hence the con- 
 fidence of misguided souls in giving up the matter of their 
 salvation to be taken care of by priests, as paid spiritual 
 lawyers in the chancery of heaven, is eternal ruin. The 
 disposition to do this, in one way and another, is profound 
 in the human mind ; and hence the reiteration in God's 
 Word, under so many forms, of the truth, that besides 
 Christ alone there is no Saviour. 
 
 Now whether the rule be that of the Jesuits, or whether 
 it be put in the more general form, Follow the church ; 
 if that be the ultimate resort, standard, and authority, it 
 cuts the soul off effectually from God, introduces anotL-.-r 
 Saviour than Christ, and is, in fact, another gospel. It 
 makes no difference whether the soul trust in a system or 
 an individual, or whether its supreme allegiance be bound 
 to a system or an individual ; if the system or the indivi- 
 dual occupies the place of Christ, arrogates the authority 
 of Christ, and stands between the soul and Christ, the soul 
 is destroyed by it. The Jesuits say, Follow your superior. 
 Deny thyself, take the cross, and follow and sustain your 
 order and its laws. Are the Jesuits good men for this ? 
 They have sometimes sacrificed everything in a blind 
 obedience ; but when they have gone into desert regions, 
 and effectually abnegated self for their order and for the 
 Romish Church, is that religion, or any part of it ? It is 
 self-denial, indeed, but not being for Christ, is robbery of 
 God, and an exaltation of man and machinery into the 
 place of the Saviour. It is self-denial, indeed, but self- 
 denial by itself is not piety. A man may deny himself, 
 and take the cross, but if he does not follow Christ, he 
 
296 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 might just as well have indulged himself ; indeed his self- 
 denial without Christ is but another form of self-indulgence. 
 This human system of self-denial makes a slave, a stone, 
 a dead body ; but Christ makes a freeman. This human 
 system may be, in one sense, the annihilation of self-will, 
 but Christ's system, Christ's love, is the turning of the will 
 into his service, the imbuing of it with his love, the free- 
 ing it from self, evil self, and making it to choose freely, in 
 love, Christ's service. There is no such rule in Christian- 
 ity, nor anything like it, as this Jesuitical and Romish 
 principle, which indeed is the most subtle -artifice that 
 Satan ever invented to bind souls to himself. For, what- 
 ever a man does after such self-abnegation, after such 
 renunciation of his own will, after such a quittance of his 
 own responsibility, he justifies, and quiets himself, and 
 blinds his conscience, though it were murder, theft, intrigue, 
 false witness, all the malice of hell in operation. It is 
 turning the truth into a lie, and doing evil that good may 
 come; whose damnation is just. It is tearing the soul 
 from its allegiance to God, and setting up another God, 
 another conscience, so that he, as God, setteth himself in 
 the Temple of God, showing himself that he is a God. 
 
 For an honest and humble mind, taking the Word of 
 God for its guide, and not human rule or tradition, there 
 is no danger of mistaking any such system for God's 
 system. Our Lord Jesus has made supreme, undivided, 
 single, entire consecration to himself, and himself alone, 
 so clearly our whole duty, and himself so indisputably our 
 sole Saviour and Guide, that there is no possibility of 
 mistake. Come unto me, follow me, abide in me. Every- 
 thing is personal, single ; me, me, me. Not, come to the 
 church, follow the church, abide in the church ; nor, come 
 to a system, follow a system, abide in a 'system, maintain 
 the rules of a system ; nor even, follow the cross, come to 
 the cross, abide in the cross ; but, Come to me, follow me, 
 abide in me. Take up the cross daily, and follow me. 
 Everything begins with this, Come to me, and ends with 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 297 
 
 this, Follow me. Him that cometh unto me, I will in no 
 wise cast out. He that followeth me shall not walk in 
 darkness, but shall have the light of life. He that believeth 
 in me shall never perish, but shall have everlasting life. 
 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. If any 
 man serve me, let him follow me ; and where I am, there 
 shall also my servant be ; if any man serve me, him will 
 my Father honor. He that loveth his life shall lose it ; 
 and he that hateth his life in this world for my sake, shall 
 keep it unto life eternal. Ye will not come to me, that ye 
 might have life. But the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. 
 And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is 
 athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the 
 Water of Life freely. The book of life itself is the 
 LAMB'S book of life ; the souls written in it are Christ's 
 own souls ; the love that is their principle of life is Christ's 
 own love. He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and 
 the end, the first and the last, the same yesterday, to-day, 
 and for ever. 
 
 Now one would think that there is no mind with any 
 right view whatever of spiritual things, but must be 
 charmed with the simplicity and delightfulness of Christi- 
 anity, as being such a manifestation of Christ all and in 
 all. All things are in and of and for and through and to 
 him, in order that no flesh may glory in his presence, 
 nothing of man's pride or contrivance be exalted, but that 
 he that glorieth might glory in the Lord. A Pagan philo- 
 sopher is said once to have answered to the question, 
 What is God doing ? " He is putting down the proud and 
 exalting the humble ;" a wonderful answer for a Pagan, 
 and which might make us think that much more than a 
 Pagan had to do with it. For this is the very beauty and 
 excellence of the gospel, that it puts down self and pride, 
 and makes men rich by making them humble. And it 
 makes them humble only by bringing them to Christ, rich 
 only in him, peaceful only in him, but in him gives them 
 
 13* 
 
298 GRACE AND TRUTH, CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 
 
 the peace of God which passeth all understanding, and a 
 joy unspeakable and full of glory. 
 
 How blessed to have a religion in which all the variety 
 of duty can be brought to one single, jsimple thing, Follow 
 Christ ! No rent-roll of ceremonies, penances, and tra- 
 ditions of men is presented ; but one single, simple duty, 
 Follow Christ. And what a weight of motive behind this 
 duty, to press the soul onward into it, and what an opening 
 of heaven, and beckoning of God, angels and saints, the 
 whole encompassing cloud of witnesses, to animate and 
 encourage the soul in steadfast faithfulness, even to the 
 end ! Lost out of Christ, saved only in him ! The whole 
 business of our existence is comprehended in this one 
 thing, to find Christ. It were infinitely better not to have 
 been, than to be without Christ. We make existence 
 itself instead of a blessing, an eternal curse without Christ. 
 We are hastening, beneath the burden of sin, in the death 
 of trespasses and sins, with nothing but the elements of 
 retribution within us, and the principles of retribution as 
 laws upon us, without Christ, to the fires of the great day, 
 
 That Day of wrath, that dreadful day, 
 When heaven and earth shall pass away, 
 What power shall be the sinner's stay ! 
 
 

 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Faith, the element of power in Prayer. Imaginary Prayer. Dreaming of 
 flying. Wandering thoughts in Prayer. The incalculable importance of 
 right habits, as fixtures of the soul in Prayer. 
 
 Now this daily following of Christ, this daily life of faith, 
 cannot be a reality, cannot exist at all, without a daily 
 habit of secret prayer. Faith is the element of prayer, 
 definite and constant. Faith in God's Word, in God's 
 holiness, justice, mercy ; in the law and the gospel ; in sin, 
 death, the judgment, eternity, heaven, hell ; faith in the 
 Lord Jesus, and in his righteousness, and in his all suffi- 
 ciency and mercy to the chief of sinners ; faith as the 
 substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things 
 not seen ; faith as the realization to the soul both of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ and of his love, and of those eternal 
 things which he has unveiled and made so definite, to move 
 the soul ; and faith in Christ, as an humble, trusting, sub- 
 missive reliance of the soul, on him ; faith, in all these 
 directions, in all these forms, is the grand element of 
 power in prayer. Faith in the burden of sin upon a man's 
 own soul, as God has described it in his Word, will give a 
 man power in prayer ; faith in self, as revealed of God, 
 and in God as made known in Christ, will give a man 
 power in prayer ; faith in sin and in the penalty, producing 
 an agonized conscience, will give a man power in prayer ; 
 faith in the promises of God, faith in the blood of Christ, 
 faith in Jesus as a Saviour, will give a man power in 
 
300 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 prayer. Faith in the value of the soul, and in its eternal 
 ruin out of Christ, and in the lost condition of a world 
 lying in wickedness, will give a man power in prayer. 
 And in fine, it is faith in the Lord )Jesus as a personal 
 Saviour, faith in the Cross of Christ, the sufferings, death, 
 and love of Christ, and in all the truths that cluster around 
 that amazing transaction and depend upon it, the truths 
 that like Christ himself, and in Christ himself, are lifted up 
 upon the Cross to the view of all the universe, and for all 
 men to be drawn unto them in that position ; it is this 
 faith, and only this, that can constitute the essence and 
 the life of prayer, that can give power in prayer, that can 
 quicken and sustain in the soul the element of prayer, that 
 can feed the flame of prayer. It is this, and only this, that 
 ever did, can, or will, form in the soul the sacred, ceaseless 
 HABIT of prayer, and by the instrumentality of prayer, 
 through the grace of the Divine Regenerating Spirit, make 
 the life of the soul to be a life hid with Christ in God. 
 
 Now without anything, in the reality, of this element 
 of Faith, any experience of its power as the element of 
 prayer, its wings uplifting the soul as angels' in audience 
 with the Deity, there is in many a man's mind, at times, 
 the imagination that he prays. And indeed, it is quite 
 common to hear from a man who does not by any means 
 seek to follow Christ daily, language something like the 
 following, when the subject of personal religion is urged 
 upon the individual's notice. " I think I do pray. I have 
 not, indeed, joined the Church, and my form of prayer may 
 not be just in accordance with yours, but I think upon 
 God and religious things, and I am sure that God is every- 
 where, and that we are commanded to pray always ; and 
 when a man's heart goes up to God anywhere, that is 
 prayer, and if a man is honestly endeavoring to perform 
 his duty daily, that is prayer, and the best kind of prayer." 
 Now, dear friend, you must allow us to correct a step or 
 two in your argument ; for it is a strain of loose and care- 
 less thinking which we may often hear expressed, and 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 301 
 
 constitutes a way that some men have of excusing even 
 to their own consciences their entire neglect of everything 
 like real prayer. The endeavor to perform one's duty 
 daily before God and to follow Christ daily, is the fruit of 
 prayer, and prayer itself is a main part of such following 
 of Christ ; but the endeavor to arrange one's external life 
 properly is not itself prayer, and never was, and never 
 will be. Neither, when a man's heart seems going up to 
 God everywhere, is it certain that that is prayer ; for it may 
 be a mere intellectual aspiration after God, accompanied 
 by the sentimental aspirations of a heart tastefully educated ; 
 just such as the feeling with which a refined heart and 
 mind might read the Poet Thomson's Hymn on the 
 Seasons, and admire its devout ascriptions to the God of 
 the rolling year, without one emotion of true piety, or 
 aspiration of true prayer in the soul. 
 
 Neither does mere thinking upon God and religious 
 things constitute prayer ; by no means. Meditation is not 
 prayer, though it may be a preparation for it, and an 
 accompaniment of it. Thinking pleasantly upon the sub- 
 ject of religion is not prayer. Reading the Bible is not 
 prayer. Abstracting the soul from earthly things is not 
 prayer. Silence in the soul is not prayer. The quietness 
 of the will is not prayer. There may be a great deal of 
 abstraction, and a great deal of silence, and a great deal 
 of quietness, and yet not prayer. The mere going out of 
 the unclean spirit from a man for a season, to look about 
 him in dry places, is not prayer. There is often such a 
 lull in the winds of a man's evil passions, and a calm upon 
 the troubled sea, when he might pray, if he would, and 
 pray with great success and blessedness ; but many a time 
 he thinks the calm itself is a wonderful reformation, a 
 state of prayer, or as good as that, and so he does nothing, 
 and the devil and the winds come back, with more power 
 of possession than before. Just as if a calm in a man's 
 passions, that often die away for the present by mere 
 exhaustion, or that by reason of monotony or discontent 
 
302 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 seek a dry place for a season, were going to carry a man 
 to heaven, were the work of religion in his heart ! Oh, 
 no ! There is an infinite difference between a temporary 
 lull of passion in a man's soul, and t}ie breathings of the 
 Divine Spirit ; between the quietness of a man's will for a 
 season, and the setting up of God's will in the heart ; 
 between silence in the soul, and positive communion with 
 God. 
 
 The state and atmosphere of prayer is a far higher 
 region than this, a region into which a man never will 
 rise by the mere thinking of God. A man will do many 
 things in the state and atmosphere of earth, and undergo 
 much hard work in various ways, by which he may endea- 
 vor to persuade himself that he is a child of God, and a 
 man of prayer ; and yet may never spread the wings of 
 his soul, and fly up into that higher region in actual com- 
 munion with God, in actual prayer. Aye, the leaden 
 atmosphere of earth weighs down those wings, and the 
 long habits of spiritual indolence, and self-indulgence, and 
 religious procrastination, are wound like cords round about 
 those wings, so that a man will not spread them, and self- 
 love with self-deception glues them to a man's earthly 
 shoulders, so that he walks about in sin, in neglect of God, 
 in destitution of all faith and all communion with heaven, 
 and only dreams that he is flying. Who has not had such 
 experiences in the night-visions, when he has gone career- 
 ing in the air like a swift eagle, and then also perhaps has 
 dropped like a stone to the earth, not able to lift one foot 
 above another ! This dreaming of flying is something 
 like many persons dreaming of prayer. 
 
 But this flying in one's dreams is not the patient walking 
 after Christ daily. Prayer is a definite thing. It is the 
 daily expression of our wants, the making known of our 
 wants to our Father in Heaven, and the earnest, humble 
 seeking for a supply of them. Prayer is the absolute 
 necessity of a sin-sick, dying, ruined soul, casting itself on 
 the Almighty Redeemer for mercy. Prayer is the fervor 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 303 
 
 of a soul wrestling for an eternal blessing. Mere silence 
 in the soul is not prayer. There would be error in those 
 lines of the Poet : 
 
 Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, 
 Uttered or unexpressed ; 
 
 were it not that the whole hymn is composed on the 
 supposition of a Christian soul maintaining its special, 
 particular seasons of prayer to God daily, with the expres- 
 sion of its wants and desires, as definite as it can make 
 them. Without such a habit, formed and maintained 
 daily in the soul, as a fixture of the daily life, there will be 
 no such thing as unexpressed desires after God. There 
 will be no such thing as a spirit of prayer, there never is, 
 without special, daily seasons of prayer. Prayer is the 
 motion of a hidden fire, that burns within the breast ; it 
 is the motion of that fire ascending up to God, the expres- 
 sion of it. There must be words, and there must be daily 
 seasons to express them, and then the fire will keep burning, 
 even in the interval of time when the words are not 
 uttered. Take with you words, says the Prophet, and 
 go to God. After this manner pray ye. Thou, when thou 
 prayest, enter into thy closet, and pray to thy Father 
 which is in secret. Give us this day our daily bread. 
 Definite desires, definite petitions, definite seasons sacredly 
 maintained, constitute the life of prayer. 
 
 Some imaginary general believers, amidst their neglect 
 and disregard of the particulars of Christianity, may possibly 
 say, I am praying all the time ; I can pray as well with my 
 head upon my pillow, or walking down Broadway, or in the 
 Strand, as in the most secret retirement ; which is a fool's 
 thought, and no better than dreaming of flying ; and indeed, 
 if that be all a man's praying, he is most certainly walking 
 down Broadway. You may sometimes hear it said of 
 others, who have died at the close of what is called a moral 
 life, although they have never professed or perhaps imagined 
 
304 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 any particular attachment to Christ in that life, or any 
 faith in his atoning blood, that the life of such an one was 
 prayer. It is a wild, unbelieving dream and delusion. 
 Before any man can begin to have arty such thing true in 
 any measure whatever, he must have formed the secret 
 habit daily of prayer at definite seasons, in definite words, 
 in definite desires that themselves produce the words. In 
 forming that habit, every man will meet with temptations 
 and difficulties. Wandering thoughts will have to be 
 restrained. Impatience, weariness, coldness, unbelief, 
 interruptions, neglects, heartlessness, will work fearfully 
 upon the soul, will strive to eat out the heart of a man's 
 piety in prayer, will crowd upon him to jostle him away 
 from the throne of grace ; but he must press on through 
 evil report and good report, or the habit of prayer will 
 never be formed, and the spirit of prayer will never abide 
 in the soul. 
 
 It is for want of an exceedingly zealous attentiveness 
 to these things, and watchfulness over them, in the forma- 
 tion of a strong, deep habit of following Christ daily in 
 prayer, that so many Christians lose all the enjoyment and 
 beauty of a life of faith, if they do not take up with a 
 hope of heaven utterly delusive. The heart wanders from 
 God inevitably, if it do not abide in Christ daily in 
 earnest prayer. And when these heart-wanderings have 
 become a habit, they then become the heart's whole life. 
 The forms of religion, of church and household piety, 
 may be maintained awhile, for the profession of a Chris- 
 tian may continue to bind him to those performances, even 
 when the heart is gone, but they become mere forms. 
 Their maintenance is heartless, and without joy. The 
 soul does not meet God in his sanctuary, nor at the family- 
 altar, nor in secret prayer. These duties are without zest, 
 without delight, without unction. The phrases of piety 
 may be repeated, and they may be the same expressions 
 which once flowed from the heart, grew out of God's 
 Spirit in the heart, and were full of heart- warmth and life ; 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 305 
 
 but now the lips repeat them, while there is no experience 
 of their meaning, no corresponding sense of them in the 
 soul. They are like a collection of wax figures in the 
 place of living beings. The use of such expressions does 
 not recall the experience indicated by them, nor restore 
 the soul to a living knowledge of their realities ; no more 
 than a man can, by sitting in the arm-chair of a dear 
 departed friend, call back the lost one into life ; no more 
 than a man could, by kneeling at the tomb of a dead saint, 
 be animated by his living fervor. The phrases of piety, 
 in such a case, are as a dead language, or as the exponents 
 of a science not understood, or as the nomenclature of 
 philosophy to a heathen. The duties of piety likewise, as 
 well as the expressions, are equally a mere formalism, per- 
 haps they become an absolute hypocrisy. 
 
 The profession of a Christian, whose heart has thus 
 gone out of his piety, or whose piety he has let go out of 
 his heart, may keep him appearing as a Christian, standing 
 among other Christians as a Christian, a long time ; just 
 as a very thick bark will long keep a rotten tree standing 
 erect amidst other trees, in the forest. And this thick 
 rind or bark of the forms of piety may keep a man a 
 great while from the discovery of his inward rottenness, 
 when, if the bark had dropped off just in proportion as the 
 rottenness came on, his inward state would have stood dis- 
 closed both to himself and others. Just suppose the case 
 of a man accustomed to a prayer-book and a liturgy, or 
 to any set expressions of piety, having his tongue suddenly 
 palsied at every phrase which his heart had ceased to 
 understand and to accompany ; or suppose that instead of 
 the expressions of pious feeling, when his heart has wan- 
 dered away from God, his lips should utter just what his 
 heart is filled with, instead of his accustomed forms of 
 prayer. Suppose that there were such a law in a man's 
 being, that his inward departures from God should be fol- 
 lowed by an external inability to pronounce the words of 
 that religious experience, which he has suffered to decay. 
 
306 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 His forms of piety and prayer would then, instead of 
 serving for a concealment, be the judgment and conviction 
 of his hollowness. By their brokenness, incoherence, and 
 chaos, the inward departure from Gpd would be measured 
 and manifested. How many a man in the churcl^and at 
 the family-altar and in his secret retirement, would have 
 the shame of an enforced silence, or of mutterings in an 
 unknown tongue, or of the repetitions of his last success- 
 ful investments in business, or the arithmetic of his ledger, 
 or the revolving germ of a new speculation, or the com- 
 pass of some anticipated pleasure. Instead of the words, 
 Son of God Most High, have mercy upon us ! there might 
 have been heard in the midst of the congregation the 
 words, Bonds and Mortgage, good security ! And instead 
 of the contrite petition, God be merciful to me a sinner ! 
 the sinful man might himself hear, even in his own retire- 
 ment, the rapid, unconscious pursuit, aloud, of his soul's 
 utter worldliness, in insensibility to sin, and forgetfulness 
 of God and eternity. And such an enforced utterance of 
 just what was in the soul, and of nothing else, would be a 
 startling discovery of the man's real character, which 
 might, in many cases, save a soul from utter perdition. 
 
 In this light, how incalculably important in a man's 
 being are his habits of prayer ! With what ceaseless 
 vigilance should they be watched and formed, and the fire 
 of faith and love never be permitted to steal away from 
 them ! As fixtures in the religious character, they should 
 be set right at first, from the very outset. Let every man 
 take heed how he buildeth. In the building up of spiritual 
 character it is very much as it is in building houses. A 
 man constructing his house from the foundation with a 
 view to the best improvements, carries it up all the way 
 with reference to them. If he is to have water in every 
 room, he runs his grooves for the pipes accordingly, when 
 the walls are in building. If he will have every room in 
 the house heated by a furnace, he begins this work with 
 the foundations, and carries it up from story to story. If 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 307 
 
 he will have a thorough ventilation, the arrangements 
 must be made for that in like manner. If he builds a 
 house hastily, carelessly, without any regard to these things, 
 any eye to them, he cannot afterwards introduce them, 
 without a labor and expense almost as great as that of 
 the original structure without them. 
 
 Just so it is with a man's Christian character. He 
 must make it thorough from the outset, must build it of the 
 best materials, the best habits, in the best manner. It will 
 save him a world of trouble in the end. It will accom- 
 plish for him a vast amount of usefulness and of happiness, 
 which otherwise he will lose, will be unfitted for. And it 
 will save him a vast amount of damage. For if he does 
 not begin right, he will not only lose a great many good 
 things, but he will introduce a great many questionable, 
 awkward, evil things. If he build the gold, silver, precious 
 stones of heavenly habits, in, upon, and for Christ, they 
 will last, they will not have to be taken down, and built 
 over again ; they will stand the fires of temptation here, 
 and of judgment hereafter. But if he build wood, hay, 
 stubble, the stubble t>f loose, or self-indulgent, or injurious 
 habits, the house of his piety is liable to take fire at any 
 time ; every storm will make rents in it, every temptation 
 will break it through ; it will be a poor miserable tenement 
 while he lives in it, and he himself will be saved out of it 
 only so as by fire, only by having all the wood, hay, and 
 stubble burned up ; a devouring conflagration, in which a 
 man may think himself infinitely happy, if his own soul 
 escape the burning. 
 
 A man should remember, from the beginning, that his 
 habits of prayer are fixtures ; everything depends upon 
 them. Prayer governs everything in the following of the 
 soul after Christ. If Faith governs and inspires prayer, 
 prayer again directs the life of Faith. You want this 
 habit of prayer to be such from the outset, that by and by, 
 when your religious character is found to be quite fixed, 
 your house builded, you shall not have occasion to wish 
 
308 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 that you could take it all down again, in order to put in 
 new fixtures from the foundation. You want the chan- 
 nels, the habitual channels, of your aspirations after God, 
 in your times of secret intercourse jvvith Him, to be worn 
 so deep and blessed, that the energy, the thought, the feel- 
 ing of your whole being will concentrate there, will pour 
 on in a tide of holy rapture, when the gate is opened, that 
 nothing can turn or stay. You want habits of positive 
 and absolute communion with God ; such habits in prayer, 
 that the time which you do take for that set action shall be 
 all saved, all used in prayer, all on a flame in the lamp of 
 your existence. You want the elements which you carry 
 to the work of intercourse with your Father in Heaven to 
 burn brightly, not feebly. You want an energy in prayer 
 so habitual, and so habitually springing into exercise, when 
 you come to the hour of retirement, and go in secret to 
 seek your God, that your whole attention of mind and 
 intensity of life shall have employment in that hour, and 
 shall fill it up. You want a fixedness of habit, and a 
 habit of fixedness, in your heart upon God and celestial 
 reality, that shall bar out wandering thoughts, or rather 
 shall take them captive, and turn them into the fuel of the 
 heavenly flame rising in your soul to heaven. 
 
 There is almost nothing so desirable as this. For want of 
 this fixedness of the heart in prayer, a great many hours that 
 seem to be spent in prayer, are almost wasted. For want 
 of this habit, rightly formed, cultivated, and strengthened 
 from the outset, it cost a great deal of time to do the work 
 of a very little time otherwise. Let this habit be formed 
 early in one's religious life, and let that religious life be 
 formed early in life, and then, when the forming, the sug- 
 gestive and germinating period of character is passed, the 
 controlling channel of prayer in the soul will be found 
 so deep, so broad, so fixed, that, as we said, the energies 
 of the being will concentrate within it, and the work of 
 hours and days of loose thought, of inattentive, wander- 
 ing thought, or of indifferent feeling, shall be accomplished 
 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 309 
 
 in moments. A man who has this habit of solemn, holy, 
 affectionate fixedness of the soul on God in prayer, will 
 get nearer to Him, will gain more strength, more grace, a 
 greater supply of faith, and every encouragement and 
 impulse in the Divine Life (and if he be interceding for 
 others, will do more for them) in five minutes, than a soul 
 without this habit, a soul of wandering thoughts and low 
 affections, in as many hours. There is no possibility of 
 exaggerating the importance of this fixedness of the soul 
 upon God in prayer, when you come to the set act of 
 prayer. 
 
 And to this end, these set seasons should be frequent, 
 and a liberal portion of time should be given to them. 
 They should not be less in number than King David's ; 
 evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray and cry 
 aloud unto Thee ; and they should not be less in fervor 
 than his ; my soul followeth hard after Thee ; and they 
 should not be less in time, each one of them, than to 
 enable the soul to collect its whole energies, under the 
 impulse of Faith and Love, to be poured out in a sweet 
 season of communion with God and fellowship with the 
 Redeemer. What faith this requires, what effort it takes, 
 every man knows, who strives daily to walk closely with 
 God ; but also, every such man knows from deep and 
 thankful experience, how blessed are the results of such 
 faith and effort, such holy diligence, sustained by the grace 
 of God. It is a foretaste of heaven on earth, and is 
 worth every effort, cost what it may, thus to walk daily 
 with God, thus daily to FOLLOW CHRIST. 
 
 Thy mansion is the Christian's heart; 
 O Lord, thy dwelling-place secure. 
 Bid the unruly throng depart, 
 And leave the consecrated door. 
 
 Devoted as it is to Thee, 
 A thievish swarm frequents the place ; 
 They steal away my joys from me, 
 And rob my Saviour of his praise. 
 
310 GRACE AND TRUTH, CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 
 
 There, too, a sharp designing trade 
 Sin, Satan, and the world maintain ; 
 Nor cease to press me, and persuade 
 To part with ease, and purchase pain. 
 
 I know them, and I hate their sin, 
 Am weary of the bustling crowd ; 
 But while their voice is heard within, 
 I cannot serve Thee as I would. 
 
 for the joy thy presence gives ! 
 
 What peace shall reign when Thou art here ! 
 Thy presence makes this den of thieves 
 A calm, delightful house of prayer. 
 
 And if Thou make thy temple shine, 
 Yet, self-abased, will I adore. 
 The gold and silver are not mine ; 
 
 1 give Thee what was Thine before. 
 
 COWPER. 
 
DEVELOPMENT, DISCIPLINE, 
 
 AND 
 
 FBUITS OF FAITH, 
 
 PART FOURTH. 
 
 GRACE AND TRUTH. 
 CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OF GLORY 
 
WINDINGS OF THE KIVEE, 
 CONTINUED. 
 
 4^^ 
 
 fN 
 
 -i..:^-"-?" 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 Christ the Light of the Soul. In this world, partial, as through a glass darkly. 
 In the Celestial world, supreme, entire, unmingled, universal. The single 
 eye, and the Spiritual body. 
 
 * 
 
 WE are told of a Brahman in India, whose faith makes it 
 an article of religious duty to abstain from eating the flesh 
 of animals, who one day met an Englishman exhibiting 
 a microscope. The Englishman, to convince the Brahman 
 of the absurdity of his superstition, would show him that 
 he could not help eating the flesh of animals, even though 
 he lived upon vegetables alone. He therefore persuaded 
 him to look through his microscope at a piece of fruit or 
 vegetable production, which formed part of the Brahman's 
 daily food, when to the horror of the man he beheld whole 
 herds of living creatures detected by the power of the 
 instrument, and demonstrating the falsehood of his Pagan 
 theology. He was so indignant at the sight, that he 
 seized the microscope and trampled it under foot, breaking 
 it in pieces, thinking perhaps that he had thus destroyed 
 the evidence in nature against him. So the sinful heart may 
 be tempted to think that by keeping away from the light, 
 or shutting the light out, it may keep quiet in the persua- 
 
 J4 
 
314 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 sion of its own goodness and security. And so a man in 
 the indulgence of anything that is wrong avoids the light, 
 and would destroy the evidence. But a man whose desire 
 is that Christ should rule supremely ip his heart and life, a 
 man whose eye is single to Christ, will be willing and 
 desirous to have Christ's eye single upon him, and every- 
 thing open to Christ's inspection and the trial of the 
 truth. When this is the case, the whole body will be full 
 of light ; there will be very few causes or occasions of 
 darkness. 
 
 There being this reliance of the soul on Christ, this 
 singleness and fixedness of purpose in divine things, this 
 breathing of the soul after him, will lead to great and 
 persevering intensity in prayer, and the Holy Spirit will 
 be vouchsafed, and God will shine into the heart, so that 
 it will be full of light without any darkness. Purity and 
 disinterestedness of motive is the first and most important 
 thing, the very spring of light, the spiritual atmosphere, 
 that not only surrounds, but permeates the being, and ren- 
 ders it transparent, so that the light, as it were, goes 
 through and through it. With this singleness and fixed- 
 ness of purpose and purity of motive, there will be great 
 simplicity of mind, and an intuitive discernment of light 
 and knowledge. The insight of the soul into divine things 
 will be spontaneous. He that is spiritual judgeth all things, 
 for the Spirit that dwells within him searcheth all things, 
 even the deep things of God. His soul is as different from 
 that of a natural man, as a palace with windows is dif- 
 ferent from a subterranean dungeon. Simple love to 
 Christ, and fixedness of the heart on Him, make the soul 
 transparent, for heavenly light to enter, and dwell in every 
 part. 
 
 This, certainly, is the meaning of that text, If thine eye 
 be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. Single, 
 that is, simple, undivided, sincere, and straight to its 
 object. But what is that object ? Single to what ? What 
 can it be but Christ, the source of duty and of light ? 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OP GLORY. 315 
 
 Single to Christ, and not looking askant to earth and self. 
 Single to the Source of light. Or, if we take it in the 
 connexion, which is an argument and command not to lay 
 up treasure on earth but in heaven, for where your trea- 
 sure is there will your heart be also, and if your heart be 
 fixed on that treasure, that is, if your eye be single to that, 
 then your whole body shall be full of light ; take it in 
 this way, and the matter is just as plain as before. For 
 what is heaven, and what is your treasure there, but 
 Christ, and what are you to seek but Christ ? Still, no- 
 thing but Christ, so that the meaning of the passage is 
 perfectly plain, and it is not possible to hide or darken it. 
 This singleness commanded is fixedness of the soul on 
 God, on heaven, on Christ ; a supreme regard to his will, 
 and to your duty to him, and to those things on which he 
 commands you to fasten your affections. This is to have 
 the eye single ; and having this, you are sure of the pro- 
 mise that follows, fulness of light. 
 
 The light promised is in reference to God, spiritual 
 things, and our duty. The evidence of such things will 
 be seen and felt in all its irresistible power and fulness. 
 There shall be such light, as to overcome doubt, and pro- 
 duce assurance. He that will do God's will shall know of 
 the doctrine, whether it be of God, shall see, recognise, 
 and know it without mistake, in some measure as God 
 knows it ; it will appear to the soul that is born of God as 
 it appears to God. It will be a clear transparency of 
 truth, producing a knowledge and conviction heartfelt and 
 unassailable in the inmost being. He that believeth hath 
 the witness in himself ; and God gives to the believer in 
 Christ the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the know- 
 ledge of him, the eyes of their understanding being 
 enlightened, that they may know what is the hope of his 
 calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance 
 in the Saints. Open thou mine eyes, says David, that 
 I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. God 
 
316 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 answers this prayer, and he causes the soul to behold still 
 more wondrous things out of the gospel. He shines into 
 the heart with the light of the knowledge of his glory in 
 the face of Christ. The Spirit takes of the things that 
 are Christ's and shows them to the soul. It is light upon 
 the attributes of God, especially as manifested in the cross 
 and person of the Saviour ; and it is light on the ways of 
 God to man, and on every part of truth and providence 
 disclosed in the book of revelation, and on God's govern- 
 ment of the world, as seen in the light of revelation. 
 Thus filling the souls of believers with truth and grace, 
 God makes them meet to be partakers of the inheritance 
 of the saints in light. It is an inheritance in light ; that 
 is one of its titles ; no night there, nor darkness, nor any 
 need of candle, nor light of the sun. God makes his peo- 
 ple meet for that inheritance, by making them now children 
 of the light. Ye are all the children of the light and 
 children of the day ; we are not of the night, nor of dark- 
 ness. For ye were sometime darkness, but now are ye 
 light in the Lord ; walk as children of light. And God 
 accomplishes this by setting before the soul the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, and causing it by the Spirit to behold in the 
 glass of faith the glory of the Lord, and thus to be changed 
 into the same image from glory to glory as by the Spirit 
 of the Lord. It is a ministration of glory. 
 
 Christ being thus the central luminary, in which the 
 soul sees all things, and from which it draws all wisdom 
 and knowledge, it is like the angel standing in the sun, a 
 position, in which there are no shadows. In this position 
 the light from Christ falls on all things. The nature of 
 sin is seen in it, the character of mankind, the justice and 
 certainty of the opposite awards to the righteous and the 
 wicked, all the relations of theology towards man as well 
 as towards God. We have an unction from the Holy One, 
 says the Apostle, and know all things ; and he that is thus 
 spiritual, occupying this spiritual position in Christ, 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OF GLORY. 317 
 
 judgeth all things. God is light, and in him is no dark- 
 ness at all, and therefore he that in Christ dwelleth in God, 
 dwelleth in light. 
 
 But intellectually, this light must at present be partial, 
 even though the soul be standing in the sun. Or rather, 
 though the light be not partial, yet the view of the soul 
 must necessarily be so, because, in the nature of things 
 and by reason of our limited capacities, we cannot now 
 see all things in their true relative position. It is only 
 morally, in the way of faith and love, that our light can 
 be absolutely full, excluding darkness. There may be 
 impassable gulfs in our vision, intellectually, and such gaps 
 and breaks must be filled up with love, or bridged over by 
 faith ; and love will prevent darkness, even though the 
 mind may be at a loss, may not be able to see. He that 
 folio weth me, says our Blessed Lord, shall not walk in 
 darkness, but shall have the light of life. The promise is 
 unfailing, but remember, it is the light of life, not of the 
 mere dry intellect, that is promised, not of intellectual 
 abstractions and subtleties. A man's soul may be full of 
 this glorious light of life, though there may be many things 
 which he cannot see. Not seeing does not necessarily 
 involve darkness, for a man may not see many things even 
 at noon-day, because the objects are too far off; and some- 
 times you cannot see, because of the very excess of light. 
 But the path of the just is as the shining light, which 
 shineth more and more unto the perfect day. There is a 
 progression from one degree of light to another. There 
 is a partial day, and there is a perfect day ; the partial day 
 is here, the perfect day in heaven ; and when that which 
 is perfect is come, then that which is partial shall be done 
 away. But till then, we walk by faith, not by sight, and 
 there are occasions on which the very purpose and disci- 
 pline of God in teaching us and preparing us for the light, 
 and the perfect day, require that we should be for a season, 
 or in some things, in darkness. But even on such occa- 
 sions they may be occasions of trial in affliction, or 
 
318 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 occasions of severe assaults from the great Tempter, or 
 occasions of discipline from sin, in which the soul has to 
 say with Jeremiah, He hath led me into darkness, but not 
 light ; on all such occasions, the believing soul, being re- 
 signed to God's will, and sure that he is . doing what is 
 right, and all things well, though it may be in darkness, 
 will wait patiently in humble submission and confidence, 
 if not in joy and peace, knowing that all things shall issue 
 in light, though now for the present, if need be, the soul is 
 in heaviness through manifold temptations and trials. 
 The mere being in darkness, therefore, is no proof that 
 you are not a child of God. Sometimes, in some respects, 
 darkness is necessary, in order that you may see and know 
 the things that are freely given to you of God. There 
 are different kinds of light, and sometimes the light in 
 which you are walking in this world may operate just 
 merely as a veil to keep you from seeing the light of the 
 celestial world. 
 
 Have you ever been with children to see an exhibition 
 of transparencies in painting ? Perhaps you have, fre- 
 quently, and to very splendid ones, and yet may not have 
 drawn from their arrangement the spiritual lesson, which 
 the simplest exhibition of the kind might awaken. We 
 were once, on such an occasion, all seated and waiting in 
 a lighted room, when the proprietor and master of the 
 show came, and told us that for a season he must put out 
 our lights, and leave us in darkness, but that there would 
 be light enough in the transparencies themselves, when 
 they began to shine. And so it was indeed, for we needed 
 no light but that which came from the other side through 
 the transparencies, filling the whole room. And so it is 
 with all God's dealings. Thy judgments are as the light 
 that goeth forth, says the Psalmist. Sometimes God says 
 to us, I must put out your lights, or you cannot see mine. 
 But I put yours out, only in order that you may see mine, 
 and never more be in darkness. I leave you in darkness 
 for a season, but when you behold my glory, you will be 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OF GLORY. 319 
 
 satisfied ; when the transparency shines, there will be light 
 enough. God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to 
 perform. 
 
 Deep in unfathomable mines 
 
 Of never-failing skill, j 
 
 He treasures up his bright designs, 
 
 And works his Sovereign will. 
 
 But we cannot judge him by feeble sense ; that is our 
 light, which he must sometimes darken, in order that we 
 may trust him for his grace, and so see him, and observe 
 how, behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face. 
 This is God's infinite, divine wisdom. 
 
 Blind unbelief is sure to err, 
 
 And scan his work in vain : 
 God is his own Interpreter, 
 
 And He will make it plain. 
 
 It is manifest, therefore, that it is only faith and love 
 which can in this world exclude darkness, and make the 
 soul a creation of light in Christ. This is the experience 
 of heaven begun on earth ; this is the light of heaven 
 shining on earth. If thine eye be thus single, thy whole 
 body shall be full of light, in such fulness, that there shall 
 be no part dark, but it shall be as when the bright shining 
 of a candle doth give thee light, filling every place in 
 thine apartment. This singleness of motive, this simple, 
 reigning, heartfelt love, makes the soul an undivided king- 
 dom of glory. Darkness is shut out, and there is no room 
 for any thing but light. Self-will is not in the way, for -self 
 is forgotten; not so much sacrificed, as forgotten ; for, where 
 all is given up, there is no need of sacrifice, nothing to be 
 relinquished. Love gives up all, and regards it not as a 
 sacrifice, even in the very act of sacrificing all ; love thinks 
 not of self, but God is all in all. God's will is the delight of 
 the soul God's precepts delighted in, God's law, God's pur-. 
 
320 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 poses, God's commands, sought and obeyed from love, bring 
 liberty and light. Freedom from self is eternal liberty. To 
 lose sight of self in God is the most perfect independence 
 and freedom in the universe. Self beijig forgotten, and God 
 reigning supremely in the soul, the soul is one with God, 
 is a partaker of God's blessedness, God's light. The body 
 is full of light. God's will, God's designs, God's plan, will 
 be clearly seen and known, and the knowledge of God's 
 will is all that such a soul needs to make it blessed ; for 
 God is love, and his will is love, to the soul that loves him. 
 So, as we have said, even if you put such a soul in dark- 
 ness, its confidence in God makes it wait in submissive 
 joy and peace, knowing that all things shall issue in clear 
 light. 
 
 But this clear light without any darkness, and this issue 
 of all things into it, can only be in the future world, the 
 world of glory. Here, we see as through a glass darkly ; 
 but there, face to face. Here, we know in part, but there, 
 even as we are known. Here, we walk by faith, and by 
 the communications of God's Spirit revealing to us through 
 his Word something of the light of heaven. But all that 
 we see here is no more than an approximation towards 
 some conception of what is to be seen there. For in vain 
 does the imagination strive to fill the present horizon of 
 the soul's vision with definite forms. Beloved, says the 
 Apostle, now are we the sons of God ; and it doth not yet 
 appear what we shall be ; but. we know that when he shall 
 appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 
 When he, who is our life, shall appear, then shall we also 
 appear with him in glory. Then indeed, in a wonderful 
 sense, the whole body shall be full of light, for it will be 
 the glorified body of the resurrection of the just ; it will 
 be a body like unto Christ's glorious body, according to 
 the working wherewith he is able even to subdue all 
 things unto himself. 
 
 Now we cannot undertake to say certainly that this 
 glorified body was in Christ's mind when he spake the 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OP GLORY. 321 
 
 words, Thy whole body shall be full of light ; but we do 
 say that the words will then only receive all the fulfilment 
 of which they are capable, when their meaning is seen in 
 a body like unto Christ's glorious body ; in that body, which 
 all, whose heart and eye here are irradiated with the light 
 and love of Christ, are yet to put on. And here we say, 
 moreover, that one great reason of our utter incapacity to 
 form any definite conceptions of the glories of the heavenly 
 world, may be the want of that very medium, through 
 which alone the heavenly world can be definitely seen and 
 conversed with, and that is, a body which is the image of 
 Christ's body. When clothed upon with that house which 
 is from heaven, the soul will see and understand. It will 
 be as familiar with the scenes of heaven as the angels are, 
 and those scenes will be as familiar and as suited to the 
 souls of the redeemed in Christ's image with their glorified 
 spiritual body, as to the souls of angels. But it may be 
 absolutely impossible, without that spiritual organization, to 
 come into such communion with the spiritual world as all 
 the redeemed are advancing towards, and as all the angels 
 enjoy. 
 
 And this may be one of the mysterious reasons which 
 induced the assumption by our Blessed Lord of a body like 
 ours in accomplishing the work of redemption ; that that 
 body itself might be changed, glorified, and formed as a type, 
 according to which it would be possible, and according to 
 that alone, to be admitted amidst the glories of heaven 
 with the possibility of understanding them. God is said 
 to dwell in light inaccessible, and that no man hath seen nor 
 can see him, and this impossibility of seeing God as he is, 
 in that inaccessible light, may be taken away only by man 
 becoming just like Christ as he is, being clothed in a body 
 like unto his glorious body. And this may be one reason 
 for the unutterable yearnings and longings expressed in the 
 Scriptures for that transformation, for the time of putting 
 on that body. Then only will there be a full introduction 
 to the glories of the celestial world ; but then will the 
 
 14* 
 
322 GRACE AND TRUTH, CHRIST IN THE SOUL, &.C. 
 
 whole body be full of light, such and so glorious that till 
 then there can be no adequate conception of it. In the 
 expectation of such light the saints are willing to see for 
 the present as through a glass darkly. 1 
 
 A glance from heaven, with sweet effect, 
 
 Sometimes my pensive spirit cheers, 
 But ere I can my thoughts collect, 
 
 As suddenly it disappears. 
 So lightning, in the gloom of night, 
 
 Affords a momentary day, 
 Disclosing objects full in sight, 
 
 Which, soon as seen, are snatched away. 
 
 But shall I murmur at relief ? 
 
 Though short, it was a precious view, 
 Sent to control my unbelief, 
 
 And prove that what I read was true. 
 The lightning's flash did not create 
 
 The opening prospect it revealed, 
 But only showed the real state 
 
 Of what the darkness had concealed. 
 
 Just so we by a glimpse discern 
 
 The glorious things within the veil, 
 That when in darkness we may learn 
 
 To live by Faith, till light prevail. 
 The Lord's great day will soon advance, 
 
 Dispersing all the shades of night; 
 Then we no more shall need a glance, 
 
 But see by an eternal light. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 The Vision of Faith continued. Spiritual discernment only from God. The 
 natural man and the Spiritual man, the blind man and the seeing. 
 
 NOTHING can be more emphatic, precise, and unmistakable 
 than the manner in which the Scriptures speak of the 
 natural blindness of men's hearts, until they are brought 
 under the influence of the grace of God. Then, and not 
 till then, they begin to see with the vision of faith ; then, 
 and not till then, can they be said to see. " For judgment 
 I am come into this world, that they which see not might 
 see, and that they which see might be made blind." The 
 first step to a man's spiritual eyesight is this conviction of 
 his blindness ; then he sits by the way-side, when Christ is 
 passing by, and cries, Lord, that I might receive my sight ! 
 The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of 
 God. But when the natural man, in this non-receptive 
 blindness, is brought to the Great Physician, and the 
 operation of couching takes place, then he begins to see ; 
 and as the cure comes to its perfection, then the two states 
 exhibited in that passage in*the Epistle to the Corinthians 
 are manifested in their contrast. The natural man re- 
 ceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, but he that is 
 spiritual judgeth, or discerneth, all things. 
 
 The discernment here spoken of is the teaching of the 
 Spirit of God. The blindness spoken of came not from 
 God but from man, and is the work of Satan in man. 
 But the clear-sightedness here spoken of is from God, not 
 
324 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 man or Satan. Satan's kingdom is that of darkness, and 
 if a man gives himself up to it, he is marching to the 
 blackness of darkness for ever. God's kingdom is that of 
 light, and if a man J}y Christ's invitation will come into it, 
 he shall be prepared, and at length received, into that 
 world of glory, where they have no need either of the sun 
 or the moon to enlighten it, for the Lord God and the 
 Lamb are the light and the temple of it. 
 
 The teaching of God's Spirit is in the heart. God 
 begins there, and works upon the affections. The Divine 
 Spirit does not come with a great array of sciences, 
 chemical lectures, mathematical demonstrations, Aristo- 
 telian subtleties, or interminable absolutisms of German 
 metaphysics, or systems either of logic, or theology, or 
 materialism, cut and dried as classified anatomies in a 
 museum. Nothing of all this, which by its very presenta- 
 tion flatters the pride of intellect in man. Except ye 
 become as little children, not as wise philosophers, there 
 is no teaching for you here. And ye must come as little 
 children, or ye will never become either children or wise 
 men in the school of Christ ; for the very first lesson of 
 the Great Teacher is what ? Rhetoric ? Logic ? Mira- 
 cles ? Churches ? Baptisms ? Sciences ? No ! nothing 
 of all this, but just simply, meekness and lowliness of 
 heart ; and then a man does indeed get into the very heart 
 and soul of knowledge, while all others are but just walk- 
 ing blindfold over the outside crust. Learn of me, for I 
 am meek and lowly in heart, and that is the first lesson. 
 So God begins with the heart. The teaching of his Spirit 
 prepares the heart to see, and then the mind is taught to 
 see, through the heart. God hath shined in our hearts. 
 He must begin there, because there, and not in the mind, 
 is the seat of darkness and evil. In all moral things the 
 mind is within the heart, not the heart within the mind ; 
 in all moral things the heart is the window of the mind, 
 not the mind the window of the heart. The veil of the god 
 of this world is over the heart first ; he could never get it 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OF GLORY. 325 
 
 over the mind otherwise. The mental philosophy of the 
 Bible is just this, in the fourth chapter of Ephesians ; 
 Vanity of mind, having the understanding darkened, being 
 alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that 
 is in them, because of the blindness of their heart. There- 
 fore the Great Physician of the soul, whose Omniscience 
 discerns not the mere symptoms, but the seat of the disease, 
 goes directly to the heart. 
 
 There the teaching of God's Spirit produces this spiritual 
 discernment, which is sharpened and increased just in 
 proportion as a right state of the affections is produced 
 and made permanent. A right state of the affections 
 towards God is the whole secret of light and knowledge. 
 If thine eye be single, thy whole body, thy whole being, 
 mortal and immortal, shall be full of light. This right 
 state of the affections in spiritual things is analogous to a 
 clear state of the atmosphere in material things, for the 
 affections may be called the atmosphere of the soul. 
 There is as great a difference of times and states in the 
 one case as in the other. Sometimes, walking on the sea- 
 shore, you can see far out over it. Again it is dim and 
 hazy, and you can see nothing. Just so in spiritual things. 
 Sometimes in sailing over the ocean you can see as far as 
 the very roundness of the globe will suffer you; you 
 can see the tops of the masts, when the hull is hidden by 
 the globe's convexity. Just so you can sometimes see 
 the colors, the pennants, the top-gallant sails of Divine 
 Truths, when the hull is hidden from you by the very con- 
 stitution of your being, as a creature of this world, and of 
 a perishable body. 
 
 Sometimes even in sailing by night, under a cloudless 
 sky, although there be no moon, the air is so serenely 
 clear, and the stars are so glittering, that no signals are 
 needed ; you are in no danger of striking a ship in your 
 course, or a reef before you. But again the air shall be 
 so thick, so foggy, that even by day you can see nothing 
 before you, but must sail, if at all, by the lead and line, 
 
326 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 and by ringing the alarm bell, that the sound may tell, 
 where the sight fails. 
 
 Now we suppose there is quite as great a difference 
 produced, by the state of the affections? in the atmosphere 
 of the soul. When the heart is right with God, humble, 
 submissive, believing, the things of eternity rise up with a 
 divine clearness. Where there is no selfishness in the 
 way, O with what beauty and glory do all God's dispensa- 
 tions and revelations of himself appear ! How clearly are 
 truths seen, and how powerfully apprehended and felt, 
 which at other times, and in a different state of the affec- 
 tions, are scarcely distinguished or realized at all ! The 
 simplest truths sometimes come out as in a new revelation. 
 You wonder where you have been, or what you have been 
 doing all this while, that you had not seen them in this 
 light before. They are as windows in heaven. You seem 
 in such a case as if carried past the stars into heaven's 
 pure ether, or as if sailing gloriously amidst Paradisaical 
 islands, where every object is full of radiance and beauty. 
 New worlds upon worlds seem opening before you. 
 
 But at other times, let the heart be wrong, let it be 
 earthly, self-seeking, distrustful of God, anxious, prayerless, 
 and nothing of all this glory can be seen. You may be 
 carried past the same stars in the same position, but you 
 shall not see them ; you may sail amidst the same islands, 
 but the air is so thick, that you shall strike the rocks 
 before you are aware of them. And sometimes in the 
 voyages of your soul you shall feel that you can only go 
 by anxious soundings, the compass itself seeming useless, 
 not knowing your bearings, hearing here and there, per- 
 haps, the dim tolling bell amidst the thick darkness, warn- 
 ing you to keep off. Or you may neither hear nor see 
 anything by which you can fix your position, and you may 
 be tossed like Paul in his vessel up and down in Adria, 
 wishing for the day, happy if meanwhile your anchors 
 will hold you, till you can see what to do. 
 
 But he that is spiritual discerneth all things. As many 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OF GLORY. 327 
 
 as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the children of 
 God. We must let God's sacred Word make its own 
 definitions, for the Holy Ghost thus teacheth, by compar- 
 ing spiritual things with spiritual. This being led by the 
 Spirit of God is the secret of all true spiritual discernment. 
 The Spirit takes of the things that are Christ's, and shows 
 them to the soul ; that, in fact, belongs to the office of the 
 Holy Ghost the Comforter. The Spirit leads the soul into 
 all truth, according to Christ's promise. He that is thus 
 taught, led, enlightened, is spiritual, and discerns all things 
 by the guidance of the Spirit. He understands by a 
 spiritual experience, things otherwise a blank mystery to 
 him. The soul never realizes the spiritual world without 
 this, nor becomes sensible either of its forms or infinite 
 interests and responsibilities of being. The very existence 
 of God is a thing not realized without this. 
 
 But if thy Spirit touch the soul, 
 
 And grace her mean abode, 
 Oh ! with what peace and joy and love 
 
 She then communes with God. 
 
 Truly the soul itself is as a dungeon without this. A 
 man must have this spiritual discernment, or the world 
 itself is as a prison and a sepulchre to him. A man 
 might as well be laid in the grave. For what is the differ- 
 ence between a space as big as a coffin, and a space as 
 large as our globe, if a man be without God, without 
 spiritual discernment. Such a man's soul is really in a 
 clay coffin, though the walls of the universe be the lids of 
 his sepulchre. 
 
 Now the degree of spiritual discernment possessed by a 
 being taught of the Spirit of God depends much upon the 
 habits of the soul, the study of spiritual things, the degree 
 of watchfulness against sin, the faithfulness of the soul in 
 prayer, the time one has been conversant with divine 
 realities, and the habit of living with reference to them. 
 
328 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 A long practised eye is keen-sighted. A prayerful, spiritual 
 Christian, drawing near the close of this mortal career, 
 sometimes seems to walk in open vision of unseen glories. 
 Hence Bunyan's most delightful and* yet truthful picture 
 of the Land Beulah. Hence the radiant vision of a soul 
 like Baxter, and his familiarity with the things of the 
 Saints' Rest. Hence the ravishing clearness with which 
 a soul like Edwards' sees the truths of the gospel, the 
 attributes of God, the glory of the Cross, the divine 
 majesty of the Saviour. And hence, too, the surprising 
 acquaintance of such souls with the mysteries of Revela- 
 tion. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, 
 and he will show them his covenant. An unction from 
 the Holy One rests upon them, and they know all things. 
 Hence their discernment of the human heart, and their 
 knowledge both of the natural and the spiritual man. 
 The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of 
 God ; the things of the natural man every man knows. 
 And the spiritual man, having once been the natural man, 
 knows his old state perfectly, and that of every other man 
 by it ; because, as in water face answereth to face, so the 
 heart of man answers to man. And by the light and 
 teachings of the Holy Spirit he now, as the spiritual man, 
 knows the deep workings of human depravity much more 
 thoroughly than he ever did as a natural man. He looks 
 back over the path he was so long pursuing, and over 
 which thousands upon thousands are now crowding, and 
 he sees where each soul is wandering in the congregation 
 of the dead. He himself having been brought out into the 
 light, looks back through the region of darkness, but they 
 that are in the darkness cannot see, through that, into the 
 region of light. He judges the natural man, but the 
 natural man cannot judge him, except only by seeing in 
 his life the fruits of the Spirit. But the hidden life of the 
 regenerated soul, the life hidden with Christ in God, is 
 discerned of no man. The things of God must be seen by 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OF GLORY. 329 
 
 the Spirit of God, by an experience produced by his Spirit 
 in the soul. 
 
 Now is there anything strange in this ? " Is this a hard 
 saying, that a man needs to be taught of God ; that sin 
 makes him blind, until God makes him to see ; and that all 
 the true piety he ever had or ever will have, comes from 
 God only ? Is it a hard saying, that man, being fallen 
 and lost, cannot save himself, but God must save him ? 
 Why, truly, we think it is a very blessed saying. It is 
 great joy and glory to feel that in our religion, at least, we 
 have got one element, that is no part of it from man, but 
 all of God. Men may take their full swing, if they please, 
 in self-glorification about their republicanism, and hospitals, 
 and gold mines, and steam-engines, and railroads, and 
 magnetic telegraphs ; but let them stop this side heaven ; 
 let them confess that the natural man receiveth not the 
 things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto 
 him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually 
 discerned. No, he must be taught of God, he must have 
 this spiritual discernment wrought in him. Where is 
 boasting then ? Thank God, it is excluded ; yea, there is 
 one thing out of which our pride is excluded utterly, and 
 no room left for it, because it is not of man, but only of 
 God. 
 
 This is a great triumph of our Redeemer's grace over 
 the temptations of Satan, so that he cannot tempt us with 
 his leering flatteries and lies about our godlike human 
 nature, a thing which we know we have trampled in the 
 mire of sin, and from which we have obliterated the divine 
 image. It is an infinite proof of the reality of this religion 
 of the Cross as God's religion, that it is God's wholly, 
 not man's ; that it is not the bolstering up of rotten posts 
 in man's ruined nature, banking them up so as to conceal 
 them, nor the nursing and cosseting and cultivating of his 
 religious and godlike tendencies in the midst of his sins ; 
 but a new creation, a new birth and growth, a new gar- 
 
 
330 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 ment, and not the patch-work of an old one. It is not 
 man cultivated up to God, but it is God coming down to 
 man, and making him a partaker of the divine nature 
 through the knowledge of Christ ; sb that, if any man be 
 in Christ, he is a new creature ; old things -are done away, 
 behold all things are become new, and all things are of 
 God. Any man, no matter who. He may have thought 
 himself ever so amiable, so virtuous, so free from evil, so 
 godlike ; if he be in Christ he is a new creature ; there is 
 nothing of the old man that can stand ; and if he be not 
 in Christ, he is not a new creature ; it is merely the same 
 old natural man that receiveth not the things of the Spirit 
 of God, so that whatever be the virtues of that natural 
 man, yet if he trusts in them, they are all but the traps of 
 Satan to keep him away from Christ. Virtues trusted in 
 may do that as well, and sometimes better, than crimes. 
 They are false weights put into a man's scales, by which, 
 though he may be priding himself on his never having 
 injured or cheated his fellow man, yet he cheats both him- 
 self and God, or rather attempts to do this, for God cannot 
 be deceived. But a man with Satan's help may very easily 
 deceive himself ; nay, he needs no help to do this ; and if 
 such self-deception keeps him away from Christ, it will be 
 his everlasting ruin. He must be a new creature if he 
 would be saved ; he never will be, but in Christ. 
 
 Now therefore, we see very clearly the infinite impor- 
 tance and blessedness of this spiritual discernment pre- 
 sented as characteristic only of the spiritual man, and the 
 only way of gaining it. It is most certainly the gift of 
 God's Spirit and that alone, and it must be sought with 
 great earnestness from God. It is in connexion with the 
 promise of this gift, that our Blessed Lord has insisted 
 upon this importunity. The heart that would neither be 
 blinded of self and Satan, nor left to insensibility, nor to 
 the delusions of peace when there is no peace, must come 
 to Jesus Christ for instruction and healing, must come to 
 God in prayer through him, must come to God's Word, 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OF GLORY. 331 
 
 begging for the light and sanctifying grace of God's Spirit. 
 And the mind must be careful not to come to the Word 
 of God under a cloud of prejudice, or in the mist of 
 notions preconceived in a state of blindness and insensi- 
 bility to spiritual truth. A man must remember how vast 
 and fatal may be the effect of a mistake either in regard 
 to his own character or God's character. He must come 
 with the prayer, God be merciful to me a sinner, and not, 
 God, I thank thee that I am not as other men. He must 
 come with humble views of ruined human natnre, or his 
 whole theology and religion will be a system of mistake 
 and ruin. Let it be remembered that Newton himself 
 was seventeen years calculating in vain in regard to the 
 heavenly bodies, because of a slight mistake as to the 
 measurement of the earth's circumference. Just so in 
 theology, a man may fail of learning the whole system, by 
 a misconception as to his own character and place in it. 
 He must take some accurate measurement of self before 
 he can learn God, and must come to God to learn the truth 
 in regard to self. God's Word will teach him his own 
 ruin, and the remedy for it, and Christ will anoint his eyes 
 with eye-salve that he may see. 
 
 And then the habit of looking at spiritual things is of 
 vast importance. A man's spiritual sight is greatly 
 strengthened by use. The inward eye must be purged 
 from films, and able to gaze fixedly and steadily, so as to 
 detect error and discern the truth. If you have ever been 
 at sea, you have noted how quickly, and almost miracu- 
 lously, an accustomed seaman will discern a far-off sail in 
 the horizon. It seems to a landsman like a supernatural 
 faculty, and such a man will gaze and gaze again in the 
 very direction pointed out to him, and yet can see nothing 
 of the reported sail. And often he cannot find it, even 
 though he looks through the telescope, when your practised 
 seaman with his sharp sight can see it with the naked eye. 
 It is because the landsman has been accustomed to look at 
 objects only near at hand, and to look at more distant objects 
 
332 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 through the comparatively dense and mixed atmosphere 
 that rests upon the earth. And just so, a spiritual mind, 
 accustomed to gaze over the ocean of Eternity, habituated 
 to a vast horizon, catches the truthj afar off, can tell you 
 its bearings, can discern, as it were, what, nation it is of, 
 even before an earthly mind can see it at all. 
 
 So a spiritual mind, with its piercing and practised 
 vision, can sometimes see a whole fleet of white sails cross- 
 ing the bright horizon of Eternal truth, when your earthly 
 mind will come up out of its cabin, and gaze in every 
 direction without seeing anything, declaring perhaps that 
 there is not a solitary sail visible. Give him the telescope, 
 the Word of God ; show him the text, with the truth break- 
 ing through it, as glory through a cleft in heaven ; and yet 
 he cannot see. He wonders how you can see, and sets it 
 down as vain enthusiasm. Just so a landsman at sea can- 
 not discern the land, when the man at the mast-head, yea 
 and all the crew, can see it afar off. So a mind accustomed 
 to earthly things, and to looking through an earthly medium, 
 cannot see divine truth as the eye of faith can see it. 
 Just so in the voyage of life, a mind that is taught of God, 
 and accustomed to the things of his Word, a prayerful 
 mind, and a humble, believing heart, sees a thousand signs 
 and realities, which a careless, unbelieving man never 
 notices. A spiritual voyager sees hidden rocks, and shoals, 
 and dangers, which a man neglectful of God and eternity 
 does not see, but makes his course directly over them. 
 He may escape them for a season, but by and by he will 
 make shipwreck of his soul. 
 
 Now amidst all these dangers, and all the temptations of 
 the world, the multitudinous maze of evil examples, and 
 the desperate blindness and insensibility of sin, what an 
 infinite mercy that if we will, we may be taught of God. 
 Taught of God ! How simple, how beautiful, how glorious 
 the expression ! Yea, there is heaven itself in that expres- 
 sion, and a man taught of God cannot miss heaven. A 
 man taught of God will know every part of religious 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OP GLORY. 333 
 
 experience, know it by heart. A man taught of God will 
 know the way of prayer by experience, the life of faith by 
 experience, the unsearchable riches of Christ by experi- 
 ence. But this spiritual discernment must be begun on 
 earth, or it will never be found in heaven. 
 
 Let a man take care of putting presumption in place of 
 discernment. What Bunyan quaintly says of pinnacle- 
 men is full of instruction. " You have some men cannot 
 be content to worship in the temple, but must be aloft ; no 
 place will serve them but pinnacles, pinnacles ; that they 
 may be speaking in and to the air, that they may be pro- 
 moting their heady notions instead of solid truth ; not 
 considering that now they are where the devil would have 
 them be. They strut upon their points, their pinnacles ; 
 but let them look to it, there is difficult standing upon 
 pinnacles ; their neck, their soul is in danger. We read, 
 God is in his temple, not upon these pinnacles." 
 
 Easy indeed it were to reach 
 
 A mansion in the courts above, 
 If swelling words and fluent speech 
 
 Might serve instead of faith and love. 
 But none shall gain the blissful place, 
 
 Or God's unclouded glory see, 
 Who talks of free and sovereign grace, 
 
 Unless that grace has made him free. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Faith's Vision continued. Spiritual discernment and Spiritual insensibility 
 both illustrated by the Transfiguration. 
 
 ON this subject of spiritual discernment, or the vision of 
 Faith, a world of sacred meaning is opened to us in the 
 simple account of the Transfiguration. As we have 
 endeavored to trace the early process of Faith in the lives 
 of those disciples, whom our Blessed Lord took with him 
 into the Mount, we will now, through the window of a 
 great phrase in the inspired description, look upon a 
 material point in the growth and increase of faith, or the 
 discipline requisite for its clear-sightedness. 
 
 It is said that when they were awake, they saw His 
 glory. It was glory that had been burning on the Mount 
 all night long, while they were sleeping and saw it not. 
 It was a glory that brought Heaven and earth, God and 
 man together, the glory of God manifest in the flesh, and 
 of redeemed humanity in the image of God, clothed upon 
 in the likeness of the Saviour. But when it began, and 
 long after it continued, the disciples were heavy with 
 sleep, and saw nothing of it. They were in the midst of 
 it, and yet saw it not. But it went on, as the orbs of 
 heaven went on in their courses, while they slumbered ; 
 and when they were awake, and not till then, they saw it. 
 
 The circumstances of the case account, in some mea- 
 sure, for the heaviness of the disciples with sleep, although, 
 had they been as deeply interested in their Redeemer and 
 
GRACE AND TRUTH, CHRIST IN THE 6OUL, &C. 335 
 
 his spiritual kingdom as they afterwards were, they would 
 have watched with Christ, and seen the coming on of this 
 great glory. But they had been travelling perhaps all the 
 day, and ascending the mountains with some fatigue to 
 the point where this amazing revelation was to take place. 
 This was an instructive circumstance in itself, for our 
 bright visions of heaven are not to be gained without 
 climbing, and often cost much labor, time, and patience, 
 to come at them, much earnest, persevering prayer and 
 discipline of the soul. But when you have climbed the 
 mountain, when the heights are once gained, though it 
 may have cost days and weeks of wearisome travel, the 
 glory of the view is more than a compensation for all the 
 fatigue. And let it be remembered that the spiritual 
 fatigue, instead of oppressing the eye of the soul with 
 slumber, opens it, and renders it clear and watchful, far- 
 seeing and strong. It is a discipline the very nature of 
 which tends to put the soul in such a state, that the glory of 
 the prospect may be clearly discerned, and enjoyed to the 
 uttermost. Even while the soul is climbing, and before 
 it reaches the point where there is the greatest sweep of 
 vision, it catches many sights of glory, many ravishing 
 prospects by the way ; and the higher it rises, the more 
 extensive and glorious they become. The mountain 
 scenery of the spiritual life and experience is full of glory. 
 
 It was the Delectable Mountains, whither the Shepherds 
 carried the two Pilgrims, Christian and Hopeful, to behold 
 afar off a glimpse of their inheritance in glory. But it 
 was not without fatigue and long climbing that they 
 arrived at those summits. And every new instructive 
 scene that they beheld there, they had a mount to climb to 
 get at it. So it always is in Christian experience. Great 
 enjoyment, and large views, and vast rich prospects of 
 heaven and earth are not to be gained without much 
 and often wearisome effort ; but when they are gained 
 they infinitely more than recompense the soul for all the 
 fatigue it has encountered. 
 
336 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 We may mention here that at the bottom of these 
 Delectable Mountains there was a country called Conceit, 
 the way into which was connected, by a very crooked lane 
 indeed, but still at a short cut, with the way of the Pil- 
 grims coming down from their great visions of instruction 
 and glory in the mountains. It were very easy to turn 
 into that lane, and enter the country of Conceit, even 
 direct from the glory of all those revelations. Now we do 
 not know that Bunyan had here in his eye the Mount of 
 Transfiguration, and the conduct of the disciples after- 
 wards ; but certain it is, if we read on a few verses in 
 the chapter in Luke which records the scene on that 
 Mount and the glory witnessed by the disciples, we find 
 them reasoning among themselves which of them should 
 be the greatest. Ah, here they had got into this country 
 of Conceit, however crooked the lane might have been 
 that led to it from the bottom of the Mountain. And 
 perhaps the very enjoyments they had been refreshed with 
 on the Mount, the very sights of glory they had there 
 seen, did, by the artifice of Satan, operate to awaken in 
 their hearts a mixture of spiritual and worldly pride, 
 which was itself the crooked lane by which they wandered 
 away from the Saviour. Coming down from the Mountain, 
 whenever we have been so favored as to be at the top of 
 it, we need beware of the country of Conceit. 
 
 Bunyan has also placed, a little beyond these Delectable 
 Mountains, the country of the flatterer, the way which 
 put itself into the Way of the Pilgrims, and seemed withal 
 to lie as straight as the way which they would go, and 
 there the Flatterer met them, a man with black flesh, but 
 covered with a very light robe. And while they stood 
 thinking about the way, this black but bright-covered 
 man asked them why they were stopping there ? They 
 answered that they were going to the Celestial City, but 
 knew not which of these ways to take. Follow me, said 
 the man, for it is thither that I am going. So they fol- 
 lowed him in the way that but now came into the road, 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OP GLORY. 337 
 
 which by degrees turned, and turned them so from the 
 City that they desired to go to, that in a little time their 
 faces were turned away from it : yet they followed him. 
 But by and by, before they were aware, he led them both 
 within the compass of a net, in which they were both so 
 entangled, that they knew not what to do ; and with that 
 the white robe fell off the black man's back : then they 
 saw where they were. 
 
 Now the Shepherds upon the Delectable Mountains had, 
 . the very day before, given these .Pilgrims a note of the 
 way, amidst all their instructions and sights of glory on 
 the Mountain, and had bidden them beware of this very 
 Flatterer, for that he would meet them, when they went 
 down from the mountains. And when the Shining One 
 met them to rend the net and deliver them, and afterwards 
 chastised them, he asked them where they were the night 
 preceding. And they told him with the Shepherds upon 
 the Delectable Mountains. And he asked them if they 
 had not been told to beware of the Flatterer. They 
 answered yes ; but we did not imagine, said they, that this 
 fine-spoken man had been he. 
 
 There is a volume of instruction here. Perhaps the 
 talk of this Flatterer with the Pilgrims was concerning 
 the very sights they had seen upon the Mountains, and he 
 was persuading them that the Pilgrims that had seen such 
 sights were very near perfection, they could not sin, they 
 were holy and without sin, and such spiritual exercises 
 could have no mixture of sin in them. He talked much 
 of the perfection of such frames, and persuaded them of 
 their own attainment of perfection in them ; and so he 
 went on in this fine-spoken way, till he had led them clean 
 about, right contrary to the way to the Celestial City, 
 whither they had been travelling. Then by the mercy of 
 God his robe was made to fall from him, and they were 
 made to see the dreadful delusion they had been in ; or 
 otherwise he would have gone on with them, till he had 
 plunged them into the deep of soul-destroying sin and 
 
 15 
 
338 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 error. There are false Apostles, that transform themselves 
 into angels of light, and he that flattereth his neighbor, 
 spreadeth a net for his feet. This black, but bright-covered 
 Flatterer took the Pilgrims just as they had been much 
 favored in their spiritual life, just as they had come down 
 from the mountains ; and Satan is always in wait thus to 
 ensnare us, and turn our very enjoyments and privileges 
 into temptations to our ruin. 
 
 It was thus that he ensnared the disciples when they 
 came down from the Mount. Our Blessed Lord gave them 
 as it were, a note of the way, and bade them beware of 
 the Flatterer, and told them of his and their sufferings ; 
 but they understood him not, and began to be filled with 
 pride, reasoning who should be the greatest, and with 
 spiritual pride, undertaking to forbid those whom they 
 found casting out devils in the name of Christ, because 
 they would not or did not follow with them, and under- 
 taking also to call down fire from heaven to destroy the 
 Samaritans, because they would not receive Christ into 
 their city. Here was pride, bigotry, and intolerance all 
 following close upon the great revelation of glory they 
 had had in" the Mount. Here was the Flatterer in their 
 own hearts, entangling them in his net, and he would have 
 destroyed them, had it not been for the merciful chastising 
 and sanctifying hand of their great Deliverer. 
 
 Their experience on the Mount, and their experience 
 afterwards, are equally instructive. It was night when 
 they ascended the mountain, and arrived at the place of 
 Transfiguration. There our Blessed Lord engaged in 
 prayer, the work for which he had chosen that spot and 
 ascended to it. He had taken Peter and James and John, 
 and went up into a mountain to pray. As he prayed, the 
 disciples grew heavy with sleep. Christ wrestled in 
 prayer, but they, instead of watching with him, yielded 
 themselves up to slumber. And still Christ prayed, and 
 still the disciples slept. They slept perhaps through the 
 greater part of the interview and conversation with Moses 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OP GLORY. 339 
 
 and Elias. They saw not the coming on of that glory, 
 they heard not the mysteries of those hours of such dis- 
 course among the inhabitants of heaven. And had they 
 continued to slumber, they had lost the whole of the amaz- 
 ing vision. But our Blessed Lord would not leave them 
 to such a loss ; the sight was especially intended for them 
 also, as the conversation had been especially for himself 
 and his own purposes of glory ; and so his divine gracious 
 providence ordered that the heaviness of their slumber 
 should depaf t from them ; and when they were awake, 
 they saw his glory, and the two men that stood with him. 
 They awaked, and found themselves, as it were, in heaven ; 
 the light of heaven shining around them, the inhabitants 
 of heaven standing with them, and the glory of their 
 Divine Redeemer revealed as in the Celestial World. 
 
 Now there is in all this so much instruction both as to 
 what we may lose by spiritual slumbers, and as to what 
 we may gain by spiritual watchfulness, that we might 
 almost conceive the scene to have been arranged, and the 
 conduct of the disciples to have been permitted, as an 
 emblem or prediction of the experience of the Church of 
 Christ ; a warning against spiritual indolence, and an en- 
 couragement to watching unto prayer. The situation of 
 these disciples, sleeping amidst so much glory, and uncon- 
 scious while such wonderful transactions were taking place 
 around them, is but an emblem of our ordinary insen- 
 sibility to the glory of the Saviour and the realities of the 
 invisible world. We are in the midst of a universe of 
 wonders all around us, almost materially touching upon 
 us, crowding towards us, as it were, for our notice ; but 
 the eye of the soul may be closed, and they may be all 
 unheeded, and we as unconscious of them as if they ex- 
 isted not. The Transfiguration of Christ may be going 
 on, and Moses and Elias appearing in glory and talking 
 with him, and we may know it not, though the scene be 
 taking place where we are reclining in our slumbers. 
 There may be, and there are, spiritual truths revealed in 
 
340 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 the Lord's Supper, and transactions here taking place, the 
 glory of which is like a Transfiguration, and in reality not 
 inferior to it, but which our insensible soul no more sees 
 or feels, than a blind man sees the gl^ry of the sun when 
 shining at noon-day. And all around us, continually, there 
 are truths of such transcendent importance and glory 
 radiating upon us, that if we kept a wakeful eye upon 
 them, we could be sensible to the importance of nothing 
 else ; we should find ourselves, like Peter, James, and John, 
 in the midst of a Mount of Transfiguration, the glory of 
 which, until we became accustomed to it, would almost 
 deprive us of the calm use of our senses, and make us act 
 as if bewildered with excess of light. Our insensibility 
 to these realities does not prevent their existence, though 
 it loses for us their power over us, cuts them oft' from us, 
 and forms, as it were, a vacuum between our souls, and the 
 things that surround us, but touch us not. 
 
 The influence of this insensibility is beyond description 
 disastrous, for it is only by the touch, the sense, "the sight, 
 the feeling of these realities, that we have any power over 
 the world of sense around us, only by the sight and sense 
 of these things that we are kept from the dream of atheism 
 and the sleep of death ; only thus that we can be quickened 
 with impulses that impel us towards heaven and God, that 
 make us fervent in prayer, or active in effort. If we lose 
 sight of these great things that are taking place around us, 
 we sink to the level of the brutes, and lose our souls. We 
 vegetate merely, a life of flesh, heightened and dignified 
 somewhat by intelligence, but still an earthly, degraded, 
 miserable life of sense, and if a life of the mind at all, 
 only of the carnal mind, which is enmity against God. 
 This is the condition of the whole world in their insensi- 
 bility to God and divine things. 
 
 Now in the midst of this insensibility, God has taken 
 out of the world a church, and carried its members up into 
 a Mount of Transfiguration, and there unsealed their eyes 
 from slumber, and poured upon them the glories of the 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OF GLORY. 341 
 
 unseen world, and the light of the presence of the Saviour. 
 He has done this, that from that Mount of Transfiguration 
 by divine truth, of the realization of heavenly things, they 
 may go down again into the world thus awakened and 
 filled with celestial activity and power, to rouse up its 
 slumbering inhabitants, and carry them up also into the 
 Mount to behold the Saviour. The activity and power of 
 the Church depend upon her wakefulness in the Mount, 
 the strength of her faith, the manner in which she beholds 
 and lives upon the glories that surround her. But Chris- 
 tians, in the Church and on the Mount, may be slumbering, 
 and may slumber through whole scenes of the manifesta- 
 tion of the Saviour's glory ; and in such a case they lose 
 the enjoyment and the efficacy of Christian experience, 
 they are cut off from the sources of power and comfort in 
 the divine life. Though upon the Mount, they see no 
 more nor better than the world below them, and have lost 
 the electric impulses they should have gained to carry 
 with them to rouse up the people of a world dead in tres- 
 passes and sins. To see Christ's glory, to feel the power 
 of it, to have a sense of his preciousness, and to carry it 
 with them, to have heaven opened, and the promises 
 realized, to see and feel the air of heaven around them, 
 and its inhabitants, and its blissful pursuits, and the crown 
 of glory, and themselves advancing to it, they must be 
 awake and watchful ; they must be praying with Christ, 
 not yielding to indolence, if they would behold the fashion 
 of his countenance, and his raiment white as snow, and 
 the beings in glory talking with him. When that is the 
 case, then they have power ; then all Christian privileges, 
 the Word of God, the Sabbath, the place of social prayer, 
 the blessed ordinance of the Lord's Supper, are as mounts 
 of prospect to the soul ; the things of heaven are realized, 
 the soul mounts up on the wings of faith and love, there is 
 not only a beholding of Christ in his transfiguration, but a 
 transfiguration of the soul itself, a change into the same 
 image, an investiture of it with power and glory, and an 
 
342 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 energizing of it with the influence of the unseen world, 
 that carries it through this world, shooting an awakening 
 impulse upon the souls of men in every direction. 
 
 Thus the admission to these 'scenes) of transfiguration is 
 an arrangement at once of mercy to Chris-t's disciples, to 
 their own souls, for their own strength, comfort, and sanc- 
 tification, and, not only so, but of mercy and salvation to 
 others through them, and of the increase of their useful- 
 ness. As the Spirit of God takes of the things which are 
 Christ's and imparts them to the soul, so the disciples of 
 Christ take the things thus imparted, the truth in the 
 reality, the experience, the power, and glory of it, and 
 communicate it to the world, pour it upon the minds of 
 men, act upon them with it, to awaken them and bring 
 them to repentance. Hence the unspeakable importance 
 of a clear view and vivid sense of divine things in the 
 hearts of Christians. For the sake of others, for the sake 
 of a dying world, they need to keep the flame of piety 
 brightly burning. They should labor after a deep experi- 
 ence in the things of God, in order that they may have 
 power over others. For the truth coming from a soul that 
 speaks from experience, is entirely a different thing from 
 even the same truth borrowed from the experience of 
 others, and uttered only at second-hand. It has a thrilling, 
 awakening, decisive power, when poured fresh from one 
 soul upon another, from a soul where the Spirit of God 
 abides, upon a soul dead in trespasses and sins. It has the 
 life-giving power of God's own Word, when it comes from 
 a soul whose life is hid with Christ in God. 
 
 Now all the privileges of Christ's people, all the sacred 
 visions of the divine glory in him, to which they are 
 admitted, all the precious ordinances of his gospel, all the 
 mounts of grace and spiritual revelation up which they 
 are carried with it in prayer, are intended to give power 
 to his Word in and through them, to deepen their experi- 
 ence of its reality and omnipotence, to baptize them in 
 its fire, and to prepare them to apply the same fire to the 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OP GLORY. 343 
 
 souls of their fellow men. This was one great object of 
 our Blessed Lord in causing Peter, James, and John to 
 behold his glory in the Mount. This was one great reason 
 why Paul was caught up into the third heaven. This is 
 one heavenly purpose of the Lord's Supper. It is an 
 ordinance of comfort, of enjoyment, of sanctification to 
 his saints, but not for their personal benefit merely. It is 
 that they may be strengthened for their duties to others ; 
 that they may here go up into the Mount, and behold such 
 a view of Christ's glory, that when they go down into the 
 world, they may go fired with the sight, lifted up above 
 the world by it, and by communion with Christ, and with 
 the blessed society of Moses and Elias in such communion, 
 and prepared to walk faithfully in its remembrance many 
 days of their pilgrimage. For this heavenly result they 
 must be awake ; they must watch beforehand, and watch 
 and pray while on the Mount, and supplicate the precious 
 Redeemer, who has brought them hither, to hold their 
 eyes waking, to pour upon them his Spirit, to quicken 
 their faith, and to instruct them anew in the mysteries and 
 powers of Redemption. And while the talk here upon 
 the Mount is concerning the sufferings and death of Christ, 
 concerning his decease which he must accomplish at 
 Jerusalem, the prayer of the soul must be that the same 
 love that bore on our Saviour to those sufferings, may 
 baptize and fill our souls, that we may be ready, with 
 something of the same Spirit, to engage in labor, and bear, 
 if need be, suffering and trial for Christ. 
 
 

 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 Faith's Vision continued. Faith passing into Love. Self put out by letting 
 Christ in. Object of the appeals to Self in the Gospel. 
 
 SUFFERING for Christ, self-denial for Christ, duty done for 
 Christ, all these things suppose Christ in the soul the hope 
 of glory, and can come from nothing else. The spiritual 
 sight and the spiritual life of faith, the eye single, and the 
 daily simple following of Christ, are the result only of 
 Christ reigning in the soul ; self, and all things connected 
 with it, being given up to Him. A mighty work, a mighty 
 victory, a mighty principle is this, yea, a work of Omni- 
 potent Grace, Omniscient Wisdom, and Infinite Love. 
 
 Here we must look again to our foundations, putting up 
 the prayer of David, Search me, O 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 everlasting. 
 Here there is imminent danger of self-deception ; here 
 many souls make shipwreck, having self in the soul instead 
 of Christ, the hope of glory. 
 
 For it is manifest that a man may, without confiding in 
 Christ, and yielding up all to him, be very anxious about 
 his eternal interests, and very much intent upon securing 
 heaven. He may be merely a self-seeker for the world to 
 come as well as this world ; he may have self entirely, 
 and nothing but self, in view, for that world as well as this. 
 Believing in all the doctrines of the gospel, all the truths 
 of religion, and perhaps especially affected by those which 
 
GRACE AND TRUTH, CHRIST IN THE SOUL, &C. 345 
 
 relate to a future judgment and endless retribution, he 
 may encompass all these truths and anxieties with self 
 alone, the idea of self, the atmosphere of self, regard to 
 self. Believing in the dread attributes, the majesty, the 
 holiness, the glory of God, his only regard to God may be 
 a supremely selfish regard to his own eternal happiness. 
 This is a wide sweep for self to take ; and the great 
 majority of mankind undoubtedly limit their selfishness to 
 the things of this Hfe, because they care nothing about 
 anything else, are insensible to all eternal realities, and 
 have neither the desire, nor ever make the attempt, to 
 secure the favor of God. 
 
 Now there is no doubt that a certain regard to self is 
 proper, being a constitutional and inevitable part of our 
 existence as created beings. If, for example, to love our 
 neighbor as ourselves be duty, then to love ourselves as 
 our neighbor is equally duty. But a supreme regard to 
 self is an infinite perversion and depravity. It is indeed 
 the very fountain and essence of depravity. If a man's 
 regard to self is entirely subservient to God, and to God's 
 will, he is holy. But if it be supreme, then he sets up self 
 in place of God, superior to God, and would have God 
 exist and govern only as a servant to self, only as a means 
 of happiness. On this foundation there is in the world a 
 self-seeking religion, as well as a self-forgetting and self- 
 renouncing one. And though the very idea of religion 
 contained in the word itself, is that of being bound to 
 God, yet there are religions which only bind God to self. 
 
 But God cannot be bound to self in our religious 
 interests, any more than in our worldly interests. The 
 declaration of Christ in regard to the selfishness of our 
 nature, that he that seeketh his life shall lose it, applies 
 more profoundly and absolutely in religion than anywhere 
 else. He who will keep his life in his own hands, and not 
 trust it to Christ, he who w r ill make his own happiness his 
 supreme end, and will not trust that happiness to Christ, 
 nor make Christ's will his happiness, and duty to God his 
 
 15* 
 
346 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 aim, he, seeking only to save his life, shall lose it. He 
 who has no aim in religion higher than self, shall lose self. 
 
 But you will say, Are not the hope of heaven and the 
 fear of hell appealed to continually jin the Word of God, 
 and does not the Apostle say, that knowing, the terrors of 
 the Lord we persuade men, and is it not incontrovertible 
 that God himself commands us to flee from the wrath to 
 come, and to lay hold on the hope set before us, and to 
 give all diligence to make our calling and election sure ? 
 And does he not tell us with encouragement, to abound in 
 all the Christian graces and virtues, for that so doing an 
 entrance shall be ministered unto us abundantly into the 
 everlasting kingdom of the Lord ? No doubt he does. 
 All this is perfectly plain, and it is every man's unquestion- 
 able duty to desire and seek his salvation above all things. 
 But he is to seek it in Christ, and when there is no love 
 of God in the soul, it is manifest that the hope of heaven 
 and the fear of hell are merely selfish. They may be the 
 beginning of good, the first impulse towards holiness, but 
 they are not, and cannot be, holiness in themselves. If the 
 hope of heaven and the fear of hell constituted holiness, 
 then all mankind would be holy, even in their sins. But 
 the hope of heaven and the fear of hell are the motives in 
 man's ruined nature, which God in mercy lays hold upon 
 by his Holy Spirit to raise the soul to holiness and life in 
 Christ. A man awakened by the Spirit of God, and made 
 sensible of eternal realities and of his own guilt, fears hell 
 and desires heaven, and this impulse makes him flee to 
 Christ to be saved from hell and prepared for heaven. 
 This is the true representation, in which the great 
 master of the human heart, as sanctified by grace, has 
 presented his Christian, awakened at first in the City of 
 Destruction, and flying from the wrath to come. But he 
 is no Christian, till he is in Christ. 
 
 Now this desire of heaven and fear of hell, stopping 
 short of Christ, or setting the soul in any other direction 
 than that towards Christ, may produce a merely selfish 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OP GLORY. 347 
 
 religion, instead of a religion of gratitude and love. If 
 the soul set out to save itself, instead of casting all on 
 Christ, if it labor after a garment of morality or of good 
 feelings, in which to be accepted of Christ, it is endeavor- 
 ing to make a selfish purchase of heaven, instead of being 
 willing to owe everything, as a guilty, worthless, dying 
 sinner, to the free, unbought mercy of the Saviour. If, as 
 Bunyan describes this delusion, the soul takes up with the 
 advice of Mr. Worldly Wiseman, and applies for teaching 
 and relief to the ministry of Legality, in the town of 
 Carnal Policy, it will remain in its native selfishness and 
 corruption, whatever it may think it has experienced of 
 the power, or manifested of the fruits, of true piety. And 
 in truth the fruits of a self-seeking religion may be very 
 like those of a self- forgetting religion. If a man be under 
 a system where penance, and tithes, and alms-giving, and 
 fasting, and self-mortification, and will-worship are enjoined 
 as the sure purchase of heaven, and the conscience under 
 condemnation of God's law is stirred up in anguish and 
 fear, then the desire' for safety and peace of conscience 
 may work miracles of morality and of self-denial, miracles 
 of poverty, self-chosen, miracles of alms-giving and the 
 washing of the feet of the poor, all to gain the security of 
 heaven. V 
 
 But this is the sinful, selfish man, seeking his life to lose 
 it. This is self-justification, the attempt to create merit 
 out of nothing but sin. It is building on false capital, a 
 spiritual speculation, which is a greater and infinitely more 
 disastrous bubble than the South Sea scheme. It is the 
 circulation of bad money, of forged notes. It is counter- 
 feit piety. It may have cost an immense deal to produce 
 it, as indeed all good counterfeits are costly, but notwith- 
 standing this, it is all condemned. We have dwelt upon 
 this before, but it deserves looking at again in the present 
 connexion. Men who see not as God seeth may wonder 
 that it should be condemned. Looking, for example, on 
 such self-denying scrupulosity and painful holiness and 
 
348 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 self-mortification as that of Luther in his cell, while he 
 was yet a stranger to Christ and true piety, men may think 
 it strange and hard that such incessant agonizing efforts 
 should not prevail, that such unexampled strictness of 
 morality, and fastings and prayers and external goodness, 
 should not be accepted. But with all its cost, it is worth- 
 less, counterfeit, condemned. There might be an establish- 
 ment for coining base money which should cost incalculably 
 more than all the arrangements for the pursuit of any 
 honest branch of trade on the largest scale, but neither 
 the costliness of the establishment, nor the perfection with 
 which its processes were executed, could prevent the con- 
 demnation of the coin. And just so, though this morality 
 and religion of penance and voluntary humility and will- 
 worship costs an immensity of self-denial and self-abnega- 
 tion, and employs the highest virtues and most resolute 
 purposes of the human mind surviving the ruins of the 
 fall, yet that cannot make it true money, cannot prevent 
 its being condemned. Although in part it be made up of 
 material, which, if it had the right stamp, if it were coined 
 in the king's mint, would be admirable, yet being mixed 
 with base alloy and forged, and being stamped for self and 
 not God, it is spurious, sinful, and must be rejected. No 
 matter what the virtue, the morality, the self-denial, the 
 apparent holiness may be, if manufactured for self, as a 
 passport to heaven, it is against the very law of the king- 
 dom of heaven, which admits no man. but merely as a lost 
 sinner, with nothing of his own but guilt, nothing in him- 
 self that can gain heaven, and admits the believing soul 
 not even on the ground of faith and love, but solely on the 
 ground of Christ's righteousness and mercy, on the ground 
 of God's unpurchased love in Christ. So that even love 
 itself and faith itself, if you could suppose them to be 
 brought as a work, a merit, a purchase, a passport of the 
 sinner's virtue, would lose their righteous, disinterested 
 nature, and would be spoiled and worthless, being but 
 another form, though the most concealed and subtle form, 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OF GLORY. 349 
 
 of self-love and self-reliance. If you would be saved and 
 be perfect, you must trust Christ for all, must throw 
 yourself on him for all, as a mere guilty, death-deserving 
 sinner, deserving of death, even though believing ; and with 
 neither love nor faith nor works as a ground of pardon, or 
 title to mercy, or assurance of heaven, but merely and 
 submissively throwing yourself on Christ, forgetting 
 everything but submission, but duty, but love, but Christ, 
 losing sight of self, forgetting self, losing self and self- 
 anxiety in the sweetness of submission, in the happiness 
 of trusting in Christ. 
 
 This simple, single-eyed, self-forgetting submission and 
 trust, is love, is faith, is obedience, is works, is true piety, 
 all in one, and one in all ; Christ being the soul and end of 
 all, and all being the result of the law of the Spirit of life 
 in Christ Jesus. Now the motives of the gospel, as ap- 
 plied to self, are applied simply to bring self to Christ, that 
 this wondrous, heavenly change from selfishness to love 
 may be wrought in him. The desire of happiness, the 
 hope of heaven, the fear of hell, so far as they are not the 
 product of the Spirit of God, causing the soul to long after 
 him, are mere levers, as it were, put beneath our fallen 
 nature to pry it up and throw it over upon Christ. God 
 uses them as the mere helps of our infirmities, not as any- 
 thing holy in themselves. He who came not to call the 
 righteous, but sinners to repentance, deals with us, and 
 condescends towards us, not as holy beings, but as sinful ; 
 otherwise, we could never be saved. And always these 
 motives are to our regenerated but partially sanctified 
 being only as the crutches which a lame man leans upon, 
 till he may get the use of his limbs, but throws them 
 entirely aside when he recovers. No man in health uses 
 them. Just so it is in heavenly things. The saints in 
 glory have no need of these crutches. The angels have 
 no need of them. There, everything is done from love, 
 not self. None but fallen beings have need of them. 
 Tell a saint in glory that such or such thing is duty, 
 
350 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 and you will constrain him more certainly and more 
 instantly, than telling him that such a thing is for his 
 comfort. Or tell him that love requires such a thing, and 
 it will be gotten of him more surely Uhan if you could tell 
 him that his own interests require it. But here in our 
 world of sin, amidst imperfection, temptation, and partial 
 sanctification, mixed motives have to be relied upon, and 
 mixed considerations and appeals, made up both of respect 
 to self and God. 
 
 But it is the glory of the gospel that in its perfection it 
 frees the soul from this-entanglement of motive, and makes 
 the regenerated being a new creature in Christ Jesus ; old 
 things are done away, all things are made new, and all 
 things are of God, not of self, and the law of the Spirit of 
 life in Christ Jesus sets the soul free from the law of sin 
 and of death. And when a man's desire of happiness and 
 heaven turns not so much upon selfish expectation, as 
 upon the love of God and the desire of holiness, when it 
 rises from self into God, and when his fear of hell and his 
 dread of the loss of heaven is not so much his fear of 
 punishment as his hatred of sin, and his dread of being 
 left under its dominion, and his sorrow and wretchedness 
 at the thought of being banished from God's presence ; 
 when his desire of safety and happiness is overtopped by 
 his hungerings and thirstings after righteousness, when he 
 can say with David, My soul thirsteth for God, as the hart 
 panteth after the water-brook ; whom have I in heaven but 
 thee, and there is none upon the earth that I desire besides 
 thee ? ah, then, the appeals to self are no longer responded 
 to by selfishness, but holy love ; they are as pure as the 
 love of God is pure ; they are as holy as the motives set 
 before the angels in heaven. Such a man desires heaven 
 and hates hell, because he loves God and hates sin ; and the 
 appeal to such love and such hatred is not an appeal to 
 selfishness but to holiness. 
 
 We see then plainly that holiness is a thing that grows 
 only in proportion as the soul loses sight of self and is 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OP GLORY. 351 
 
 absorbed in God ; and we see that the only way in which 
 a man can lose sight of self, have self put under and hid- 
 den from him, is to come to God, and have the glory and 
 the love of God absorb him, being revealed to him in the 
 face of Jesus Christ. It is easy to conquer self, when 
 Christ and his glory fill the heart ; impossible when the 
 heart is not filled with and fixed on Christ. If Christ and 
 heaven do not fill the heart, the world and self will ; no 
 man can get self out, but by letting Christ in ; you cannot 
 possibly remove the darkness, but by letting in the light ; 
 and where this heavenly light is not admitted to reign, 
 spiritual depravity and darkness will reign. When a 
 strong man armed keepeth his house, his goods are in 
 peace ; it may be stolen goods, as those of Satan are in 
 us ; and Satan is the strong man armed, in possession of 
 our souls, which he keeps in peace as his goods, though it 
 is only the peace of spiritual death, to be succeeded by the 
 darkness, fires, and chains of his own prison, unless Christ 
 come to the rescue of the soul. But when he does come, 
 when a stronger than self and Satan shall come upon him 
 and overcome him, he laketh from him all his armor wherein 
 he trusted, and divideth his spoils. So it is with Christ 
 against self and Satan in the soul ; and this is the only 
 way in which self can be overcome, by Christ entering 
 and reigning. 
 
 Here again we see plainly that happiness is a thing that 
 comes only of love. God himself is happy, because God 
 is love. Self-denial is happiness, where there is love. 
 Labor is happiness, where there is love. This is a lesson 
 we must learn before we can be fitted for heaven. We 
 must lose self in Christ. We must lose our life, let it go, 
 let self go, be content that anything should happen to it, 
 care nothing about it, and then we save it ; or rather, 
 Christ saves it for us, Christ gives it back to us, Christ 
 gives himself to us as a new self, takes up his dwelling in 
 us as the self of self, the soul of our souls, the object and 
 end of everything, and then we are happy. In this life 
 
352 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 we must learn, as in a storm, to throw self overboard, and 
 then the ship is safe. Where Christ abides and reigns, 
 there is nothing but peace and happiness. Thou wilt keep 
 him in perfect peace, whose soul is stayed on thee, because 
 he trusteth in thee. This humble, unquestioning, submis- 
 sive confidence in Christ is the reign of Christ. It is the 
 leaving of everything* with Christ, and the seeking to do 
 his will. 
 
 But to do this, to get rid of self in this manner, we must 
 come to Christ only. We cannot do this, establish this 
 victory, of ourselves. If Christ does not reign, self will 
 reign. There is, moreover, a counterfeit of this losing 
 sight of self, without Christ ; but it is all vain, no better 
 than before, counterfeit money. It may cost much, and 
 men may look upon it as very precious coin, but it is 
 worthless apart from Christ. Any one might think that 
 a man taking a vow of perpetual poverty, and going about 
 in hospitals and prisons, to feed the sick, to watch beside 
 the dying, had thoroughly abnegated himself, lost sight of 
 self. But no, not unless Christ be there. If Christ be not 
 there, such abnegation of self is only a more perfect 
 exaltation of self, a subtle form of self-seeking and of 
 pride. If such abnegation be done out of love, done for 
 Christ, then indeed it is goodness ; but if from an eye to 
 reward, if to be seen of men, if from the terrors of an 
 angry conscience, then there is no soundness in it. 
 
 Men have sometimes committed crimes, for which they 
 have condemned themselves to years of penance, and have 
 grone about the world apparently dead to the world, because 
 the fire within them has calcined the temptations without. 
 The fire within them has burned up the delusions of the 
 world and of sense around them, and made self-denial 
 itself an intense though delusive relief, delusive, because 
 not united with Christ, not practised for Christ, but really 
 for self. Undoubtedly, in this way there may be much 
 apparent virtue manufactured by sin, and much deliver- 
 ance from sin effected by selfishness. On the prairies it is 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OF GLORY. 353 
 
 said that the Indians, when caught by a fire, when the 
 roaring sound of a fire sweeping towards them is heard, 
 just light a fire themselves in the centre where they are, 
 and fire meets fire, so that they stand unscathed by the 
 danger. Just so it may be with human passion. Passion 
 against passion is strong. Many a man has escaped the 
 fires of intemperance and sensuality consuming others 
 around him, only because he had lighted another fire, the 
 fire of another ruling passion in his soul. And so the fire 
 of an angry conscience may burn up everything around 
 it, and produce marvels of apparent self-denial and con- 
 quest over sin, and yet not bring the soul to Christ, but 
 rather leave it like a blasted heath in the desert. Now on 
 the other hand, if the fire of Christ's love be lighted in the 
 soul, not only will the fires of temptation and of sinful 
 passion go out, but the fruits of real holiness, the fruits of 
 love will abound, and the soul will be like a watered 
 garden, and Christ's love like the Tree of Life in the midst 
 of it. What a mistake do men make in the attempt to 
 produce holiness without coming to Christ ! It is painful 
 effort, that ends in vanity and painfulness. As the prophet 
 says, it is ploughing upon the rock, it is gathering wages to 
 put them into a bag with holes, it is feeding on the wind, 
 and following after the East wind. There can be neither 
 freedom, nor peace, nor the fruits of genuine piety, away 
 from Christ, but nothing but bondage and fear. 
 
 Joy is a fruit that will not grow 
 
 In nature's barren soil ; 
 All we can boast, till Christ we know, 
 
 Is vanity and toil. 
 
 O that God would impress this lesson upon us ! It ^ 
 worth thousands of gold and silver, this deep sense of our 
 own poverty, helplessness, guilt, and misery out of Christ. 
 The knowledge of his own poverty that a righteous man 
 , hath is better than the riches of many wicked. Indeed, 
 the sense of our vanity, sinfulness, and misery out of 
 
354 GRACE AND TRUTH, CHRIST IN THE SOUL. 
 
 Christ is itself great riches. If out of this vanity and 
 poverty you would rise into the riches of eternity, come 
 to Christ. If out of this bondage of sin you would rise 
 into the liberty of holiness, come to Christ. If from this 
 prison of selfishness, where your soul is rusting in chains 
 for the Judgment of the Great Day, you would go forth at 
 large into the air of love and heaven, come to Christ. If 
 in the Judgment of the Great Day you would stand safe 
 and happy, with heaven within your soul, Come to Christ ! 
 
 O save me from myself, Saviour Divine ! 
 Then only I'm redeemed, when I am thine. 
 Turn Thou mine eye, my heart, my life to Thee, 
 That even in self, Christ only I may see. 
 
 Fain would I make my Lord my only aim, 
 In all pursuits still think on his dear name, 
 For Him prepare my soul, from sin forbear, 
 Aspire to Heaven, because rny Lord is there. 
 
 Lord, Thou canst conquer self, but Thou alone ! 
 Set up within my soul thy glorious throne ; 
 Let every thought, wish, expectation be 
 Brought in subjection, by thy love, to Thee. 
 
 Then will I flee on angels' wings abroad, 
 All care dismissed but just to please my Lord. 
 ' Tis perfect freedom, if Thou reign in me, 
 And where Thou art, there shall thy servant be ! 
 
 

 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 Justification by Faith. The religion of Faith and the system of Works 
 delineated. Faith producing Works. Justification followed by glorifi- 
 cation. 
 
 A MAN of great intellectual powers, and ardent but not 
 perfect piety, once heard two Pilgrims of Apostolical 
 authority conversing in the way to Heaven. One of 
 them said, Therefore we conclude that a man is justified 
 by Faith without the deeds of the law. The other said, 
 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not 
 by faith only. The man went away and reported that 
 there was a quarrel between those two, and that the latter 
 of the two was strawy in his sayings. The mistaken man 
 was Martin Luther. 
 
 Now there is so far from being a quarrel between Paul 
 and James, that there is not even a difference. The two 
 passages are only opposite sides of the same great truth. 
 We were once travelling with a little company of mission- 
 aries in Turkey, when we came in sight of a beautiful 
 distant olive-orchard on the side of a hill, with the wind 
 agitating the branches, and turning the under side of the 
 leaves to the sun. There arose quite a contest among us 
 as to the color of those olive-leaves. Some asserted that 
 it was pure dark green, for that was universally the color 
 of the olive. Others said as confidently that it was a 
 silvery grey, appealing to the sight before us. When we 
 came to the orchard itself, we found both assertions to be 
 
356 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 true, the under side of the leaves turned up by the wind 
 to the sun in our first position showing them of a silvery 
 grey, while the upper side, with the sun falling on that, 
 in our next position, showed their natural color of a beau- 
 tiful fresh green. So here in these two texts are the two 
 sides of the same precious olive-branch of truth, the great 
 distinguishing truth of the gospel, the truth of justification 
 and peace in our Lord Jesus Christ. One text shows the 
 side towards God in Christ, the other the side towards 
 man ; both are equally true, indeed are one and the same 
 truth. It is at one and the same time an undeniable truth, 
 that faith without works is the only true religion, and yet 
 that faith without works is no religion at all, and also, that 
 works without faith are no better than sin. 
 
 A religion of works is a selfish, self-seeking, bargaining, 
 distrustful religion. A religion of faith is a disinterested, 
 self-denying, self-forgetting, confiding religion. A religion 
 of works is scrupulous, fearful, cramping, prison-like, and 
 superstitious. A religion of faith is unsuspicious, fearless, 
 open-hearted, generous, and free. A religion of works is 
 like waxen flowers, or like fruits wrought and colored in 
 stone, and it may be with such exquisite pains and skill, 
 that a bee would light upon them and a bird peck at them. 
 So may the fruits of genuine piety be imitated in a religion 
 of works, and they may successfully deceive mankind, not 
 knowing the inward fountain, but not God, who looketh on 
 the heart. A religion of faith is like the natural, sponta- 
 neous fruits and flowers in Eden, not only fresh and fair to 
 the sight, but good for medicine and food, and of a sweet 
 and wholesome fragrance. 
 
 Now there are only these two religions in the world, the 
 true and the counterfeit, faith without works and works 
 without faith. The religion of faith is the only true, the 
 only possible religion for fallen beings. For such there 
 can be no such thing as a religion of justifying works, 
 such beings having no works to offer but works of sin, or 
 works mingled with sin, and therefore works needing to be 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OF GLORY. 357 
 
 forgiven. But if you present to God as the ground of 
 your salvation works needing to be forgiven, you present 
 not piety, but impiety and presumption. You present to 
 him as merit what can deserve and bring nothing but con- 
 demnation. As a fallen being you can present to him 
 nothing but faith ; that is, you can only trust in his mercy 
 without works, having no works to bring but your sins, or 
 the good things of God spoiled by your sins, and having 
 nothing that you can do, but just submit and trust, willing 
 that he should do what he pleases. If you are not a 
 fallen being, then you do not need works, nor anything 
 else for salvation, neither Saviour nor atonement, but may 
 claim protection from the justice and goodness of God. 
 But if you are a fallen being, a sinful creature, you can 
 have no works to bring, but what are proofs of sin. 
 Therefore, the only true religion possible for you is that 
 of faith without works, that of submission and trust, as a 
 guilty, lost sinner. 
 
 There is no other true religion possible. There are, 
 indeed, things that are called religions, as there are that 
 are called Gods many and Lords many ; but they are 
 pure irreligion and falsehood, the work of Satan, a part of 
 the great dread array of wiles and stratagems, delusions, 
 temptations, and lies, with which, according to God's 
 Word, the god of this world blinds the minds of them who 
 believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ 
 should shine unto them. But there is no other true religion 
 possible than that of faith. In the very nature of true 
 religion this is demonstrable. There cannot be a religion 
 of justifying works, which is not a religion of lies. And 
 no matter how elevated, refined, noble, or excellent the 
 works may be supposed to be, the supposition of justifying 
 merit in them, of a purchase of salvation by them, rots 
 and putrifies them. For even love itself presented as 
 merit, and faith itself, presented as a justifying work, 
 becomes a vain, palpable lie. The very fact of presenting 
 
358 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 it as a merit, for reward, proves that it is not true love or 
 true faith, but a forgery. 
 
 Let us endeavor to illustrate this more definitely. As a 
 creature of God's bounty, you owp God everything, and 
 love first of all. In paying him this love, you can do 
 nothing of merit, nothing as a work for justification. If 
 you do not pay it, you defraud God ; if you do pay it, you 
 do no more than your duty, you can claim nothing as merit. 
 Can a man merit anything for loving infinite goodness ? 
 Is not the not loving such goodness proof of indescribable 
 depravity, of a deep, deadly wrong in the nature? If 
 love is offered for merit, for reward, there can be no 
 merit in it. The very idea of a purposed benefit from it 
 changes its nature. The idea of one's loving, because he 
 fears punishment and desires reward, is an absurdity. 
 Suppose you should hear a man saying that he loves 
 another very much, because he has a fortune of five 
 hundred thousand dollars, and he hopes to obtain a large 
 part of it. You would say that he does indeed love the 
 other's money very much, but not the man himself, not his 
 happiness, his virtues. The love is self-love, nothing 
 more. So in regard to God. If we present anything to 
 him on the meritorious ground of justification, to gain 
 heaven by that, it is mere self-love, nothing more, even 
 though we pretend to present faith and love. Faith and 
 love cannot justify ; it is Christ alone that justifies, and he 
 justifies the sinner simply by means of faith as the way, 
 not by faith as the ground, or faith as a merit in the 
 sinner ; for the sinner has no merit, and even in coming 
 by faith and love, comes only as a sinner. 
 
 It is therefore evident that faith without works is the 
 only true religion, the only religion possible for mankind. 
 But here some one will turn upon us and say, out of God's 
 own Word in the Apostle James, that faith without works 
 is dead. And yet we say that faith without works is the 
 only true religion possible for mankind. Very well. 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OP GLORY. 359 
 
 There is no contradiction here, and both these propositions 
 are perfectly true. By faith without works, James means 
 a faith which does not produce works, which is no faith 
 at all but devil's faith, believing, trembling, disobeying. 
 There is a great difference between faith without works as 
 the way of salvation, that is, a reliance only on the un- 
 bought, undeserved mercy of Christ without works, and 
 faith not producing works, which is a dead faith. Faith 
 without works is sure to produce works, and will show 
 itself by works, and is true piety ; that is, submission, 
 trust, confidence in God, the acceptance of his way of 
 salvation, without any trust in oneself. A man thus 
 coming to God by faith without works, comes indeed not 
 bringing any works to rely on, not bringing to God any- 
 thing as a ground of acceptance and pardon, but trusting, 
 believing, having faith only. But this faith is not dead, 
 though it be faith without works ; but it is a faith that will 
 produce works, a living faith, or else it is a lie ; it is no 
 faith, but death. As a faith producing works, it is a 
 religion of works, and in this view the only true religion 
 of works in the world, or possible, is the religion of justifi- 
 cation by Christ alone, through faith alone without works. 
 That is the only religion that produces true works of 
 piety, the religion of faith without works. But in order 
 that it may be a living faith, a faith which will produce 
 works, it must be a faith without works, a simple trust, a 
 submissive resting on God's mere love and mercy, and not 
 on works. But the Apostle James means by faith without 
 works, a faith not producing works, which indeed is false 
 and dead. There is no difference between Paul and 
 James, nor ever was, or ever will be, although the one 
 declares that there is no true religion but that of faith 
 without works, and the other that faith without works is 
 dead. 
 
 If a man does not come by faith alone, trusting willingly 
 to God in Christ, but attempts to bring works as stepping- 
 stones, or works as purchase money, or works as bribes, 
 
360 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 or works as merit, he comes without faith at all \ it must 
 be either faith alone, faith without works, or no faith at 
 all. If he comes by faith alone, he comes with that which 
 will produce works ; but if he comtes by works, he comes 
 with neither works nor faith, both being dead, both false ; 
 he comes by lies. So there is no true religion possible in 
 the world but faith alone. The best works are false with- 
 out faith ; they are sin and condemnation. They may be 
 performed to gain heaven, but they are the way to hell. 
 They may be works of self-denial in its extremest form, 
 but it is self-denial not out of faith and love, but self-denial 
 out of self-seeking, self-salvation, self-love. This, instead 
 of being disinterestedness, is only the highest, largest form 
 of distrust and selfishness. It is unwillingness to leave 
 our salvation in God's hands alone, to God's mercy alone, 
 but a determination to hew out a foundation for ourselves, 
 on which to climb to heaven in our own security, not 
 leaving it to God's mere mercy, not trusting in Christ, not 
 throwing all on him. Now the very best of all good things 
 that men can do for such a purpose, if it be not faith and 
 love that inspire them, are worthless, they are sin and 
 death. A man may give his body to be burned, may 
 bestow all his goods to feed the poor, may undergo all 
 sufferings, and gain a*ll mysteries of knowledge, but if this 
 come not from faith and love, it is mere self-seeking and 
 worthless. 
 
 We may regard this as severe reasoning, but it is plain, 
 it is demonstrable, it is the reasoning of the Apostle. 
 There is no escaping from it. Indeed, in our transactions 
 one with another, we reason in precisely the same way. 
 We make an entire distinction between acts of disin- 
 terestedness performed regardless of reward, and acts of 
 selfishness or of self-love, performed for reward. If you 
 were to see a person fall overboard from a ship under full 
 sail in a raging sea, and the next moment beheld a seaman 
 plunge to rescue the drowning man at the peril of his own 
 life, you would say it was a noble act, an act of sublime 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OP GLORY. 361 
 
 benevolence, generosity, and disinterestedness. But if 
 immediately afterwards you learned that that man, being 
 enormously wealthy, had beforehand made a contract with 
 that seaman to give him a hundred thousand dollars in 
 case of such an accident, provided he would save him, 
 your tide of admiration would be arrested at once. You 
 would only admire the love of money in the seaman, which 
 could overcome the fear, and almost the certainty, of 
 death, and produce such a daring venture. 
 
 Now the holiness which is produced in a man's life 
 merely from the fear of hell and the hope of heaven, is 
 manifestly no better than this. The works thus performed 
 afford not only no possibility of justification, but if the man 
 have not faith and love, they are proofs of guilt. They 
 show that self-love can produce results of self-denial and 
 morality, which love to God cannot ; or rather which love 
 to God would have produced, had it been present, as it 
 ought, but it was not ; there was not regard enough for 
 God, to do what regard for self accomplished. Can any- 
 thing show more conclusively that the law of the whole 
 being is selfishness ; a law of sin and death, and not the 
 law r of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus ? The man does 
 for himself, for a high self-interest, what he will not do for 
 God, from love and duty. It is complete demonstration 
 that he is a selfish being, and his very religion is fraud and 
 selfishness, and instead of justifying him, condemns him. 
 
 But when, being justified by grace, through faith, the 
 soul passes into a living morality out of gratitude and love, 
 then there is no longer any condemnation. Justification 
 by Faith always produces a walking after the Spirit, for 
 whom he justified, them he also glorified. True holiness is 
 a glorification begun on earth. It is a change into the 
 image of the Saviour from glory to glory. If any man 
 serve me, says our Blessed Lord, let him follow me ; and 
 where I am, there shall also my servant be ; if any man 
 serve me, him will my Father honor. This daily serving 
 and following of Christ is the morality of justifying faith ; 
 
362 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 and we have already traced the blessedness and power of 
 it as a daily life, the blessedness of that Word daily, in 
 our Lord's commands of elf-denying love and duty. 
 
 A man by daily repetition of love and duty becomes 
 habitually a Christian ; it is a second nature to him, and 
 thus it is easy. A man who is punctual, diligent, and 
 faithful, daily, in secret prayer, will be bound to prayer, 
 after a few years, by such an adamantine chain in his 
 very nature, as it will be almost impossible to break. And 
 so, habits of right feeling as well as of right action, wear 
 their channels of experience so deep in the soul, and 
 become so powerful, that you cannot turn them back ; 
 and the obstacles thrown in to hinder them are themselves 
 swept onward out of the way. This is the great blessed- 
 ness of conscientiously following Christ daily. The 
 Christian should be greatly encouraged by it, knowing that 
 his strength will be greater by the faithful use of the 
 measure of grace to-day vouchsafed to him, and of the 
 doors of usefulness to-day opened before him. To him 
 that hath shall be given, and he shall have more abun- 
 dantly. It is the power of habit ; therefore avail yourself 
 of it ; therefore suffer not yourself in little neglects. If 
 there be acts of duty which you are tempted to neglect 
 to-day, step up to them at once, and perform them ; for it 
 is no great thing, no burden, after all ; and the same things 
 will be incomparably easier to-morrow, if you are ener- 
 getic and punctual with them to-day ; but if you yield to 
 neglect to-day, it will be more difficult to-morrow. And 
 it is surprising what a great compound interest of diffi- 
 culty a present neglect adds to future duty. The mere 
 neglect of a simple call, which you ought to have made 
 to-day, becomes, by repeated neglects, a great burden ; 
 and several such things together may deprive the soul of 
 all its peace and comfort, and make it feel like a bankrupt, 
 surrounded with pitiless creditors, and neither knowing 
 how to pay, nor what nor whom to begin with. Do to-day 
 what belongs to to-day, and to-morrow's work will be very 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OP GLORY. 363 
 
 easy. But if you neglect to-day what belongs to to-day, 
 you make the performance of to-morrow's duty more 
 difficult for to-morrow, and you add, besides, the burden 
 of to-day's neglect. It is just like a debt, for which pro- 
 vision may be made with comparative ease and readiness, 
 before it is contracted, or before it becomes due ; but once 
 really due, and yet not paid, once the mind and business 
 burdened with it as a debt not met when it ought to have 
 been, and then every day makes it more difficult, every 
 day makes it less probable that it will be cancelled, and 
 demands a hundred times the exertion which at first 
 would have easily removed it. 
 
 Every day spent in a willing, punctual faithfulness in 
 Christ's service makes the next day easier. The diffi- 
 culties do not increase, but diminish. But if they increase, 
 the increase of grace is such, that even the great succeed- 
 ing difficulties are easier to meet and overcome than the 
 first little ones. Follow Christ well to-day, and you shall 
 not, to-morrow, meet with anything too strong for you. 
 Follow Christ closely in serving him to-day, and where he 
 is, there shall his servant be, to-morrow, and where you, 
 his servant are, to-morrow, there will he be with you. 
 Christ never issued this note of command, with a daily 
 as the time of it, without a daily provision of grace to 
 meet it. Put your name on the back of it, and present it 
 daily to him, and however large the amount he will pay it. 
 
 Moreover, if at any time difficulties increase, the soul 
 that is following Christ and trusting in him, knows that 
 every day it is getting nearer to the end of them. It is 
 but a little while. These light afflictions are but for a 
 moment. They are light, in comparison with the exceed- 
 ing and eternal weight of glory they are appointed to work 
 out. Though ever so heavy, they are light, when the soul 
 is enabled to remember and feel that they are but for a 
 moment. 
 
364 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 Let cares like a wild deluge come, 
 
 And storms of sorrow fall ; 
 May I but safely reach my home, 
 
 My God, my heaven, my all ; 
 There shall I bathe my weary loul 
 
 In seas of heavenly rest, . 
 
 And not a wave of trouble roll 
 
 Across my peaceful breast. 
 
 A man is saved amidst trials, from the deadly sting of 
 trials, by such hope. And likewise the feeling of the 
 shortness of time and the nearness of eternity diminishes 
 every burden. The soul feels somewhat as Paul did in 
 the near prospect of the heavenly world. I am now ready 
 to be offered. Thy crown is shining near. It seems as 
 if we could see Paul stopping for the first time to take 
 breath amidst his conflicts, and looking back upon them. 
 The end was so near, that all seemed now done, the vic- 
 tory gained, the struggle over. So with every faithful 
 soul, as it nears the New Jerusalem. Christ is with it, 
 and more and more with it, the nearer it comes to the 
 close of its course of humble faithfulness in following him. 
 The promise begins its fulfilment this side of the grave, 
 that where I am there shall my servant be. There is a 
 land Beulah in the Christian pilgrimage, where the faithful 
 soul can sometimes almost see and travel with the white- 
 robed spirits. So the author of the Pilgrim's Progress 
 found it in his own experience. In this country, says he, 
 the sun shineth night and day ; wherefore this was beyond 
 the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and also out of the 
 reach of Giant Despair ; neither could they from this place 
 so much as see Doubting Castle. Here they were within 
 sight of the City they were going to : also here met them 
 some of the inhabitants thereof ; for in this land the 
 shining ones commonly walked, because it was upon the 
 borders of heaven. Here they had more rejoicing than in 
 parts more remote from the kingdom to which they were 
 bound ; and drawing near to the City they had yet a more 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OF GLORY. 365 
 
 perfect view thereof. The reflection of the sun upon the 
 City was so extremely glorious, that they could not as yet 
 with open face behold it, but through an instrument made 
 for that purpose. Also, as they went on, there met them 
 two men in raiment that shone like gold, also their faces 
 shone as the light. These men asked the Pilgrims whence 
 they came, and they told them. They also asked them 
 where they had lodged, what difficulties and dangers, what 
 comforts and pleasures they had met in the way, and they 
 told them. Then said the men that met them, You have 
 but two difficulties more to meet with, and then you are 
 in the City. 
 
 Only two difficulties more, and one of these was death ! 
 Now this enchanting passage is only a description of what 
 may take place this side the river of death, with the soul 
 that has followed Jesus faithfully to the borders of it. 
 Where I am, there shall my servant be. Where Christ is, 
 there his people are, even here, in this world ; and some- 
 times heaven, as it were, is opened, and the veil is taken 
 away, and celestial things are so ravishingly clear, and 
 doubt and darkness are so far removed, that, as Bunyan 
 beautifully says, you cannot from this place so much as 
 see Doubting Castle. Where are the soul's conflicts then ? 
 O then what delight and peace and ease the soul finds in 
 daily following Christ, daily communing with him, daily 
 enjoying his presence ! Only two difficulties more, and 
 then the soul will be in the City ! 
 
 But all this sweetness of spiritual enjoyment, all this 
 joy and peace in believing and in walking with Christ, is 
 only a discipline and introduction, even when it is vouch- 
 safed in the highest degree, into the fulness of the promise. 
 It is a discipline of introduction into that fulness of glory 
 covered up beneath the terms of the promise. Where I 
 am, there shall my servant be, hath its fulfilment only in 
 heaven. There is Christ's abode, there his eternal dwell- 
 ing-place, there the glorious place of his declaration to the 
 Jews, Before Abraham was I am, and there the region of 
 
GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 which he spake when he said, No man hath ascended up 
 to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the 
 Son of man who is in heaven. Where I am, there shall 
 my servant be. There, where Isaiah ' saw his glory, and 
 the Seraphim veiling their faces before him, and crying, 
 Holy, Holy, Holy ! There shall his servants be, and they 
 shall be like him, for they shall see him as he is, and his 
 name shall be in their foreheads, and they shall follow him 
 whithersoever he goeth, and they shall be without spot or 
 wrinkle or any such thing, clothed in a body like unto his 
 glorious body, having their robes washed and made white 
 in the blood of the Lamb, being satisfied in God's likeness, 
 and without fault before the throne of God. All this 
 Christ refers to, when he says in the last prayer for his 
 disciples, Father, I will that those whom thou hast given 
 me be with me where I am, that they may behold my 
 glory. 
 
 The emphasis upon this last expression is most extra- 
 ordinary. It is intimated that the beholding of the Saviour's 
 glory, as it was with the Father before the world was, and 
 is now, and evermore will be displayed in the heavenly 
 world, constitutes the fulness, the completeness, of blessing 
 and honor in heaven. The being where Christ is, to 
 behold his glory, comprehends all that can be conceived 
 of blessedness. The beholding of Christ, as he is, and 
 where he is, will be attended with a transformation into 
 his image ; the beholding of his glory will be accompanied 
 with a perfect reflection of that glory. The beholding of 
 Christ in heaven, and the being with him where he is, will 
 be the consummation of glory and blessedness in his 
 saints ; and hence the intense longing expressed in the 
 New Testament, by those to whom these mysteries of our 
 future being have been revealed, for the appearing of our 
 Saviour, and the looking for and hastening into that great 
 day of God, when he shall come to be glorified in his 
 saints, and admired in all them that believe. This longing 
 for the appearing of Christ, this intense desire for the time 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OF GLORY. 367 
 
 of his coming, was a peculiarity of the New Testament 
 saints, a characteristic of their piety, which, in its peculiar 
 form, has almost passed away. Believers in Christ were 
 characterized by Paul as those who love his appearing, 
 who look forward to it with yearning and delight, as the 
 time when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and 
 this mortal, immortality ; when the building of God shall 
 be assumed by the soul, the house not made with hands, 
 eternal in the heavens, even that celestial body, like unto 
 the Saviour's glorious body, in which it shall dwell forever 
 in his presence, for ever with the Lord. 
 
 Where I am, there shall my servant be. They are 
 great words, words of infinite weight of meaning, words 
 of transcendent inconceivable glory, words covering up 
 an eternal and exceeding weight of glory. Where Christ 
 is, there God is, and God's infinite love and happiness are 
 revealed in Christ. Where Christ is, there heaven is, and 
 the source and fountain of heaven's light and glory. 
 Where Christ is, there all good beings are, all the holy, 
 loving beings of the universe, concentrated and circled in 
 adoring ranks around him, the visible centre of their 
 bliss, the author of their holiness. Now of all this glory 
 Christ says, in the midst of it, To him that overcometh 
 will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also 
 overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. 
 He speaks also of his disciples and servants as partakers 
 of his own joy ; and the welcome of his servants is even 
 this, Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into 
 the joy of thy Lord ! The joy of thy Lord ! What a 
 heaven of glory and blessedness is contained in that one 
 expression ! The joy of thy Lord ! Who can measure 
 its degree, who can conceive or fathom the infinite depth 
 of its greatness, the infinite intensity of its bliss ? And 
 yet, that is the joy that awaits every faithful follower and 
 servant of the glorious Redeemer ; the Redeemer's own 
 joy, a thing no more to be measured or fathomed than the 
 actual infinitude of God. They shall be with him where 
 
368 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 he is, they shall behold his glory, they shall enter into his 
 joy. For that joy, set before him, he endured the cross, 
 despising the shame, and is set down for ever at the right 
 hand of the throne of God. There tjie saints shall walk 
 with him in glory, heirs of God, and joint heirs with 
 Christ, received to the possession of an inheritance incor- 
 ruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in 
 heaven for those who are faithful unto death, who are kept 
 by the power of God through faith unto salvation. 
 
 But there is yet another wonderful expression, connected 
 with another great series of promises, which is as another 
 gallery of pictures thrown open by our Lord, to excite our 
 imaginations, allure our affections, and animate us in our 
 Christian pilgrimage. He leads us up the heights of these 
 Delectable Mountains, and in a great variety of ways, with 
 many changes of coloring, from many points of view, 
 directs our eye to the prospects before us. If any man 
 serve me, him will my Father honor. Sometimes the soul, 
 in meditating upon this expression, finds it becoming as a 
 chariot of fire, in which the heart is carried up to heaven, 
 to see things by the Spirit of God, which eye hath not 
 seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it ever entered into the 
 heart of m.an to conceive, which God hath prepared for 
 those who love him. Him will my Father honor ! What 
 a transcendent significance of glory ! To be honored of 
 God ! What series of images, or analogies, or reasonings, 
 can possibly enable us, in this our mortal state, to come to 
 any approximation to the understanding of the vastness 
 and intensity of meaning covered up beneath such 
 language ? Rise up, child of such destinies, and go forth 
 from thy place of humble, silent, secret prayer, beneath 
 the fulness of the starry skies, in some bright hour at 
 midnight, and gaze with the telescope of science over the 
 illimitable fields of space, thick sown with rolling worlds ! 
 Thy teacher in astronomy demonstrates to thee that the 
 realms of this universe contain millions on millions. of 
 worlds so remote from thine, that millions on millions of 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OF GLORY. 369 
 
 years would not enable thee to reach them, though travel- 
 ling with the swiftness of light ; and when thou shouldst 
 arrive at the outermost point of vision possible to thee 
 now, there would still lie before thee to be traversed 
 millions on millions more of glorious worlds, as far beyond 
 thy vision, and as many years beyond thy reach. When 
 thou beginnest to comprehend something of the idea of 
 such a bewildering infinitude of power and glory, then 
 thou seemest to thyself, especially in thy sinful nature, a 
 speck, a mote, an atom of dust, an insignificant, vile 
 creature, that may well be dropped out and lost or thrown 
 away, amidst such costly, boundless universes of magnifi- 
 cent beings and things. Now then come back from thy 
 trance of amazement to the reality of the words of Christ, 
 and then thou wilt find and see that thou, thou thyself, if 
 thou servest Christ sincerely in thy little day 'and space of 
 time and action, art to be honored of the God, the Creator, 
 Possessor, Supporter, of all this power and glory, with an 
 honor, of which this material universe itself can give no 
 adequate conception, an honor never bestowed upon that 
 universe, an honor which will mark thee in the midst of 
 that universe as an object of greater wonder, surprise, and 
 occasioned admiration of God in Christ Jesus, and of 
 gratitude, love, and praise, than the whole material uni- 
 verse besides. Does this seem like the language of 
 exaggeration ? Study the system of redemption, and the 
 meaning of God's promises, and you will see that the 
 honor of the Sons of God in Christ's image, and the glory 
 of the riches of the inheritance of saints in light, cannot 
 be exaggerated. You will hear the Saviour declaring to 
 his Father, The glory which thou gavest me, I have given 
 them. And you will hear the promise unto men, He that 
 loveth me shall be loved of my Father ; he shall keep my 
 words, and my Father shall love him, and we will come 
 unto him, and make our abode with him. He that con- 
 fesseth me before men, him will I also confess before my 
 Father and his holy angels. He that overcometh, I will 
 
 16* 
 
370 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go 
 no more out ; and I will write upon him the name of my 
 God, and the name of the city of my God, New Jerusalem, 
 and my new name. And the very stram of invitation and 
 shout of welcome unto the region and possession of such 
 beatitude past utterance, is this, BLESSED OF MY FATHER ! 
 Before the throne of God they dwell, and they serve him 
 day and night in his temple, and he that sitteth on the 
 throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no 
 more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light 
 on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the 
 midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them 
 unto living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away 
 all tears from their eyes. 
 
 Now these things are a great mystery of condescension 
 and love ; so great, that in some respects there is no mys- 
 tery to be compared with them. We know not what to 
 make of them, and in some moods of mind they almost 
 stagger credibility, it seems so impossible that God can so 
 honor and bless such sinful worms as we are. The mys- 
 tery is somewhat opened and cleared up indeed, when we 
 think that the ground and object of all this glory is the 
 honor of Christ ; but then again when we think how 
 miserably poor, little, and imperfect is the utmost honor 
 and service we can pay him, in comparison with that 
 which is his due, again the mystery appears amazing. 
 But there stand the promises of God. They are eternal 
 realities with all their mystery of glory. And so is the 
 crown of glory before us, which is soon to be revealed. 
 It doth not yet appear what we shall be ; but we know 
 that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we 
 shall see him as he is. 
 
 Come, Lord ! cried Richard Baxter, transported by his 
 meditations on this glory yet to be revealed, and convinced 
 that if the work of Christ on earth, in which his soul 
 delighted, was to him full of joy and blessedness, with all 
 its difficulties and trials, then certainly the beholding of 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OF GLORY. 371 
 
 Christ's glory in heaven, and the partaking of it there, 
 would be a joy and happiness past all present knowledge 
 and conception : 
 
 Come, Lord, when grace hath made me meet, 
 
 Thy blessed face to see, 
 For if thy work on earth be sweet, 
 
 What will thy glory be ! 
 
 Then shall I end my sad complaints, 
 
 And weary, sinful days, 
 And join with those triumphant saints 
 
 That sing Jehovah's praise. 
 
 My knowledge of that life is small, 
 
 The eye of faith is dim, 
 But 'tis enough that Christ knows all, 
 
 And I shall be with him. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 Glorification completed. Heaven a perfect state, both relatively and absolutely, 
 but such perfectness not attained this side of Heaven. And in Heaven itself, 
 all perfection is in and of Christ. Conclusion of the Windings of the River 
 of the Water of Life. 
 
 AMIDST the visions of the Apocalypse there is one scene 
 of heavenly glory, formed by the presence of the redeemed 
 from earth, said to be without fault before the throne of 
 God. This is a wonderful declaration, and a most glorious 
 mystery of godliness. Indeed, of all mysteries, this is one 
 of the greatest, that a sinful man should be found without 
 fault before the throne of God. But a sinful man becomes 
 in Christ a new creature. It is not the old man, full of 
 depravity and sins, that is without fault before the throne 
 of God, but the new man, the new creation out of the 
 ashes of the old, the man created anew in Christ Jesus, 
 and created for the purpose of being presented before the 
 throne of God in his likeness. 
 
 They are the redeemed from among men.. They are the 
 first fruits unto God and the Lamb. They are the subjects 
 of his regenerating love and grace. They were once 
 creatures of sin and of destruction, with natures of such 
 voluntary evil, that they were called by Divine Inspiration 
 itself, children of wrath, and children of the devil. Now 
 they are before the throne of God in his likeness. Now 
 they are without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. Now 
 they are without fault before the throne of God. 
 
GRACE AND TRUTH, CHRIST IN THE SOUL, &C. 373 
 
 This is the result of the great mystery of justification, 
 which itself steps back into the mystery of sanctification, 
 and that into the mystery of regeneration, and that again 
 into the mystery of redemption, and that into the unfathom- 
 able depths of the mystery of God's love. These steps 
 are traced in the forward direct order by Paul's logic thus : 
 foreknowledge, predestination, calling and conformity to 
 the image of God's dear Son, justification, glorification. 
 John in the Apocalypse sets us down at the last step, 
 glorification ; without fault before the throne of God. 
 
 There is here what might almost be called a change in 
 personal identity. Men talk of the great mystery of the 
 resurrection of the body, but here is a greater mystery by 
 far, the resurrection of the soul from death into life eternal, 
 the same soul, and yet a different soul the same soul and 
 yet a new soul in Christ Jesus, a soul absolved from guilt, 
 once dead in trespasses and sins, now alive in holiness ; 
 once corrupted and defiled, with the image of God 
 destroyed, and that of Satan adopted, but now cleansed, 
 purified, sanctified, the likeness of Satan gone eternally, 
 the likeness of God renewed eternally, and the image of 
 Christ made the soul's eternal identity, by the union of the 
 soul with Christ, Christ as the soul of the soul, abiding in 
 it, and shining through and from it for ever. This is a 
 transaction so wonderful, a transformation so immeasur- 
 able in glory, and so incomprehensible, save only by the 
 revelation of the Spirit of God, that there is no mystery 
 in the universe to be compared with it, save only that 
 mystery of the incarnation and death of the Son of God, 
 which laid the foundation for it. 
 
 Now this is undoubtedly the glorified state of the soul, 
 and belongs to nothing but that. It can be affirmed abso- 
 lutely of no previous state, no condition of attainment in 
 the processes of sanctification in this world. It is the 
 completion and absolute fulfilment of all the processes of 
 regeneration, sanctification, justification, redemption, in 
 Christ and in Christ's glory. It cannot be said absolutely, 
 
374 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 at any previous step before this state of glory, that the 
 soul is without fault. There may be the image of Christ 
 perfectly visible and undoubted at a previous stage, and 
 it may be long time visible, so that noJ person in the world 
 doubts it. But that is not to be of necessity without fault. 
 Christ himself is represented as sitting as the Great 
 Refiner and Purifier of his people, over the crucible in 
 which he is trying their souls, looking into it, till he sees 
 his own face reflected in the clear, unspotted mirror. 
 But that may be, and yet it may not be possible that it 
 should be said without fault. For the dross may gather 
 again. It may gather, and it does gather, notwithstanding 
 all Christ's care, and directly beneath his eye. For in this 
 world there is indwelling corruption still, which shows 
 itself sometimes even in the very fire ; and no sooner is 
 one coat of dross removed, and the image of Christ seen 
 shining, than the bright surface begins again to be clouded, 
 and the film gathers ; perhaps a different kind of dross, 
 less dark and gross than before, but still the development 
 of indwelling imperfection and sin. 
 
 Sometimes the crucible has to be kept in the fire, and 
 the trial maintained almost without cessation, all through 
 life. And never, probably, while in the body, does the 
 soul reach the point where it can be said absolutely, as in 
 the state of glory, without fault. The processes which 
 tend to that state, which are to conduct to it and issue in 
 it, may all be going forward, and may have advanced 
 further towards completion in some than in others ; seen, 
 indeed, in all their various stages and approximations to 
 the state of glory, and in some cases arising to a very 
 eminent and wonderful degree of continued, undeviating, 
 almost unclouded transformation in the image of Christ. 
 But while these processes are going forward, while there 
 is anything to be accomplished by them, they are not per- 
 fect ; and while there remains anything in the soul which 
 needs to be corrected, or which may, or might, if left to 
 its development, result in imperfection and sin, the process 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OF GLORY. 375 
 
 conducting to the state of perfection in glory is not com- 
 plete. It cannot be said of the soul, as in that state, 
 without fault. 
 
 It can be said neither relatively nor absolutely. For 
 there is still that within the soul which connects it with 
 its past sins, that which is the consequence and result of 
 those sins, and a source of trial, evil, imperfection. There 
 is present fault growing out of past sin, and connecting 
 the soul with it, although it have been ever so bitterly and 
 humbly repented of. It may have been forgiven, but the 
 process of deliverance and redemption from it is not yet 
 completed, and therefore neither in respect to the present 
 nor the past can it ever be said, in such a state, to be 
 without fault. 
 
 But in the glorified state this is to be said both rela- 
 tively and absolutely. Absolutely, there is nothing imper- 
 fect, nothing tending to sin, no latent quality, or bias, or 
 shade of character, or habit, or seed, or principle, that, if 
 left to development, could produce evil. And relatively, 
 there is no connexion between the soul and past sin, no- 
 thing left to the soul which was the result of sin, nothing 
 which could remind the soul that sin ever existed, no scars 
 of sin, no trace of evil, no fault or guilty consciousness of 
 past sin remaining, but all things entirely new, old things 
 done away, and a being existing of unrningled newness in 
 Christ. This being, from the moment of its entering on 
 this glorified state, is absolutely without fault, in respect 
 to all past, all present, all future existence, as absolutely as 
 the angels in heaven. It is free from sin, from all con- 
 nexion with sin, from all blame of sin, as well as all stain 
 of sin, there being, from the first moment of its glorified 
 state, no remnant of its former sinful state, either as con- 
 sequence or tendency, connecting its present character, 
 powers, or accountabilities with that. It is wholly another 
 being in Christ, and in respect of the consciousness of 
 holiness, its personal identity may be said to be changed 
 from that of a sinner into that of Christ. The life now 
 
376 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 lived is solely that of Christ, the identity now experienced 
 is that of oneness with Christ. There is nothing which 
 can be laid to the charge of this present being, any more 
 than to the charge of Christ himself, ror it is as absolutely 
 without fault as Christ is without fault. 
 
 And this is the state in which all glorified beings will 
 view it, angels and all intelligences, seeing in it nothing 
 but holiness, and nothing to remind them of sin ; no more 
 remnant of any past connexion with sin, or association 
 with the idea of it, seen in these redeemed spirits of the 
 just made perfect, than in the angels themselves ; except 
 indeed the holiness and glory of redemption, the peculiar 
 image of Christ, which, together with the song that they 
 sing, to Him that hath washed us from sin, robed us in 
 white, and redeemed us to God by his blood, will make 
 known to all the universe that these are they who once on 
 earth were lost sinners, but have come out of great tribu- 
 lation, and washed their robes and made them white in the 
 blood of the Lamb. But now, in Christ, they are as 
 absolutely without fault as if they never had been sinners, 
 and the only thing in themselves to remind any creature 
 in the universe that they ever had been sinners, is that 
 transcendent lustre of their holiness in the image of Christ, 
 that peculiar identity of their souls with Christ, and that 
 singular reflection of Christ's glory from them, above the 
 glory of the angels ; that reflection of the glory of the 
 Lamb, which will mark them as the radiant beings for 
 whom the Lamb was slain. Nothing but that can ever 
 remind the inhabitants of the heavenly world, that there 
 ever was or could have been a state in their being, in 
 which it could not be said that they were without fault. 
 It is the excess of holiness in them, the peculiar ravishing 
 character of that holiness, as the glory of the Lamb that 
 was slain, and no shade of any mark or remembrance of 
 sin or connexion with it, that would cast the thoughts of 
 any creature in heaven back upon a once sinful state. 
 
 But this could never be the case, until the soul reached 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OF GLORY. 377 
 
 this state of glory. Everywhere this side that glorified 
 state, at whatever point of attainment, there was some- 
 thing in the soul itself connecting it immediately with 
 guilt, and forbidding the spiritual spectator, as well as the 
 conscious sinner, to dare to say, without fault. Wherever 
 the angels, as they cast down their observant regards upon 
 our world, or ministered in it to those who were to be 
 heirs of salvation, beheld the path of a being under God's 
 guidance shining more and more unto the perfect day, they 
 saw still the path of a sinner, they had to turn an anxious 
 compassionate regard, till they saw the path, with all their 
 anxieties in regard to it, lost from the sinfulness of mortal 
 life, in the holiness and glory of God in eternity. They 
 saw in every creature, however holy, the stain of sin,* the 
 remaining power of sin ; and if such a creature could have 
 been supposed to be taken, just in that state, though at any 
 point of attainment in holiness whatever, into heaven, 
 without the process of glorification perfected, there would 
 have been seen in such a creature the anomaly of imper- 
 fection in heaven, that which would have forbidden its 
 inhabitants to say, without fault ; that which would have 
 manifested itself to every holy consciousness as a tendency 
 to sin, and a guilty relationship with sin. 
 
 But it is not possible to suppose any such thing in 
 heaven. Sin belongs only out of heaven, and all con- 
 nexion with it ceases there. And just so, perfect holiness, 
 the being absolutely without fault, belongs not to a fallen 
 world, and never was and never will be found in it, except 
 only in the person of the Saviour. But it is the supreme 
 and universal blessedness of heaven, it is the glory of the 
 glorified state, that all who enter upon it leave all sin, all 
 stain, all imperfection behind them for ever, and are with- 
 out fault before the throne of God. From the moment 
 they are glorified, it is entirely a new existence, no more to 
 be paralleled or even predicted, by any attainments in a 
 world of sin, than the glory of the flower, as its leaves 
 open to the light of the sun, is to be paralleled by the seed, 
 
378 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 as it lies germinating in the earth and surrounded with 
 rottenness. There is a difference, the greatness of which 
 we cannot by any effort conceive, between the state of the 
 soul in a world of sin, a body of death, and a condition of 
 probationary discipline, and its state in a world of perfect 
 holiness, blessedness, and glory. For now we see as 
 through a glass darkly, but then face to face. Now we 
 see in sin, and in ignorance because of sin, and this alone 
 makes a difference which we are in no way able to mea- 
 sure. Now are we the Sons of God, if Christ indeed be 
 in us, but yet in so much weakness, darkness, and imper- 
 fection, that it doth not yet appear what \ve shall be, 
 scarcely more than, if you should open the ground, and 
 examine a grain of corn, which had been put beneath the 
 earth in the spring to die, you could tell what it will be, 
 when the golden field of grain is waving in the harvest. 
 But there is another point and revelation of shining 
 light, with all our ignorance. We know, adds the Apostle, 
 that when he, the Son of God, shall appear, we shall be 
 like him, for we shall see him as he is. When he, who is 
 our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in 
 glory. This being without fault before the throne of God, 
 is a being in the likeness of the Saviour. For creatures 
 who have once sinned, the being without fault consists in 
 that, and could not be without that. It is the Redeemer's 
 righteousness, which his saints will wear, but they will 
 not wear it only as a robe, but it will be in them, as their 
 nature, their very existence, in Christ. They will be 
 without fault, because Christ, into whose image they are 
 transfigured, is without fault. They will be without fault, 
 because there will be nothing left in them, nothing seen in 
 them, but the image of Christ. Even this vile body shall 
 be changed, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious 
 body. Thus he will present every child of God perfect 
 and complete before the throne of God in his likeness, 
 without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. Thus will he 
 be glorified in his saints, and then it will be known what is 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OF GLORY. 379 
 
 the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory 
 of his inheritance in the saints. Christ is now in every 
 saint the hope of glory ; Christ will be in every saint the 
 possession, realization, and fulness of glory. 
 
 But of this we can understand now only a little. If we 
 are the children of God, we know something, as the Apos- 
 tle John knew something, of what his meaning was, when 
 he said, Now are we the Sons of God. .We know that 
 that is a joy unspeakable and full of glory, to be made par- 
 takers of the Spirit, to be changed by that Spirit from sin 
 to holiness, even to begin to be so changed. Of that 
 glory the Apostle had had experience, when he said, Now 
 are we the Sons of God. He had seen also the Saviour's 
 glory on the Mount. But there is a glory to come, of 
 which John himself had no adequate conception, and 
 could only say, It doth not yet appear what we shall be ; 
 save this only, that when He shall appear, we shall be like 
 him. It would seem then, that the experience now of a 
 participation in the holiness of Christ, great as the glory 
 and blissfulness of that is, is but the preparation for that 
 change into his glorifiecl state, of the glory of which we 
 can as yet form no definite imagination. 
 
 It will be a wondrous thing indeed, the wonder of 
 all heaven, to see those beings from this world of sin, in 
 the glorified state of Christ, and without fault before the 
 throne of God. What are these which are arrayed in white 
 robes, and whence came they ? These subjects of wonder 
 and interrogation in the heavenly world, these representa- 
 tives of the glory of the Saviour, these that have passed 
 the gates of death, whence came they ? John Foster once 
 asked these questions, and apostrophized an answer to 
 them, in a grandeur of spirit which language can but 
 faintly intimate. Whence came they ? From darkness 
 and sin, from meanness and degradation, from want and 
 from sorrow, from a subjection to all the irregularities of 
 all the elements, from the very dread of death, which has 
 given them to such felicities. Their mortal tabernacle 
 
380 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 fell asunder, and let the captive spirit go free. It was a 
 change inconceivable, unutterable, from the ignorance 
 and darkness of this world into the amazing pursuits and 
 glories of that ! Who are they ? lOne was a Lazarus, 
 lying cold and disordered at a rich man's -gate. Another 
 was pointed at by the finger of scorn ; a third inclosed by 
 the walls of a prison ; a fourth perished in the martyr's 
 flame. They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they 
 wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, being desti- 
 tute, afflicted, tormented. They were the off-scouring of 
 all things. Now they are the wonder of heaven. Now 
 they are rich, now ennobled, now they are at rest, now 
 happy for ever. Now they are before the throne of God, 
 and serve him day and night in his temple ; and he that 
 sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall 
 hunger no more, neither thirst any more ; neither shall the 
 sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is 
 in the midst of them shall feed them, and shall lead them 
 unto living fountains of waters ; and God shall wipe away 
 all tears from their eyes. 
 
 O glory, glory, glory, beyond 'all glory ever seen or 
 known, this side the completion of redemption, and the 
 glorification of the Saviour in his Saints ! For, consider 
 the language used by the inspired Revealer in shadowing 
 forth this state of heavenly glorification. Before the 
 throne of God without fault. Absolute perfection, secured 
 everlastingly by the oneness of the soul with Christ. 
 Perfection not relative to man merely, nor angels, but tg 
 God, as a participation of God's own perfection in Christ ! 
 Perfection BEFORE THE THRONE OF GOD, before that reality 
 in heaven, beneath the shadows of which on earth, the 
 great prophet, who saw it only in a vision, was compelled 
 to cry out, when he heard the voice of the Seraphim, 
 Holy, Holy, Holy ! Woe is me, for I am undone ! Before 
 the throne of God without fault. Before the throne of 
 God in glory ! And therefore, a faultlessness infinitely 
 perfect, a glory and a blessedness unchangeable and ever- 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OF GLORY. 381 
 
 lasting ; unchangeable, save only from glory to glory, and 
 from happiness to happiness ; a glory and happiness ever- 
 lasting and boundless as the perfection of God ! 
 
 There is no pause here, no darkness, nothing that admits 
 of mistake, all doubt and fear are gone for ever, the cer- 
 tainty of continuance and progression in this state being 
 the certainty and immutability of the Divine Attributes. 
 There was doubt and darkness and fear on earth, and 
 though the path below rose upwards into increasing light, 
 yet there may have been doubt, gloom, and uncertainty, 
 up even to the very point of death and glory ; but that 
 point reached, the soul for ever freed from spot, wrinkle, 
 or any such thing, cut loose from all possibility of fall or 
 change, is launched in God's own light, in an identity with 
 Christ's own existence, on the boundless sea of God's per- 
 fections, where it passes the possibility of created imagina- 
 tion, this side the grave, to know or track its glory. 
 Then cometh the Hallelujah of victory ! Then is fulfilled 
 the last mystery of holiness, of which the Apostle has 
 said, Behold I show it to you. For this corruptible must 
 put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immor- 
 tality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incor- 
 ruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, 
 then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, 
 Death is swallowed up in victory ! O Death, where is thy 
 sting ? O Grave, where is thy victory ? The sting of 
 death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But 
 thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory, through 
 our Lord Jesus Christ ! 
 
 By all this we see plainly that that expression, the Spirits 
 of just men made perfect, conveys the image of a sight, 
 which we come to in heaven alone. A man may be a just 
 man and not a perfect man. He may be justified, and 
 may have passed from condemnation and bondage into life 
 and freedom in Christ Jesus, and yet by no means be per- 
 fect. The spirits of the just may be on earth ; the just 
 
382 GRACE AND TRUTH, 
 
 made perfect are only in heaven. But this last state is 
 immeasurably more glorious. To say of a man that he is 
 just, that he is justified in Christ, is full of glory ; it is the 
 beginning of glory. But to say thp just made perfect, is 
 to reach a point, where angels and principalities and 
 powers will never be wearied with gazing ; where indeed 
 all that they have beheld in all the past eternity of God's 
 wojiders of wisdom, power, and love, will leave them still 
 astonished and enraptured, with a new surpassing rapture, 
 at this before inconceivable revelation of the glory of God 
 in the Saviour seen through his saints. This is that glori- 
 fication together with Christ, to which the Apostle Paul 
 refers, when he speaks of the glory which shall be revealed 
 in us ; the glory of those who are glorified together with 
 Christ, being that of those who are without fault before the 
 throne of God. Well may the earnest expectation of the 
 creature wait for, and long after, such a manifestation of 
 the Sons of God. 
 
 Another class of passages illustrated in the same man- 
 ner is that of those which speak of Christ's appearing, as 
 the great era of desire and glory. It is the era of the 
 assumption of this transcendent glory by the Saints, this 
 exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Instructed by the 
 Holy Spirit, they are looking and longing, yearning after 
 and expecting that day of Christ ; and they are exhorted 
 to rejoice now, if partakers of Christ's sufferings, that 
 when his glory shall be revealed, they may be glad also 
 with exceeding great joy. Looking for that blessed hope, 
 and the glorious appearing of our Great God and Saviour 
 Jesus Christ. When he who is our life shall appear, then 
 shall ye also appear with him in glory. The excitement 
 of this hope, the living upon it, and the being animated by 
 it, came to be, as we have previously intimated, so much a 
 characteristic of the early, loving, suffering saints, that 
 Paul speaks of them, as those who love the Lord's appear- 
 ing. In that appearing he shall come to be glorified in his 
 
CHRIST IN THE SOUL THE HOPE OF GLORY. 383 
 
 saints, and admired in all them that believe, who shall then 
 be presented faultless before the throne of his glory with 
 exceeding great joy. 
 
 To this faultlessness all things are now tending, all 
 things in God's Word, providence, and grace, working 
 towards its consummation. And this illustrates remark- 
 ably yet another class of passages, which connect the 
 work of sanctification in its progress in this world with 
 this same era of Christ's appearing, and some of which 
 express such intense desire and anxiety on the part of the 
 Apostle, for the holiness of the saints, being confident, 
 Paul says in Phil. i. 6, that he which hath begun a good 
 work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. 
 And again, in 1st Cor. i. 8, Who shall also confirm you 
 unto the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ. And so, in 1st Thess. iii. 13, in language almost 
 the same as that used by John in the Apocalypse ; and in 
 1st Thess. v. 13, the Apostle says, The very God of peace 
 sanctify you wholly : and I pray God your whole spirit and 
 soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 This work is travelling always on \ every labor of the 
 saints, every prayer of faith, every advancement in holi- 
 ness, is necessary to it ; and the climax and consummation 
 of it is not to be a sudden new creation, but a revelation 
 of what was hidden, and an uncovering to the view of the 
 whole universe, of the riches of the glory of Christ's 
 inheritance in the Saints. In reference to it, and to all 
 the arrangements making for it, we seem, as it were, 
 seated in a dark room, gazing towards an illimitable trans- 
 parency which is preparing for the vision, but not yet 
 lighted up, nor the figures perfected, nor the coloring per- 
 fectly prepared, but preparing, for the transmission of the 
 light which is to shine through it. So we wait, so the 
 perfection of the saints waits, so the admiring universe 
 waits, for Christ's appearing, Christ's revelation, as the 
 light, the significance, the fountain of all this glory. And 
 
384 GRACE AND TRUTH, CHRIST IN THE SOUL, AC. 
 
 when he shall appear, then the whole universe will suddenly 
 be lighted up at the blaze of this transparency, and Christ 
 will be shining through it all, and it will be Christ's glory 
 that shall be admired in all its living, blissful figures for 
 ever and ever. 
 
 Now let it be remembered that all this consummation 
 is connected indissolubly with every thought and effort of 
 the saint's life. Every victory that through divine grace 
 the Christian gains over sin and temptation, every labor 
 done for Christ, every prayer of faith, every patient bear- 
 ing of Christ's Cross, is a pledge that the soul is advancing 
 to that consummation in glory. Every co-operation of 
 the children of God with Christ, is a pledge that Christ is 
 w r orking in them and with them, preparing them for this 
 mighty revelation, when they are to shine out like the sun 
 in the firmament, at his coming, his appearing, his king- 
 dom. O what an inducement to a life of holiness is here, 
 what animating encouragement to every effort, and what 
 infinite obligation for such effort laid upon the soul ! 
 
 And on the other hand for those that are out of Christ, 
 voluntary strangers to his grace, the period of his appear- 
 ing will be an era of ruin, of loss, of misery, of completed 
 destruction, as tremendous and terrific, as for those who 
 wear the image of Christ, it is to be an era of glory sur- 
 passing all imagination. Then, too, shall the wicked 
 appear in the likeness of Satan. But over that world we 
 let the veil drop, for thither the windings of the River of 
 Life run not. Let every soul hasten to Christ, to be 
 washed in his blood and sanctified. AND UNTO HIM THAT 
 IS ABLE TO KEEP YOU FROM FALLING, AND TO PRESENT YOU 
 FAULTLESS BEFORE THE PRESENCE OF HIS GLORY WITH EX- 
 CEEDING JOY, TO THE ONLY WISE GoD OUR SAVIOUR, BE GLORY 
 AND MAJESTY, DOMINION AND POWER, fcOTII NOW AND EVER. 
 AMEN. 
 
 ITT 
 

 
 
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