Winter Before Harvest,
or
The Soul's Growth in Grace
By Joseph Philpot, 1837
"For before the harvest, when the bud is perfect, and the
sour grape is ripening in the flower, he shall both cut off the sprigs with
pruning hooks, and take away and cut down the branches. They shall be left
together unto the fowls of the mountains, and to the beasts of the
earth--and the fowls shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth
shall winter upon them." (Isaiah 18:5-6)
No one who reads the Word of God with an enlightened eye
can deny that there is contained in it such a doctrine as "growth in grace".
Peter says expressly, "Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ." (2 Pet. 3:18) The faith of the Thessalonians was said
"to grow exceedingly." (2 Thess. 1:3) And thus we read of degrees of faith,
from "little faith," (Matt. 6:30) "weak faith," (Rom. 14:1) faith "as a
grain of mustard seed," (Matt. 17:20) to "great faith," (Matt. 15:28)
"strong faith," (Rom. 4:20) "fullness of faith," (Acts 6:8) and "full
assurance of faith." (Heb. 10:22)
Figures also and comparisons are made use of in the Word
of truth which clearly point to the same doctrine. Thus the divine life is
compared sometimes to the course of the sun--"The path of the just is as the
shining light, that shines more and more unto the perfect day;" (Prov. 4:18)
sometimes to the growth of grain, "first the blade, then the ear, after
that, the full grain in the ear;" (Mark 4:28) sometimes to the increase of
the human body, as commencing with "new-born babes," (1 Pet. 2:2) and
advancing on to "little children", "young men" and "fathers;" (1 John
2:12-14) sometimes to a race, where the runner "forgets those things which
are behind, and reaches forth unto those things which are before." (Phil.
3:13)
The very idea indeed of life implies advance, growth,
progress, increase. Lambs grow up into sheep, vine buds into vine
branches, (John 15:5) slips into trees, (Isa. 17:10;61:3) sons into fathers.
(1 Tim. 1:18;5:1) Christians are not gate-posts, but palm trees and cedars;
(Ps. 92:12) not loungers, but soldiers warring a good warfare; (1 Tim. 1:18)
not idlers at home on armchairs and sofas, but travelers and pilgrims
seeking a country; not careless, and at ease, like Laish and Moab, (Judges
18:7; Jer. 48:11), but pressed out of measure by trials and temptations, so
as at times to despair even of life. (2 Cor. 1:8)
Their grand distinguishing mark then is, that they grow;
and, therefore, absence of growth implies absence of life. Hypocrites,
indeed, may grow in hypocrisy, Pharisees in self-righteousness, Arminians in
fleshly perfection, dead Calvinists in head-knowledge, proud professors in
presumption, self-deceivers in delusion, and the untried and unexercised in
vain confidence. But the dead never grow in the divine life, for "the root
of the matter" is not in them. (Job 19:28)
But the question at once arises--"What is growth in
grace? What is its nature, and in what does it consist? Is it the same
thing as what is usually called 'progressive sanctification'? Does our
nature grows holier and holier, and our heart purer and purer? Does growth
in grace imply that besetting sins gradually become weaker, temptations less
powerful, the lust of the flesh less seducing; and that our Adamic nature,
our old man, is improved and transmuted into grace, as the crab tree of the
hedge has, by long and patient cultivation, become changed into the apple
tree of the garden?" No, by no means. Painful experience has taught me the
contrary, and shown me that progressive sanctification has no foundation in
the Word of God, and no reality in the hearts of His people.
The answer, then, to the question, "What is growth in
grace?" is contained, I believe, in the text, and I shall therefore endeavor
to unfold it in an experimental manner according to the ability which God
may give me. The text speaks of three distinct stages in divine life,
Spring, Harvest, and an intermediate state between the two which we may call
Winter. We shall indeed find as we proceed that the Spring is divided into
two stages, the latter of which we may term Summer; and thus growth in grace
is compared to the advance of the seasons in the year.
But there is this remarkable difference between the
natural and the spiritual seasons, between growth in nature and growth in
grace, that the succession of seasons is not the same in each. Nature
commences with blooming spring, advances on to glowing summer, ripens into
yellow harvest, and dies away in dreary winter. Grace, according to the line
of experience that I am about to describe, commences with Spring--with "the
bud", and "the flower of the sour grape". Thence it advances on to Summer,
when "the bud is perfect", and "the sour grape is ripening in the flower".
Does not Harvest immediately follow? Alas! no. "Before the harvest" another
seasons comes. Between summer and it, Winter--a long dreary winter
intervenes. Thus, the order of seasons in the divine life is not spring,
summer, harvest, winter--but spring, summer, winter, harvest.
Let us see if this order agrees with the Scriptures of
truth, and with the experimental teachings of God in the soul. All true
religion has a beginning, and a beginning, too--marked, clear and distinct.
That the entrance of divine light into the soul, the first communications of
supernatural life, the first manifestations of an unknown God, the first
buddings forth of a new nature, the first communion of man with his Maker;
that all these hitherto unfelt, unthought of, uncared for, undesired
transactions should take place in the soul, and the soul be ignorant of
them, should know neither their time nor their place, is a contradiction.
The evidence of feeling is as strong, as distinct, as perceptible as the
evidence of sight. I know by sight that this object is black and that white.
I know as certainly by feeling that this substance is cold and that hot. I
may not be able to tell why the one is hot and the other cold, but I know
the fact that they are so.
Thus a new-born soul may not be able to tell why it
feels, nor whence those feelings arise; but it is as conscious that it does
feel as that it exists. It suits well the empty profession of the day to
talk about early piety, and convictions from childhood, and Sunday school
religion, and baptismal regeneration, and infant lispings, and the dawnings
of the youthful mind. "The privilege of pious parents, of family religion,
of the domestic altar, of a gospel ministry, of obedience to ordinances, of
a father's prayers, of a mother's instruction"--who has not heard these
things brought forward again and again as the beginning of what is called
Christian conversion and decided piety? Many of these things are well in
their place, and not to be despised or neglected; but when they are held up
as the almost necessary beginning of a work altogether heavenly and
supernatural, they must be set aside. Thousands have had these things who
have perished in their sins; and thousands have not had them who have been
saved with an everlasting salvation.
A true beginning is a beginning FELT. I will not say that
we must be able to point out the moment, the hour, the day or the week,
though the nearer we approach the precision of time, the nearer we approach
to a satisfactory evidence. But the season, the time within certain limits,
when new feelings, new emotions, new needs, new desires arose in the heart,
can never be forgotten by one who has really experienced them.
To smother over, to mystify, to muddle up the beginning
is to throw discredit on the whole. If the beginning be wrong, all is wrong.
If there be no divine beginning, there can be no divine middle, and no
divine end; and if the first step be false, every successive step will
partake of the original error. If a man, therefore, who professes to be
walking in the way never knew the door, and never found it a strait and
narrow one, he has clambered over the wall, and is a thief and a robber. His
sentence is already recorded. "Bind him hand and foot, and take him away,
and cast him into outer darkness." (Matt. 22:13)
True religion then begins with an entrance into the soul
of supernatural light and supernatural life. How or why it comes, the soul
knows not; for "the wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound
thereof, but can not tell whence it comes and where it goes; so is every one
that is born of the Spirit." (John 3:8) The wind itself is not seen, but its
effects are felt. The sound of a going is heard "in the tops of the mulberry
trees," (1 Chron. 14:15) where God Himself is not seen. The voice of the
Lord powerful and full of majesty was heard by those who saw no similitude.
(Deut. 4:12) Thus effects are felt, though causes are unknown.
Streams flow into the heart from a hidden source; rays of
light beam into the soul from an unrisen sun; and kindlings of life awaken
in us a new existence out of an unseen fountain. The new-born babe feels
life in all its limbs, though it knows not yet the earthly father from
whence that natural life sprung. And thus new-born souls are conscious of
feelings hitherto unpossessed, and are sensible of a tide of life,
mysterious and incomprehensible, ebbing and flowing in their heart, though
"Abba Father" has not yet burst from their lips.
A man's body is alive to every feeling, from a pin
scratch to a mortal wound, from a passing ache to an incurable disease. The
heart cannot beat for a single second its customary stroke, without a
peculiar sensation that accompanies it, notices it and registers it. Shall
feelings, then, be the mark and evidence of natural life, and not of
spiritual? Shall our ignoble part, the creature of a day, our perishing
body, our dust of dust, have sensations to register every pain and every
pleasure, and be tremblingly alive to every change without and every change
within; and shall not our immortal soul be equally endowed with a similar
barometer to fluctuate up and down the scale of spiritual life? We must lay
it down then at the very threshold of vital godliness, that if a man has not
been conscious of new feelings, and cannot point out, with more or less
precision, some particular period, some never-to-be-forgotten season, when
these feelings came unbidden into his heart, he has not yet passed from
death into life. He is not in Christ, if he is not a new creature. (2 Cor.
5:17)
But the question is arising to your lips, "What are these
new feelings? Describe them, if you will or can, that we may compare our
heart with them, for as in water face answers to face, so does the heart of
man to man".
I believe, then, that the first sensation of a new-born
soul is that of LIGHT. "The entrance of Your words gives light." (Ps.
119:130) "The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to those who
sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up." (Matt. 4:16)
This was the light from heaven above the brightness of the sun, which struck
persecuting Saul to the earth, and of which he afterwards said, "God who
commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts." (2
Cor. 4:6)
But, together with this ray of supernatural light, and
blended with it in mysterious union, supernatural life flows into the soul.
"Of His own will He begot us with the word of truth." (Jas. 1:18) "You has
He quickened"--that is, made alive--"who were dead in trespasses and sins."
(Eph. 2:1)
Every ray of natural light is not single, but sevenfold,
as may be seen in the rainbow, where every distinct ray of the sun is broken
into seven different colors. And thus the first ray of supernatural light
which shines into the soul out of the Sun of righteousness is really not
single, but manifold. Mingled with heavenly light, and inseparable from
it--life, feeling and power, faith and prayer, godly fear and holy
reverence, conviction of guilt and hungerings and thirstings after
righteousness--flow into the heart. And it is this blended union of feelings
which distinguishes the warm sunlight which melts the heart from the cold
moonlight that enlightens the head. The latter begins and ends in hard, dry,
barren knowledge, like the Aurora Borealis playing over the frozen snows of
the north; while the former penetrates into and softens the secret depths of
the soul, and carries with it a train of sensations altogether new, heavenly
and divine.
Thus FEELING is the first evidence of supernatural
life--a feeling compounded of two distinct sensations, one referring to God,
and the other referring to self. The same ray of light has manifested two
opposite things, "for that which makes manifest is light"; and the sinner
sees at one and the same moment God and self, justice and guilt, power and
helplessness, a holy law and a broken commandment, eternity and time, the
purity of the Creator and the filthiness of the creature. And these things
he sees, not merely as declared in the Bible, but as revealed in himself as
personal realities, involving all his happiness or all his misery in time
and in eternity. Thus it is with him as though a new existence had been
communicated, and as if for the first time he had found there was a God.
It is as though all his days he had been asleep, and were
now awakened--asleep upon the top of a mast, with the raging waves beneath;
as if all his past life were a dream, and the dream were now at an end. He
has been hunting butterflies, blowing soap bubbles, angling for minnows,
picking daisies, building houses of cards, and idling life away like an
idiot or a madman. He had been perhaps wrapped up in a profession, smuggled
into a church, daubed over with untempered mortar, advanced even to the
office of a deacon, or mounted in a pulpit. He had learned to talk about
Christ, and election, and grace, and fill his mouth with the language of
Zion. And what did he know of these things? Nothing, absolutely nothing.
Ignorant of his own ignorance (of all kinds of ignorance the worst), he
thought himself rich, and increased with goods, and to have need of nothing,
and knew not he was wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.
(Rev. 3:17)
But one ray of supernatural light, penetrating through
the veil spread over the heart, has revealed that terrible secret--a just
God, who will by no means clear the guilty. This piercing ray has torn away
the bed too short, and stripped off the covering too narrow. It has rent
asunder the "fine clothes, gowns, capes, and purses; their mirrors, linen
garments, head ornaments, and shawls. Instead of smelling of sweet perfume,
they will be a stench. They will wear ropes for sashes, and their well-set
hair will fall out. They will wear rough sackcloth instead of rich robes.
Their beauty will be gone. Only shame will be left to them." (Isa. 3:22-24)
A sudden, peculiar conviction has rushed into the soul.
One absorbing feeling has seized fast hold of it, and well near banished
every other. "There is a God, and I am a sinner before Him", is written upon
the heart by the same divine finger that traced those fatal letters on the
palace wall of the king of Babylon, which made the joints of his loins to be
loosed, and his knees to smite one against another. (Dan. 5:5,6)
"What shall I do? Where shall I go? What will become of
me? Mercy, O God! Mercy, mercy! I am lost, ruined, undone! Fool, madman,
wretch, monster that I have been! I have ruined my soul. O my sins, my sins!
O eternity, eternity!" Such and similar cries and groans, though differing
in depth and intensity, go up out of the new-born soul well near day and
night at the first discovery of God and of itself. These feelings have taken
such complete possession of the heart that it can find no rest except in
calling upon God. This is the first pushing of the young bud through the
bark, the first formation of the green shoot, wrapped up as yet in its
leaves, and not opened to view. These are the first pangs and throes of the
new birth before the tidings are brought, "A child is born." "What shall I
do to be saved?" cried the jailer. "God be merciful to me a sinner!"
exclaimed the tax-collector. "Woe is me, for I am undone!" burst forth from
the lips of Isaiah.
This season, then, of first convictions may be called the
early spring, the March of the soul. The weather is still cold and the winds
chilling and cutting, and the bud dares not yet open its bosom, though it is
pushing on in growth and vigor. The brown scales are still wrapped over it,
and though swelling and enlarging, it remains as yet closed up in itself.
But after some time, longer or shorter as He sees fit,
but generally bearing a proportion to the degree and depth of the
convictions, the Lord, I believe, usually bestows some gleam of His smiling
countenance on the soul. The cause of this glimpse of love is unknown to the
soul that enjoys it. But its effects and the feelings to which it gives rise
cannot be hid. The change, the revolution, which this smile creates is well
near as great as the first awakening. With it commences that manifested
growth, that opening of the bud, which I have called the Spring of the soul.
The bud when it first pushes through the bark contains in itself the flower,
the fruit, and the seed. These are not added to it afterwards, but however
covered up or concealed, are in it, an essential part and portion of it,
from the beginning.
Thus, when the Holy Spirit quickens the soul, He plants
within it, a new creature, perfect in all its parts. The child in its
mother's womb has all the limbs of a man. Nor do new-born babes of grace
differ from little children, young men, or fathers, in the number of their
graces, but only in the growth and development of them. Thus in the new-born
soul there is hope, which keeps it from despair; love, which at times gleams
out of terror; and faith, which cleaves hard to the promise, in spite of
unbelief. These buds, indeed, not being called forth by the beams of the
sun, but being chilled and checked by the north wind that blows over the
garden, (Cant. 4:16), could not expand themselves, and were scarcely seen.
But the first rays of the warm sun, the first genial breezes of the south
wind that quiets the earth, (Job 37:17), awaken, as it were, into a new
existence these hidden, unopened buds.
The buds on all trees are formed many months before they
burst forth into open leaf. The storms, and sleet, and frost do not destroy
them, as in the elect, despair never swallows up hope, nor enmity love, nor
unbelief faith. But they cannot unfold and expand their blossom, nor burst
into growth, until "the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the
flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and
the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in the land". Then is the season "when
the fig-tree puts forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape
give a good smell." (Cant. 2:11-13) Under this gleam, then, of sunshine,
this first smile of a heavenly Father's love, the bud begins to open and
unfold its bosom to meet the genial ray.
The first bud that expands itself to the sunshine is that
of FAITH. But was not faith in the soul before? Yes, doubtless. And
did not faith act upon and realize the things that are not seen? Most
assuredly. Faith entered into the soul at the same moment as the first beam
of supernatural light. Some people are of the opinion that there is no faith
in the soul while it is under the law, and that when deliverance comes,
faith comes with it. To support their opinion they quote this text, "But
after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster," (Gal.
3:25) where "faith" means not the grace of faith, but the object of
faith--that is, Jesus Christ.
Others assert that there is no faith but the full
assurance of faith, and that all that falls short of this is no faith at
all. But I would ask, "Is there any difference between a soul dead in sins
and one quickened into spiritual life? Are there not fears, terrors,
convictions, pangs, cries, groans, and a host of feelings in the one which
are not in the other? Whence arises this sense of guilt and wrath, this
remorse for the past, and terror of the future?" I answer because divine
faith credits the divine testimony. Before the soul was quickened into
spiritual life the holiness and justice of God were the same, His wrath
against sin and the curse of His righteous law were the same. But the soul
did not feel them. Why not? Because the word was not "mixed with faith in
those who heard it." (Heb. 4:2).
A divine principle was needed to credit the divine
testimony. He had heard these things by the hearing of the ear in the dead,
outward letter. He had not seen them by the seeing of the eye, by an inward
revelation. If the soul did not believe the word which entered it, did not
credit the commandment which came to it, (Rom. 7:9), how could it fall
beneath the power of it? It did not formerly care for eternal realities,
because it did not believe them by a divine faith. But now it receives,
credits and believes the testimony of God, and this very faith is the cause
of its alarm. If it could cease to believe, it would cease to feel.
But whence comes it to pass that faith acts in so
different a manner when the Sun of righteousness breaks in upon the soul?
Simply because faith credits just such a testimony only as is revealed to
it. Faith may be compared to a hand. My hand feels just according to the
nature of the object which I grasp. I touch things hot or cold, rough or
smooth, hard or soft. The hand is the same, and I touch the object in the
same way; but I feel differently according to the different nature of the
object.
Or faith may be compared to the eye, which receives
different impressions according as it looks upon different things; if upon
things agreeable, impressions that are pleasant, if upon things
disagreeable, impressions that are painful. But the eye is the same, and the
mode of seeing is the same. Thus faith is the hand as well as the eye of the
soul.
If God reveals to the conscience His wrath against sin,
faith is the hand to receive and the eye to see this divine testimony. If
God reveal to the soul pardon and mercy in Christ, the same hand opens to
receive, the same eye uncloses to see the heavenly manifestation. Paul
recounts (Heb. 11) the exploits of faith, such as subduing kingdoms, working
righteousness, obtaining promises, stopping the mouths of lions, and
performing many things of very different and dissimilar kinds. But he never
tells us that the faith itself was different, or that Abel, Enoch, Noah,
Moses, Rahab, Gideon, and the other saints, of whom the world was not
worthy, had all a different faith according to their different exploits.
When the horror of great darkness fell upon Abraham, and God said to him,
"Know of a surety that your seed shall be a stranger in a !and that is not
theirs," (Gen. 15:13) the faith whereby he credited this divine testimony
was the same as that by which he believed in the Lord, when He said, "So
shall your seed be," (Gen. 15:5), and He counted it to him for
righteousness. No, Abraham's faith never was so strong as when it acted most
in the dark, and bade him stretch forth his hand to slay his son. There is
but "one faith", as well as but one Lord and one baptism. And therefore Paul
says that "the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith;" (Rom.
1:17) that is, the righteousness of God in the law to faith in the law, and
the righteousness of God in the gospel to faith in the gospel.
But while the soul was laboring under deep convictions,
faith was not seen, nor felt to be faith. Unbelief, doubts, fears, guilt,
wrath, gloom, misery, all these heavy weights pressed faith down into the
bottom of the slough. Faith could not lift up its head out of all the mud,
and mire, and filth, under which it lay well near smothered. Its eyes were
dim with weeping, a dreadful sound was in its ears, its arm seemed clean
dried up, and its feet set fast in the stocks. The only sign of life was
that it struggled upwards, and spread forth its hands in the midst of the
waves, as he that swims spreads forth his hands to swim. (Isa. 25:11)
But as the sun shines, the bud of faith expands to
receive the fostering ray. Mercy now appears in the place of wrath, and
infinite compassion instead of infinite justice. The thick veil which had
been spread over the promises, invitations and encouragements, is taken off.
The Scriptures appear a new book, the gospel a new sound, the doctrines of
grace new truths, and the blood of Christ a new salvation. The soul wonders
it never saw these things before, and nothing now seems more easy and simple
than to believe in the loving-kindness of God. The stone has been rolled
from the sepulcher, and Lazarus has come forth. The night has passed away,
and the morning appears. The mists that hung over the landscape have broken
off, and the good land, the land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths
that spring out of valleys and hills, lies stretched out to view. As faith
credited before the divine testimony of wrath, so now it credits the divine
testimony of mercy; and as the heaviness of the one before made it stoop, so
the good word of the other now makes it glad.
The second bud which expands to receive the warm sunshine
is that of HOPE. It was, indeed, in the soul before. There is no new
creation of this bud by the rays of the sun, but only an expansion, a
development of it. In the midst of all the gloom and despondency which
brooded over it, there was a secret something at the bottom of the soul
which kept it from despair. When the floodgates of divine wrath are opened
in the natural conscience of a reprobate, he is usually swept away by it
into the blackness of darkness forever. Saul falls upon his sword, and Judas
hangs himself. In the natural conscience of a reprobate there is wrath in
reality; and wrath, too, against the person as well as against the sin. In
the spiritual conscience of the elect there is but wrath in apprehension;
and that wrath against the sin, not against the person.
Thus the vessels of wrath call upon the mountains and
rocks to fall upon them and hide them--their persons--from the wrath of the
Lamb. The vessels of mercy cry, "Pardon our iniquity; for it is great".
Natural guilt drives the soul from God--"Let not God speak with us, lest we
die." (Exod. 20:19) Spiritual guilt drives the soul to God--"Cast me not
away from Your presence;" (Psalm. 51:11) "Let us search and try our ways,
and turn again to the Lord. Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God
in the heavens." (Lam. 3:40,41) A graceless professor never is at anchor. He
is moored to the shore by a silken thread. The first storm snaps his line,
and drives him on the rocks of despair where concerning faith he makes
shipwreck. (1 Tim. 1:19) Thus of these castaways some are driven to the
madhouse, and others to the gallows; some pine away in their iniquities, and
others curse God and die.
But an elect vessel of mercy can never be wrecked on such
shoals as these. To his own apprehensions, his hope may perish from the
Lord, (Lam. 3:18) and "be removed like a tree." (Job 19:10) But it is not
really lost out of his heart. He still holds faith, and has not put away a
good conscience. There is a "Who can tell?" struggling for life. As Jacob
said of Esau, "Perhaps he will accept me"; and as the servants of Benhadad
reasoned with their master, "We have heard that the kings of Israel are
merciful kings; perhaps he will save your life", so the new-born soul under
spiritual convictions hopes against hope. This anchor holds him firm. And
though he often fears his cable will snap, yet the anchor, being within the
veil, linked on to the throne of God by the golden chain of eternal love,
can neither break nor swerve.
But hope in a storm and hope in a calm, hope in the bud
and hope in the flower, though they differ not in nature, differ greatly in
degree. Night and day do not alter the reality of things, but they widely
alter their appearance. Hope shut up in a dungeon and looking through the
prison bars, and hope walking abroad in the sunshine differ much in feeling,
though they do not differ in kind. But we must not cut off hope's head, nor
bury him alive in his cell, because he is shut up, and cannot come forth.
Neither must we say that hope is only born on the same day that he comes out
in his holiday attire.
But some would treat hope as badly as they treat faith,
and allow him neither place nor name, birthright nor inheritance in the
regenerated soul until deliverance comes, though it belongs especially to
the poor, (Job 5:16) dwells in the heart that is sick, (Prov. 13:12) and is
the portion of those whose mouth is in the dust. (Lam. 3:29) Such wise
master-builders would allow the soldier no helmet, (1 Thess. 5:8) the sailor
no anchor, (Heb. 6:19) and the prisoner no stronghold. (Zech. 9:12) But if
he is joined to the living he has hope; and the hope of a living dog is
better any day than the vain confidence of a dead lion. (Eccles. 9:4)
But under the genial ray of God's smiling countenance the
bud opens, and hope bursts forth. And as it expands it looks upward to
heaven, and rises towards its Author and Finisher, its Source and its End.
All true grace looks upward, while counterfeits look downward. Thus true
hope centers in God; false hope centers in self. "Hope in God", said David
to his soul. (Ps. 42:11) "And now, Lord, what do I wait for? my hope is in
You." (Ps. 39:7) "That they might set their hope in God, and not be as their
fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation." (Ps. 78:7,8)
But false hope is a hope in self, that is to say, natural
self. It is therefore compared to a reed, which grows out of the mire, and
withers before any other herb; and to the web which the spider spins out of
its own stomach. (Job 8:11-14) I never yet found anything in self--I mean
natural self--which raised up a living hope. I have known plenty of things
to cause despair, such as pride, lust, covetousness, unbelief, infidelity,
enmity, rebellion, hardness and carelessness. I have found in self,
mountains of sin to press out the life of hope, torrents of evil to sweep
away the foundations of hope, and clouds of darkness to hide the very
existence of hope. But I have never yet found in vile self, deceitful self,
filthy self, black self, and hateful self, any one thing to beget or keep
alive a spiritual hope. If I could, I should fall under that terrible
sentence, whose sweeping edge cuts off thousands--"Cursed be the man that
trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the
Lord." (Jer. 17:5)
But what a mighty revolution takes place in the soul when
the bud of hope bursts forth into flower! It was well near covered up with
despair, as the bud is hidden by the green leaves that close around it; but
it springs up out of despair, and the green leaves part asunder. Darkness,
guilt, terror, heaviness, gloom, melancholy, forebodings of death and
judgment brooded over the soul, like the unclean birds over Abraham's
sacrifice. But hope, as Abraham of old, has driven them away. And now hope
mounts upward to God. Hope has nothing to do with earth, but leaves flesh
and self and the world, the servants and the donkeys, at the foot of the
mount, (Gen. 22:5) that it may have communion with Jehovah Jireh. Thus hope
feeds upon the unseen things which faith realizes.
Both faith and hope are engaged on the same things, but
not in the same way. Faith credits, hope anticipates; faith realizes, hope
enjoys; faith is the hand which takes the fruit, hope is the mouth which
feeds upon it. Thus a certain promise is made to Abraham that he shall have
a son by Sarah. This was a revelation of divine possibility in human
impossibility, (Mark 10:27) of supernatural power in creature helplessness,
(Rom. 4:19-22), to credit which revelation is the essence of spiritual
faith. By faith Abraham realized this promise; by hope he enjoyed it. It was
an unseen thing, an event to come to pass at twenty-five years distance, but
faith made it present, and as such hope fed upon it. When Abraham held in
his arms the new-born Isaac, the pleasure was only a fuller enjoyment of
what he had before tasted. He now enjoyed in reality, in possession, what he
had previously tasted in prospect, in anticipation.
Thus true hope feeds upon present things, but upon
present things only as pledges and foretastes of things future. It feeds
upon Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever, and looks forward to no
other salvation than that of which it now enjoys the foretaste. All other
hope than this is a lie. To hope in the forgiveness of sin--of which there
is no foretaste; in God--of whom there has been no manifestation; in
salvation--of which there has been no pledge; in mercy--of which there has
been no token; in everlasting happiness--of which there has been no inward
enjoyment; is delusion and presumption. Of this building, ignorance digs the
foundation, self-deceit rears the wall, and hypocrisy plasters on the
untempered mortar. It is a refuge of lies, which the hail shall sweep away
and the waters overflow.
The budding forth of hope and the opening of this
heavenly flower, that only grows in the valley of Achor, the valley of
trouble; (Hos. 2:15; Josh. 7:26, marg.) is a season never to be forgotten.
Well do I remember the place--a little garden, hidden by buildings, and
overgrown with shrubs, where this flower opened in my soul. But the
buildings could not hide it, nor the evergreens shade it, nor the damp close
it. The bud opened, the flower burst forth, and at the same moment the eye
looked up, and the mouth uttered, "Whom have I in heaven but You? and there
is none upon earth that I desire beside You".
If time permitted, I might show how in this spring of the
soul the bud of every grace expanded in a similar way.
LOVE in the bud had scarcely strength to maintain its
existence against the enmity of the carnal mind stirred up by the entrance
of the Law. Like a tender graft it seemed as though it must wither away and
die. But love in the flower is strong and vigorous. Love in the bud was not
seen nor known to be love. The color and beauty of the flower could not be
gathered from the appearance of the bud. But love in the flower is known at
once to be love. Like its divine Author, it cannot be hidden, (Mark 7:24)
but is known and read by all men.
So amid the legal repentance and the sorrow that works
death, which were wrapped around it, godly sorrow, while in the bud, could
scarcely be seen. It lay crouching beneath the leaves, hidden and
indistinct. But being looked upon by the sun, it looks in its turn upon Him
whom it has pierced, and mourns for Him as one that mourns for his
firstborn.
GODLY FEAR, again in the bud was darkened and
obscured by the fear which has torment. Slavish fear was so strong that it
drew away all the sap from filial fear. Darkness and damp, lowering clouds
and a threatening sky, cherished the former, while they checked and chilled
the latter. But as the life of the one is the death of the other, godly
fear, when it bursts into flower, soon outgrows the shoot of slavish dread.
When Abraham makes a feast for Isaac, Ishmael is turned out of doors. Love
which casts out the fear that has torment is the very life of that spiritual
fear which is a fountain of life to depart from the snares of death.
PRAYER is another grace of the Spirit which opens and
expands its bud in this springtime of the soul. It had always been in the
soul from the first entrance of spiritual light. "Behold, he prays," (Acts
9:11) was the mark of regenerated Saul. But hitherto it had consisted of
little else but sighs and groans. Access to God, enjoyment of His presence,
sensible communion, holy familiarity, praise and blessing, and similar
feelings of nearness were scarcely known. It had hitherto been more cries
forced out by terror than prayer drawn forth by love. It was more the howl
of the criminal, the cry of the leper, the groan of the desperate, the
broken, the gasping of the drowning or the dying; than the soft, solemn,
gentle, calm stream of nearness and access to God.
There are two kinds of spiritual prayer. There is the
prayer under guilt, and the prayer under mercy; the prayer of a heart
overwhelmed, and the prayer of a heart overflowing; the prayer of distance,
and the prayer of nearness; prayer interrupted with sobs and groans,
intervals of silence and fits of sullenness, like a mountain stream rushing
amid rocks and stones; and prayer flowing calmly and gently into the bosom
of God, as the river of the valley glides into the bosom of the sea.
During this spring of the soul, all things connected with
spiritual religion are full of sweetness. The Word of God is as honey and
the honeycomb, the company of His children eagerly sought after, the
ordinances of His house highly prized, and the message of His ministers
gladly received. Almost every sermon brings some blessing, every prayer some
refreshment, and every chapter some instruction or some consolation. Thus
the soul grows up like the calf of the stall. Having tasted that the Lord is
gracious, it feeds on the sincere milk of the Word, and grows thereby. (1
Pet. 2:2,3)
Under these encouragements the second stage of spring,
the SUMMER of the soul, comes rapidly on. This is "the perfecting of
the bud, the ripening of the sour grape in the flower"; not the ripening of
the fruit, which takes place in autumn, but the ripening, that is, the
maturing, the full completing, of the flower, which takes place in summer.
"The perfecting of the bud" is its full expansion; "the ripening of the sour
grape in the flower" is the ripening of the flower that contains the grape,
not the ripening of the fruit after the flower is fallen. The fruit could
not be fertilized if the flower were not perfected, but would drop off
together with the flower, like the untimely figs of a fig-tree. (Rev. 6:13)
Thus, in this time of summer, budding hope expands into
hope full-blown, faith in the shoot opens into faith in the blossom, and
love in the green leaf ripens into love in the flower. In these warm days of
summer, the sky is for the most part without a cloud. The peace of God keeps
the heart and mind--the one from idolatry, and the other from confusion.
Heaven seems at hand and eternity near; death under the feet, and hell out
of sight. To him that walks in this happy path the pleasures and cares of
the world, the things of time and sense, the vain pursuits of carnal men,
the business of the shop and the field, the empty profession of thousands,
the noise and bustle of a fleshly religion, all seem lighter than vanity.
Being "transformed in the renewing of his mind", and thus conformed, in a
faint measure, to Christ's image, he views things, in some degree, as the
Lord Himself views them, for he has the mind of Christ, (1 Cor. 2:16) and
sees light in God's light. (Ps. 36:9) Thus sin becomes hateful, the carnal
mind a burden, and the earth itself a wretched abode; and the soul cries,
"Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away and be at rest."
(Psalm. 55:6)
Who would not think this happy soul near to heaven, when
it seems to be thus on the very borders of it? But it may be near it, and
yet not enter into it; as the children of Israel were very near the land of
Canaan forty years before they took possession of it; forty years of weary
wandering in the wilderness, after their first pitching in Kadesh , (Num.
13:26) which was in the uttermost of the border of Edom, (Num. 20:16) and
therefore close to the Holy Land.
There are lessons to be learned, of which the soul at
present knows little or nothing. There is an experience to be passed
through, little, little dreamt of; a road to be traveled, as yet but little,
little known. Harvest does not succeed summer in the kingdom of grace, as in
the kingdom of nature. "Before the harvest" another season comes. A long and
dreary WINTER intervenes, and with winter comes the pruning knife of
the heavenly Husbandman, who purges the vine, "that it may bring forth more
fruit." (John 15:2) "For before the harvest, when the bud is perfect, and
the sour grape is ripening in the flower, He shall both cut off the sprigs
with pruning hooks, and take away and cut down the branches."
But why should this wintry season be necessary? What need
of this sharp and severe discipline? Why should not the soul go on as it has
begun? Why should it not proceed from strength to strength, and increase in
faith, hope, and love, until its peace should be as a river, and its
righteousness as the waves of the sea? (Isa. 48:18), We have indeed an
abundance of preachers who tell us not only that it ought to be so, but that
is actually is so. We have no lack of railway projectors, who will draw us
out a line to heaven with neither hill nor valley, and scarcely an inclined
place. Nor have we any lack of fancy drawing masters, who will sketch us out
a beautiful landscape, with heaven itself at the end. But these are such
persons as fire-side travelers and chimney-corner voyagers, and such
architects as builders of castles in the air.
Now, however pretty may be the descriptions of the one,
or however beautiful the palaces of the other, the true pilgrim needs a
guide who has traveled the road himself, and he that builds for eternity
needs an architect who can lay a solid foundation at the first, and
afterwards put every stone in its right place. We will leave, then, these
speculators to their theories, and instead of speaking of things as they
think the ought to be, will endeavor to describe things as they are.
A little spiritual insight, then, into the human heart
may explain the reason why this severe discipline is needful, and unravel
this mystery. Together with the spiritual graces that had first budded, and
afterwards, under the warm beams of the sun, burst forth into flower, there
had shot unperceived an undergrowth of self-righteousness and spiritual
pride. Counterfeits, too, and imitations of divine operations had sprung
up, as the offspring of a deceitful heart, or as delusions of Satan
transformed into an angel of light. Side by side with spiritual trust,
'fleshly presumption' had imperceptibly crept up. Under the shadow of divine
hope, vain confidence had put forth its noxious shoots. Natural belief had
grown rapidly up with spiritual faith, fleshly ardor with heavenly zeal,
universal charity with divine love, and the knowledge that puffs up the head
with the grace that humbles the heart.
Above all things, PRIDE, "accursed pride, that spirit by
God abhorred", was taking occasion by the very grace of God to feed itself
to the full. It was sitting on Christ's throne, exalting itself and
despising others, measuring everyone by its own standard, and well near
trampling under its feet every one of David's soldiers that was in distress,
in debt, or discontented. (1 Sam 22:2) Forgetting its base original, when it
was a beggar on the ash-heap, and that a man can receive nothing except it
be given him from heaven, the soul was in great hazard of sacrificing to its
own net, and burning incense to its own drag. (Hab. 11:16) Thus pride was
doing that secret work which Deer so well describes-
"The heart uplifts with God's own gifts.
And makes even grace a snare."
But beside these more obvious and glaring evils, we may
remark that SELF was as yet little known, the deep recesses of a desperately
wicked heart little fathomed, the helplessness, beggary and bankruptcy of
the creature little felt. The unspeakable value, therefore, of Christ's
blood, the breadths, lengths, depths and heights of distinguishing love, the
riches of the goodness, forbearance and patience of God, the depths of
misery and degradation to which the Redeemer stooped to pluck His chosen
from death and hell--all these divine mysteries, in the experience of which
the very marrow of vital godliness consists, were little known and less
prized.
Judging from my own experience, I believe there is at
this time an indistinctness, a dimness, a haziness in the views we have of
Christ. Though the soul loves and cleaves to Him with purpose of heart, yet
it does not see nor feel the depth of the malady, and therefore not the
height of the remedy. It has not yet been plunged into the ditch, until its
own clothes abhor it, (Job 9:31) nor cast into "deep mire where there is no
standing." (Ps. 19:2) The fountains of the great deep of the human heart
have not yet been broken up; the exceeding sinfulness of sin has not yet
been fully manifested; the desperate enmity and rebellion of a fallen nature
have not yet been thoroughly discovered; nor the wounds, bruises and
putrefying sores of inward corruption been experimentally laid bare. And
thus, as the knowledge of salvation can only keep pace with the knowledge of
sin, Christ is as yet but half a Savior.
A lesson, therefore, is to be taught which the soul can
learn in no other way. Books here are useless, Christian friends of little
value, ministers ineffectual, and the letter of the Word insufficient. A
certain experience must be wrought in the soul, a peculiar knowledge be
communicated, a particular secret be revealed, and all this must be done in
a way for which no other can be substituted. This, then, is the reason why
winter comes before harvest, and why "the sprigs are cut off with pruning
hooks, and the branches taken and cut down."
The discipline thus exercised by the heavenly Husbandman
consists of two distinct parts–
1. The first is that which is immediately and peculiarly exercised by
Himself--"He will cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and take away and
cut down the branches."
2. The second is that which He leaves to be accomplished
by other agents. "They shall be left together unto the fowls of the
mountains, and to the beasts of the earth; and the fowls shall summer upon
them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them."
I remarked that there had shot up a secret undergrowth of
natural religion, as well as a plentiful crop of pride, during the spring
and summer of the soul. These are the sprigs that had grown up side by side
with the bud. Now if these were allowed to continue, they would starve the
bud, or overshadow it. A shoot from the old stock, if permitted to remain,
will always starve the graft. It is a sucker, so called because it sucks the
sap and nourishment from it, and lives and thrives at its expense. A good
gardener, therefore, never hesitates for a moment, but takes out his pruning
knife and cuts it off close to the stem.
But it may be said, "How will this comparison hold good
in the kingdom of grace? The old man and the new are not maintained and
nourished by the same sap." It is true that originally they are not, but
when grace visits the heart, nature will often adopt new food and take
grace's provision. Old sinful nature is not very delicate nor dainty, but
will feed on anything that suits her palate or satisfies her ravenous
appetite. Sin or self-righteousness, indulgences or austerity, feasting or
fasting, truth or error, religion or profaneness, superstition or
infidelity, a convent or a brothel, all are alike to sinful nature. She has
the appetite of a vulture, and the digestion of an ostrich. She has as many
colors as a chameleon, and as "changeable suits of apparel" as an actor's
wardrobe. She can play all parts, speak all languages, and assume all
shapes. But all her crafts and wiles she employs for one single end--to feed
and exalt herself. This is the utmost stretch of her groveling ambition, and
to effect the will compass sea and land, heaven and hell.
Thus when grace comes into the heart, nature first
resists and quarrels with the new-comer, who is destined to rise upon her
ruins, and set up his throne on her prostrate body. But as opposition only
makes grace wax stronger and stronger, nature soon changes her tone, and
seeks to ruin him by her friendship, whom she cannot conquer by her enmity.
She becomes religious, and puts in her claim for some of grace's food. If
grace prays, she can pray also; if grace reads, she too can turn over the
Bible; and if grace hears, she can sit under a gospel minister. No, she can
go far beyond grace, for she has no conscience and he has, and can talk when
grace is forced to hold his tongue, and get into a pulpit when can hardly
sit in the pew. So the six hundred thousand who fell in the wilderness ate
angels' food to the full. (Ps 78:25) So Saul was feasted on the shoulder,
the choice piece that was reserved especially for the priest. (I Sam
9:24;Levi 8:32) Thus nature becomes religious, and feeds on the provision
bestowed upon grace. And this she does so slyly and secretly, that
unsuspecting, guileless grace never discover the robbery. Here, then steps
in the heavenly Husbandman, and begins to cut off with His pruning hook the
sprigs that are pushing forth so luxuriantly at grace's expense.
In using His pruning hook, the divine Husbandman has two
objects in view; 1. To cut off close to the stem the noxious shoots of
nature. 2. To cut down to their due proportion--their bearing length, the
stalks of grace. Now natural faith, false hope, and counterfeit love are
utterly unable to stand against heavy trials when they are sent for the
express purpose of putting us into the balance. They give way and fall to
pieces. They vanish away like the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind
out of the floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney. It is as Bildad
speaks of a hypocrite's hope; "He shall lean upon his house, but it shall
not stand; he shall hold it fast, but it shall not endure." (Job 8:15) And
as this sharp pruning hook lops off false religion close to the stem, so it
cuts down a good part of that which is true.
It is true that real grace can suffer neither loss nor
diminishing, but its manifestations and its actings may. Who that possesses
faith is not conscious that it ebbs and flows, rises and sinks, is strong
and weak, and varies from day to day and from hour to hour? Thus when a
sharp trial comes, its immediate effect is to depress faith. It falls upon
it like a weight, and bends it down to the ground. Faith may be compared to
the mercury in a thermometer. The quantity of mercury in the bulb never
varies, but it rises or falls in the tube according to the heat of the day.
Thus faith, though it abides in the heart without loss or diminishing, yet
rises or sinks in the feelings, as the weather is fair or foul, or as the
sun shows or hides itself.
Did Job's faith, for instance, mount equally high when
"in the days of his youth"--the spring of his soul--"when the secret of God
was upon his tabernacle," as when "he cursed the day of his birth," and
cried, "Oh that I knew where I might find Him?" Was Peter's faith as strong
when he quailed before a servant girl as when he was ready to go to prison
and death? Or Abraham's when he denied Sarah to be his wife, (Gen 20:2) and
when with but his 318 men he pursued and smote the army of four mighty
kings? (Gen 14) If faith never fluctuated, never sinks and never rises, then
we have at once the dead assurance of a professor; the faith is in our own
keeping; then it does not hang on the smile or frown of God; then we are no
more beggars and bankrupts, living on supplies given or withheld, but
independent and self-sufficient; then we "have no changes, and so fear not
God." But if faith ebbs and flows, what is the cause? Is it in self? Can we
add to its stature one cubit, or make one hair of it black or white? If not,
then must its ebbings and flowings come from God.
But temporal afflictions do not cut down faith, hope and
love, nor cut off their counterfeits so severely and closely as spiritual
trials. We read of "pruning hooks," which expression denotes more than one.
Thus any discovery of the holiness and justice of God, of His terrible wrath
against sin and eternal hatred of all iniquity, any piercing conviction of
His heart-searching eye flashing into the conscience, any setting our secret
sins in the light of His countenance, any spiritual sight of self in
appalling contrast with His purity and perfection--any manifestations of
this nature will most assuredly cut down to the stump the sprigs of natural
religion.
Fallen nature could never yet endure the sight of God. It
perishes at the rebuke of His countenance. It goes into the holes of the
rocks and the caves of the earth, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of
His majesty. Natural faith never yet bore the touch of God's hand, but
crumbled to pieces under it. Thus the first effect of these spiritual
discoveries of God is to mow to the ground the thick under-growth of sinful
human nature. And as the same stroke sweeps away all the consolation which
the soul enjoyed, the feeling is as if it had lost all its religion. Like a
person going out of the sun into a dark room, to whom the darkness seem
greater than it really is; or like a person to whom a bad piece of news is
told, who is so stunned by it that he can think of no one alleviating
circumstance; so when darkness suddenly falls upon the soul, and evil
tidings from heaven seem communicated to the heart, not only nature totally,
but grace, too, partially sinks under the stroke. As a person who swoons
away retains life in reality, though it is lost in appearance, so grace
faints away under trials, and often recovers but slowly her former strength.
Such is the usual effect of sudden and severe trials. But
there is another mode of using the pruning hook employed by the divine
Husbandman. And that is, if I may use the figure, to cut half through the
branch, and so stop the supply of sap. Many who have enjoyed the spring and
summer of the soul, have felt their comfort and peace decline gradually,
they could scarce tell how. It was no sudden stroke that befell them, but a
gradual withdrawing of light and life, and a gradual discovery of the
character of God and of their own vileness. Thus the pruning hook was so
slowly and insensibly put under the lower side of the branch to cut it
half-way through, that it was not seen.
But its effects were soon felt. Natural religion began to
wither. A secret dissatisfaction with self began to creep over the soul.
Zeal did not shoot so strong, and faith seemed to hang its head, and hope
appeared to droop. Gloom and despondency began to gather over the mind. The
feeling grew stronger and stronger that there was something wrong somewhere.
Suspicions as to the reality of its religion, and whether there was not
something rotten at the very core, now begin to haunt the soul. Under these
doubtings it goes to God to seek deliverance from Him. But all is dark
there, and the heavens gather blackness. The pruning knife has cut off the
supply of sap. The branches of nature wither away, and drop off from the
stem; and the shoots of grace look sickly and drooping.
But there is another branch of this sentence which God
does not Himself execute, but leaves to the agency of others. All things
that happen, flow from the divine decrees. There is no chance work or
contingency in the government of God; but "He does according to His will in
the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth". Nevertheless He
is not the author of sin; for He "cannot be tempted with evil, neither
tempts He any man" (James 1:13) Thus we must divide the decrees of God into
His executive decree, and His permissive decree. All that is good He
executes with His own hand. All that is evil happens according to His
decree, and cannot but come to pass as necessarily as all that is good, but
He leaves the execution of it to an evil heart, or to an evil devil. These
act unconscious of the divine decree, and think only to fulfill their own
evil purposes. Thus to them belongs the wickedness, and to God the glory.
Satan when he tempted Judas, and the Jews when they crucified Christ, both
fulfilled the divine decree, and formed connecting links of the great chain
of redemption; but God did not by any secret impulse instigate them to act
wickedly.
Thus in the execution of the second part of the sentence
passed upon the tree in the text, God, who cannot be the author of sin,
leaves it to be performed by other agents. "They", that is the branches
pruned off and cut down, "they shall be left together unto the fowls of the
mountains, and to the beasts of the earth, and the fowls shall summer upon
them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them."
The portion of the sentence which God leaves to be
performed by other agents is as important, I may say as indispensable, as
the portion which He executes Himself. These agents are two-fold–
1. The fowls of the mountains.
2. The beasts of the earth.
We may perhaps discover who are intended by "the fowls
of the mountains" by referring to the Lord's own explanation of the parable
of the sower. We read in that parable (Mark 4:4) of "the fowls of the air",
which came and "devoured the seed that was sown by the wayside", which the
Lord thus explains--"When they have heard, Satan comes immediately, and
takes away the word that was sown in their hearts". But there is something
we must not pass over unnoticed in the word "left"--"They shall be left
together unto the fowls of the mountains", etc.
How much is contained in the expression "left"! It is as
though the soul were given up, abandoned, forsaken, not indeed fully nor
finally, but cast off as it were for a time, and delivered, like Samson, to
make sport for its enemies. The tree with its sprigs cut off close to the
stem, with the branches that shot up from its roots cut down and taken away,
and the graft itself pruned down to a remnant of what it was, stands a
melancholy stump.
Winter has come; the sun no longer shines. The sap has
sunk down into the root; life seems pretty well extinct, and the axe appears
ready to finish what the pruning hook has left undone. And now what does it
seem fit for? To become a roosting place for every unclean bird. "There
shall the great owl make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather under her
shadow--there shah the vultures also be gathered, every one with her mate."
(Isa. 34:15) These keen-eyed fowls of the mountains are always watching
their opportunity to alight upon a soul forsaken of God. The eagle "dwells
and abides on the rock, upon the crag of the rock, and the strong place.
From thence she seeks the prey, and her eyes behold afar off. Her young ones
also suck up blood--and where the slain are, there is she." (Job 39:28-30)
And as the "Fowls of the Mountains" seem to signify the fallen angels, those
accursed spirits, whose delight is to destroy all whom they can, and to
harass all whom they cannot destroy; so by "the BEASTS OF THE EARTH" we may
understand those earthly lusts, carnal desires, and base workings of a
fallen nature which war against the soul.
Now it is most difficult, if not altogether impossible,
for a tempted soul to distinguish clearly and accurately between the
temptations which spring from Satan and those which arise from the carnal
mind. And for this reason, that Satan can only work on our fallen nature,
and thus we are unable to distinguish between the voluntary lusts of our
carnal heart, and those which arise from the suggestion of Satan. He tempts
most when least seen. But though when under the temptation, we cannot often,
nor indeed usually, distinguish between the suggestions of Satan and the
spontaneous lustings of our own hearts, yet, looking at each at a distance,
we may draw this distinction between them, that spiritual wickedness, what
Paul calls "filthiness of the spirit," (2 Cor. 7:1) may be ascribed to "the
fowls of the mountains"; and carnal wickedness, the "filthiness of the
flesh", to the beasts of the earth. Thus all those peculiar temptations
respecting the being and character of God, which are usually unknown, or at
least unfelt by us in our days of unregeneracy, but afterwards often sadly
haunt the soul, we may ascribe to the suggestions of Satan.
A temptation, for instance, comes into the soul like a
flash of lightning. It may perhaps be an infidel doubt that starts up
suddenly in the mind. This hidden poison at first perhaps has little
apparent effect, as we at once reject the thought with horror. But as soon
as the Word of God is opened, or the throne of grace approached, the black
thoughts, the powerful questionings, the harassing suspicions which fill the
mind, show us in a moment how the subtle poison is coursing through every
vein. The Word of God has lost all its sweetness and power, and the voice of
prayer is mute. Darkness and disquietude fill the soul. The heavens are
clothed with blackness, and sackcloth is made their covering. Well do the
words of Jeremiah describe this state of soul--"I beheld the earth, and lo,
it was without form and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. I
beheld the mountains"--the stable foundations of truth--"and, lo, they
trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and, lo, there was no
man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled." (Jer. 4:23-25)
I never found anything to sweep away all my religion in
any way to be compared with such thoughts as these. Unbelief has often
shaken it to the very center, guilt has covered it with midnight darkness,
and fears of death in sickness have cut it down to the root. But 'infidel
doubts' sweep away the foundation itself, and "if the foundations be
destroyed, what can the righteous do?"
Or, perhaps, some dreadful imagination rushes into the
mind, such as Deer justly calls "masterpieces of hell". These rush in in a
moment, when perhaps we are on our knees, or reading the Scripture, or
hearing the word. There is something so horrible in them, that a man dares
not for a moment think of them, even to himself, but strives to the
uttermost of his power to banish them from his mind. He will start up from
his knees, throw aside the Bible, plunge his thoughts into the world, yes,
even into the lusts of the flesh, rather than not drive away such fearful
imaginations. It seems as if we were committing the unpardonable sin, as if
God would be provoked to cut us off in a moment, and send us to hell; as if
the earth itself would open its mouth and swallow up such monsters of
iniquity. I will allude no farther to these thoughts than to express my
belief that many of God's children are sadly pestered by them.
The great change which has befallen the soul, the mighty
contrast between its present state and what it was "in months past as in the
days when God preserved it, when His candle shined upon its head, and the
rock poured out rivers of oil"--this great and unlooked for revolution is of
itself sufficient to kindle all the rebellion and enmity of the carnal mind.
Upon these, therefore, Satan works. He and his tribe of evil spirits, these
"fowls of the mountains", come flocking down with their flapping wings, and
brood over the stump which God has for a time abandoned to them. They are
said "to summer upon it", which expression may signify that they spend a
certain season upon the tree cut down; that their visits are not for a day
or a week, but for a whole season, a definite and prolonged time. But I
think the expression points also to the delight, the infernal glee with
which these foul birds come trooping down to their prey. It is their summer
when it is the soul's winter.
If the devil ever feels joy, it is in making souls
miserable. The cries of the damned are his music, their curses and
blasphemies his songs of triumph, and their anguish and despair his wretched
feast. Thus when these fowls of the mountains darken the wretched stump, and
spread over it their black and baleful wings, it is their summer. And as
they brood over it, they breathe into it their own wretched enmity against
all that is holy and blessed. Hard thoughts of God, heavings up of enmity
against His sovereignty, boilings up of inward blasphemy, and of such
feelings as I dare not express, are either infused or stirred up by them. It
is the soul's mercy that "the holy seed, the substance thereof, is in it,
though it has cast its leaves"; and that "there is hope of a tree, if it be
cut down, that it will sprout again" and "through the scent of water it will
bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant." (Job 14:7-9). Nothing but divine
life in the soul could withstand such assaults as these. And thus there is
in the midst of, and in spite of, all the heavings and bubblings of inward
rebellion, a striving against them, a groaning under them, an abhorrence of
them, a self-loathing on account of them, and at times an earnest cry to be
delivered from them.
But there are "the beasts of the earth" as well as
"the fowls of the mountains", who sit on this forsaken stump. These are said
"to winter upon them"; that is, on the remnants of the broken branches. This
expression "winter" points apparently to the season of the year during which
the beasts of the earth take up their abode upon it. And it seems to
intimate that they and the fowls of the mountains divide the year between
them. The one take the summer, and the other the winter. Thus there is
change of visitants, but no respite for the tree; a diversity of temptation,
but no relief for the soul.
These beasts of the earth, I observed, seemed to signify
the lusts of our fallen nature, the wretched inheritance which we derive
from our first parent. "The first man is of the earth, earthy." And, "as is
the earthy, such are they also that are earthy." (1 Cor. 15:47,48) The sin
of our fallen nature is a very mysterious thing. We read of the mystery of
iniquity as well as of the mystery of godliness; and the former has lengths,
depths, and breadths as well as the latter; depths which no human plumb line
ever fathomed, and lengths which no mortal measuring line ever yet meted
out.
Thus the way in which sin sometimes seems to sleep, and
at other times to awake up with renewed strength; its active, irritable,
impatient, restless nature, the many shapes and colors it wears, the filthy
holes and puddles in which it grovels, the corners into which it creeps, its
deceitfulness, hypocrisy, craft, deceptive attraction, intense selfishness,
utter recklessness, desperate madness, and insatiable greediness, are
secrets, painful secrets, only learned by bitter experience. In the
spiritual knowledge of these two mysteries--the mystery of sin and the
mystery of salvation--all true religion consists. In the school of
experience we are kept day after day, learning and forgetting these two
lessons, being never able to understand them, and yet not satisfied unless
we know them, pursuing after an acquaintance with them, and finding that
they still, like a rainbow, recede from us as fast as we pursue.
Thus we find realized in our own souls those heavenly
contradictions, those divine paradoxes, that the wiser we get, the greater
fools we become; (1 Cor. 3:18) the stronger we grow, the weaker we are; (2
Cor. 12:9,10) the more we possess, the less we have; (2 Cor. 6:10) the more
completely bankrupt, the more frankly forgiven; (Luke 7:42) the more utterly
lost, the most perfectly saved; and when most like a child, the greatest in
the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. 18:4)
Now, as the nature of the fowls of the mountains cannot
be known by merely gazing at them as they hover in the air, so the
disposition of the beasts of the earth cannot be learned by seeing them in a
traveling show, locked up in the dens of a menagerie. We know them best by
feeling their talons. These wild beasts during the summer, when the sun was
up, and the day hot, lay crouching in their holes and caverns. "The sun
arises, they gather themselves together, and lay down in their dens." (Ps.
104:22) The lewd monkey, the snarling dog, the greedy wolf, the untamable
hyena, the filthy jackal, the cunning ape, the prowling fox, the ranging
bear, the relentless tiger, and every beast of the forest that roars after
its prey--all lay in the depths of the wood, unnoticed and unknown, while
the sun was high in the heavens. But winter has come, and the beasts of the
earth gather round the hewn-down stump.
In the first awakenings of the soul we do not usually
know nor feel much of our fallen sinful nature. We look too much to the
branches, and not enough to the root. We taste the bitterness of the stream
more than that of the fountain, and are more engaged with the statue than
the hole of the pit whence it was dug. We feel more the guilt of sin
'committed' than of sin 'indwelling', and think more of the daily coin that
passes through our hands than of the mint--the evil treasure of our evil
heart--which stamps it with its image and superscription. Caesar's penny
denoted Caesar's power, though those who boasted they never were in bondage
to any man, saw not that the money which circulated among them carried with
it a proof of his dominion over them. Nor do we see at first very clearly
that the sin which stamps every action has the image of Adam engraved upon
it. Still less do we know much about sin in the days of spiritual
prosperity. The good treasure of the good heart is then circulating its
gold, stamped with Christ's image.
But when the day of adversity comes, and beggary and
bankruptcy ensue, and the evil treasure again issues forth, we begin to look
at the die, and feel--bitterly and painfully feel--that every word, look,
thought, desire and imagination, as they pass through the heart, are
immediately seized, cast under the press, and come forth bearing sin's
coinage upon them. This bank never breaks, this die never wears out, but
fresh coin is issued as fast as the old disappears. Guilt, indeed, and a
tender conscience would gladly stop this circulation, but they can do little
else than stand by and count, with sighs and groans and bitter lamentations,
the incomings and outgoings of sin's mint.
But what are the effects of these trying dispensations?
Such as could be produced in no other way. Whatever wonderful effects are
ascribed to the letter of the Word. In this Bible-spreading and
Bible-reading day, one thing is certain, that it is utterly inadequate to
produce in the soul the fruits and graces of the Spirit. Humility,
repentance, filial fear of God, self-loathing, simplicity and godly
sincerity, brokenness of heart, contrition of spirit, meekness, patience,
deadness to the world, spiritual discernment, boldness and faithfulness in
the cause of truth, an open heart and an open hand--such and similar Divine
fruits cannot be gathered out of the Bible, as a man picks berries off a
hedge. The notions of them may; and in this day, notions and opinions,
doctrines and sentiments, creeds and articles, ceremonies and ordinances,
cant and whine, superstition and self-righteousness, formality and
tradition, have usurped the place of vital godliness. But the reality, the
power, the life, the indwelling, the feeling, the experience, in a word, the
spiritual possession of these gracious fruits must be 'wrought into the
soul'; made, as it were, part and parcel of it, be the blood that circulates
through its veins, the food it eats, the water it drinks, and the clothing
it wears.
Now this the 'letter of the word' never has done, and
never can do. A peculiar experience must be passed through; and by means of
this spiritual experience alone are these divine effects wrought. Thus the
fair tree that shot up its boughs to heaven being pruned down to a stump,
and the abandoning of it to the fowls of the mountains and to the beasts of
the earth, teaches the soul–
1. HUMILITY. Humility is not obtained by reading texts, and turning over
parallel passages which speak of it, but by having something in ourselves,
discovered to us in a spiritual way, to be humble for. Thus a man who stands
as a forsaken stump of what he was, and has the devil to harass him all the
summer, and his own vile heart to plague him all the winter, has something
in himself to make him humble. Humility is forced, beaten, driven into him;
he is made humble, whether he will or not, and is compelled by sheer
necessity to take the lowest room.
These cutting dispensations teach him–
2. HIS HELPLESSNESS. A man does not learn that he is a helpless creature by
reading, as he does not learn that his heart is deceitful above all things
and desperately wicked by reading. (Jer. 17:9) A beggar with both his arms
shot off, or a man bed-ridden with the palsy, needs nobody to tell him how
helpless he is. It is his daily, hourly, momently experience. Every time he
wishes to eat, drink or stir, his helplessness is forced upon him by bitter
experience. He cannot deny it, evade it, or escape from it. Thus a man who
has had all his natural religion cut down to the ground, and the branches
thereof taken away, and burnt before his eyes, needs no one to preach to him
"the duty of helplessness". The fowls of the mountains come flocking down;
he has no arms to drive them away. The beasts of the earth gather around
him; he is palsied, and is forced to lay his body as the street for them to
pass over.
From these mysterious dealings he learns–
3. SELF-LOATHING. He cannot be a peacock Pharisee, spreading out in the sun
the feathers of good works. He has something to loathe himself for. We
cannot hate others without a cause of hatred. Nor can we feel hatred of
ourselves, unless there is something in self to hate. A man who falls into a
filthy puddle hates his clothes because he loves cleanliness. Thus he who
has a holy principle in his heart must needs hate sin. Our modern professors
hate other people's sins, but love their own. But a child of God hates
himself as being so filthy and polluted before Him whom he loves. He hates
the fowls that brood over him with their obscene wings and dismal croakings.
He hates the beasts that roar about him for food, and grudge if they be not
satisfied. And above all he hates himself, as the wretched stump to which
these unclean animals resort.
It would not be difficult to show how patience, meekness,
contrition of spirit, tenderness of conscience, and other similar graces are
produced in the soul by this 'dark experience', which every prating fool
whom presumption has stuck up in a pulpit has a bolt to shoot at.
But I hasten to an effect that I cannot pass over, and
that is, that it produces a case for the Divine Redeemer in which to
manifest His power, glory and salvation. With all the great swelling
words about religion that are trumpeted through the land, and among the
troops of professors that everywhere abound, there is scarcely one in a
thousand who has a case that needs Christ's heavenly manifestations. They
can all see, all hear, all believe, all rejoice, and I am sure they can all
talk. They never had their natural religion stripped from them; never had
clay smeared over their eyes, (John 9:6) nor the divine fingers put into
their ears, (Mark 7:33) nor their wisdom turned into foolishness, nor their
loveliness into corruption. But they say, 'We see, and therefore their sin
remains'. The light which is in them is darkness, and thus how great is that
darkness!
A physician is useless without a sick case, and the
deeper the case, the wiser and better physician we need. Thus a guilty
conscience is a case for atoning blood, a wounded spirit for healing balm, a
filthy garment for a justifying robe, a drowning wretch for an Almighty
hand, a criminal on the gallows for a full pardon, an incurable disease for
a heavenly Physician, and a sinner sinking into hell for a Savior stooping
down from heaven. A man with a real case must have a real salvation. He is
no longer to be cheated, fobbed off, deluded and tricked with pretenses, as
a nervous patient is sometimes cured with 'fake pills'. But he must have a
'real remedy' as having a real disease. Christ in the Bible, Christ sitting
as an unknown Savior in the heavens, Christ afar off, unmanifested and
unrevealed, is no Christ to him. "Near, near; let Him come near--in my
heart, in my soul, revealed in me, manifested unto me, formed within
me--this, this is the Christ I need. O for one drop of His atoning blood,
one smile of His blessed countenance, one testimony of His love, one gleam
of His justifying righteousness!"
And thus when this divine Redeemer appears in His
garments stained with blood, the sinking soul hails His approach, the fowls
of the mountains take flight, the beasts of the earth slink off to their
dens, the dreary stump pushes forth its shoots, and the voice sounds forth
from the inmost depths of the soul, "This is our God; we have waited for
Him, and He will save us. This is the Lord, we have waited for Him; we will
be glad and rejoice in His salvation".
And now comes that season to which all the preceding have
been but preparatory and introductory--the HARVEST of the soul. I do
not understand by "the harvest" spoken of in the text the harvest at the end
of the world, (Matt. 13:39) the general ingathering of the elect from the
four winds, from one end of the heaven to the other. But I understand by it
a particular harvest; a harvest in the soul in time; not a harvest of both
soul and body at the end of time. As there is a spring, a summer and a
winter in experience, so is there a harvest in experience; and as one part
of the text is experimental, so the other part is experimental also.
The peculiar mark of harvest is, that it is THE SEASON OF
FRUIT. And thus I consider the harvest of grace to consist in the production
of fruit in the soul. The only fruit which God will ever acknowledge as
such, is that which He Himself produces by His Spirit in the heart. "From Me
is your fruit found." (Hos. 14:8) "Working in you that which is
well-pleasing in His sight." (Heb. 13:21) "We are His workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained (prepared)
that we should walk in them." (Eph. 2:10) "It is God which works in you both
to will and to do of His good pleasure." (Phil. 2:13)
The market indeed is glutted with sloes and crabs. These
are heaped up on every stall, and hawked about from door to door. But it is
the fruit of the graft, not the fruit of the stock, that is worthy of the
name, and none other will be put upon the heavenly table. The graft,
however, would not bear until it was cut in. "Every branch that bears fruit,
He purges it"--that is, dresses and prunes it--"that it may bring forth more
fruit." (John 15:2)
The great secret of vital godliness is to be nothing,
that Christ may be all in all. Every stripping, sifting, and emptying; every
trial, exercise and temptation that the soul passes through, has but one
object--to beat out of man's heart that cursed spirit of independence which
the devil breathed into him when he said, "You shall be as gods". A man must
well near be bled to death before this venom can be drained out of his
veins. To cut down a giant into a babe a span long; to put a hunch-backed
camel into an hydraulic press, and squeeze it into sufficient dimensions to
pass through a needle's eye--this is the process needful to be undergone
before a man can bring forth fruit unto God. Well might Nicodemus marvel how
a man could enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born; and the
wonder how a grown-up man becomes a helpless babe is as great a mystery to
most now.
The fatal mistake of thousands is to offer unto God the
fruits of the flesh instead of the fruits of the Spirit. Fleshly holiness,
fleshly exertions, fleshly prayers, fleshly duties, fleshly forms, fleshly
zeal--these are what men consider good works, and present them as such to
God. But well may He "who is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot
look on iniquity", say to all such fleshly workers, "If you offer the blind
for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if you offer the lame and the sick, is it
not evil?" (Mal. 1:8) All that the flesh can do is evil, for "every
imagination of man's heart is only evil continually"; and to present the
fruits of this filthy heart to the Lord of hosts is "to offer polluted bread
upon His altar." (Mal. 1:7) Thus the "pleasant fruits, new and old," (Cant.
7:13), of which all manner are laid up at the gates of the righteous for the
Beloved, are such only as the Spirit of God produces in the soul. And as He
looks not "on the outward appearance but the Lord looks on the heart," (1
Sam. 6:7) so these fruits are not so much outward, as inward fruits.
It is within, in the secret depths of the soul, that the
eternal Spirit works; and the outward actions are but visible signs and
manifestations of His inward operations. A broken heart, a contrite spirit,
a tender conscience, a filial fear of God, a desire to please Him, a dread
to offend the great God of heaven, a sense of the evil of sin, and a desire
to be delivered from its dominion, a mourning over our repeated
backslidings, grief at being so often entangled in our lusts and passions,
an acquaintance with our helplessness and weakness, simplicity and godly
sincerity, a hanging upon grace for daily supplies, watching the hand of
Providence, a singleness of eye to the glory of God--these are a few of the
fruits that constitute the harvest of the soul.
But why was it necessary that winter should precede? Why
does the farmer break up the green sward with his plough, and turn in all
the pretty daisies and marigolds, and lay bare the black soil, with all the
hidden worms and maggots that lie concealed beneath the turf? Why does he
drag his harrows over the fallows, and tear up the grass, and gather it into
heaps, and burn it to ashes? Because he wants a crop of grain to spring from
seed which he himself sows, and because the natural produce of the land will
not give him wheat and barley. Thus the violets and primroses of nature--the
virtues of the natural heart, and all the flower of fleshly religion--must
have the winter plough pass beneath their roots, and be buried in mingled
confusion beneath the black clods of inward corruption, that grace may
spring up as an implanted crop.
By the wintry dealings I have before attempted to
describe, independence has been broken to pieces, and the soul brought to
hang upon Christ for everything; pride has been cut down, and humility
produced; a deceitful heart has been laid bare, and spiritual integrity
created; hypocrisy has been detected and sincerity implanted; a 'form of
religion' has been crushed, and power set up in its stead; an empty
profession of dry doctrine has been rooted up, and a realization of eternal
things been substituted; the reprobate silver has been burnt in the furnace,
and the pure gold has come out uninjured. A burnt child dreads the fire, and
a broken-down soul dreads an empty profession. A tender wound cannot bear
pressure, and a conscience made tender by terrible things in righteousness
cannot bear the burden of guilt. "By the reason of God's highness, it cannot
endure." (Job 31:23)
The things he has passed through have brought him into an
acquaintance with God. He now knows the only true God and Jesus Christ whom
He has sent; and he has felt that God is a Spirit, and must be worshiped in
spirit and in truth. He can no longer endure the vain inventions of men, the
formalities of a carnal religion, the mummeries of priestcraft, the canting
whine of hypocrites, the empty babble of chattering professors, the mock
holiness of Arminian perfectionists, and the cloak of religion which masks
thousands of rotten hearts. He becomes a solitary character. He sets little
store by loud prayers or long prayers, whether they come from the blind
mill-horse in the pulpit, or his humble imitator in the pew. He finds that a
secret groan is better than a long prayer, a tear of contrition sweeter than
an empty form, and a few words with God in his closet more precious than
many words at a prayer-meeting, even though deacons pray.
A line of Deer's hymns relieves his soul, when a noisy
choir chanting Dr. Watts loads it with a burden; and half a verse of
Scripture melts his heart, when a lettered preacher with a long sermon
hardens it into ice. He never leaves the company of empty professors without
a load, or the sweet company of God without a blessing. He feels Christ to
be his best Counselor. His love most worth seeking, His friendship most
enduring, His presence most cheering, and His smiles most to be desired.
Men, even the very best of them, often only wound him;
the company of God's children is often burdensome; and their advice usually
an ineffectual help. His heavenly Friend never deceived him, never violated
his confidence, disclosed his secrets, wounded his feelings, canalized his
mind, saddened his spirit, led him into error, or treated him with neglect.
But on the contrary, 'pardons his sins, forgives his ingratitude, pities his
infirmities, heals his backslidings, and loves him freely.
The Christian thus learns that if he stands, God must
hold him up; if he knows anything aright, God must teach him; if he walks in
the way to heaven, God must first put him there, and afterwards keep him in
it; if he has anything, God must give it to him; and that if he does
anything, God must work it in him. He now "through the law"--that is,
through his experience of its killing sentence--"become dead to the law,
that he may live unto God". He can no longer take a killing letter for a
living rule, but is deeply conscious that it is only by being "married to
another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that he can bring forth
fruit unto God." (Rom. 7:4) Thus by the presence of God going with him, he
becomes separated "from all the people that are upon the face of the earth."
(Exod. 33:16)
While others boast of what they have done for God, he is
glad to feel that God has done something for him; while others are handling
the shell, he is eating the kernel; while others are talking of Christ, he
is talking with Him; while others are merely looking through the mansion
gates, he is enjoying the estate; and while others are haranguing about the
treasure in the Bank of England, he is pleased to find a few coins in his
own pocket, stamped with the king's image and superscription. But he finds
the truth of that text, "In much wisdom is much grief; and he that increases
knowledge increases sorrow." (Eccles. 1:18).
As his inward religion separates him from those who have
only an outward one, he becomes a butt for empty professors to shoot at.
Those whom he once would have disdained to set with the dogs of his flock,
now spare not to spit in his face. (Job 30:1,10) Every Evangelical, who has
not an idea about religion but what he has gleaned from Scott or Simeon,
condemns him as "a rank Antinomian". Every spruce Academic, who knows no
more about the operations of a living faith than of the Chinese language,
has an arrow stored in his quiver, feathered with a text to strike him
through the heart as "a dreadful character". Every high-faith professor
rides over his head; every dry Calvinist outruns him in the race; every
Pharisee outstrips him in zeal; every ranting Methodist thunders at him for
sloth; and every doer of duty avoids him as a pestilence.
However various sects differ among themselves, they all
unite in condemning him. All other religion is right, and his alone wrong;
everyone else's faith is genuine, and his only is spurious. Of him alone the
charitable speak uncharitably; universal salvationists cut off him alone
from salvation; those that pity the heathen have no pity for him; and those
who compass sea and land to make one proselyte, pronounce his case alone as
past recovery. And what is his trespass and what is his sin, that they so
hotly pursue after him? (Gen. 31:36) Does he live in sin? No. Is he buried
in the world, head over ears in politics, heaping together dishonest gains,
or eaten up with covetousness? None dare say so. Does he neglect prayer,
reading the Word, hearing the truth, contributing to the necessities of
saints, and living peaceably with all men? No. Why then this universal
baying at him from every dog of the pack? For the same reason that Joseph's
brethren hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him--the Father loves
him, and has clothed him in a garment of many colors, and given him
revelations which He has denied to them.
But he has sorrow, too, and opposition within, far more
trying to his spirit than the evil names which malicious ignorance heaps
upon him, or the unjust suspicions which Pharisaic pride harbors against
him. Paul, after being caught up into the third heaven, had given to him a
thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet him, lest he should be
exalted above measure. (2 Cor. 12:7) Go where he would, this thorn still
accompanied him, rankling continually in his flesh, hampering every
movement, inflicting unceasing pain, and piercing him deeper and deeper the
more that he struggled against it. Ten thousand thorns in the hedge do not
pain like one in the flesh. And thus ten thousand unjust suspicions of the
sons of Belial, though they be "all of them as thorns thrust away, because
they cannot be taken with hands; but the man that shall touch them must be
fenced with iron and the staff of a spear," (2 Sam. 23:6,7)--ten thousand
suspicions, I say, from vulture-eyed professors are but as thorns in the
hedge, which only wound us when we go near them, and which a wise man will
keep a due distance from. But a thorn in the flesh, driven and fastened in
by the hand of God, we can neither ease nor extract.
And thus any one constant harassing temptation, which
strikes into the soul of a child of God, will grieve and wound him a
thousand times more deeply than a thick hedge of furze-bush professors
standing by the roadside. But by these painful exercises he is kept from
settling down on the lees of a dead assurance, or resting at his ease on the
ground of a past experience. This rankling thorn preserves him from that
vain, wretched, delusive religion, falsely so-called, which, as a spreading
gangrene, has infected well near whole churches with the dry rot--a religion
built upon length of profession, upon belief of the doctrines of grace, upon
membership in a Particular Baptist Church, upon consistency of conduct, upon
a general currency as a believer, upon freedom from doubts and fears, and
upon an experience twenty years ago. His thorn in the flesh will not let him
stand at ease, or ground his arms, as though the battle were won, the enemy
vanquished, and the articles of peace signed. He cannot rest on doctrines,
of which the power is not now felt; nor in a past experience, which is not
continually renewed; nor in a Savior in the Bible whose presence is not from
time to time manifested; nor in promises, of which the sweetness is not
occasionally enjoyed. He cannot thus cast anchor in the Dead Sea. He cannot
lie stretched at his ease on this downy bed, for his thorn will not let him
rest, but makes him "full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the
day." (Job 7:4)
Thus his religion consists not in a head furnished with
notions, but in a heart established with grace; not in an outward union with
a church, but in an inward union with Christ; not in sitting down once a
month to the ordinance, but in eating the bread which came down from heaven;
not in having repented twenty years ago, but in being often melted by a
sense of God's goodness and mercy; not in occupying a corner in an
experimental chapel, but in having a place and a name in the church of the
Firstborn. He will not indeed despise nor neglect any one of Christ's
ordinances, but will look to the power more than to the form; and will think
it sweeter to walk into the inner chambers of Zion's palace, and behold the
King's face, than to go round about her, to tell her towers, and mark well
her bulwarks.
Through the inward conflicts, secret workings, mysterious
changes, and ever-varying exercises of his soul, he becomes established in a
deep experience of his own folly and God's wisdom, of his own weakness and
Christ's strength, of his own sinfulness and the Lord's goodness, of his own
backslidings and the Spirit's recoveries, of his own base ingratitude and
Jehovah's patience, of the aboundings of sin and the super-aboundings of
grace. He thus becomes daily more and more confirmed in the vanity of the
creature, the utter helplessness of man, the deceitfulness and hypocrisy of
the human heart, the sovereignty of distinguishing grace, the fewness of
heaven-taught ministers, the scanty number of living souls, and the great
rareness of true religion. Nor are these convictions borrowed ideas,
floating opinions, crude, half-digested sentiments or articles of a creed,
which may be right or may be wrong; but they are things known by him as
certainly, and felt as evidently as any material object that his eye sees,
or his hand touches.
He has a divine standard set up in his soul by which he
measures others as well as himself, for "he that is spiritual judges all
things;" (1 Cor. 2:15) and as he measures them with one hand, he is forced
to stamp "Tekel" with the other. He looks into the granaries, and finds
chaff stored instead of wheat; he holds up the notes to the light, and
cannot discover the water-mark; he walks up to the fold, and sees goats
penned instead of sheep; and visits the household to search for the family
likeness, but finds it filled with the "sons of the sorceress, the seed of
the adulterer and the whore." (Isa. 57:3)
All he wants is reality. All that he is in search of is
something which bears the divine impress, and carries with it a heavenly and
supernatural character. But instead of finding widows "indeed and desolate,"
(1 Tim. 5:5) he is pestered with widows of Tekoa; (2 Sam. 14:2) and instead
of bankrupt debtors and impoverished paupers, he encounters scarce any but
wealthy merchants, with a flourishing trade and a stock in hand. His soul
can, however, only unite with the poor and needy, the stripped and the
emptied, the shipwrecked sailor and the shelterless wayfarer, who, from
sheer necessity, from being driven out of house and home, have fled for
refuge to the hope set before them in a salvation without money and without
price.
And thus a little godly fear, a little living faith, a
little groaning prayer, a little genuine repentance--in a word, a little
heavenly reality, will kindle a union, when towering pretensions, unshaken
confidence, ready utterance, a sanctified countenance, a whining cant, a
gifted head, and a tongue that walks through the earth, will freeze up every
avenue of his heart. He has a needle in his soul which has been touched with
a heavenly magnet; and the pole that a broken heart attracts, a bronze
forehead repels.
Thus growth in grace is not progressive sanctification
and fleshly holiness on the one hand, nor a false and delusive religion on
the other. The narrow path lies between these two extremes. On the one side
is Seneh, and on the other side is Bozez, (1 Sam. 14:4) Pharisaic holiness
and Antinomian security, and between these two sharp rocks lies the path
"which no fowl knows, and which the vulture's eye has not seen." (Job 28:7)
From dashing on either of these rocks, a living man is kept only by the
mysterious dealings of God with his spirit, and the internal exercises
through which he continually passes.
A constant acquaintance with his own vileness preserves
him from a self-righteous holiness in the flesh; a daily cross and a
rankling thorn keep him from careless presumption. His path is indeed a
mysterious one, full of harmonious contradictions and heavenly paradoxes. He
is never easy when at ease, nor without a burden when he has none. He is
never satisfied without doing something, and yet is never satisfied with
anything that he does. He is never so strong as when he sits still, (Isa.
30:7) never so fruitful as when he does nothing, and never so active as when
he makes the least haste. (Isa. 28:16) All outstrip him in the race, yet he
alone gains the goal, and wins the prize. All are sure of heaven but
himself, yet he enters into the kingdom, while they are thrust out. He wins
pardon through guilt, hope through despair, deliverance through temptation,
comfort through affliction, and a robe of righteousness through filthy rags.
Though a worm and no man, he overcomes Omnipotence itself through violence;
and though less than vanity and nothing, (Isa. 40:17;2 Cor. 12:11) he takes
heaven itself by force. (Matt. 11:12)
Thus amid the strange contradictions which meet in a
believing heart, he is never so prayerful as when he says nothing; never so
wise as when he is the greatest fool; never so much alone as when most in
company; and never so much under the power of an inward religion as when
most separated from an outward one. Strange mysterious creature! He cannot
live without sinning, yet cannot live in sin; cannot live without prayer,
and yet for days together cannot pray; continually finds religion a burden,
yet would not part with it for the world; lusts after sin as a delicious
morsel, yet hates it with a perfect hatred; esteems Christ the Chief among
ten thousand, and yet is at times tried with doubts whether He is a Savior
at all.
Such, then, is the path, however feebly or imperfectly
described, in which the redeemed walk, (Isa. 35:9), a path trodden by them
alone, and that too, often severely contrary to their own inclinations. To
walk in this path is not the product of wisdom, (Dan. 2:30) the effect of
talent, (1 Cor. 2:6) nor the fruit of study. On the contrary, all that
nature can do is to fight against it. Reason calls it folly, wisdom terms it
madness, prudence considers it delusion, learning deems it enthusiasm,
free-will counts it presumption, and self-righteousness thinks it
licentiousness. Bishops and Archbishops despise it, Deans and Archdeacons
abhor it, High Church clergy revile it, Low Church clergy preach against it,
Bible and Missionary Societies dismiss anyone the least tainted with it, and
the devout and honorable expel it out of their coasts. (Acts 13:50)
Graceless Calvinists abhor the sword whose keen edge gives them no quarter;
Wesleyans revile the weapon that lays their proud fabric in the dust;
worldly Dissenters hate the light that makes manifest their rotten
foundation; preachers made at colleges and academies detest the voice which
demands their divine commission; and formalists of all grades, sects, names
and denominations loathe a religion which cuts them off from eternal life,
and leaves them without the shadow of a hope. One thing is to them
sufficiently clear--if this be the only way to heaven, they are not walking
in it. This, at any rate, they have discernment enough to see; and thus, if
they would justify themselves, they must necessarily condemn the way itself,
the people who are walking in it, and the ministers who preach it.
But happy are those of us who, by an Almighty hand and a
supernatural power, have been put into this blessed path! We neither placed
ourselves in it at first, nor have kept ourselves in it afterwards. If we
have done either, we are not in the way at all, but are walking in a side
path, and shall end at that door which Bunyan saw to open into hell from the
very gates of heaven. He that has no searchings of soul whether he is in the
way, no chilling doubts nor sinking fears ever saddening his spirit, no
secret groan nor sigh to have his heart right before God, no solemn midnight
cries, no anxious prospects nor gloomy retrospects, no trembling
apprehensions how it will be with him at the last, no dread of self-deceit,
nor suspicions of Satan's delusions--he, I say, who glides securely on
without these deep exercises, manifests by his very ease that he is not in
the narrow path that leads to eternal life.
By one who is spiritually sincere every step will be more
or less weighed, every experience sooner or later brought to the touchstone,
and every part of the road anxiously tried. He will love to be searched
through and through. He will uncover his bosom to every arrow that flies
from the pulpit, to see if it be aimed at him. He will love a searching
ministry, and in his right mind cannot be probed too deeply. He will hate
the daubers with untempered mortar, and those who sew pillows to all
armholes. He will love heart and conscience work, and cleave most to him who
most "commends himself to every man's conscience in the sight of God". He
desires to have his path traced out, his stumbling-blocks removed, his
temptations entered into, and the dealings of God with his spirit described.
Though all condemn men of truth for bigotry and
uncharitableness, he cannot think that to be a bad spirit which enters into
the operations of the Holy Spirit, pulls down-false religion, tears away
rotten props, hunts out lying refuges, delivers souls from hypocrisy and
delusion, gives to man all the shame, and ascribes to God all the glory.
However hated they be and reviled, he cannot but love those who are blessed
to the healing of his wounds, lifting off his burdens, comforting him in his
afflictions, and delivering him out of his temptations. He cannot speak evil
of that secret power which has accompanied the word to his heart, laid bare
its inmost secrets, traced out its most hidden workings, discovered its
deepest thoughts, and manifested to his astonishment what he believed none
could know but God and himself.
Hungry men do not throw their food into the dog's kennel;
sick men do not shut the door in the doctor's face; and prisoners do not
strike the arm that sets them free. And thus you who are walking in this
mysterious path will love the interpreters of your experience, the guides of
your path, the breasts that nursed you, and the hand that ministers to you
the bread of life.
But some will say, "Oh that I had a clear evidence I was
walking in this path! What would I not give to have a divine testimony that
the blessed Spirit was leading me in it!" It is through these very doubts
that the evidence is obtained. Doubts lead to cries and groans after a
divine testimony; and in answer to these cries the heavenly witness is
given. A man without doubts, is without evidences. Doubts are to evidences
what the lock is to the key, the enigma to the solution. Evidences are
Ebenezers, "stones of help;" (1 Sam. 7:12, marg.) but the stone must have a
hole dug for it to stand in, and that hole is doubt. Doubts of salvation are
to manifestations of salvation what hunger is to food, nakedness to
clothing, a thunderstorm to a shelter, a gallows to a reprieve, and death to
a resurrection. The one of these things precedes, prepares and opens a way
for the other. The first is nothing without the last, nor the last without
the first.
Thus, next to evidences, the best thing is spiritual
doubts. To know we are right is the best thing; to fear we are wrong is the
second best. To enjoy the witness of the Spirit is the most blessed thing
this side of the grave; to pant after that enjoyment is the next greatest
blessing. I am speaking, mind you, only of spiritual doubts; that is, doubts
in a spiritual man, for natural doubts are as far from salvation as natural
hopes. The path through the valley of Baca is "from strength to strength";
that is, according to the eastern mode of traveling, from one halting place
to another, where wells are dug, and "the rain also fills the pools." (Ps.
84:6,7) We do not learn either God or ourselves, sin or salvation, in a day.
The question is, Have we set one step in the way?
"Watchman, what of the night?" Is it evening, midnight, cock-crowing or
morning? (Mark 13:35) Is it spring, summer, winter or harvest? The question
is not so much whether you have much faith, but whether you have any. It is
not quantity, but quality; not whether you have a very great religion, but
whether you have any at all. A grain of true faith will save the soul; and I
have known many, many seasons when I should be glad to feel certain that I
had the thousandth part of a grain. A grain of mustard seed is the smallest
of all seeds; and even faith as small as that can move mountains.
Have I described any part of your experience, found the
least echo in your bosom, unraveled one divine secret of your heart, or
touched one heavenly string in your soul? Happy is he that has one divine
testimony to his eternal interest in the electing love of the Father, in the
atoning blood and justifying righteousness of the Son, and in the divine
teachings of the Holy Spirit.
But I solemnly assure everyone who has ears to hear, that
this path is the only way of salvation; and that every one who at the great
day shall be found not to have walked in it will fall into the hands of Him
who is a consuming fire; and will sink into hell, to lie forever beneath His
avenging frown.