The Higher Christian Life Part 1

By

Rev. W. E. Boardman

PREFACE

The title-page will suffice the careless one; he will go no farther. The curious will go deeper, and a little patience and perseverance will satisfy him also, and perhaps repay him for his time and trouble. If the earnest searcher for the best things can be satisfied as fully, he will be repaid a thousand fold, and the great aim of the book will be gained.

In unfolding the subject, the historical and inductive method has been chosen, both as the most interesting and convincing. Examples of experience are given from history as a basis — in connexion with the Bible — but beyond that, sketches from life, never before published, have been preferred, because of their freshness, and also for the purpose of adding to the treasures of published Christian experience. Lovers of truth cannot fail to be profited by the mass of facts embodied, even though they should dissent from the inductions of the author.

The Higher Christian Life, as a title has been adopted for want of a better. A wider sphere for the experimental truth set forth, and a clearer delineation are the things sought; and hackneyed terms, or pre-appropriated terms, or terms against which prejudice is arrayed, would not answer.

Next after this title “Full trust and Full Salvation” would have been preferred, as most expressive and least objectionable. Full trust, rather than full faith, because, faith has been so philosophised into a hundred shades of meaning, and so hackneyed in use as, to have lost its significance to many. Trust is perhaps the only other word that conveys the original meaning of faith. And as faith is the all inclusive condition of salvation, full trust expresses the sole condition of full salvation which it is the design of this volume to illustrate.

Jesus is the way. Full trust the means. Therefore — to secure confidence in Jesus, if possible — it has been the author’s great aim to develop, clearly, fully, and simply, the relations of Jesus to the soul, and of the soul to Jesus.

In the use of terms the Bible principle — not the strict one — has been followed. “Second Conversion” for example. Of course, it is not intended, to convey the idea of a second regeneration, but that expressed by President Edwards, in the term — “Remarkable Conversions,” —-which is the title of his account of several remarkable cases of higher life attained after conversion.

Such “conversions” are certainly “remarkable “but if there are any who think the experience beyond the reach of all, let them try it by the Word — the only infallible criterion — if it is not warranted by the Bible, reject it; but if it stands the test, then seize it as a treasure above rubies. And if any believe in the truth of this matter, but would like other terms, and other methods, let them bear in mind that while truth is one, methods are many; and if experimental truth is taught and received, it is of very little consequence whether theories and terms to which we are accustomed, are associated with it or not.

If it is God’s truth, fitly spoken, and has His blessing, it will stand; otherwise let it fall to the ground.

Part One

Chapter 1

THE BOOK WANTED.

“ PREPARE YE THE WAY OF THE PEOPLE.” — ISAIAH LXII. 10.

Some disciples of Christ live, life-long, under condemnation, and know no better. They are always doubting, and think they must always doubt. And very many live a life of ups and downs, and suppose that to be the best God has in store for them while in the body. Occasionally they gain some lookout in the mount, and then, through the swaying branches of the trees of life moved by the breath of heaven, they catch glimpses of the river of the waters of life, gleaming in the rays of the Sun of Righteousness, and are filled with gladness. But then again, soon they find themselves in the low grounds of unbelief, wrapped up in fogs of doubt, and chilled, and poisoned, by the mist and malaria of worldly cares and worldly company. To all these, a book which should bring the knowledge, as really reliable and true, that there is actually, a sunny side of the Christian life — such an experimental knowledge of Jesus, as. would place the soul, as a vineyard on the southern slope, under the sun and the rain of heaven, to blossom and ripen its luscious fruit in abundance for the glory of the Master — Ah, how such a book would be hailed as glad tidings from God!

Many have heard or read upon this subject, and do really believe there is something better than they have found, but are afraid. They are convinced that there is something in it, but they fear to try to find out what it is. They are earnest Christians too, and would gladly go on out of the wilderness of doubt and perplexity if they dared to venture. They see that there is a land of milk and honey offered by the promises of God, and would press for it, but alas, the spies bring back a bad report of the land, “Hard to gain,” say they. “Cities walled up to heaven. Giants in the land, sons of Anak.” “Hard to keep, even if conquered.” Fear chimes in with this, and so they shrink back. Or they fear heresy and wildfire. So much has been written about “ perfection” and “

sanctification” in conflict with the Bible and church standards, and so many have made shipwreck, and run wild, that the spectres of grim and ghastly errors rise up to affright them from the very first step. Now a book which should clearly point out what is warranted by the Bible and the standards, and show it in plain and full contrast with what is condemned by them, would be hailed by such persons as an angel messenger from heaven, beckoning them onward and upward to the land of Beulah.

A few, at least, probably more than any one knows or thinks, are convinced, and feeling after something they scarce know what, whatever it is, set before them; but they move fearfully, spectres affright and hinder, but do not wholly stop them. Or if they urge their way regardless of these, their struggles are wearisome and vain. Often and often they put forth the hand to touch the spring of the door, to admit the light, but alas, the hand finds only the cold dead wall and recoils from it with a chill, only to be stretched forth again and again, to be withdrawn in disappointment. With what untold joy, would these struggling, groping ones, receive and devour a book which should show up to them, the Way, the Truth, the Life, and point out also the many false ways they must avoid to gain the true, and walk in it!

Some have already found the way, and are glad journeyers therein. They are on the sunny side; they have gained the heights of Beulah, and delight in everything that relates to it. They would rejoice in anything defining to them distinctly the relations of this blessed Christian life to further Christian progress, and to all Christian duty. And moreover, they would be thankful to God for a Book, which they could safely put into the hands of others, hopeful of good, fearless of evil. One they could heartily commend as unfolding the fullness of the blessings of the Gospel, without feeling under the necessity of cautioning and warning against false theories, wrong terms, or evil tendencies.

The Book wanted, therefore, in this department of sacred literature, is one that will set forth the truth as it is, with the clear ring of the fearless silver trumpet, in no uncertain sound.

Whether this shall prove the Book wanted, God knoweth, time will show, and the reader will judge.

Chapter 2

HISTORICAL EXAMPLE.

“LIFT UP A STANDARD FOR THE PEOPLE.” — ISAIAH LXII. 10.

The Bible abounds in examples. In God’s Holy Word sin and holiness come up and pass on before us in living forms, rather than in abstract teachings. Truth and falsehood are first lived out, and then recorded for the world’s instruction. The mercies and judgments of God are set before us in striking examples. The rescue of Noah saved amidst the desolations of a world drowned in the flood; Lot, delivered from the devouring fires which laid in ashes Sodom and Gomorrah; the children of Israel passing the Red Sea dryshod and safe, while Pharaoh and his host sank as lead in the mighty waters; these things have filled the world with their report and taught all nations their lessons. Men and nations are raised up, live out their life, and die, and their history is written to live forever. Lessons taught in this way strike out and traverse the globe, and strike home never to be forgotten. There is no treatise upon faith like the simple story of Abraham’s life: none upon patience like the story of Job: none upon courage like the story of Daniel: none upon meekness like the life of Moses: none upon zeal like the life of Paul: none upon love like the story of Job. This is God’s method, and the best.

Take a few examples of The Higher Life, or Full Trust and Full Salvation. First,

MARTIN LUTHER.

When a little boy, Martin carried the faggots for his father, John Luther, to kindle the fire in his little iron smelting furnace, in Germany, God designed him to become the bearer of fuel for his own groat fire of the Reformation, to smelt the hearts of millions and re-cast the life of the world. But as yet this boy’s own heart and his own life were in the crude and corrupt state of nature, hard and unmaleable as the ore of the mine and as full of impurities, to be expelled only by the fires of Divine love. His mother loved and pitied and indulged him, but his father was severe and never spared the rod. That he was not an angel in his youth we may know, for he tells of himself that he was whipped fifteen times in one day in his first school. But all this did not beat grace into his heart, though it may have beaten letters into his head. He made brilliant progress in study, and at twenty years of age received his degree at the university as a Bachelor of Arts. Up to this time his heart was in the world. His father designed him for the law, and his own ambition no doubt aspired to the honors within easy reach in that line of life. God designed otherwise. Just at that critical time when the very next step would be the first in a life-long profession, one of his fellow students dear to him as a brother beloved, one Alexis, was assassinated. The report of this tragic affair coming to Luther’s ear, he hurried to the spot and found it even so. Often before, conscience, and the spirit in his heart, had urged him to a religious life, in preparation for death and the judgment. And now, as he stood gazing upon the bloody corpse of his dear friend Alexis, and thought how in a moment, prepared or unprepared, he had been summoned from earth, he asked himself the question, “What would become of me if l were thus suddenly called away?”

This was in A. D. 1505, in summer. Taking advantage of the summer’s vacation, Luther, now in his twenty-first year, paid a visit to Mansfeldt the home of his infancy. Even then the purpose of a life of devotion was forming in his heart, but not yet ripened into full and final decision. The only life of religion known to him, and at all meeting his convictions, was that of the convent, the life of a monk and a priest. Whether it was because the purpose was only yet in embryo, or because he dreaded his father’s displeasure, or shrunk from dashing his father’s hopes and giving him pain, it seems he kept the matter back. The fire burned on in his own breast, but the young Bachelor of Arts kept it hidden, even from those most deeply interested in him of all upon earth.

On his way back to the university, however, he was overtaken by a terrific storm. “The thunder roared,” says D’Aubigne; “a thunderbolt sunk into the ground by his side; Luther threw himself on his knees; his hour is perhaps come. Death, judgment, eternity, are before him in all their terrors, and speak with a voice which he can no longer resist. ‘Encompassed with the anguish and terror of death,’ as he says of himself, ‘he makes a vow, if God will deliver him from this danger, to forsake the world, and devote himself to his service.’

Risen from the earth, having still before his eyes that death must one day overtake him, he examines himself seriously, and inquires what he must do. The thoughts that formerly troubled him returned with re-doubled power. He has endeavored, it is true, to fulfill all his duties. But what is the state of his soul? Can he, with a polluted soul, appear before the tribunal of so terrible a God? He must become holy“— for this he will go into the cloister, he will enter a convent, he will become a monk and a priest in the Augustinian order. He will there become holy and be saved.

This scene has been compared to that on the Damascus road centuries before, and they are not without certain similarities, both in the men, and in the circumstances and results. But there were broad differences: for while Saul of Tarsus was relieved of his blindness after only three days of darkness and desolation, Luther had yet before him months and months of monastic groping, before his eyes were opened to receive the Lord Jesus as the All in All. And while at the word of Ananias the scales fell from the eyes of the young devotee of Judaism at once, in a moment — the eyes of the young devotee of Romanism were opened, not entirely at the first touch of the Master’s fingers, but rather like him who first saw only men as trees walking, and afterwards, when touched again, saw clearly.

It was a terrible blow to his parents when Luther entered the convent at Erfurth, and an astonishment to all his friends, and, as it proved in the end, a painful experiment, and a vain one, to gain salvation. Christ alone could pardon sin, but Luther had that yet to learn. He thought to merit salvation. Christ alone is the sinner’s righteousness and sanctification, but he fully believed the way to become holy and just, was to shut himself up within holy walls, amongst a holy brotherhood, and perform holy offices. God designed him to be the foremost reformer of the Church, and therefore led him through all the processes of the Church, to show him their emptiness and vanity: led him at last to Rome itself and made him see the blasphemous hollowness of all its ceremonies, and the vile corruption of the men he held in such veneration. But it is no part of our design now to follow him though all this wearisome course, or to recount the painful revelations of vanity and corruption made to him step by step as he was led along. It is rather with Luther’s experience as a Christian than as a Reformer, that our present purpose is concerned. The object before us is to see how the Lord brought him out of bondage into liberty, and out of darkness into light, and brought him at last out of church processes, and out of the ways of his own devising, to take the a Lord Jesus as the all in all, rather than to show how he was trained to break the bondage and dispel the darkness of an enslaved and benighted church.

Buried in the convent at Erfurth he toiled and suffered two terrible years in vain for salvation. He became emaciated, pale, hollow-eyed, downcast, hopeless. The lovely and noble Staupitz, Vicar General and head of the Augustine order in Thuringia, was the first to shed any ray of light upon the dark and troubled mind of Luther. Staupitz pointed Luther to the word of God and to the grace of Christ, and inspired him with some gleams of hope that hope might some time be his. But although the floods of wrath from the windows of heaven were stayed, and. the fountains of hell from beneath were closed, the waters gone over him had not yet subsided, the dove of peace found yet no resting place in his soul, and the bow of the covenant of promise had not yet sprung forth to his view. Indeed his struggles and watchings and fastings brought him to the brink of the grave. He was seized with an illness that threatened his life. One day a venerable monk came into his cell. Luther opened his heart to him. Despair had seized upon him. The pains of hell got hold of him. The good old man pointed him to his credo. Luther had learned the apostle’s creed in his childhood, and had said it over thousands of times, but when the monk repeated to him in the tones of a sincere faith the words, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins,” they carried a light and a consolation, never before felt, to the sufferer’s soul. “Ah!“ said the monk, “you must believe not merely that David’s sins or Peter’s are forgiven; the devils believe that. The commandment of God is, that we believe our own sins are forgiven. St. Bernard says, in his discourse on the annunciation, ‘The testimony of the Holy Ghost to your heart is Thy sins are forgiven thee.”

Luther believed, and joy filled his soul. He rose quickly from the depths of despair and from the bed of sickness. Life from the dead was given him in a two-fold sense. The forgiveness of sins was ever after a living article in his faith, and not a dead letter in the apostles’ creed. He knew and was a witness to others that the greatest sinner may be forgiven. But as yet, the great underlying principle of justification by faith, was to him one of the deep and hidden things of God. The noble Staupitz and the good old Monk already before him, knew as much as Luther had now learned, and more. And all this Luther himself might have known, and yet lived a monk all his days. But God had greater things in store for him, and greater lessons to teach him. All this and more he might have taught life-long, with the burning zeal of a Paul, and the commanding eloquence of an Apollos, without causing the foundation of Rome to tremble, or freeing the church from a single fetter or chain, and without even enjoying himself, the liberty of the children of God, or the blessings of full trust and full salvation. Mark what follows.

The assassination of the dear Alexis had awakened him. The thunderbolt on the Erfurth road struck the death blow of his indecision, and Staupitz and the good Monk with his credo and his faith, had shed the first rays and comforts of salvation upon his pathway. This was all they could do. For all this God used them, but now he was about to make his own Holy word the means of leading Luther out into the light, and onward into the open field of truth not yet reached by either the prelate or the monk. Luther had no Bible. He had access to one in Latin chained to a stone pillar in the convent, a striking emblem of the Bible at that day. Locked up in a dead language, and chained to a cold monastic pillar of dead stone. And yet thank God neither itself dead nor yet bound. Another Bible he could see also in the Latin by going to the library of the University to read it. That was the first copy of the Bible he ever saw, and the first word of the Bible he ever read, from the Bible itself, was the story of Hannah and her child Samuel lent to the Lord forever, and this charmed him. Yet another copy of the sacred word was within his reach by going to a brother monk’s cell to read it, in Latin also. A Bible all his own, was a prize too great for his fondest dreams. And yet God gave him one. Staupitz brought him a Bible, a Latin Bible, and presented it to him to be all his own. 0, what a treasure. How eagerly he searched it. What delight it gave him. That was the first stone of his great work. That Latin Bible was all his own, and he, albeit he knew it not, was called of God, and was yet to undo the Latin bolts and bars, and break in sunder the monastic chains, and give a good honest German liberty to the blessed Word of God, and bring home its hallowed light to thousands of darkened hearths and homes, and to millions of benighted souls. He himself was first to learn from it the fulness of the blessings of the gospel of peace, and then become the foremost Bible teacher of the world.

Soon he was ordained a priest, and then very soon appointed professor of philosophy in the University of Wittemberg. Staupitz recommended him to Frederick, Elector of Saxony, and the Elector sent him his commission. At once besides the duties of his own professorship, he began giving lectures during an unoccupied hour, upon the Bible, first upon the Psalms, then upon Romans. It was a new thing under the sun. His lectures were clear, warm, stirring, eloquent, powerful. His fame spread out. Students gathered in. Soon by appointment of the Elector, and by the persuasion of Staupitz, and by the hand of Carlstadt he was made “Doctor in Theology,” Biblical doctor, and sworn to defend the gospel with all his strength. Now at last he was in the very chair, and the very work designed for him from the first.

But these are the events of his outward life. The life within is that which concerns us. We have seen how Luther came to the faith of the forgiveness of sins. We will now trace the steps of his final and full freedom of soul through faith in the Lord Jesus. One day, while studying Romans for a lecture to the students, the words of the prophet Habakkuk as quoted by Paul, Rom. 1:17 —

”The just shall live by faith,” struck their light through his soul. Here was the grand principle of life and righteousness. He saw it, grasped it, exulted in it, and began teaching it with all the force and fire of his eloquence and genius. There were, it is true, applications of this great principle which he was not yet prepared to see, or to make, both to the church and to his own heart and life. But the principle of justification by faith was no longer a hidden one to him, and it infused a new life and a new power into his soul and his teachings. He applied it with sunbeam clearness to the forgiveness of sins. He saw how God could be just, and yet justify him that believeth in Jesus, however great his sins might be. Selected not long after to represent seven convents in matter of difference between them and the Vicar General, at the court of the Roman Pontiff he set off, led by the hand of God into Rome itself, to witness with his own eyes and ears the blasphemous hollowness, and putrid corruptions of the church. On the way he was again taken ill, and again brought to look down into the grave and up to the Judgment Bar of God. His sins troubled him. The old Erfurth horror of darkness returned upon him. But in tine midst of it the words of the prophet, “The just shall live by faith” came again to him with a new force and filled him with the light of heaven. And yet again, while looking upon the ruins of ancient Rome, and almost overwhelmed by the conviction that the Rome which then was would one day be also in ruins, the holy city would pass away, lie in ashes, the same words came to his relief and comfort again, “The just shall live by faith.” The church shall live though Rome should die. Christ lives, and the gates of hell shall never prevail against his church. Luther had not yet learned to take the Lord Jesus for his sanctification. He had one process for the forgiveness of sins, that of faith, and another for the pursuit of holiness, that of works. He believed in Jesus, and trusted that for the sake of Jesus who had died, and risen again for his justification, his sins were all freely forgiven. But he longed for a holy heart and a holy life, and sought them by means not by faith. The truth that Jesus is all to the sinner, that in Jesus he has all if he takes him for all, he had not yet perceived. Christ a propitiation he accepted, but Christ a sanctification he rejected. Strange that having Christ, and believing in him, and having in him the fountain of holiness, indeed our own holiness, just as really and fully as he is our own sacrifice for sin, we should go about to work out, or seek for holiness of heart imparted to us from God aside from, not in Christ. Yet so it is. So it was with Luther. At Rome he performed all holy offices, and visited every sacred place, hungering and thirsting after righteousness. One day he sought to secure a special indulgence promised to all holy pilgrims who should climb Pilate’s staircase, so called, on their knees. This Pilate’s staircase was said to have been transported bodily by miracle, in the night, from Jerusalem to Rome. As Luther crept painfully from stone to stone upward, suddenly he heard, as he thought, a voice of thunder in the depths of his heart, “The just shall live by faith.”

These words had often before told him that the just are made alive by faith, but now they thundered through his soul the truth that even so “the just shall live (be kept alive) by faith.” By faith they shall be kept by the power of God; by faith they shall make progress onward and upward; by faith their sins shall be forgiven; and by faith their hearts and lives shall be made holy.

Ah! well might the historian say of Luther that “this was a creative word for the reformer,” now for the first time he was freed from all false processes of salvation, and fully established in the true. Faith now, as the condition, and Jesus as the salvation he saw was the whole. Full salvation was in Jesus, and Jesus was the soul’s in full, through full trust in him. When this word resounded in this new force through his soul, it is no wonder that Luther sprang to his feet upon the stone steps up which he had been crawling like a worm, horrified at himself, and struck with shame for the degradation to which superstition had debased him, and fled from the scene of his folly. Luther himself says, “Then l felt myself born again as a new man, and I entered by an open door into the very paradise of God. From that hour l saw the precious and holy Scriptures with new eyes. l went through the whole Bible. l collected a multitude of passages which taught me what the work of God was. Truly this text of St. Paul was to me the very gate of heaven.”

Chapter 3

EXAMPLES COMPARED.

“YE ARE MY WITNESSES.”

The experience of Luther has been given at length because the great reformer stands in forefront of Protestantism, a true and noble type of the real ripe, whole-souled Christian, very much abridged, and condensed, however, from the accounts given by his biographers. It is entitled to great weight as an example. Let not its force be broken by the thought that Luther was great, and a special instrument of God specially endowed. So far as salvation is concerned, Luther stood with us precisely. He was a man, and a sinner, as we all are. Faith in him and in us is the same thing, and Jesus is the same to all and for all in all time. The same rays of the sun of righteousness shining through the same tears of penitence, cause the same bow of the covenant to arch the same clouds of despair, in all ages and nations, and the same eye of faith discerns the promise and rests joyously upon it, in all persons, alike the great and the small.

It will be observed that Luther’s first light and comfort was in the forgiveness of sins; and the last and greatest, in the full apprehension of Christ as his sanctification. We shall have occasion to see the same thing in every instance as we go on. How this comes to pass we shall see very clearly when we come to speak of the philosophy of Christian experience.

With some, the force of Luther’s example may be broken by the fact that he was bred in all the superstitions of Rome, and had a second shell to break through, after he was out of the first. We will, therefore, take another example: one from the ranks of those bred in the full blaze of the light of the Protestant day, three centuries after Luther’s time.

MERLE D ‘AUBIGNE

was educated at Geneva, the home of Calvin and the stronghold of the Reformation. Calvin himself is not a better representative of the reformed religion, or a nobler champion than Merle D’Aubigne, the famous historian of the Reformation. His conversion was at Geneva, while in the university. The subsequent deeper work was several years later at Kiel in Germany. His conversion, together with others, a noble band, was by the instrumentality of one of the Lord’s Scottish noblemen, Robert Haldane. In some sort it was the payment of an old debt of three hundred years’ standing due from Scotland to Geneva. Knox, driven from home by bloody persecutions, found refuge three several times in Geneva, and during the years of his stay there, while, doubtless he imparted much of his iron energy and Scottish firmness; he certainly received much of the clear light of the Swiss mountain height so elevated above the murky mists of the Campagna, the Tiber and Rome. Right eagerly Robert Haldane sought to pay the debt, and God helped him, as the conversion of D’Aubigne, Monod, Gonthier, Gaussin, Rieu, and many more will testify.

Dr. Cheever, as quoted in the memoirs of R. & J. A. Haldane, speaks of D’Aubigne’s conviction as follows:

“At this juncture it was that D’Aubigne heard of the visit of Mr. Haldane. He heard of him as the English or Scotch gentleman who spoke so much about the Bible, a thing which seemed very strange to him and the other students to whom the Bible was a shut book. He afterwards met Mr. Haldane at a private house, along with some of his friends, and heard him read from an English Bible, a chapter from the Epistle to the Romans, concerning the natural corruption of man, a doctrine in regard to which he had never received any instruction. He was astonished to hear of men being corrupt by nature, but clearly convinced by the passages read to him, he said to Mr. Haldane, ‘Now I do indeed see this doctrine in the Bible.’ ‘Yes,’ replied the good man, ‘but do you see it in your heart?’ It was but a simple question, but it came home to his conscience. It was the sword of the Spirit; and from that time he saw and felt that his heart was indeed corrupted, and knew from the Word of God that he could be saved by grace alone in Jesus Christ.”

The conversion of D’Aubigne was decided, clear and unmistakable. He himself speaks of it in his “Travelling Recollections in Germany, England and Scotland,” chap. I, § 2., in these explicit words, “I had been seized by the Word of God;“ (while at the university in Geneva;) “I had believed in the divinity of Christ, in original sin, the power of which I had experienced in my own heart; and in justification by faith. I had experienced the joys of the new birth.”

Of the later, deeper work he speaks more fully in the same connexion and just as explicitly. After his conversion he completed his course at the university at Geneva, was ordained, went to Germany; pursued study still further, first at Leipsic, then at Berlin, and then spent four years as a pastor over the French church at Hamburg. Several years had thus fled before the time came for the Lord to give him the final full knowledge of Jesus as all in all. It was on this wise. At an inn, in Kiel, he had planned and entered upon a journey with two of his old Genevan fellow students and fellow converts, to Copenhagen. They met at Kiel, a remarkable trio: Rev. Frederick Monod settled at Paris; Rev. Charles Rien, pastor of Fredencia in Jutland; and D’Aubigne. Steamboats were irregular; they waited at the hotel. D’Aubigne was then in the midst of a terrible struggle. Kiel was a university, and Kheuker, an old champion of the word and an experienced Christian; was Biblical professor there. D’Aubigne says, “I called upon him and requested him to elucidate several passages of Scripture for my satisfaction.**** The old doctor would not enter into any detailed solution of my difficulties. ‘Were I to succeed in ridding you of them,’

he said to me, ‘others would soon arise; there is a shorter, deeper, more complete way of annihilating them. Let Christ be really to you the Son of God, the Saviour, the Author of eternal life! Only be firmly settled in his grace, and then these difficulties of detail will never stop you! The light which proceeds from Christ will disperse all your darkness.’ The old divine had shown me the way: I saw it was the right one, but to follow it was a hard task.”

The Way. Yes, indeed! and the right one. Happy for D’Aubigne that he saw it!

Happy that its hardness did not keep him back from it! While they waited at Kiel for the steamboat, they devoted part of the time to reading the Word of God together, a pattern for all detained Christian travellers. Rieu was chaplain. D’Aubigne says of him that he had even then far outstripped both himself and M. Monod in the divine life. Two years after, he finished his brilliant career upon earth by a triumphant transit to heaven. His converse was very sweet. They all three communicated their thoughts to each other on the Word of God, but Rieu brought out the hidden riches of the Book of God most abundantly.

“We were studying the Epistle to the Ephesians,” says D’Aubigne, “and had got to the end of the third chapter. When we read the two last verses ‘Now unto him who is able to do EXCEEDING ABUNDANTLY above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory’ &c. This expression fell upon my soul as a revelation from God. ‘He can do by his power,’ I said to myself, ‘above all we ask, above all even that we think, nay, EXCEEDING ABUNDANTLY above all! A full trust in Christ for the work to be done within my poor heart now filled my soul. We all three knelt down, and, although I had never fully confided my inward struggles to my friends, the prayer of Rieu was filled with such admirable faith, as he would have uttered had he known all my wants. When I arose, in that inn-room at Kiel, I felt as if my ‘wings were renewed as the wings of eagles.’ From that time forward I comprehended that all my own efforts were of no avail; that Christ was able to do all by his ‘power that worketh in us;’ and the habitual attitude of my soul was to lie at the foot of the cross, crying to Him, ‘Here am I, bound hand and foot, unable to move, unable to do the least thing to get away from the enemy who oppresses me. Do all thyself. I know that thou wilt do it. Thou wilt even do exceeding abundantly above all that I ask.’

“I was not disappointed; all my doubts were removed, my anguish quelled, and the Lord ‘extended to me peace as a river.’ Then I could comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. Then was I able to say, ‘Return unto thy rest, 0 my soul: for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.’”

In these sketches of experience, nothing has been said in either case touching the question of entire instantaneous sanctification, or Christian perfection. Neither the great reformer or the great historian of the Reformation made any profession of perfection themselves. Indeed Luther expressly disclaims it, and D’Aubigne records the disclaimer. Yet in both the soul and marrow of the full experience of salvation at the last, was the perception and the reception of the Lord Jesus as their righteousness in the sense of sanctification, as already before they had taken him as their righteousness in the sense of justification; for these senses are both included in the term

“righteousness of God” as used by Paul, and exulted in by Luther, and in both senses Christ is complete to the believer, and in both, the believer is complete in Christ.’ Luther and D’Aubigne alike hungered after righteousness, true holiness, and either would fain have satisfied himself with husks from any hand, if he could, but he could not. God had in store for both, the true bread that cometh down from heaven to the full. Both struggled long and manfully, each in his own way, both in vain, until each gave up his own way, and took the Lord Jesus as THE WAY. Both fought resolutely, and were foiled in every onset, and would have fallen at last slain and conquered, had not God taught them the sweet truth uttered by the loving disciple, “This is the victory that overcometh — even your faith.” By faith at last, by full trust in Jesus, both conquered an abiding peace, and both gained the full salvation.

To these examples scores upon scores might be added of the same class; those who have given themselves wholly to Jesus, and taken Jesus wholly to themselves, and so found the abiding sunshine, and the serene sky of full salvation, but who yet make no profession of perfection, but like Luther and D’Aubigne, disclaim it. The memoirs of the great and good, gone to their reward, abound in such, and the living witnesses are many. Richard Baxter, Jonathan Edwards, Hewitson, McCheyne, Mrs. Edwards, Adelaide Newton, and a host of others. In the Life and Times of Richard Baxter, 2 vols. 8 vo. London, a very circumstantial account is given of this great man’s experience. Quite as distinct as either Luther’s or D’Aubigne’s, both as to his final full apprehension of Christ as all in all, and as to his conversion years before. President Edwards himself has given to the world a sketch as remarkable as either, known to be the experience of his own beloved consort; one of the happiest Christians that ever lived. And in the details he has spread out of his own inner life, if the moments of the first and the last great transitions are less distinctly traced, the same fulness of faith at the last, and the same precious results are as clearly seen.

The memoirs of Hewitson by Baily, and of Adelaide Newton by the same, furnish each a lovely instance also. Hewitson describes a long and severe struggle years after his Conversion, terminating finally in such an apprehension of Christ in his fulness, as his righteousness — sanctification —

as filled him with heavenly consolations, and abode with him ever after.

But we have no space even for references to each of the noble many in this bright cloud of witnesses, much less for their experience in detail. Other classes must be compared with this if we would gain a clear comprehension of the whole subject. We will call this class THE LUTHERAN. Another may be called THE WESLEYAN, and a third THE OBERLINIAN. The Wesleyans received their first light in this matter, and their first impulse from the Moravian brethren of Germany. And the Oberlinians took their terms, and some colors and shades of view from the Wesleyans. Both use the terms, “perfect love,”

“Christian perfection” “entire sanctification” to describe the experience in question, and “doctrine of sanctification,” or “doctrine of holiness,” as expressive of their creed about it. The Oberlinians differ from the Wesleyans in their philosophy of the will of man, and of the law of God. Their view of the claims of the law as graduated to the sinners ability, enables them to hold and profess perfect sanctification when they come to yield wholly to the known will of God, and take Christ wholly as their righteousness and true holiness. The Wesleyans admit the claims of the law of God as requiring absolute perfection, like the spotless purity of Jesus, and the holy angels, and make no professions of it, but only of Christian perfection, making a broad distinction between Christian and angelic perfection.

Both Wesleyans and Oberlinians differ from Lutherans in the use of terms, and in the theology of the experience described, but aside from this, in all that is essential in the experience itself all are agreed. Of the Wesleyans, the memoirs of Carvasso are clearest and simplest in the development of the experimental truth. He was a man of God. His faith was wonderful, and his views clear as the light. Bramwell if less clear was even more absorbed and ardent. Mrs. Rogers was truly seraphic. Mrs. Fletcher’s memoirs are very fascinating, as indeed are all these and many more of this class. They have opened the eyes of thousands to the higher walks of Christian life, and impelled tens of thousands to press for the mark. But so far as we can see, there is no essential difference between the experience they describe, and those of Luther and D’Aubigne, Baxter and Edwards. All alike begin with a sense of their guilt, and peril, and come sooner or later to a sense of sins forgiven, blotted out in the blood of Jesus, and then, again sooner or later, in every case, hungering and thirsting for true holiness is induced, and after varied strugglings the issue in all alike, is that of finding in Christ the end of the law for sanctification.

This unity will be apparent if we place any two of them side by side. Here for instance are the expressions of Mrs. Rogers, and of D’Aubigne from their own pens in their own words, descriptive of their own views and feelings at the moment their struggles were crowned with the victory that overcometh, viz., full trust in Jesus.

D’AUBIGNE

[Pardon the repetition, it seems to be necessary.]

After describing his conversion clearly, and the subsequent struggles and turn given to the current of his desires and efforts, by the counsels of the good old champion of the faith Kluker at Kiel, and the scene at Inn, with his two fellow travelers, Monod and Rieu; their reading in the word of God, the III of Ephesians, and the power with which the two last verses were set home to his heart, says, “When I arose, in that inn-room at Kiel, I felt as if my ‘wings were renewed as the wings of eagles.’ From that time forward, I comprehended that my own efforts were of no avail; that Christ was to do all by his ‘power that worketh in us,’ and the habitual attitude of my soul was to lie at the foot of the cross, crying to Him, ‘Here am I, bound hand and foot, unable to move, unable to do the least thing to get away from the enemy that oppresses me. Do all thyself. I know that thou wilt; thou wilt even do exceeding abundantly above all that I ask.’

I was not disappointed, all my doubts were soon dispelled, and not only was I delivered from the inward anguish which in the end would have destroyed me, had not God been faithful; but the Lord ‘extended peace to me like a river.’

Then I could ‘comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge,’”

(filled with all the fullness of God.)

MRS. ROGERS

After all the record of her earlier contest, and earlier experience of sins forgiven, and after describing her heart-searchings, doubts, fears, desires, and efforts for true holiness, comes at last to the moment when she sees Christ to be all in all, and receives him. Then she says, “Lord, my soul is delivered of her burden. I am emptied of all. I am at thy feet, a helpless, worthless worm; but take hold of thee as my fullness! Everything that I want, thou art. Thou art wisdom, strength, love, holiness: yes, and thou art mine! I am conquered and subdued by love. Thy love sinks me into nothing; it overflows my soul. O, my Jesus, thou art all in all! In thee I behold and feel all the fullness of the Godhead mine. I am now one with God; the intercourse is open; sin, inbred sin, no longer hinders the close communion, and God is all my own. O, the depths of that solid peace my soul now felt!”

And this, like D’Aubigne she describes, not merely as the rapture of a favored hour, but as the habitual attitude of the soul, at the foot of the cross.

“Yea, Christ all in all to me

And all my heart is love.”

“With every coming hour

I prove

His nature and his name is

Love.”

Like David in his expressions of love to Jonathan when these dear friends parted in the field, Mrs. Rogers “excelled” in ardency of feelings and words, but in all that is essential there is not a single line of difference. Both are selfemptied, both prostrate in the dust at the foot of the cross; both accept Jesus as all in all, and find themselves conquerors, and more than conquerors through faith in his name.

Chapter 4

EXPLANATIONS.

THE FACTS AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE FACTS.

“WISDOM IS JUSTIFIED OF ALL HER CHILDREN.”

In these sketches and references the first and great fact is that of full salvation through full trust in Jesus. This fact needs no proof. It is at once the provision and the demand of the gospel, and is of course the privilege and duty of all. The Apostle Paul lived in it himself, and commended it, and commanded it, to others. The apostles and primitive Christians generally enjoyed it from the day of Pentecost onward. There were exceptions certainly. The Galatians seem to have been turned aside from the fulness and simplicity of the faith. Having begun in the spirit, they thought to be made perfect by works, and the apostle wrote them with all plainness and urgency of speech, to induce them to look to Christ and Christ alone for holiness, telling them that he travailed in birth for them again, until Christ should formed in them the hope of glory. And there were other churches beside those of Galatia where, through the blindness of unbelief, they failed of the fulness of God. But, as a general thing, we hear only of the same life of faith in its fulness, and fulness of joy in all, until after the death of all the apostles, save John, and he exiled from the churches and shut up in the lone Isle of Patmos. Then, when the apostles were gone, and the days of miracles were ended, and inspired teaching ceased in the churches, and Satan began to be loosed — then, in the epistles of him who walks in glory amidst the golden candlesticks, we have the first intimation that the light of the candles was beginning to grow dim.

And surely Luther and Baxter, Wesley and D’Aubigne, full and rich as their experience of grace and salvation was, had not outstripped Peter and John, Paul and Apollos! Neither have the Lutherans, as we have named them, or the Wesleyans, or Oberlinians, got beyond primitive Christians! Nay, if we shall carry the comparison back to the bright cloud of witnesses, who passed off before Christ’s coming upon earth, as they are called up in array before us in the beautiful citation by the apostle in the eleventh of Hebrews, we shall hardly find the brightest of moderns outstripping these worthies of old, either in fulness of faith, or fulness of salvation. Going about, therefore, to prove that there is such an experience would be but a fool’s work! If any one doubts, with the Bible in his hand, surely the rushlight of any other proof in the face of this noon-day blaze, would go for nothing!

Neither does this fact need explanation any more than it needs proof. It is simply the result of the gospel received in its fulness. Christ is set forth as all in all for the sinner’s salvation, and the sinner who receives him as such, and abides in him, has full salvation. But there is another fact which should be explained: the fact that in the instances given, as in others not referred to, there is a second experience, distinct from the first — sometimes years after the first — and as distinctly marked, both as to time and circumstances and character, as the first — a second conversion, as it is often called. Baxter speaks of this in his case as quite as important as the first. So does James Brain and Taylor, and many others also; while in such cases as Luther’s and D’Aubigne’s, both the experience and its importance are so marked as to speak for themselves. Some have tried to account for this fact by denying the reality of the first experience. “These people were deceived,” say they, “and not converted at all, as they suppose, in the first instance.”

But if Luther was not converted, who then is? If D’Aubigne was deceived in the first instance, who then is not? If to have been convinced of the deep depravity of the heart by nature, and led to accept Jesus as the Son of God and Saviour of sinners, and to have experienced the joys of the new birth, is not to have been really converted, but deceived, tell us then what conversion is? No, no; this supposition does violence to truth and common sense; it will not do. We must have a better solution, or none.

Others have thought to solve the problem by calling the second experience simply a return from backsliding. But in each of the cases given, we have the testimony of the witnesses themselves, that it was more than this, a deeper work of grace, a fuller apprehension of Christ, a more complete and abiding union with him than at the first. The witnesses themselves being judges in their own case, this solution is not the true one. We must go deeper for it. Thousands in every age since the primitive, have backslidden and returned again without any such great and permanent advancement in the divine life, as that set forth in the examples before us. In Luther’s experience, as he describes it, there was that which made the Bible a new book to him. Already, in his conversion a key had been put into his hand to unlock vast treasures of truth in the Word of God, but it was only after his final and full apprehension of Christ as his sanctification, superadded to his knowledge of Christ in the forgiveness of sins, that the abundance and wealth of the Bible became the Reformer’s. And D’Aubigne tells us that after that scene in the inn-room at Kiel he went through and through the Bible anew, gathering up innumerable passages full of new significance to him. His description recalls another very like it, under like circumstances. One who had but just then passed through a similar “second conversion,” compared himself to a child sent on an errand, but finding by the wayside so many beautiful flowers and luscious fruits, now on this side, now on that, inviting the hand to pluck them, as to keep the child busy all day long, forgetful of the errand. “So,” said he, “has it happened to me with my Bible. I have set out to find some desired passage, and so many things beautiful and new have caught my eye in passing along, as to tempt me to daIly, and pick, and eat, and drink in their sweet fragrance all the day long, forgetful of my errand. And then too,” he went on to say “when I kneel down to pray, praise only swells my heart, for all the glorious things of Christ.”

Ah, there is vastly more in such an experience, than mere return from backsliding! Then, too, above and beyond all this, it is never the returning backslider who comes into the fulness of this experience. Indeed, if backsliding and returning would really bring men into this gospel fulness, pity but the whole church would backslide and return. It would be a grand thing for the cause of Christ, and for their own comfort and joy. But in point of fact, in every case, if the reader will examine, it will be seen that it is only the earnest and the active Christian, the working, struggling one, who comes to the knowledge of Christ in his fulness. The backslider returns only to the point attained when he turned back at most, and hard struggling for that! But the work in question is a higher height, and a deeper depth, in the comprehension both of the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, and of the way of salvation by faith.

Neither of these solutions is the true one. The true, however, is not difficult. Mark it well: It is in perfect harmony with all religious experience. What we call experimental religion, is simply this: The sinner is first awakened to a realization of his guilt before God, and of his danger, it may be too. He really feels, that is, he experiences his, need of salvation, and becomes anxious and eager to do anything to secure it. Tries perhaps all sorts of expedients, except the one only and true, in vain. Then at last his eyes are opened to see that Jesus Christ is set forth to be his salvation, and that all he has to do is, just as he is, without one grain of purity or merit, in all his guilt and pollution, to trust in his Saviour, and now he sees and feels, that is, he experiences, that Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, the very Saviour he needs. In Jesus he triumphs and exults. In Jesus he revels and rejoices. Jesus is the one amongst ten thousands, altogether lovely. The only one in heaven or on earth to be desired, filling all the orbit of his soul with faith, and hope and love. This in substance is the sum of all religious experience. All may be condensed into three words: the first expressive of the sinner’s necessities — SALVATION: the second expressive of the gospel provision for the sinner, a SAVIOUR; and the third embodying the condition of the sinner’s entire deliverance, FAITH.

And now to account for the two distinct experiences, each so marked and important, and so alike in character, we have only to consider two facts, viz., first, that the sinner’s necessities are two-fold and distinct, although both are included in the one word salvation. We express the two in the words of that favorite hymn, Rock of Ages, when we sing,

“Be of sin the double cure,

“Save from wrath and make me pure.”

And the Psalmist makes the distinction in the second verse of the thirtysecond Psalm, saying, “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity; and in whose spirit there is no guile.”

The apostle Paul generally includes both in the one term “Righteousness of God,” as “to all and upon all that believe,” but in the thirtieth verse of the first chapter of first Corinthians, he separates them and marks them by the distinct terms, “righteousness,” and “sanctification,” and now of late the whole Christian world, has come to distinguish them by the now limited and definite terms, justification and sanctification. Luther used the term justification as including both; in the same way that the apostle Paul used the expression righteousness of God. Justification in the great Reformer’s sense, was being made righteous; that is, being reckoned righteous before God, and ‘being made righteous in heart and life. Nevertheless the two things are distinct and different in their nature, and are expressive of two great and equal wants of the sinner. He must be just in the eye of the law, justified before God. And he must also be holy in heart and life, or he cannot be saved.

This is the first fact to be taken into account in coming to an understanding of the two separate and distinct experiences, so clearly marked in such cases as Luther’s, and D’Aubigne’s. Another is that, practically always perhaps, and theologically often, we separate between the two in our views and efforts, to secure them to ourselves, until we are experimentally taught better. We have one process for acceptance with God, that is faith; and another for progress in holiness, that is works. After having found acceptance in Jesus by faith, we think to go on to perfection by strugglings and resolves, by fastings and prayers, not knowing the better way of taking Christ for our sanctification, just as we have already taken him for our justification. We see and believe in Jesus as our atonement on earth, and our Advocate and Mediator in heaven, but we fail to see and receive him as our ever-present Saviour from sin now here with us in the hourly scenes of the daily journey heavenward. The consequence is, that as in the first instance we tried all sorts of expedients, except the right one, and failed in every one, until at last the Lord opened our eyes to see both our own folly in all these vain attempts, and at the same breath to see the wisdom of God in giving us His Son our Saviour as the Way; even so now again in the second, we try all, and all in vain, until again in this new and equal necessity, we find anew that all our ways are vain, and that Jesus is the Way.

These two facts will account for these cases of “second conversion.” Let it not be supposed, however, that in every instance there must be two distinct experiences, separated by a gulph of vain strugglings. It is not necessary that there should be one even. Let Jesus be received as the all in all, and that is enough! Whoever can say, “Jesus is mine and I am his, that he is complete and I am complete in him,” and say the truth, has the experience whether he has an experience to relate, or not. He has the Rock of Ages for his foundation, and all the driving storms, and beating tempests, and swelling floods of time and eternity, will not sweep it from under him. Christ, without any marked experience whatever, is all-sufficient; but the most brilliant experience without Christ, would be only quick-sand in the day of trial. Loyola”s experience was as brilliant as Paul’s; and Mahomet’s was even more wonderful than either; just as some counterfeits are really finer in appearance than the genuine; but that did not make the great Jesuit a saint, except in his own eyes, and in the Romish calendar, nor the false prophet an angel anywhere outside of his own sensual paradise.

Some voyagers heavenward trouble themselves all the live-long voyage, clear to the very entrance of the haven of rest, with doubts whether after all they have really set sail at all or not, because they had not the same struggles and difficulties in hoisting anchor and getting the canvas spread to the breezes of heaven, that others describe! Surely it should be enough that they are on shipboard, with anchor up, sails set, steam working, outward bound, plowing the deep at the rate of fifteen knots an hour! What if they did set out in the nighttime, or in a fog? Is it not enough that the captain and the pilot knew how to find the way, and that they are now out in the sunlight, on the open sea, and bounding over the billows to the desired haven?

This, by the way. It is certainly pleasant to have distinct recollections of one’s conversion, and also of the moment and the circumstances when full trust for full salvation was first reposed in Jesus, but this is by no means indispensable. To be in the way, to have Jesus for the all in all, is the great thing.

There remains yet one thing more to be done before closing these explanations. In the preceding examples and comparisons, certain differences were shown between the three classes, which, for convenience, we named Lutherans, Wesleyans, and Oberlinians. It will be important to note again, first the points, both of agreement and of difference between them, and then to give the reasons of both their differences and their agreements.

It is worthy .of special note again that their differences are altogether those of opinion, not at all of fact. All are agreed as to the essential facts of the experience in question. The shades of difference in the manner of narrating are not at all essential. All agree especially in the one great matter, that the experience is that of the way of sanctification by faith: that of really practically receiving Jesus for sanctification by faith, as before he had been received as the sacrifice for sins. This may be variously expressed, but this is the marrow and substance of the whole matter in every case and with every class.

Again: all agree as to the fact that this practical, experimental apprehension of Christ is instantaneous in every case, whether the instant can be marked, as in the cases referred to, or not. However long the struggles beforehand, and however gradual the rising of the light afterwards in the soul, there is a moment when Christ is first seen to be The Way, and when the soul leaves every other way and trusts solely in Jesus. In these facts all agree. And it may be added, that in the one essential doctrine of the way of sanctification, as by faith and not by works, they all agree, of course, if they agree in its practical reception in the experience in question. Theologically, therefore, they are so far in harmony.

Now the differences are, first, as to whether this experience is that of entire instantaneous sanctification or not. Whether the instant the sinner is given up to Christ to be “Sanctified soul, body and spirit, and preserved blameless, until the coming of our Lord,” as the apostle prays that the Thessalonians may be, whether then the sinner is indeed, in that moment, made perfect in holiness or not. Or if not, whether in any proper sense he may be spoken of as perfect.

Oberlinians affirm, in the case, absolute moral perfection.

Wesleyans affirm a modified perfection called “Christian.”

Lutherans affirm neither, but deny both. Then as to terms descriptive of the experience there is a corresponding difference.

Oberlinians use freely and without qualification the term “entire sanctification.”

Wesleyans also, use the word entire, in a restricted sense, though their favorite names are “Perfect love” and ”Christian perfection,” as modifying, and qualifying the idea of absolute perfection.

Lutherans have discussed the experience less as a thing distinct, and therefore have known it less, and named it less distinctively, than either Wesleyans or Oberlinians.

Cases of it have always occurred in every great awakening, and often also in solitary instances, in the furnace of affliction or under the special influences of sovereign grace and power. Such cases have generally received the convenient name, “second conversion:” but in the standards, as in the Westminster Assembly’s Confession, it is called, “The full assurance of grace and salvation,” and elsewhere, “The full assurance of faith,” while in hymns it is often named, “Full salvation.”

Now as to the reasons of these agreements and these differences, it will be easy to see them, if we scan the matter closely.

All agree in the facts of the experience, because the facts themselves are in harmony in all cases. And all agree in the doctrine of sanctification by faith, because in every case, that is the great principle received experimentally in place of sanctification by works. And all agree that this experimental reception of Christ for sanctification is instantaneous, because it could not be otherwise. For in every change of one principle of action for another, however long the matter may be under consideration before hand, the change at last when it does occur, must from the nature of the case be instantaneous.

But while all agree in this, and thus far — just here the separation begins.

Oberlinians look upon the soul’s sanctification as complete, entire, wanting nothing, the instant Christ is accepted for entire sanctification.

Lutherans look upon this, the acceptance of Christ as the soul’s sanctification, as the entrance merely upon the true and only way of being made holy, as the first full discovery of the real and the right way.

Wesleyans take a middle view, indefinite, and therefore undefinable. They do not believe in the absolutely perfected holiness of the soul the instant it trusts fully in Jesus for holiness of heart. They freely admit that imperfections may and do still exist, while yet a sort of modified perfection is attained, as they think.

Now what is the right and the truth of the matter? Exactly what is attained in this experience?

Christ. Christ in all his fulness. Christ as all in all. Christ objectively and subjectively received and trusted in. That is all. And that is enough.

But what as to holiness of heart? Nothing! Nothing but a sense of selfemptiness and vileness, and helplessness. Nothing but a sense of unholiness, and a full consciousness that all efforts and resolutions, and strugglings and cries for holiness of heart, are just as vain as the attempts of a leopard or an Ethiopian to bathe white in any waters. This with a sense of absolute dependence upon Christ for holiness of heart and life, just as for the forgiveness of sin is the sum and substance of the soul’s attainment. At the same time while this deep self-abasement, and utter self-abhorrence fills the soul, there is on the other hand just as deep a sense of the all-sufficiency and perfect loveliness of Christ, and a realization of the fulness of his love, and an assurance of his ability to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask Or think, according to the power that worketh in us. And a confidence that he will do it, according to the plan of God.

Then what follows?

Then follows the work according to our faith.

By faith the soul is now placed in the hands of Christ, as the clay in the hands of the potter; and by faith, Christ is received by the soul as the potter to mold it at his own sovereign will, into a vessel for the Master’s own use and for the King’s own table.

By faith the soul now is opened as a mirror to the Master, and as in a crystal fount of unrippled face, the Master’s image is taken in all its meekness and majesty.

By faith the soul is put into the hands of Christ, like paper into the hands of the printer to be unfolded and softened and printed, with all the glorious things of God. And by faith Christ is taken to the soul like an unopened book, title page read it may be, and portrait frontispiece scanned and admired, but its leaves uncut, and its treasures of wisdom and knowledge all unexplored, all in reserve, to be gained by daily and hourly reading, in all after time.

By the power of God, in the light of truth, a new starting point has been gained. A new and higher level has been reached, and in the new light all things take on a new loveliness, and from the new starting point the race becomes swifter and yet easier. A starting point it is however, and not the goal reached, or the mark of the prize won. Let this be specially noted, and kept ever in mind. This being the case it is easy to see why the Lutherans should reject the terms and ideas of perfection, as attained in this experience, for it is the beginning, not the end; only the entrance, fully and consciously, by the right principle, upon the process of sanctification — not sanctification completed.

When a man sick unto death, has become fully convinced of the utter hopelessness of his case in his own hands, and thrown away every remedy devised by himself, or recommended by his friends, and sent for a physician who has wisdom to understand and skill to heal his disease, it would be folly to say that at the moment his case was en-trusted to the physician, his cure was complete. So in the Lutheran view, the transfer and the trust of the soul, for the whole work of sanctification by the Holy Spirit is but the first effectual step in the work. It is the door of the way fairly entered, and the way clearly perceived. So much, no more. The goal and the crown are yonder in the glorious future, and in the open vision and unveiled presence of the King immortal and eternal — but as yet invisible — the only wise God our Saviour.

And it is also easy to see why the Wesleyans reject the idea of absolute perfection attained in the experience, for they see and know that, according to their standard of sinless obedience, it is not true. While at the same time it is easy to see how the fact that it is an experimental apprehension of the true way of sanctification, together with the desire to give the experience a distinctive name has led to the adoption of such terms as “ Christian perfection” and “Perfect love” with a disclaimer of any profession of sinless perfection or absolute angelic holiness of heart and life.

For the Oberlinian idea that the experience brings the soul into a state of sinless perfection, or entire sanctification the grounds must be sought in three things: first, their philosophy of the will, according to which each volition or choice is in itself absolutely holy, or absolutely unholy and altogether so. So that when God is chosen, while that choice is predominant, the soul is perfectly holy; and when the world is chosen, then while that choice is uppermost, then the soul is perfectly sinful: — This, with their view of the law of God as graduated to the sinner’s condition, whatever it is, not requiring of all alike the same entire conformity to the absolute and unchangeable standard of heavenly holiness, but claiming no more than the sinner’s earthly blindness permits him to see, and no more than his earthly weakness permits him to do. And to these two a third must be added; viz., their definition of sanctification, according to which it is consecration only — or setting apart to God — and so is man’s own work, instead of God’s. Whereas, according to the popular acceptation, sanctification is the work of God in the soul after it is set apart to God by voluntary consecration: — These three things taken together, and taken together with the experience, may serve to show us why and how the Oberlinians adopt the terms, and accept the idea of “entire sanctification” as attained in the experience.

As a closing remark: Let it be borne in mind that these differences, are only differences of opinion. Important certainly; but after all, nothing in comparison with the great facts in which all are agreed. Not for a moment should they be allowed to keep one back from securing the great and blessed realities of such an experimental apprehension of Christ and salvation as is set forth in the examples given. The experience is a reality. Jesus is freely offered as our sanctification as well as our justification. Faith — full trust in him will bring full salvation with him to the soul. Let no one fail of the grace of God. “Behold, saith he that openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it.”

Chapter 5

A STUMBLING STONE.

“GATHER OUT THE STONES.” — Isaiah lxii: 11.

When a ponderous train of cars is under way, rushing, roaring, thundering along at the rate of thirty miles an hour, it may indeed be thrown from the track by a trifling thing, a block or a stone, and dashed to atoms; but it can be brought safely to a stand-still only by reversing the engine and applying all the power of the brakes. But when standing all still, silent, motionless, a mere pebble before a single wheel will defy all the mighty force of the locomotive to move the train a hair. Just so when fully convinced of the reality and value of the experience exemplified, and fairly on the stretch for it, though there is danger even then of being switched track, or thrown from it by some malicious obstruction placed in the way by our wily adversary; yet no light matter could stop the earnest inquirer from the successful pursuit of the great object in view. Not so, however, in the outset. Then a mere trifle, a misapprehension, a doubt, a fear, a name, one word, may be the pebble on the track, and prevent a single step being taken.

“Perfectionism!” This one word, perfectionism, has kept and is now keeping thousands from examining into the matter at all. It is high time this stumbling stone was gathered out of the way. It may indeed become a beacon light to show the mariner in his heavenward voyage the hidden rock where noble souls have struck in days gone by, and so warn him of its peril, and induce him to give it a wide berth as he passes safely on — but it has no place by right in the way. There is not the least necessary connection between the experience described and perfectionism. It is true that some have connected the two things, but they are entirely distinct and widely different from each other. The experience is a fact, and as a fact it has been exemplified in the instances we have referred to, and thousands besides, in which the theory of perfectionism had not so much as a thought given to it, or if a thought or a word, it was a word of denial, as in the cases of Luther and D’Aubigne. Perfectionism on the other hand is a theory — a notion or system of notions

— which may have place in the head, either with or without the experience in the heart. Doubtless there have been many who have accepted the theory of perfectionism, and also come into the experience of full salvation by faith —

but there are many also who have taken up the idea of perfectionism, and hell it strenuously without having come into the experience at all. The two things, therefore, have no necessary connection whatever, or the examples given, must go for nothing.

Two illustrations may serve to make this entirely clear. In a little book, which at the time excited some attention and induced an answer from the late venerable Leonard Woods, D. D.,” Mahan on Christian Perfection,“ the author, in a narrative near the close of the book very naively informs us, that first at Oberlin, at a time when there was deep and increasing religious interest, he himself and Mr. Finney, became deeply impressed with the necessity of greater holiness of heart, and after a period of intense anxiety and earnest struggling, first one, then the other came out into the light, to see that the Lord Jesus Christ must be, and was their sanctification, as already they had before received him as their justification.

They began then to preach the full gospel as they then for the first apprehended it. Power attended the preaching. Many were impressed in like manner, and many in like manner came into the light of this second conversion. So the matter went on for six months, while as yet there was no adoption of either the theory or the name of perfectionism. Six whole months it was a nameless experience, or at most called second conversion. After a while, hike the Israelites in the wilderness, when the bread of heaven was given them in the dew of the morning, they began to say one to another,

“Manna? manna? What is it? What is it?“ Then, as the author informs us, there was quite a shock given them — a thrill of revolt, when one asked in one of their meetings, “Is this Christian perfection?" They hushed the question —

but tagged it. A thousand pities that they had not dropped it! But no. By and by, when college vacation came, they two, Mr. M. and Mr. F. took the question to New York with them — as yet three months after the experience received

— an open question to be discussed and decided. While in New York, after long deliberation, they accepted and adopted the name Christian perfection, or entire sanctification, and elaborated their own peculiar theory according to their own peculiar philosophy and theology; and with this returned to Oberlin to make it the head quarters and stronghold of the system we have named the Oberlinian.

Now this fact proves one thing beyond the possibility of successful controversy, viz: that in their own ease, the experience they described and the theory they imbibed are and were separate and distinct, having no necessary connection whatever with each other.

Another, a very different case, will serve to make separation wider and plainer still. One, who in these pages shall be nameless, though known to the writer, became deeply interested in the subject from reading the memoirs of eminent Christians, James Brainerd Taylor, first of all. By and by he came to associate the terms of the Wesleyans and the ideas of the Oberlinians, with the experience narrated by Taylor. At first it was a hard matter for him to gain his own consent to accept these terms and ideas, and still harder to be willing to acknowledge it. But he did it. The experience he believed to be true, and saw to be excellent. His heart yearned for it. He was not satisfied with what he felt in himself and saw in others. He was sure there was something better within hopeful reach in the gospel. And, alas for him, perfectionism was thrown square in his way. He must accept it and acknowledge it — so he verily thought — or fail of the blessedness he saw in prospect and longed to enjoy.

As God in mercy would have it, this obstacle did not stop him as it has stopped thousands — stopped them, to use a paradox — before they had started. He urged his way onward. The struggle was long and severe. His was the blessedness at last, however, to overcome. He conquered. He fought his way to the tree of life in the midst of the paradise of God, and gained the hidden manna, and the white stone with the new name, known only to himself. But now came instantly an entire change of view about the whole matter of perfection. In the experience, his own utter vileness was shown him, just as Isaiah saw his in the vision of the Lord on his throne; and like Daniel in his vision of the glorious Redeemer in his amber purity and sunlight holiness, he felt his very comeliness turned in-to corruption. While at the same time he saw the fulness of God’s glorious grace, and felt that Jesus would be with him evermore, to keep him and work in him by the Holy Spirit his own holy will. And then came instantly the question, ” Is this the perfection I have been seeking?” The answer was irresistibly “No.” He had been seeking and expecting to be wholly sanctified in a moment by Divine power, and made fully conscious that he was absolutely and entirely holy. But, instead of that, he had his eyes opened to see his utter unholiness and to see that Christ must answer wholly for him, and clothe him altogether with his own (Christ’s own) righteousness, and keep him by his own mighty power through faith, and change him as by the spirit of the Lord from glory to glory into his own image. He rose therefore from his knees, not to profess himself perfect, by any means, but to say and to feel that Christ was all in all to him, while he was nothing but sin in-himself.

At once and forever he dropped the theory of perfectionism, and the terms, also, as misnomers of the experience, while from that at day on-ward until now he has rejoiced in full salvation, through full trust in Jesus.

Here then we have two illustrations that the theory of perfection, and the fact of the experience in question have no necessary connection. In the first, the experience was gained first while the theory was unthought of, and indeed shocking at the time, and adopted only after months of delay and speculation.

And in the second, the theory was adopted first, months before the experience was gained, and then thrown aside as at variance with the experience in the moment when that was gained.

Another and still different illustration may not be without use.

This whole subject, experience and theory together had been forced upon the attention of one who had been then three years or more a cheerful, decided, happy Christian. It was disagreeable to her, not because she was not anxious to gain all that such an one as she might reasonably hope for. Already she had found more in religion, than in all the round of the gay world most fully tried, and really enjoyed by her. The nectar of love sipped from the lily of the valley, and from the rose of Sharon, had been too sweet to her to be turned from with disgust, or disrelish even. But heresy! the fear of heresy! or of fanaticism, or extravagance! She shrank from the approach of anything threatening in the least to drive her into ultraism. She could not bear the thought of separating between herself and the Christian world, in which she had found such sweet and happy fellowship. Every book upon this subject was avoided. All conversation about it carefully eschewed. At last however, in a leisure, and yet a sacred hour, one Sabbath morning, when kept from the house of prayer by slight illness, her eye fell upon the story of another’s experience of this second conversion, or as he called it, Christian perfection. The narrative was simple, sincere, and truthful. She saw it to be true and real, and she saw it to be as blessed as true, and as necessary as blessed. In that hour her resolution was taken. She gave up her fears. Resolved nobly to take the truth, and take with it whatever of loss or cross it might bring. The struggle was severe but short. The Lord graciously led her to believe in Jesus most fully, and she found rest. Peace as a river, joy in its sweet fulness, love inexpressible flowed in from Christ the fountain, and she was beyond measure happy. Her conversion had been bright, hut not brighter than this her second conversion. At once the desire that all might know of this the Christian’s precious privilege, rose like the waters of a spring newly opened, filling her heart to the brim, and ready to overflow. She sought opportunity to make the matter known. But now arose a practical difficulty. What should she say she had experienced? A few friends were to meet socially, a parlor gathering, to talk by the way, of what the Lord had done for them in bringing them hitherto in their pilgrimage. She became perplexed, really distressed with the question, “what shall I tell them?” “Shall I tell them I have experienced entire sanctification? I never felt my unholiness more or so much. Shall I say I have been made perfect? That would indeed prove me perverse, for I never saw my imperfection so clearly, or felt it so deeply. I see Christ a perfect Saviour, and he is mine, and all I want; but I am a perfect sinner, needing a perfect Saviour indeed. I cannot say I am perfect. What then shall I say? For I must witness for Jesus. I must try and get others to trust fully in him.”

In her perplexity she appealed for advice to a friend, who wisely counselled her that she had nothing at all to do with the question of perfection, least of all to profess herself to be perfect. She had only to tell what a sinner she herself was, and what a Saviour she had found.

This gave her relief at once and forever And although now for many years she has been a constant, faithful, earnest, successful witness for Jesus, testifying the things, and none other than the things he has done for her, she has never felt herself under any necessity to profess Christian perfection, nor yet has she felt her joys and comforts, or her usefulness one jot the less for steering clear of that profession, but greater. She has the liberty as well as the fulness of the blessings of the gospel.

The purpose of these illustrations is not controversy, with those who hold the Oberlinian or the Wesleyan views of this matter, but simply to take up a stumbling stone out of the way of the many thousands in Christendom, who are deterred by it from gaining the higher heights, and deeper depths of the knowledge and love of Jesus, as a Saviour from sin. If it were not for this, the question of perfectionism might sleep forever, without one word of awakening from the writer. And now his object will be fully gained, if in these brief remarks and few illustrations, the fact shall be clearly and fully made known, that none need fear the necessity running into perfectionism, in pressing for all fulness of the riches of the grace of God.

Chapter 6

NOT FOR ME? WHY NOT?

“FOR THE PROMISE IS UNTO YOU, AND TO YOUR CHILDREN, AND TO

ALL THAT ARE AFAR OFF, EVEN AS MANY AS THE LORD OUR GOD

SHALL CALL.”

Peter at Pentecost concerning the baptism of the Holy Ghost.

Modesty is lovely, presumption is folly, and pride is madness, but there is a holy boldness which is one of the chiefest of the beauties of holiness.

When the apostles were most supported and engrossed by divine influence, made the very temples of the Holy Spirit, and illumined in every chamber of the soul, then they were boldest, and then their adversaries took note of them that they had been with Jesus.

It becomes even Princes and Kings to take the shoes from their feet in their approaches to God, even when called into his presence by the voice of the Lord himself. It is holy ground, and all self-complacency will certainly give place to a deep sense of pollution in the vision of the spotless majesty of the Most High, and strength itself will wilt into weakness in view of his omnipotence. A Job will exclaim, “I abhor myself.” An Isaiah will cry, “Woe is me, I am undone!” A Daniel will feel his “comeliness turned into corruption.” A John will fall upon his face as a dead man. No strength will remain in him.

And yet when even a child hears his name called, like the little boy in the Tabernacle lent to the Lord forever by his mother — ”Samuel! Samuel!” Then it is surely more pleasing to God to have the willing response, “Here Lord am I,” than the reluctant plea, “Not me, Lord, not me! send by whom thou wilt send, but not me.”

The Lord was offended with Moses for his pertinacious modesty when called and bidden to strike for the liberty of Israel from Egyptian bondage. And also with Barak when sent for by Deborah the prophetess, and commissioned to break the iron yoke of Amalek. And in both cases he divided the responsibility, as they desired, and the glory too! In the one instance making Aaron a large sharer with his brother Moses, and in the other giving one part to Deborah, and another to Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite, leaving only the third to the shrinking Barak.

God is not well pleased with this shrinking plea of the over modest disciple who says, “Not for me.” He has opened the new and living way by the blood of the covenant through the rent vail into the most holy place, and exhorts us in the language of the apostle, “Let us enter in boldly.” And it is not modesty but unbelief which puts in this shrinking plea.

“Not for me?” Why not? Why, this is the very plea that the unconverted in their utter unbelief of the freeness of God’s grace and mercy urge when dressed to fly to Christ for salvation — ”Not for me.” And yet we who have tasted and felt the love of the Lord know how foolish their plea is. We know that the invitation is unto “all the ends of the earth,” and to “Whosoever will.” And surely salvation is no more free in the first draught of the waters of Life, than in the second and. deeper. Christ is no more freely offered in the faith of his atonement, than in the assurance of his personal presence and sanctifying power! He has not given himself to us in half of his offices freely, then to withhold himself from us in the other half. If we are content to take him as a half-way Saviour — a deliverer from condemnation, merely, but refuse to look to him as a present Saviour from sin, it is our own fault. He is a full Saviour. And to all who trust him he gives full salvation. To all and to each.

“But this is not like conversion,” says an objector. “It is a special matter designed and bestowed upon special instruments of God called to special responsibilities. Luther was a great man, called of God for a great work. Baxter also — Wesley and D’Aubigne. And these great men were endowed with, great faith. I am not like one of these. It would be presumption in me to expect any such measure of faith.”

To answer, and silence this plea is very easy — but to do away with the unbelief that utters it is another matter. How do you know, beloved disciple of Jesus, that the Lord is not calling you to be a special instrument specially endowed for great and good things? Has God revealed to you his plans? Can you say certainly that God has not great things in store for you? Luther, a poor monk, buried up in a convent, without a dollar in the world, or a friend to lean upon, or so much as a Bible of his own to read, might have taken up your plea perhaps with quite as much show of reason as you — and yet suppose he had? and had persisted in it, and refused to press for the fulness of salvation?

Ah! then he might have remained a monk forever, and the honor and glory of the Reformer would have crowned other instruments. So with you. You may shut yourself out from great light and love and usefulness — you may let another take your crown — but it will be your own fault, through an evil heart of unbelief if you do. And tell me now — upon your own admission, that this second version is a power of distinguished usefulness to who secures it, are you not taking too much yourself in rejecting it? Certainly it does make useful as well as happy Christians, and refusing to for it is no slight matter. You had better weigh it well.

WILLIAM CARVOSSO

was left an orphan at ten, and bound ‘prentice to a farmer. His father was a sailor, impressed and compelled to serve on a British man-of-war, and his days were ended at last in the Greenwich Hospital. His mother gave him some instruction in the — to him — difficult art of reading, when a child, but of writing he knew nothing until he was sixty-five years old. In his youth he was inducted into the mysteries of cock-fighting, wrestling, card-playing, and other like things.

At twenty-one years of age it pleased God to arrest him and bring him to Christ. His sister, just then newly converted, was the means of this. His struggles were great. Satan tempted him, tried him. It was hard to give up the world. Unbelief whispered, “The day of grace is passed: it is now too late.” But at last he came to the determination, “Whether saved or lost, never to cease crying for mercy.” “And the moment this resolution was formed in my heart,”

he says, “Christ appeared within, and God pardoned all my sins, and set my soul at liberty. The Spirit himself now bore witness with my spirit that I was a child of God.”

This was his conversion. For a time all was fair, peaceful, joyous, happy. By and by, however, he discovered a deeper depth of his necessities. In his own graphic simile,”My heart appeared to me as a small garden with a large stump in it, which had been recently cut down level with the ground, and a little loose earth strewed over it. Seeing something shooting up I did not like, on attempting to pluck it up, I discovered the deadly remains of the carnal mind, and what a work must be done before I could be meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.’ What I now wanted was inward holiness.”

One night about a year after his conversion, he returned from a meeting greatly distressed with a sense of his unholiness, and turned aside into a lonely barn to wrestle with God; and while kneeling there on the threshing floor he gained a little light, but not enough to burst his bonds and set him free. Shortly after, however, in a prayer meeting, his eyes were opened to see all clearly. “I felt,” he says, “that I was nothing, and Christ was all in all. Him I now cheerfully received in all his offices; my Prophet to teach me, my Priest to atone for me, my King to reign over me. 0 what boundless, boundless happiness, there is in Christ, and all for such a poor sinner as I am! This change took place, March 13th, 1772.”

In pencil mark at the bottom of the page, in the memoir from which this extract is taken, a reader has noted “A second conversion precise as to time.” This narration, however, is not given simply as an illustration of second conversion, but rather to meet the special pleading “not for me,” on the ground that it is a special endowment for eminent ones. I wish to show that it is an endowment to make eminent ones. Often and often in the providence of God, it has taken men from the respectable ranks of mediocrity, or the low walks of obscurity, and lifted them to eminence.

Here is a youth just out of an apprenticeship to a farmer — a farmer’s boy of all work, able to spell out a few words indeed upon the printed page, but unable to write a word or form a letter with the pen. Not an eminent one certainly; and yet he said, “It is for me — I must have it; and by the grace of God I will.” And by the grace of God he did.

And now mark what follows. The fire kindled in that poor boy’s heart burned so glowing and so gloriously, that the angel of the Lord took from that altar the living coals to touch the lips and purge the sins of thousands. Carvosso married and became a pilcher fisherman in the obscure fishing village of Mouse-hole on the coast of England — a fisher of men, too, and few more successful than he. Four months of the year he plied his seine for pilchers, but he caught pilcher catchers the whole year round. Their first chapel was a small room in a fisher’s hut; the next an offensive fish-drying cellar; the next a large upper room, made ready, but so frail as to crumble and tumble and crash, a heap of ruins, under the weight of the first assembly. Numbers grew, and zeal with numbers and ability with zeal, and they built a fine chapel. The whole place was transformed.

Tired of fishing, he became a farmer. The parish where his farm lay was unbroken fallow ground; weeds rank, stones ungathered, fields unhedged, a heath in the desert. Soon, however, under the diligent hand of Carvosso, it began to blossom as the rose. The few scattered sheep grew into three flourishing classes. His hands were full. From abroad they sent for him, and at one place, Cambuslang, where he went from house to house through the day, and held class-meetings at night, seven hundred or more were hopefully converted to God.

For sixty years this farmer boy, made eminent by grace, wrought on. And yet, strange to say, until he was sixty-five years old, the forming of the letter P in his class-book, to mark the presence of the members of his classes, was his utmost effort in the art of writing. His wife used to rally him about penmanship saying, “All you can do is to make P’s.”

A simple circumstance induced him after he was sixty-five, to make extraordinary effort and learn to write. He mastered the art, and used it too. His letters and his autobiography are quite voluminous and very respectable in style; and, what is more than all, have been first and last the means, perhaps, of more good than his personal labors during all the sixty years of his distinguished usefulness. Comment is needless. Let Carvosso persuade you that faith and grace can raise even the obscure to eminence, while unbelief paralyzes even those distinguished for native abilities and superior opportunities and positions, and leaves them to float along in mediocrity or sink into obscurity.

This upon the assumption of your plea that this is a limited matter. But in fact, this assumption is entirely groundless. Nay, more. It limits God, and God’s holy word, and God’s boundless grace. Not for me? Why not? Is not Christ able? Is he unwilling? Are the promises limited? Are the commands binding only upon a few? Can any enter heaven without holiness? Is there any other way of becoming holy? Is your name mentioned as an exception in the promises and invitations of the Word? Do you find any such phenomena as a proclamation like this, “Look unto me, ye few, and be ye saved, for I am God?” Or like this, “Whosoever will, let him drink of the waters of life freely —

except yourself?” or like this, “For the promise is, not unto you and your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call,” but only to a few eminent ones, or a few of peculiar temperament, or a few in favorable circumstances?

Favorable circumstances! Not for me! My circumstances, my associations, my calling, my position so unfavorable! Ah, if only I was a minister with nothing to do but to do good, and study how to do it!

Now let another of the Lord’s eminent ones witness for him.

HENRY HAVELOCK.*

The gallant soldier and heroic Christian Havelock, was converted on board the “General Kyd,” outward bound for India. He was young, and only a lieutenant, with an untried sword both as a soldier and as a Christian, but destined to great deeds in both fields. His enlistment was as hearty under the banner of the Lion of the tribe of Judah, as under the lion of Britain, and his commission from the King of Heaven had the broad seal of authenticity in the assurance of sins forgiven, as undoubted and unequivocal as his commission from the King of his country. He landed at Calcutta a soldier of the cross. But there God had in store for him yet better things. It was not in Havelock’s nature to hide his colors. His uniform did not more fully declare his profession a military man, than did his uniform Christian conduct, his position in the Church militant. Once fairly settled at Fort William, he sought out those in Calcutta, distinguished in the service of his own new found Captain and King, and his intercourse with them was greatly blessed. His conversion was on board the “General Kyd.” It was then on the high seas that he was met by Him of whom the Psalmist said, “Help is laid upon one mighty to save, whose hand is in the tea.” But now in the British Indian Capital, and in the Fortress the same glorious Saviour met him again, and opened his eyes more fully than ever and revealed himself to him anew. His biographer says of this second conversion, that, “The scriptures opened to him in yet greater fulness, and his consecration to his Master’s service assumed yet greater intelligence and force.”

Now Havelock would have been a distinguished soldier, and a decided Christian without doubt, even if he had not been met and blessed the second time as he was. But to understand the philosophy of his unswerving dauntlessness in religion, and the deep solicitude he felt for the conversion of his soldiers, and of the heathen, to find the source of the steady brilliance of his light, we must look to the two scenes, the first on the “General Kyd,” but not less to the second in “Fort William,” and see how there the living union was formed, first and then more fully opened, afterward by faith between him and his Saviour, that living union which like the tubes from the living olive trees in the vision of the prophet, poured the golden oil in constant current into the golden lamps, keeping their light ever fresh, never dim. His after life as a man, a soldier, and a Christian, was but the unfolding of the elements then fully set at work, to make him what he was, under the constant presence, and culture, and providence of his Captain and King.

Now suppose Havelock had said in the first instance, as doubtless he may have been tempted to say, and as some of his fellow-officers in the service, and fellow-voyagers in the General Kyd did probably say, “Not for me?” Or in the second instance — where now would have been the record which has thrilled all Christendom with wonder and delight, the record which is on high?

Where? And yet he, a youth, and a subordinate officer, amongst scoffing fellow-officers, and amongst a soldiery not over devout or pure, going into a heathen land, and his trade war, and his profession ambition. Surely he might have exclaimed with a sigh of despair, “My circumstances! Oh, my circumstances! Not for me! not for me! “ Yet it was for him, and it is for you too, if through unbelief you do not reject it. Again let me entreat you, weigh it well! Again let me ask you, can you reject it and be innocent.

But my temperament! With my perplexities and trials. Ah! my temperament would never allow me to live in it, if I should gain it.” Of all the pleas put in by those already convinced of the reality and blessedness of full salvation, this is the most frequent; and the most plausible too to those who so plead, and yet of all it is the most foolish and groundless.

The plea in all reason and common sense ought to be reversed. It should be. Ah! my temperament and my temptations! I can never live unless I do have the fulness of faith, and the fulness of salvation. I must have it. Whatever others may do who have less to contend with, I must have it, and by the grace of God I will.

To make our very necessities a plea for rejecting instead of receiving it, is against all reason. Just as well might the poor cripple, who can only walk a few steps at a time without falling down, make that a plea for refusing the strong arm of a willing brother who offers to hold him up, and help him on to the end. And just as well might a poor sufferer gasping for breath in a close room, dying for want of air, refuse to have the free air let in, on the plea that he could not breathe with what he had already.

If all was right, temperament and temper, disposition and aim, position and circumstances, no Saviour would be needed. As it is, the more irritable our temperament, and irascible our temper, the more distracting our cares, and the more subtle and powerful our adversaries, and the worse our associations, the more we need a Saviour, and the more we need all the fulness of faith, and salvation.

Says He who walketh in glory amidst the golden candlesticks, “I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye salve, that thou mayest see. Behold I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh I will give to sit with me upon my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father on His throne.”

“Rise! touched with love divine,

Turn out his enemy, and thine,

That soul destroying monster, sin,

And let the heavenly stranger in!“

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* A friend objects to Havelock as an example, because he was a military man

— a man of blood. And asks, “Can any man be a whole-hearted Christian, and yet a military man? Under the gospel economy of the Kingdom of God can any one deliberately select the profession of arms, or of his own choice remain in it, after his conversion, taking part in the bloody scenes of war as Havelock did, and yet live in the smiles of Divine approbation and love from day to day?”

This is a grave question in ethics, and involves also the still broader one of the allowability of war under any circumstances. Of course in a footnote questions so broad cannot be discussed at large. To answer the objection in a manner the briefest is all that can be thought of.

Is the objection good?

If it is good against Havelock, it is good also against Captain Vicars, Colonel Gardiner and General Burns — all men of valor, both in the cause of their country, and in the cause of their God.

Nay, more; if good against these, it is equally good against men highly commended in the New Testament for their devotion and faith.

The first Gentile to whom the gospel was preached, as a Gentile, was a Roman military officer, Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian Band, stationed at Cesarea, which was then the local seat of government and centre of military affairs for Judea. And the pen of inspiration commends him as devout, liberal, and prayerful, even before the Apostle Peter was sent to preach Christ to him at his house, and informs us that the Holy Spirit fell upon him and his household while Peter was speaking, just as at Pentecost He had come upon the apostles. And yet not one word is said to him, or of him, as if his profession of arms was against the ethics of the gospel.

And the man of all others most highly commended by our Saviour himself for his faith, was also a Roman military officer. He came to Jesus in the streets of Capernaum, and said to him “I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof. Speak the word and my servant shall be healed. For I also am a man under authority, and I say to one, come, and he cometh, and to another, do this, and he doeth it.”

Jesus listened to him. His appeal based its mustration upon his own military power and authority over his soldiers, but our Saviour did not condemn him for being a centurion. He listened with wonder and admiration, and turned him about to his followers saying, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.

The presumptive testimony of these facts is altogether against the validity of the objection.

But there is a single thought which is sufficient both to show the baselessness of the objection and the consistency of these facts with the ethics of the gospel, and perhaps also to furnish the principle for the settlement of the general question, whether under the gospel economy there can be a justifiable war?

What are the army and the navy?

Are they not simply a national police?

Are they not to the nation at large — in principle — just what the civic police is to the city, and the sheriffalty and constabulary are to the country? The arm of the government for the protection of the honest and the peaceful, and for the arrest and punishment of the vile and the violent?

Is it right, or is it wrong, to have a police force on the high seas for the suppression of piracy and the traffic in slaves? To catch the sharks of commerce, and protect the weak and the exposed?

One thing of two must be. Every merchantman must be armed for selfdefence, or the government must defend its merchantmen by a navy.

Is it right for the nation within its own borders to put down conspiracy, enforce its laws, preserve order, and protect innocent citizens?

Is it right to present a bulwark of honest hearts, strong hands and deadly weapons against the invader who comes to rob and destroy, to kill and lay waste?

Then it is right to have soldiers and sailors. And then it is right for some to be soldiers and sailors, and whole hearted ones too, if soldiers and sailors at all.

There is nothing in that to hinder being whole hearted Christians at the same time.

Is there anything wrong in being a justice, or alderman, or mayor, or judge, or governor, or president? No more is there in being a captain, or general or commodore.

Is there anything in the office of our civic police, if discharged honestly, boldly, prayerfully, to grieve the Spirit of God, or cause the frown of the Most High?

No more is there in being a soldier or a sailor.

The question concerning any particular war, of course must turn upon the particular circumstances of the case. Each case must be judged of by itself, just as each civil suit, and each criminal prosecution must be separately judged.

Without question there is always wrong on one side if not on both. It could not be otherwise.

But the question concerning the constitutionality of the military under the economy of the gospel turns upon the necessity there is for a national police to hold the lawless, whether amongst nations, or amongst the separate communities of each nation in check, and for punishing the desperadoes who seek honor or gain at the expense of the honest and peaceful.

Taking this broad view of the subject, we at once see how Havelock, and Vicars, and Gardiner, and Burns could bask every day in the sunshine of God’s favor, while at the same time they were honestly and earnestly doing their duty as soldiers, whether in camp, or on the march, or in the heat of the battle.

And we see, too, how the centurions could be commended, as they were, for their extraordinary devotion and faith, while yet they wore the uniform, and bore the commission of Roman military officers.

And we see, also, how John the Baptist could consistently answer the soldiers who came to him as Ike did. Soldiers came to him there on the banks of the Jordan, asking, “And what shall we do?” As if their case was different from that of citizens. Must we abandon the service of Caesar to enter the service of God? was perhaps the substanee of their question. So at least the answer of John intimates. John told them to do violence to no man — accuse none falsely — and be content with their wages. That is, if you will serve God, the service of Caesar does not stand in your way if you will only not be seditious on account of your wages, nor rob any one, or accuse any falsely to get money, but be true God-fearing soldiers of Caesar at the same time that you are true soldiers of God.

Now, however, turning the tables, if this view is correct and the military profession is lawful and right, judged by the gospel itself, then the example of Havelock remains in full force. He could be, as indeed he was, a gallant hero in the defence of his national flag, and in the rescue of his imperilled fellowcountrymen and fellow-Christians, and also, and more nobly a hero, under the standard of the cross, and in the rescue of immortal souls from a fate more terrible than that of torture or massacre by Hindoo or Mussulman.

And his example is the more brilliant and noble from the fact that he rose above all the temptations of both peace and war, in an army and in a country, where faith and grace are tried to the utmost.

Havelock’s is indeed an illustrious example, both from the lustre of his name and the lustre of his course, and from the dark sky out of which his star shone so steadily in its undimmed ever-increasing brilliance.