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Sheppard, John, 1785-1879. Christian encouragement; or Attempts to console and ai
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CHRISTIAN ENCOURAGEMENT ;
ATTEMPTS TO CONSOLE AND AID THE DISTRESSED AND ANXIOUS.
Z' BY
JOHN SHEPPARD,
AUTHOK OF "THOUGHTS ON PRIVATE DEVOTION," ETC.
" Voulez-vous sauver quelque chose de ce debris si universel, si inevitable 1 donnez \ Dieu vos affections ; nuUe force ne vous ravira ce que vous aurez depose en ses mains divines."
BOSSUET.
THIRD EDITION.
LONDON: THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY,
Instituted 1799 ;
DEPOSITORY, 56, PATERNOSTER ROW, AND
65, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD;
AND SOLD BY THE BOOKSELLERS,
PREFACE.
The remarks prefixed to those " Thoughts on Private Devotion," for the acceptance of which the writer continues grateful^ are in great part so applicable to the contents of the present volume, that, by readers possessing the former, nothing prefatory may here be needed. The title indicates, that this work is designed for such as endure distress, discourage- ment, or sadness ; but it is well to add, (what a brief title could not express,) that, within this large division of society, they will be found most appro- priate, by those who in that former preface were described as " the reflective and questioning class ; " who might, perhaps as fitly, have been termed, — the pensive, doubting, and, in some sense, speculative class. Several modes, it is true, of adversity and disappointment, are both incidentally and expressly treated of, common in a great degree to every order A 2
IV PREFACE.
of minds, and every rank of the community. Still it will be found that the prevailing character and drift of these papers is most adapted to the class now- mentioned. " Distress, discouragement, or sadness," are, indeed, often the effects of such a mental con- stitution. Doubt and dejection on the great points where all real hope is at issue ; and other pains or fears, of a quality which some minds can but con- jecturally and therefore but obscurely estimate, are among the " manifold temptations " which that class encounter. We should thank God that there are Christian writers, in our own as in former days, who think chiefly for another class ; whose enviable energy and confidence breathe eloquent vigour through their pages, and bear up kindred spirits in the same high career, with a power signally bene- ficial to the cause of piety. It may be permitted meanwhile to expect, that readers unallied to these in strength or decision, may be aided by a com- panion not so firm and sanguine ; who enters more into the difficulties and sorrows, (real or imagined,) which stronger faith and ardent hope might boldly overleap or happily banish.
When it has been graciously ordained by the Au- thor of all good, that Christian thoughts, whether
PREFACE.
oral or in a permanent form, should conduce to soothe or animate other minds, — it is too certain, from the temper of fallen man, that sentiments not Christian will have alloyed our thankfulness. But it is not less certain, that just humiliation and won- der will often be excited, in the consciousness that an instrument so defective and so much offending, has been thus employed and favoured. An im- pulse will be also given to each previous wish and prayer, that yet a little more may be effected to- wards raising the hopes, obviating the doubts and dangers, or lightening the sorrows of our fellow- minds. Our continuance in life, ever unsure, and transient at the most, is sometimes, from various causes, made to appear unusually doubtful ; and such wishes thus acquire strength from the thought (if not presentiment) that it may be ere long and unawares too late. New attempts therefore, and the completion of them, may be prompted, not by an increased confidence, but by the more fre- quent monitory voice around us or within us, " The nio;ht Cometh when none can work," and the desire to Utter words of comfort to some surviving, when we may have been called to our unknown abode. In the anticipation of that change, — the hopes and fears which respect human opinion and criticism, A 3
VI PREFACE.
ought to be " counted as the small dust of the balance : " but were these in reality discarded and forgotten, still would a weighty solicitude remain, — and one specially attaching to that kind of en- deavour which is in itself most soothing to the heart engaged in it, — the endeavour to impart effectual consolation ; — solicitude lest what is meant for the sincere should be perverted by the self-deceiver. This apprehension, as the discerning reader will easily judge, has been chiefly, if not exclusively felt, with respect to the second, third, fourth, and seventh pieces : which are certainly not meant or adapted for those who cherish a false and worldly peace, or indulge unawakened ease or listlessness of mind re- specting their eternal welfare ; nor for such as (with more wakeful thoughts on these subjects) may se- cretly lean to the refuge of semi-antinomian delu- sions. The very titles of these papers denote that they are not intended for the former, — and the whole tenour of the volume, I trust, must indirectly show, that no cordial or solace is intended for the latter.
I am but too well apprized that delusions of both these kinds exist and even abound in our day ; and that there are moreover professors of religioii
PREFACE. Vn
— not subject precisely to either, — who with correct doctrinal views, and (in the judgment of charity) a sincere mind, yet evince but very little discernment or fidelity as to the moral principles, bearings, and requirements of the gospel ; some also who pervert its great doctrines when most " rightly " stated ; and others whose notions, though both doctrinally and practically just in the main, seem much too easy and flexible in detail. All who compose these classes or approach them, (and the writer as far as he may rank with either,) need to be reminded so- lemnly of our Saviour's words, " Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven ; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." — And they per- haps are more safely and faithfully, although less invitingly employed, who urge upon such minds the topics of self-suspicion and fear, — than he who chiefly attempts to console the dejected and the doubting.
Not that I am without hope, (for the effect of a weak and erring aim is not always that which was primarily designed,) that some reflections in tJtose papers may tend, incidentally, to awaken the thoughtless or remiss, and induce readers who have
PREFACE.
little self-knowledge to deeper self-inspection ; and that others, — by observing the moral investigations of such as desire to be " altogether " Christians, — may derive a new and salutary impression how con- trary and how secular is their own state of heart. But it is a distressing possibility, that any can mis- apply the arguments of hope, to lull or indurate themselves in habitual carelessness, transgression, or hypocrisy. Nor is it a cheering relief, to re- collect, that most, perhaps all, of those religious writings or discourses which embrace topics of evan- gelical comfort, are open more or less to the same hazard.
As far, however, as Divine aid has been sought in our efforts, and a Divine blessing implored on the result, it is both a duty and comfort to believe, that while evil effects cannot be precluded, the good shall at least largely preponderate.
I have cited, as freely as heretofore, the thoughts of distinguished writers, where they seemed adapted to confirm or illustrate my own ; and still expect that there are no parts of the volume which the ju- dicious would less wish excluded.
PREFACE. IX
There has been here no temptation to deviate from that catholic spirit which I should count it a great unhappiness really to lose, — but which yet, if induced to treat directly of controverted points, it is possible I might incur the charge of having fore- gone. Most cordially, however, do I join with those who feel, that infidel hostilities, and national afflic- tions and dangers, as well as private sorrows, should combine with our Redeemer's strong injunctions, to bind all who "name " his " name " (notwithstanding every adverse movement and effort) more closely "together in love ;" and that the most blessed omen for that Redeemer's epiphany and triumph will be, when we rejoice to forget the differences which we cannot annihilate, and join in " strife " against our common foes; — "striving against sin," — "striving together for the faith of the gospel."
I cannot refrain from subjoining — even at the risk of its seeming irrelevant — a far better ex- pression of these wishes, contained in an exhorta- tion to the members of different Christian churches on the blessings and advantages of " brotherly com-
" In your separate condition you have all arrived
X PREFACE.
at the same views as to saving truth : expect further agreement as the reward of fellowship. — Love in the heart will become light in the intellect : you will feel yourselves perpetually approaching to greater uniformity : — in proportion as you have more of that visible oneness which will for ever be seen in the church in heaven, you will display less of that diversity of sentiment which hitherto has distinguished, and often distracted, the church upon earth."*
* " Two Letters by Fiat Justitia," on the Bible Society contro- versy. The whole passage, of which these sentences are but the conclusion, is important and excellent.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Preface iii
On the Value and Credibility of " the Gospel ; " and its adapt- edness to our Sorrows, Fears, and Moral Necessities . 1
II.
On strained Interpretations of the Doctrine of Faith or Con- version, which may induce a Despondent Impression that we are and shall be destitute of it 36
III.
On Suspicions that Faith may not be Genuine, induced by the Frequent Observation and Partial Experience of Self-Delu- sions
IV.
58
On Fears that Faith or Conversion is not Genuine, arising from a nice Analysis or Scrutiny of Motives . . .82
V.
On the Painful Doubts excited by the Prevalence of Evil and Suffering in the World 95
VI.
On the Difiiculties occurring in Revealed Truth, and in the Study of Scripture 115
Xll CONTENTS.
VII.
PAGE
On the Despondency arising from a sense of Great and Multiplied Sinfulness ; especially as aggravated by a Pro- fessed Reception of the Gospel 137
VIII.
On the Pain endured in the Want or Loss of Social Blessings which would be peculiarly dear to us . . . . 168
IX.
On Adversities in Pecuniary Circumstances .... 188
X.
On the Fears of a Widowed Mother ..... 209
XL
On the Christian Interpretation of Mysterious Chastisements 222
XII. On Mental Illness or Debility ....... 237
XIII.
On distrustful Anxiety for tlie Coming of Christ. A New Year's or Anniversary Meditation . ... 278
XIV.
On the Promise of " Eternal Life," as the Great Remedy of Earthly Sorrows 320
Notes 343
Index 373
CHRISTIAN ENCOURAGEMENT.
ON THE VALUE AND CREDIBILITY OF "THE GOS- PEL ; " AND ITS ADAPTEDNESS TO OUR SORROWS, FEARS, AND MORAL NECESSITIES.
It is a current opinion among people of the world, that " serious Christians " — " saints " — (or by what- ever synonyme they choose to designate the class,) have far gloomier views of human life than others. Nor can it, indeed, be questioned, that our estimate of its momentous design and consequence is far more distinct and grave. But with respect to the actual ills which human life includes, it would be scarce pos- sible to view or state more darkly the greatness and severity of these, than lettered heathens had already done, in those scenes and ages which the world has most admired. Cicero quotes philosophers, poets, and dramatists, who commended death as greatly preferable ; and gives, among others, this condensed expression of their sentiment : — " For man not to be born is far the best ; and the next best, as soon as
B
2 VALUE AND CREDIBILITY I.
possible to die."* Nor were such feelings prompted by any lively or confiding expectation that death would introduce them to a new and happy existence. They wavered between faint hopes of a life which might be better, and the prospect of eternal uncon- sciousness. Sulpicius, condoling with the same dis- tinguished Roman on the loss of his daughter Tullia, observes, " How often must you needs reflect, as I myself frequently do, that those cannot be said to be hardly dealt with, whose lot it has been in these times, without any special anguish, to exchange life for death ; " and he afterwards adds, " Besides, if there be any sense in the dead, such was her love to you and pious kindness to all her connexions, that she assuredly would not have you so dejected. "*f* Thus in a letter which, the biographer of Cicero re- marks, " is thought to be a masterpiece of the con- solatory kind," the great evils of the present state, and the great uncertainty of that which is to come, are alike admitted.
It is certain also that those evils were, by the same powerful minds, ascribed in great part, if not chiefly, to moral causes; to the fallibility, if not original depravation, of our nature ; to the corrupt and con- tagious state of society ; that they considered vice the
* Tusc. Queest. lib. i. § 48 — Non nasci homini long^ optimum esse ; proximum autem, quam primum mori. See the same thought, variously expressed, in Note A, at the end of the volume.
t Epist. Fam. iv. 5, quoted in Middleton's Life of Cicero, vol. ii. pp. 169, 171.
I. OF THE GOSPEL. 3
deepest source of pain ; and remorse, or self-reproacli, among the bitterest draughts which humanity par- takes. Thus the same Tully remarks in his Treatise on Laws, " We do not rightly judge, Quintus, what Divine punishment is ; we weigh the miseries of men by their incurring death, or pain of body, or grief of mind,* or judicial penalties ; these things are the lot of humanity, and have befallen many good men ; but the pain of wickedness is grievous, and, apart from all other consequences, in itself the greatest." f Elsewhere he writes, " There is nothing which makes man so wretched as impiety and crime ;" J and, in one of his orations, declares, that there need no "torches of Furies" to pursue the guilty. " Each one is most of all perturbed by his own iniquity and his inward dread, remorseful thoughts and an agitated conscience. These are the untiring and domestic furies of the guilty mind." § It is true that even the philosophic heathen, being not only unenlightened spwitually, but in some de- gree morally hardened by corrupt custom, may have ascribed such inward penalties only to flagrant crimes ; but — the principle once granted — it is evi- dent, that all sin, when discerned to be such, must induce suffering or uneasiness proportionate to its
* Meaning grief which is occasioned by circumstances foreign to their ovm. conduct.
t De Legib. lib. ii. § 17 ; et conf. lib. i. § 14. X De Finib. lib. iv. § 24.
§ Pro Rose. Amor. § 24. et conf. De Legib. lib. i. § 14. B 2
4 VALUE AND CREDIBILITY I.
degree ; and even when not clearly recognised as such by the seared or darkened mind, still a de- basement and disquietude attend it, which mar all real peace. Quintilian has implied in one word the wretchedness of moral contamination, when he says, in reference to immoralities practised before the Ro- man children, " They are so miserable as to learn these before they know them to be vices." * If we take, therefore, not the view of human life with which " gloomy religionists " are charged, but that of those celebrated and prosperous heathens, whose character and institutions our sceptics have extolled, we shall still have ample reason to seek, and to pro- pose to others, merely as human beings, some effec- tual consolation. It is not requisite that you should be under the present burden of peculiar distress, in order to render this appropriate : the very condition of being human makes it so ; and if this, through levity or earnest occupation of the mind, be not con- sidered to-day, it may yet be felt most poignantly and irresistibly to-morrow. But I shall presume that you have felt it already ; and this so deeply, as to have sought unfeignedly for Christian consola- tions ; — that the promises of " forgiveness of sins " through faith in Jesus Christ, of the purifying and consoling influences of the Holy Spirit, and of a heavenly life to come, have appeared to you " wor- thy of all acceptation," and have called forth sincere
* Instit. lib. i. cap. 2.
I. OF THE GOSPEL. 5
prayers that you may truly apprehend and enjoy them. At the same time, I suppose your views of these great things to be not distinct and unwavering, but mingled with much of unbelief, or of personal distrust and fear ; yet with a growing desire to un- derstand and . embrace them in such a manner, as may lead you to " all joy and peace in believing." I shall conjecture, also, that this desire may be now deepened by the experience of severe afflictions, of declining earthly hopes, or of undisclosed anxieties ; so that any thoughts which may tend to corroborate the importance, reality, and value of gospel bless- ings, and present them to your mind as clear in their import, and freely attainable, will be now, far more than at some former seasons, opportune and wel- come. You are suffering, it may be, from disease ; more acutely than any who have not been assailed by similar affliction can estimate ; and this, while your period of life and previous flow of health seemed to promise long exemption. If the skill and soothing care around you sustain the hope of relief and restor- ation, yet is it not without misgivings ; for while the uncertainties of continuance in life are always great, those which attend the issue of actual maladies must ever be far greater ; but, should you regain that health which is itself enjoyment, still may its present interruption bring impressively before you a time not far remote, when the efforts of art, the resources of nature, and the aids of watchful affection will not so avail. Perhaps, also, that prospect acquires a B 3
b VALUE AND CREDIBILITY I.
threatening vividness and awful nearness from the recent or actual ravages of epidemic disease, which, by the sudden violence of its assaults and dreadful- ness of its effects, arrays death with new terrors ; whose existence or probable recurrence must there- fore fasten on the thoughtful mind an afflictive sense of those calamities which may soon be, personally or relatively, permitted to invade ns.* Or, without adverting to such possibilities, you feel that at least your life is waning to its close ; sensations as well as dates assure you of its swift decline ; you are pain- fully admonished by growing infirmities ; you feel that " the evil days draw nigh," if not already come, in which you must be conscious, " I have no plea- sure in them : " the excitements and hopes of this world "are over and gone;" its prospects are be- come brief and cloudy, and the last shades of its evening are near. Or you have encountered what the world often describe, in a phrase borrowed from mythology, as reverses of fortune ; disappoint- ments and adversities have cast or led you down from a station of competence, perhaps of affluent en- joyments, to experience the diversified trial of re-
* While these pages Avere first being prepared for the press, (in 1832,) the cholera raged in many parts of our native land, and was dreaded through all its borders. It was referred to not only in this passage, but in the preface, and in the ninth Essay. Would that our gratitude for deliverance, or exemption, from that fearful scourge, were more proportionate to the awe which its presence ex- cited, and the anxiety which attended even its less near approaches.
OF THE GOSPEL.
duced and straitened resources, to anticipate a struggle amidst penury through your remaining days, or to taste already the bitterness and humilia- tion of dependence. Or you have felt the sharpness of a bereavement which, if it deject the heart less than pining sickness, and chill it less than poverty and the world's neglect, may wound and agonize it yet more. It has been torn by the rending of the dearest ties ; your spirit is left in solitude ; or, if some objects of its tenderness remain, they are such as must shortly be resigned, or such as must lean on you for that support and guidance, which you feel as if too enfeebled and disconsolate to give.
That mind must be indeed inert or insusceptible, which, by such evils, or by some others that may equal or surpass them, would not be impelled on- ward to muse on the final term of earthly sorrows, and look with expectation or with anxious doubt into the great unknown beyond. To have no such views even transiently, would seem, in any of those circumstances, scarcely possible. I could not, there- fore, conceive myself to excite, in any of the afflict- ed, a sort of solicitude entirely novel and unfelt — though perhaps to revive it in a season of its weak- ness or intermission. But in your own case I have presupposed a state of feeling contrary to this. I have assumed that spiritual interests are always or generally your ultimate object of concern : that you are conscious it is the want of more assurance as to those which sharpens every sorrow, and feel that this
8 VALUE AND CREDIBILITY I.
want leaves you unshielded against the brunt of evils that may supervene ; so that each reverse will come with its shock unbroken — each bereavement with its keenness unallayed — every personal infliction with its pang unsoftened, except you can attain and exercise firm faith and lively hope in things eternal.
But to have such views, were they ever so infre- quent and fleeting, is to need help and solace ; for thoughts which apprehend, though but in wandering glimpses, the augmenting burdens of trouble and disease, the loneliness of the last great transit, and the awful newness of an untried being — these are the most appalling which can strike the imagination or invade the heart ; except, indeed, such as would presage and realise in that solemn future a sure, and definite, and irremediable woe. These last, it may be, you have rarely, if at any instant, known. Hopes, though too vague and general, in the mercy of God our Saviour, have been palliatives to your emotion, when that great question has sometimes rushed upon you — whether the spirit, conflicting with ills which soon must terminate, be meanwhile pardoned ; and truly prepared, or preparing, for an immortality of blameless joy. For it is certain, (on the supposition which I have made of your moral and evangelical light,) that the sense of sinfulness — the apprehension of unpreparedness for a pure and perfect state — the feeling of discordance between your character and the Divine holiness, must be one
I. OF THE GOSPEL. 9
great source of inward anxieties, and, at certain moments, of most painful forebodings.
It is even probable that this is by far the heaviest of your actual sorrows. The others, of a temporal character, previously referred to, which are perhaps combined with it, may have so powerfully conduced to urge your thoughts towards everlasting interests, as to be themselves, not seldom, forgotten or eclipsed in that remoter contemplation. The conviction of some recent sin, or the recalled apparition, as it were, of scenes of criminality long past, may haunt your memory, and render at times that futurity, which is our only refuge from the woes of time, a region of dark, though undefined and shadowy, omens, from which you shrink with secret dis- quietude, if not with dread.
The writer also himself would shrink, perhaps far more sensitively than he ought, from rendering those fearful doubts one degree more definite and alarm- ing than may be needful to your final peace. He would be loath, had he the power, to draw terrific flashes from the clouds that overhang and confront you. Conscience has given warning that such are shrouded in the gloom, and let its voice suffice. Most gladly would I be the happier instrument of rendering your mind more accessible to each inter- vening gleam of a true and heavenly sunshine ; and with this aim I proceed to those sources of Chris- tian hope whither multitudes of the " weary and heavy laden " have eai'nestlv resorted, and have there
10 VALUE AND CREDIBILITY I.
felt the sole relief of sorrows not less grievous than your own. You will perhaps, indeed, observe — that what I shall advance is often more adapted to the doubting than the afflicted mind. But it will be found, that although mere human knowledge is often quite barren of comfort to the sufferer, Christian knowledge is the essential basis of Christian conso- lation, without which it cannot subsist, and in pro- portion to which, if rightly used, it will commonly be satisfying and abundant. Do not suspect, there- fore, that by inviting you to a fuller appreciation of the value, credibility, and suitableness of Christian doctrines, I take a too circuitous path for conducting you to the fuller participation of Christian comforts. No doubt this path should be (at all times) pursued with a profound dependence, both for light and con- solation, on the good Spirit of God. But knowledge is the appointed medium of consolation and peace. It is remarkable, and has been often noticed, that the title " Paraclete," given by our Saviour to the Holy Spirit, signifies not only Comforter and Advo- cate, but Monitor or Teacher. The " comfort of the Holy Ghost" is to be attained by his "guiding us into all truth ; " no otherwise, therefore, than by a right apprehension of Divine truth ; though our comprehension of it be necessarily imperfect, and in some who apprehend its most essential points with strong and clear discernment, remains very limited and partial. The comforts which will endure the test of sharp distress and abide in fiery trials, must
I. OF THE GOSPEL 11
be not of that slight and shadowy class which men of the world may offer : they must be direct and scriptural, built on that " knowledge of the truth,' which is the portion of the docile, the earnest, and the humble — who are " taught of God," and have " received the love of the truth that they might be saved ; " comforts flowing from the revealed grace of God in Christ Jesus, sought and implored, dis- covered and embraced. Such, it is our " heart's de- sire " that you and we should amply and unalterably partake. Though the writer possess them but inter- mittingly, and even dubiously, he has at least this claim to press them on your regard, that he per- ceives their incomparable and exclusive worth.
On the more preliminary of those truths which conduct or urge us to the gospel, it will indeed be in your case almost superfluous to enlarge. With a mind so awake and susceptible to its own moral con- dition, as I have presumed yours to be, I cannot need to argue or insist at large on the admitted truth, that we are fallen ; and in the sight of an omniscient rec- titude deeply and inexcusably offenders. Our " con- science of sin," though it may be quickened by so- licitous feeling, is not to be dispelled or annulled by impartial reflection. Though friendship cherish, and tenderness excuse, and society may flatter, or at least not rebuke us, and all this because our trans- gressions of thought, and many both of our actions and omissions are hidden from the eye of man —
12 VALUE AND CREDIBILITY I.
though it may be also true, that education, social opinion fear, prudence, and affection, and the direct or indirect influence of religion, have actually re- strained us from very many evils, and eno;aged us in many duties, thus abating the edge of self-reproof, — yet who can take a scrutinizing retrospect of life, or even of any minuter portion of its course, without knowing, without feeling, that before this omniscient holiness which " looketh on the heart," we stand self-accused, reproved of "sin " and liable to "judg- ment ? " We must also suspect, even if we would hope the contrary, that present or future conformity to the voice of conscience and the will of Heaven, may not cancel or expiate past deviations ; we know, that, in their very nature, these acts or thoughts must be as powerless to undo or annul the former, as to recall effects which have already flowed from them : and we may judge besides, that since the full and pure obedience of each instant in our con- tinued being, must be due for that same instant to Him who freely imparted and wholly sustains it, there would be nought to spare, even were it so available, toward the long reckoning of compensa- tion or amends.
But we feel, moreover, that were this otherwise, and could there be some redundancy of present or intended obedience to transfer to the great arrear, — that which could vindicate to itself any compensa- tory worth, must be of a very different quality from
I. OF THE GOEPEL. 13
what ours now is, and from what in this state we can hope it will ever be. We feel that our attempts at accordance with the inadequate standard of con- science (itself so unfixed and partial) — and this even in acts directly religious — are at many times so defective, nay, so deeply intermingled with evil, as fearfully to augment in the very performance of present duty, the account of present offences.
Your anxieties, therefore, are not groundless but just. Most justly have they urged you to desire and seek some efficacious remedy for sin and sorrow. Without employing in the analysis of motives, tem- pers, and actions, any excessive refinement or rigour, — this is our conscious position ; — a multiplied and complex record against us, a supreme and unerring tribunal before us. We hear, as did that upright and beneficent patriarch, who was far less enlighten- ed by written revelation, the awful query of an in- ward witness, " How should man be just with God? " — and that stern whisper of the eternal law, urges us to listen to the proclamation of the glorious gos- pel. It forbids and disables you to be satisfied or even lulled by those faint echoes of its mercies, amidst which the careless are content to slumber. It prompts you to explore, with new and growing earnestness, the essence of Heaven's compassion towards offending man. Pray that you may be thus brought to "behold'* with such concentrated in- terest as a vivid sense of personal necessity inspires, that supreme display of loving-kindness, " the c
14 VALUE AND CREDIBILITY I.
Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world ;" the one oblation of
" unexampled love, Love nowhere to be found less than Divine."
Thus has it been with all who feelingly believe the gospel. The consciousness of moral demerit and spiritual insufficiency — not a nominal and listless assent to theological dogmas, but a genuine and deep conviction — has prepared the heart to receive with, adoring wonder and thankfulness that " unspeak- able gift," the gift of remission, renovation, and eter- nal joy, procured by a Divine Redeemer, and for the sake of his '* one offering," freely and abundantly bestowed. It has been perceived and felt, even as with new light poured on this record and doctrine of Scripture, that when a Saviour of immeasurable dignity, in whom our nature was mysteriously one with the Divine, abased himself to the depths of vi- carious suffering *' to bring us unto God" — then was achieved an endless, boundless triumph and vindica- tion of the holy attributes and righteous reign of the Most High. All that shock to moral order through the universe — all that undermining of God's perfect government and of the stability of his re- sponsible creation — which would else (as far as we can see) have necessarily followed from witnessing the full forgiveness of multiplied and great trans- gression, has by this stupendous expedient, by these " unsearchable riches" of love and condescension, been gloriously precluded. The patriarch's awful
T. OF THE GOSPEL. 15
difficulty, already cited, " How should man be just with God ?" receives its illustrious and joyful solu- tion in the facts and proclamations of the new cove- nant, announcing to men and angels that God can at once be ''just, and the justifier of him that be- lieveth in Jesus." We perceive, and all beings who are spiritually awake participate the thought, that the incomputable evil of sin, the sacred in- flexibility of justice, the heavenly supereminence of mercy, are all displayed by this " one sacrifice," in language at which the universe must " rejoice with trembling." Other writers, however, both of older times and of our own, have dwelt on the illustration of the Divine perfections by the atonement, with so much more both of argumentative and experi- mental strength than I could bring to this great subject, that I shall not dilate on it ; and should, perhaps, have done still better by confining myself to some citations from them.* Let us rather turn to a point wdiich, from the very strength of their faith and depth of their feelings, those writers have but more rarely and more lightly touched. I mean the credibility of this doctrine amidst its acknow- ledged inconceivableness.
By yourself it may not seldom be experienced, though seldom if at all acknowledged, that reason and faith are overwhelmed and dazzled by "the height
* I subjoin some words of the late Dr. Samuel Johnson : not for the reasons above given, but because they are from the lips of a lay- man and a moralist. — See Note B, at the end of the volume.
c 2
16 VALUE AND CREDIBILITY I.
of this great argument." And they have become so, perhaps, in proportion (strange as that may seem on the first view) to your increasing belief and interest in it. While you heard of the humiliation and sa- crifice of the Incarnate Word coldly and thought- lessly, as the mere statement of a formal creed or confession — it may have excited little or no doubt, and even little or no surprise : for your mind may never have rested seriously on the idea, or tried to expatiate in its vastness. But since you became in some degree awakened to its infinite moment, as a Divine act on which, and on a belief of which, eternal interests hinge and are suspended, you may have begun to feel at times as if that which is " too wonderful " to grasp were also too wonderful to credit and rely on. — In this likewise, as well as in that sinking of the heart which the distresses and pre- sentiments of life induce, there are those who can deeply sympathize with you ; who contemplate with a sort of bewildered feebleness these " deep things of God," like one who should gaze upwards at a mighty comet, or downwards into an ocean-whirl- pool, till his giddy amazement almost questioned the reality of the scene. But let me remind you, that very much of this anxious, incredulous astonish- ment would be probably produced at facts far less " unsearchable " than those " deep things of God," if it could be once supposed that a great interest was connected with them and with our real belief of them. Take as an instance a familiar fact of modern
I. OF THE GOSPEL. 17
philosophy. You at present may never question the annual and diurnal motion of the earth ; but readily believe, without much attention, and with as little of hesitation or surprise, what certainly is not taught or confirmed by our senses, and therefore rests solely on scientific proof or testimony ; — that we are hur- ried through enormous space's hourly with the planet upon which we dwell. But suppose an astro- loger or prophet could credihly assure you, that your good health and longevity, or the fruitfulness of your fields, would muph depend not only on the reality and permanence of this motion, (which they actually do,) but likewise on your continued genuine lelief of its reality ; you would thenceforth contem- plate it, I cannot doubt, with altered thoughts and feelings. You would consider the great wonderful- ness of this immense yet quite unperceived velocity, and the total absence of sensible proof for it, with a painful solicitude. Doubts would harass you whe- ther the fact itself were credible and sure : and then (as a consequence of such incursive doubts) fears whether your belief in it were sufficiently genuine and steadfast ; and that, therefore, if it were true, you must be more or less obnoxious to the disastrous penalties. Yet your faith in that fact, grounded as it then would be on the best examination which you could institute of philosophic proofs and testimonies, would be in its actual character far more genuine and prevalent, amidst all the anxious doubt and awakened wonder which invaded and disturbed you, c 3
18 VALUE AND CREDIBILITY I.
than that slight, otiose, perhaps undoubting cre- dence, which was given while you felt no personal interest either in the fact or the belief of it. And, which may be more directly to our point, not only would your faith, from having been passive and un- opposed, become active and prevailing, but the fact itself (of the earth's motion and our own) would be no whit the less true and certain, because it seemed grown less credible while it was really more believed. This fact of our amazing ceaseless journey through the heavens — by which our reason and imagination (in the case supposed) are far more astounded now than they were heretofore, just because of our deep interest in and attention to it — can surely lose no iota of its truth and certainty by our acquisition of astonishment, nor even by our encountering the in- cursion of doubts before unknown.
But if this kind of illustration should appear to you not well suited to our purpose, I would invite you to a different train of thought.
Remember that whenever we contemplate Deity, and the ways of Deity, we inevitably must contem- plate attributes and manifestations whose " invisible brightness " no " searching " can explore.* When we recognise the very basis of all religion, the one creating, protecting, and providing Godhead — this
* "The Father infinite, By whom in bliss imbosom'd sat the Son, Amidst as from a flaming mount, whose top Brightness had made invisible, thus spake." — Farad. Lost, V. 596.
I. OF THE GOSPEL. 19
— however elementary it may appear to minds that acquiesce, by a sort of passive habit, in doctrines early inculcated, without addressing to them any active exercise of thought — is in effect to acknow- ledge that which supremely and infinitely ^' passeth knowledge." It is to touch and lean upon the mys- tery which must remain inscrutable by finite beings : somewhat as in directing our eye to a point of the blue heavens, or a star that beams across them, we inevitably turn it towards realms of which none can conceive either the infinitude or the boundary. To believe in God is to believe in a personal intelligence itself unoriginated ; self-existing through a past eternity ; itself the sole cause and support of all ex- istence; an intelligence which knows simultaneously, at every point in the immensity of time and space, each thought and act of all the innumerable orders and individuals it sustains in being. But what less is this than a mystery unimaginable, and " past finding out," — an abyss of grandeur which angels could never fathom 1 Yet this belief is the only true theism; the only theism that can avail us any thing, inasmuch as no other can be in any proper sense religious, or inspire a solid hope from the Divine perfection. And ought I then, while neces- sarily holding (except " without hope and without God") a belief so mysterious as this, to stumble at any revealed procedure of this Infinite Being, be- cause it is " too wonderful for me," or so " high," that " I cannot attain unto it? " *' He that cometh
20 VALUE AND CREDIBILITY I.
unto God must believe that He is.'' Meditate in the depths of that thought, and then ask yourself if you have any pretension to distrust Him when He records, " God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself."
Consider further, that the organized earthly crea- tures, in all their vast diversity and inconceivable minuteness, have been formed and are sustained to exercise and evince the power, and wisdom, and beneficence of the Eternal Mind.* He whose " un-
* "The course of Nature, truly and properly speaking, is nothing- else but the will of God producing certain effects in a continued, regular, constant, and uniform manner ; which course or manner of acting, being in every moment perfectly arbitrary, is as easy to be altered at any time as to be preserved." (Dr. Samuel Clarke on the Attributes, p. 377.) Professor Dugald Stewart, after quoting these words from Dr. Clarke, declares his own adherence to " the simple and sublime doctrine " expressed in them, " which supposes the order of the universe to be not only at first established, but every moment maintained, by the incessant agency of one Supreme Mind, — a doctrine against which no objection can be stated, but what is founded on prejudices resulting from our OAvn imperfections." ^ " The multiplicity of his operations neither distracts his attention nor exhausts his power ; nor can we suppose him reduced to the necessity of abridging their number by calling mechanism to his aid, without imputing to him the imperfections which mark our own circumscribed faculties and dependent condition."^ In the same manner, an able living physiologist speaks of " the Designing and Operative Cause," as " perhaps the sole real agent in every move- ment in the universe ;" and remarks, that " the development of forms according to their generic, specific, and individual diversities, not less in the vegetable than in the animal world, can only be ac-
i Act. and Mor. Powers, i. 366. 2 ibid. 374.
I. OF THE GOSPEL. 21
derstandins: is infinite " — who knows the thouo^hts and hears the praises of innumerable spirits that "excel in strength" — has decreed, that not only stars, and suns, and seraphs, but microscopic insects, should illustrate His creative and upholding omni- science, and fulfil his purpose of diffusing that good which consists in sensation. Now, if the attributes of holiness, of equity, of moral kindness, be far more excellent than those of wisdom, and power, and even of a lower beneficence — and if the order and felicity of the whole moral creation be a far higher end than the sensitive well-being of some inferior creatures — ■ then which, let me ask, would seem more fit, more congruous ; that the Mind wdiich comprehends eter- nity and grasps all minds, should at each instant be actuating the pulses in a sentient atom, impelling life through an invisible worm, or watching the mo- tion and sustenance of " a sparrow ;" or, that this same Infinite Mind should assume into union with itself, a nature, lowly, frail, and dependent like those, yet rational, spiritual, and sinless — and dig- nify that nature into a capacity of meritorious suf- fering, in order to demonstrate, in all worlds and for ever, the infinitude of Divine righteousness and love, by redeeming human millions to immortal joys, and confirming in holy blessedness the countless spirits unfallen ?
counted for by ascribing it to the universal energy and wisdom of the Creator." 3
3 Dr. Prichard, Review of the Doctrine of a Vital Principle, pp. 140, 141.
22 VALUE AND CREDIBILITY 1.
Imagine for a moment that we inhabited a star, where, while apprized of the mysterious entrance of sin, and of all its dire effects, into this distant world, we had no knowledge at all of any organized natures except the rational and spiritual ; where all meaner and inferior forms of life, or semblances of it, were either in fact excluded, or kept entirely latent ; so that the formation or sustentation of such by the Deity, could only be proposed to our reason as a thing possible, or to our faith as a thing actual in some other region.
Should we deem it less probable when there an- nounced— that the Infinite Spirit in whose love and holiness we saw unnumbered seraphs exulting, would deign to unite with himself a feeble, mean, and suffering humanity, in order to rescue honour- ably a race of immortals, and fortify the holy bliss of all the happy creation known to us ; or — that the same Infinite Spirit, full of glory and felicity, sur- rounded by innumerable spirits, emanations from his ow^n exalted nature, should deign to call into be- ing, and uphold through all the moments of their ephemeral existence, countless microscopic forms of animated matter.
Which of these acts of Deity, may we believe, would be deemed beforehand the less credible — the less proportional to the Eternal Majesty — the less intelligibly befitting Him who is "glorious in holi- ness," "wonderful in counsel," "excellent in work- ing?" We may I think conclude, and rejoice in the
I. OF THE GOSPEL. 23
conclusion, that there is, antecedently, far higher moral probability in the one great mystery of re- demption, which is invisibly sublime, than in the unnumbered mysteries of creation and preservation, which are invisibly minute : that the strange revela- tions of the microscope, if they reached us by mere testimony alone, would be more startling to faith than the revelations of the gospel.
Let one more supposition be considered, which may further assist us to rebuke our own incredulity or hesitation on this great subject. Suppose that we were creatures entirely unacquainted with the exist- ence and possibility of evil — of sin or sorrow, pain or death ; and were apprized by a revelation of mere testimony, that in another world, made and governed by the holy and beneficent Being whom we perfectly and intensely loved, there had entered and prevailed for ages, dreadful guilt and keen remorse, and di- versified suffering and terrible destruction. ' It might be difficult to convey to us by description a clear notion of those things ; but, as far as they were understood, would they not be of all things the most incredible? Should we not be ready to tell the apostle who revealed them, not merely that he de- clared things "too wonderful," but that he must have been himself deluded by some frightful dream or phantasm of events, utterly inconsistent both with all our personal experience, and with all our know- ledge of the adorable Godhead ; unless, indeed, the very existence of such an imagination might pain-
24 VALUE AND CREDIBILITY I.
fully betray, in himself or elsewhere, the possibility of some direful change, till then unconceived ? Yet, these things, which in that supposed position were so little credible, would be facts the while ; and, to us, are facts experimentally familiar and lamentably sure. Will it then be argued, that the great remedy revealed to us for all these forms of evil — for guilt and pain, for remorse and misery and destruction — however amazing in itself, is more incredible than those very facts would on mere testimony be, which we thus know and feel to be indubitably real I Rather, is not the provision of this amazing remedy, far less incredible than would be (in the case sup- posed) the introduction or ingress of the terrible dis- ease? For is it not eminently consonant to our belief in the sublimest perfections of Deity, and adapted to establish and exalt that belief, which the prevalence of evil has in all ages tended to darken and perturb, though it never could subvert ?
Whether then we meditate the being of God — or his providential and universal agency — or the existence of evil — each of these mysteries strongly reproves our distrust of " the mystery of godli- ness." Not that I would presume to accommodate to this last and loftiest topic, the apostle's singular expression, " not afraid with any amazement." There is a deepening "amazement" inseparable from deeper and more adoring thoughts of it ; and a holy fear, allied to such amazement, which will, nevertheless, be the guard and the support of love
1. OF THE GOSPEL. 25
and joy. Who is not '* afraid " at the awful equity of that Divine tribunal, which can remit its penal- ties only in virtue of a Divine expiation ? Who is not " amazed " at the imperial fulness of that love which dispenses nothing less than " life eternal," the proper and commensurate " gift of God," the purchase of his own voluntary inestimable sacrifice, yet a free and complacent largess to the self-de- spairing !
But let not these truths, because they produce awe or amazement, sink us into faithless distrust. They are intended to accomplish far other and hap- pier ends : to humble indeed, but to cheer also and excite and invigorate the heart. My view of this " glorious gospel " would be most blameably defec- tive, if I did not lead you to meditate on its admir- able fitness for accomplishing a blessed transform- ation on the character of man : in this respect, as in others, I hope it may be shown, that what has ap- peared, and still appears, to the proud, " foolishness," does in effect vindicate itself as worthy essentially of the wisdom and the majesty of God. Assuredly it does so, if in fact we find, that by a cordial believing acceptance of this " unspeakable gift," from which fear shrinks, and self-conceit revolts, and unbelief averts its half-closed and unwilling eye — there is wrought a great moral change ; found (when we learn our own wants and spiritual capacities) to be indispensable to happiness ; the essence and the earnest of " salvation." To show that this change is
26 VALUE AND CREDIBILITY I.
really produced, I might oiFer bright examples in the history and character of distinguished believers. For the proof that it must needs be more or less ex- pected, according to the measure and exercise of faith, a few considerations will, I think, suffice.
To " believe with the heart," that in order to the remission of our sins, it verily " behoved Christ to suffer," — that the "Word " who '' was God," truly assumed our nature into Godhead, and in that as- sumed nature became " sorrowful even unto death," in order to redeem us from a guilt which could at no less cost become gloriously and divinely pardonable, — this surely is to believe, (in so far as the reality of the belief extends, and its exercise continues,) that sin is an evil of the most unequivocal character, and of intense malignancy, for which all creation could provide no cure ; which even Omnipotence itself could not frustrate or subdue without taking to itself, in that strange conflict, the very attributes of weakness.
Is it then possible, that he who in any measure really believes this, should yet deliberately love and choose sin, should account that which he knows to be sinful, a source of true enjoyment, or, indeed, esteem it anything better than a seductive poison of the soul?
Nor is it less evident, that to believe with the heart in that heaven-descending pity which accom- pHshed such a sacrifice — in that generous love which would not desert the wretched at their "utmost need" — in that blood which cries with impassioned
I. OF THE GOSPEL. 27
kindness to each fallen offender, " Thou hast de- stroyed thyself, but in me is thy help " — in that free munificence, which, not content with the purchase of such costly pardons, holds out to the victims of transgression a celestial and eternal joy — this is to "believe with the heart" in a Benefactor, whose claims to our love and devotion, eternity, so far from acquitting, can but augment and perpetuate. Is it possible, therefore, that the believing mind should not, by adoring self-dedication, respond in some de- gree, however inadequately, to these overpowering claims ? Can we take at the hand of heavenly mer- cy an incorruptible inheritance, in lieu of a merited destruction, and feel no love, no devotedness, towards Him that stooped and agonized to ransom, to enrich, and to exalt us ?
Here then are the two master-springs of moral renovation — aversion to sin, as a source of misery, awfully opposed to the Divine nature and will : — grateful attachment to the Great Deliverer from it, himself the giver and exemplar of holiness. Both are necessary results (if there be any order in the constitution of the human soul) of cordial faith in Christ's atoning sacrifice ; and since the same Scrip- ture, which reveals this sacrifice, unfolds the aspects and the snares of moral evil, and the spirit and course by which to please and imitate the great Object of our gratitude, it is manifest that, with the most con- straining motives, are thus associated the most en- lightening rules. But even without referring to D 2
28 VALUE AND CREDIBILITY 1.
these, we may find their principles and lineaments contained and expressed in the great fact itself, which is the sovereign object of belief and trust. The astonishing fact of redemption, in proportion as it is believed, not only operates as a motive, but as an example and a rule. Though in its character and design inimitable by angels, it is in its spirit imitable by men ; and when truly believed, 7nust be in some measure copied. Who, for instance, can be- lieve in his heart, that he has been so deeply ruined and so divinely rescued, and yet allow himself to cherish pride, or wilfully indulge an arrogant and haughty spirit ? Hov\^ can those yield themselves up to sensual and worldly allurements, to luxury, vo- luptuousness, and covetousness, who know these to be the chains of the great apostasy, the snares and bands that have held our race in moral ruin and estrangement from their God, and which the Son of God himself was bound, and scourged, and pierced, on purpose to dissolve and sever I How shall I tolerate in myself a malicious, an unforgiving, or a selfish spirit, believing, meanwhile, that to me so much has been given and so much forgiven ; that *' God spared not his own Son ;" that this illustrious Sufferer implored in death a pardon for his bitterest foes ; that, instead of exacting the penalty which I owe to justice, the King of kings imposes on me, by infinite mercies, a boundless debt of love ?
Thus we cannot but perceive, that a true accept- ance of the "great mystery of godliness" is, in it-
I. OF THE GOSPEL. 29
self, that change of heart begun, by which we must enter *' the kingdom of God." Christian conversion is the real and believing view, mentally, by a spirit- ual and Divine light, of that infinite atonement and free pardon which constitute the gospel what its name imports — "glad tidings of great joy," To acquire a new view — a different internal apprehen- sion or conception of all that is most momentous, of the character of Deity, of the personal manifestation of that character in Christ, of sin and righteousness, of life, death, and eternity, this is surely to be, in spirit, " born again ; " to be " a new creature ; " to become in temper and practice " alive unto God." As surely as conversion towards the sun expands and fructifies the blossom, till then unopened, which is attracted by and turned towards its beams, so surely the believing view of the gospel, in propor- tion as it is undiverted and unsuspended, must pro- duce " fruit unto holiness." And this quality will be found essential to the satisfactory character of any remedy proposed to you for the ills of life, and the mental distress which attends them : because, as I have already remarked, it is the sense of moral evil, and of unfitness for a perfect happiness, which deepens the pain of every temporal grief. In order to combat effectually the sorrows of mortality, we want those pure principles of immortal life, in- creasingly developed and consciously maturing, which are the pledges of a joy " that fadeth not." And it is very material to observe, that ^o far as our D 3
30 VALUE AND CREDIBILITY I.
Christian obedience springs from this influence and these principles of action, the fruit will be emphati- cally " ^ooo? fruit ; " the believer's acts will be not merely good as to their fitness and utility in them- selves, but good as to their prompting motive. Nor does it appear possible that acts performed by men from any other principles can be good in the same sense ; or that those performed by Christians under the admixture or joint influence of other motives, can be good in the same degree. A mercenary, who, in the service of his sovereign or his chief, per- forms certain acts, and refrains from others, with the mere aim of earning a promised recompense, has obviously no better motive than mere prudential wisdom ; and although he should have the belief, that on account of the invaluable services of a de- ceased brother or friend, less will be claimed per- sonally from him, that his conduct will be judged with less rigour, or a greater reward be conferred, — still, if he retains the notion, whether erroneously or not, that his own deeds are to be, in whole or in part, the procuring price, the " valuable consider- ation " for which he is to be requited, he may have as much of a mercenary spirit as if there were no such indirect advantage to enhance his expectations : nor is it easy to conceive how, under such impres- sions, he can be wholly divested of that spirit and aim. Thus, if we view the gospel, as too many ap- pear to view it, with so indistinct a sense of its pur- pose and its value, as to account the merits of the
1. OF THE GOSPEL. 31
Saviour but a sort of supplemental adjunct, how- ever weighty, to the merits of the saved, the mer- cenary character of our conduct may remain quite unchanged, and radically changed it cannot be. He who regards the " unsearchable riches of Christ," as meant to compensate for what is lacking in his own deserts, but so that his obedience will still form part of his title to heaven, must be still employed legally — and we may use this term both in the theo- logical and forensic sense — labouring to strengthen and complete that " title " to mansions in the skies. But acts so prompted, be they of what kind or amount they may, cannot be, in the highest sense, good. For then would the obedience of angels and " the spirits of the perfected " be no better and no higher, whose title to felicity is completely ratified by possession. The works of the legalist, who la- bours to earn and secure a promised reward, would be as excellent as those of " ministering spirits," actuated by pure love to God and man, in whom every act is disinterested ; except so far as the ex- ercise of that holy principle constitutes their bliss. Thus you perceive, that it is the entire gratuitous- ness of our whole salvation, which can alone place the offender on that footing where he may really begin to exercise the heavenly sort of obedience. The " God of all grace " deigns to declare to return- ing sinners — I pardon you freely, I justify you free- ly, I will sanctify you wholly, I now adopt and I will hereafter glorify you, all and merely for the
32 VALUE AND CREDTUILITY I.
sake of my beloved Son. Now, therefore, beo^in to obey and follow me " as dear children," as seraphs have always obeyed, as man in his primeval inno- cence obeyed, from filial, grateful, admiring, imita- tive love. Think not of being happy for your obe- dience, but happy in it. Your bliss will then be perfect, when the sources and the streams of action shall become entirely " pure and undeiiled."
Let me now, with the honest wish that you should attain substantial peace, not such " as the world giveth," once more recall to view the sum and es- sence of this " gospel." It has been represented as a free, gratuitous, and entire remission of sins, grant- ed through the amazing mediation of that Lord of glory who gave his life a ransom ; becoming thus a demonstration of all moral perfections in God, and a creative power to re-awaken them in man : far more than a mere pardon or reprieve from penal justice — rather a justification or honourable re- lease, an act of full oblivion, which instates offend- ers in the same enjoyment of Divine favour, as if their progenitor had never fallen, as if they them- selves had never renewed and multiplied his fall ; nay, which seals to them in reversion, for the sake and as the chosen reward of the Great Restorer, a sublimer happiness than they could have enjoyed unfallen ; sublimer if only for that love of gratitude — boundless and eternal gratitude — which is its best constituent ; which begins when first we look with
I. OF THE GOSPEL. 33
the eye of faith on Him whom we " have pierced," and can terminate only when He shall cease " to be glorified in his saints and admired in all them that believe,"
It has been impressed on you that " this great sight/' this view by faith, though " as in a glass darkly," of the reconciling and atoning cross, the centre whither all moral glories converge and whence they radiate, is the heavenly sunshine that cheers and vivifies the soul ; mighty to quicken those germs of pure obedience and holy blessedness, that shall bloom and be matured among " the saints in light."
We have affirmed there is no heart so cold, no conscience so steeled or captive, no mind so pertina- cious in rejecting hitherto the counsel of God, or in refusing to be comforted — which has a right to de- spair of his omnipotent love — who was " lifted up " on the cross, that He might " draw all men unto Him."
These, if I rightly view them, are the " gospel " consolations. This is the *' balm in Gilead," and the " physician " there. It is a sovereign specific which you need ; not a poor, deceptive, momentary cordial. But than this, let me ask, what nobler and what richer can you crave ? Could you now call a minister of mercy from the skies, could you invoke a visible angel to strengthen and to solace you, what would you have him bring 1 Can your heart conceive of something more appropriate, something more
34 VALUE AND CREDIBILITY I.
inestimable, in substitution for this " glorious gospel of the blessed God?" Were that messenger to confer the gift of immediate health and ease — or to bear " in his right hand length of days, and in his left hand riches and honours," — or to present again the dearest friend or child whom you have mourned for, — ^you know how ineffectual some of these blessings would be to heal the pains of the body, and all of them to assuage the wounds of the spirit ; you know how soon also they must vanish like the mist and wither like the flower.
Were he even commissioned with " another gos- pel," with another charter of pardon and immortal gladness from the court of Heaven, how, I ask, could it be fraught with so Divine a tenderness, or charged with promises which so exceed all price, as that which has been sealed in the blood of God's own Son, and invites the wretched to be "joint-heirs" with Him ! Listen then to the voice which should soften, if not banish every sorrow. Rise from de- jection to greet the " Angel of the covenant." " Be- hold, He stands at the door, and knocks." Be it yours to welcome and adore him. He comes to pour into your bosom " everlasting consolations." If there be in the universe an envoy or a message that might cheer the most disconsolate, and chase by spiritual joy the physical maladies of nature, that might make " the lame to leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb to sing," you must recognise them here. Behold the illustrious Envoy : " the Lamb of God
I. OF THE GOSPEL. 35
which taketh away the sin of the world." Listen to his joy-inspiring message — " He that believeth on me hath everlasting life : " so transcendently good and great that it is beyond our loftiest conception : so divinely simple, that it is not beyond our most child-like acceptation. May we have grace, believ- ingly and devotedly to receive it ! Then will the love of this heavenly Friend " constrain " us. Then shall we "count all things but loss for the excel- lency of the knowledge of Him." Then, " although in tribulation, we shall have peace;" nay, then may we learn at length, like his apostle, to " take plea- sure in infirmities and distresses for Christ's sake," feeling in life and death the truth and emphasis of his own sacred words, " Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me."
II.
ON STRAINED INTERPRETATIONS OF THE DOCTRINE OF FAITH OR CONVERSION, WHICH MAY INDUCE A DESPONDENT IMPRESSION THAT WE ARE AND SHALL BE DESTITUTE OF IT.
That " the gospel of Christ," when believed, has a signal adaptedness and power to produce the greatest moral effects, I suppose you — amidst what- ever painful doubts as to your own vital reception of it — clearly to discern : so as to be little moved by the objections of those confused or cavilling oppo- nents who decry faith as if it were a delusive substi- tute for morals, instead of being, what it really is, their very root or basis.
It has been no doubt a ground of hesitation and even of repugnance to many, although but a super- ficial fallacy if examined, that when we affirm Christian conversion to consist in a cordial recep- tion, by faith, of " the glad tidings " revealed, our all is thus made dependent on one simple act of the
II. DOCTRINE OF FAITH. 37
mind, or even on a passive state of it. Simplicity, to many, appears weak, and is distasteful. It was hard even for many of the " wise and disputers of this world," to receive the one law of gravitation, in place of the vortices and fluid medium of Descartes. — There is much shrewd insight of human nature implied in the query of his attendant to the Syrian captain, (which has been often alluded to by divines with this application,) " My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it ? " *
Yet, while the simplicity of any principle or means, and therefore of faith, will often contribute to excite prejudice, the power or tendency of this cannot, to any acute and understanding mind, be as latent, or appear as arbitrary, as that of the ablution in Jor- dan. On the contrary, one would think there should need little or nought of reasoning, or explanatory developement, to apprize rational persons, that to ''believe the gospel," though it be a simple thing, and in the world's eye an indifferent or immaterial thing, is yet in fact, and in a very lofty sense, the " great thing." A Naaman may scorn it for its sup- posed commonness, and a Hume for its supposed unreasonableness ; a Julian may tauntingly tell us — "I believe, h the sum of your wisdom ;"t and they who " talk of morals," may still ask — Why so
* 2 Kings V. 13. t As cited in Gregory Nazianzen, and from him by Bullet, Hist, du Christianisme, p. 117.
E
38 DOCTRINE OF FAITH II.
constantly keep in view this one thing, this " faith," when, in the Scripture itself, a variety of precepts and examples are so much urged on our attention and regard ? — But in treating of your difficulties, I have happily no need to vindicate this great princi- ple from the contempt of some, or the depreciation of others. You are well aware that belief is the main-spring of conduct ; that this " one thing," (whatever be its simplicity,) like gravitation, or air, or light, " is needful " and all-important ; that if it were but a point, it would yet be the " turning point ;" that were it but the affair as of a "moment," it would yet also be (so to speak) " the twinkling of an eye,'^ — resembling spiritually, that very small and slight corporeal change, which lets in upon the mind a new creation. When an oculist couches the first eye for a patient immersed in blindness, he does but one thing — and this a very slight and simple thing; he merely removes a small thin film : but that " one thing" was "needful;" and the removal of this little obstacle lets in at once a hemisphere.* He who was in darkness (even though it were not total) is as " a new creature," " born again," as into a new world ; to him there are " new heavens and a new earth ;" he walks abroad and admires, and is trans- ported with grateful gladness. And although the
* Or rather rvould do so, if it were not requisite to guard (in some cases at least) against the sudden and fuil influx of sun-light : a circumstance which should not be wholly overlooked in the spi- ritual analogy.
II. OR CONVERSION. 39
restoration of sight should in such a case be very imperfect, which it frequently is, so that the patient sees men only as " trees walking," or the ocean but as a misty plain, and the moon but as a glimmering lamp, still is there a great and happy change, which arose from one exceedingly slight and simple pro- cess. A physical conversion of the eye and of the man was in that small process effected. He turns toward the sun, whereas till now he knew not the place of its rising or its zenith ; he moves to em- brace a silent friend, whom but lately he knew not where to seek, and indeed, while silence lasted, was unconscious of his presence. Nay, the conversion is far more than physical. New feelings are awaken- ed ; and a new practice commences. He learns to do the works and fulfil the offices for which light is essential, and thus his life of privation and unprofit- ableness is converted to a new life of activity and comfort. Those who refuse to expect, or expect with hesitation, that so common and simple a thing as faith in the gospel can amount to moral and spiritual con- version, or to what the Scriptures describe as a being " born again," might surely with more reason refuse to expect that so trifling and slight a change as the oculist effects on his patient, can involve magnificent disclosures, awakened capacities of action, and new diversities of enjoyment. Such, however, I have re- marked, is not your difficulty. You admit with readi- ness, that a true faith in the gospel must needs be a principle of great power as well as great simplicity ; E 2
40 DOCTRINE OF FAITH
II.
that it does amount to conversion of heart, motive, life, and prospect : and you anxiously fear, from the Avant of decisiveness and completeness which you find in its effects, that you possess it not. This impression, perhaps, has been strengthened by the views of some Christian writers or preachers, who seem not to admit that there can be gradations or fluctuations in faith ; and of others, who, without holding that opinion, appear to teach, that, in all cases, where there has been a spiritual transition *• from darkness to light," there must be always a vivid and assured sense of contrast between the previous and the actual state. By tests like these, your hope, it may be, is distressingly shaken.
But the illustration which has been now em- ployed, although you needed it not for its former purpose, may, as I judge, be appropriate and service- able to you here. For it obviously assists us to con- ceive, as indeed was hinted before, how it is that some whom we account sincere believers in the gospel, may have attained comparatively low degrees of spiritual animation and happiness, and may even suffer at times a grievous and dangerous interrup- tion of both. That faith has its degrees and fluctu- ations, the language of Scripture and the experience of believers abundantly concur to evince.* But if faith, which is our faculty of spiritual vision, be quite languid and imperfect, its effects can be but
* See texts quoted in " Thoughts on Devotion," 7th edition, p. 206, and remarks there, and at p. 219.
II. OR CONVERSION. 41
proportionate to its condition. If it become in- creasingly dim and inactive, its objects will be less and less distinct, and its influence on our emotions and our actions will of course be enfeebled.
I have seen a patient who had been couched for blindness with success, and this in advanced years ; but a great defectiveness of sight (though not amount- ing to absolute blindness) had gradually returned, and the operation had been successfully repeated. How much more may this returning dimness and obscuration be feared as to spiritual sight, as to the mental and cordial perception of divine things, the vivid apprehension by faith of invisible realities! Will you say, that by this supposition we impeach the power and skill of a Divine Operator ? Not so : I only proceed on those actual though mysterious circumstances and liabilities of our nature which it hath pleased Him to permit. Our Saviour gave sight to the blind son of Timseus. Does it follow, that if this mendicant had afterwards chosen to travel among the sands of Egypt, he would have been secure from ophthalmia ? or would such a disease have disproved the completeness of his previous cure ? It is beyond our sphere to decide what the God of grace could eifect or could prevent. Facts teach us, that in this world he allows the objects of his kindness to be still exposed to harms and perils, spiritual as well as physical, and to bear even within themselves many sources of both. The spiritual eye is originally dark- ened by the disorders of a fallen nature ; and the E 3
42 DOCTRINE OF FAITH II.
operation of enlightening mercy, though it take a film away, does not remove those springs of inward evil which may reinduce, in a great measure, the sensual and obscuring cloud : still less does it de- stroy those noxious airs and motes which float around ; or miraculously shield the eye of faith against their natural influence.
It is true, our Saviour said, and with a direct re- ference to the spiritual life, " If thine eye be clear,'' (free from clouds or spots, and in this sense one or * single,^) " thy whole body shall be full of light :" that is — thy perception of objects shall be complete, and all thy acts and movements be correctly guided by it. On the contrary, " if thine eye be distemper- ed," (in that evil and diseased state which destroys vision,) " thy whole body shall be full of darkness." But the Great Teacher here described those extreme opposites, between which, both physically and spi- ritually, there are many degrees and many fluctua- tions. He who came to save had been predicted as " a light to the nations ; to open the blind eyes ; "* and himself declared his gracious office of an en- lightener; " I am come into this world, that they which see not might see:"f from the immediate connexion of which words with the cure of a man born blind, we have a peculiar warrant for regard- ing that kind of miracle on the body as designedly emblematic of his great commission to illuminate
* Isaiah xlii, 7. f John ix. 39.
II. OR CONVERSION. 43
and renovate the soul. But the method of several in that class of Christ's miracles, seems expressly meant to intimate, as was hinted before, those '* di- versities of operation " that should occur in the spi- ritual cures which they typified. Thus in that miraculous giving of sight which has been now men- tioned, the great Benefactor chose to adopt an in- strumental process, such as in itself might seem even adverse to his purpose — the anointing the sufferer's eyes with clay ; and then enjoined him likewise to employ other means, " Go, wash in the pool of Si- loam ;" as if to intimate these several lessons — that the light of truth and grace may be conveyed to the dark hearts which " the god of this world hath blinded," through successive preparatory means ; that what may seem an obstruction to spiritual light, an aggravation of spiritual disease, may yet be sometimes strangely instrumental to the cure ; and also that the subjects of enlightening mercy may themselves be called to perform the part of diligent obedience to enjoined means, in order to the Jlrst attainment of the blessing. We find in the cure of another blind man, at Bethsaida,* not only some outward acts performed by his Restorer, but also a restoration which was distinctly and purposely gradual. It was only by the second imposition of the healing hands of Christ, that his sight became strong to discern all objects " clearly." On the
* Mark viii. 22.
44 DOCTRINE OF FAITH II.
contrary, in the case of Bartimaeus^ the miracle was the result of much previous importunity, (which in the former instances is not stated) — was accompanied with no other means prescribed to the subject of it —was in itself immediately complete — and had this effect, not less immediate, that " he followed Jesus in the way."=^ So the removal of temporary blind- ness from Saul of Tarsus, appears, like his spiritual conversion which preceded, to have been suddenly entire ; though the Saviour who wrought it em- ployed only the deputed ministration of a disciple. Assuredly, such marked 'variations in the method of those " signs," than which none were more sig- nificant of the Messiah's spiritual character and office, t may well prepare us to expect much greater diversities in that higher process, by which the spiritually " blinded" are brought " from darkness to light ;" greater in proportion as the blindness of the heart is a disease more deep and latent, yet disclosing itself by symptoms far more various ; above all, as it is likev>dse a voluntary disease, which the patient at once disbelieves and cherishes. It were indeed very presumptuous to deny that there have been and may be many Christian conversions as suddenly complete, as the restoration of natural sight to Bartimaius or to Paul : but it were still more so to doubt that the same happy change is usually ef- fected by successive means, and by a far longer gra-
* aiarkx. 46—52. f John i. 9, and ix. 5, 39 — ^11.
II. OR CONVERSION. 45
elation than the cure of those eyes^ which the Saviour only once retouched ere they saw with " luminous clearness." Still more presumptuous ; since facts would more largely refute it : since also the previous reluctance or indifference, which in the subjects of bodily disease was unheard of, and the neglect of pre- scribed means and precautions which among them was likely to be rare, do manifestly exist to retard (as far as Divine mercy allows such unhappy coun- teractions) the gracious work of spiritual healing. When, at the first touch of pity from the Great En- lightener, a beam of heavenly truth has reached the darkened heart, is it found that a persevering im- portunity always ensues, a persistive earnestness like that which dictated the ancient petitions, " Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law " — " Make thy face to shine upon thy serv- ant " — " Lift up on me the light of thy countenance,'* — or that a correspondent attentiveness is always ex- ercised as to revealed injunctions and warnings? Whether the case be one in which the first entrance of spiritual light is so powerful as to amount to con- version, or in which its faint degrees can be deemed but precursory — is it always found that the night- damps of worldly society, and the blinding dust of secular cares, are shunned as far as may be com- patible with duty ? If experience assure us that these will grievously impair the most confirmed and clear perceptions of Divine truth, how much more the incipient and the feeble ! Admonitions to " watch
46 DOCTRINE OF FAITH
II.
and pray" are virtually reiterated in multiplied forms throughout all Scripture, and this in reference to every condition of the mind, from the first feeling of spiritual darkness, through each vicissitude of par- tial light, on to the hour of those happiest irradia- tions, which may meet the vigilant believer at " the gate of death." These admonitions are surely as legible and as imperative as that question which in- vited and claimed the renewed importunity of Bar- timseus, ^'WYiB^t wilt thou I should do for thee?" and as that direct command, " Go, wash in the pool of Siloam,"* which, in another instance, was an- nexed to the act of mercy. If, therefore, revealed invitations and injunctions be remissly complied with, must we not anticipate, in the spiritual cure, proportionate defects, nay, mournful relapses ? And then, until the heavenly touch be sought with more importunate contrition, how shall the pilgrim go on his way in cheerfulness, vigour, or safety? Must not rather his condition closely verge on that of one who " walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whi- ther he goeth ?" In such a state, and we fear it is not unfrequent, there is urgent need to be " illumin- ated " anew. How awfully did the self-confident apostle need this, in the high priest's hall! Very lately, his spiritual sight had been strong to perceive and own his Master's glory, and he had received from Christ himself the assurance that this ^' bless-
* John ix. 7.
II. OR CONVERSION. 47
ed" perception was divinely given;*' but the influ- ence of the depraved woi^ld, like a foul and deadly vapour, unexpectedly enveloped him ; the eye of faith became clouded and distempered ; he recog- nised that glory no longer — and you know the criminal result. The change was at once wretched and perilous. One would think the apostle, long afterwards, was mentally glancing at that unhappy night, when he wrote the admonition, " Connect with your faith, fortitude ; " and in the subjoined description of him who " lacketh these things," employed the figure that has now been used ; " he is blind — extremely short-sighted or purblind — and has contracted a forgetfulness of the purification from his former sins."t Such, doubtless, had been his own predicament in the hours of his dis- tressing fall. The look of Jesus was that healing touch which restored a gleam of spiritual vision, and although he wept bitterly, yet did his very tears de- note, that the inward eye was fixed, in reviving hope, as well as keen compunction, on " the Son of the living God." Thus was Peter again "convert- ed;" we cannot scruple the term; since his Lord himself had prophetically used it in reference to this very event. Happy those believers (and we trust they are many) who have never sunk into such a depth of guilt and alienation ; but the need of new and continual light and succour, and restoration
* Matt. xvi. 17. t 2 Pet. i. 9, Tii(/)Xos, fkvai-KC'Xiiiv. See Doddi'idge in loc.
48 DOCTRINE OF FAITH II.
from above, is doubtless felt by all who are sincere. Not a few would unite in the strong though quaint language of the excellent Herbert —
** Lord, mend, or rather, make us : one creation
Will not suffice our turn. Except thou make us daily, we shall spurn
Our own salvation." *
This to some may appear hyperbolical : but some- thing not unlike it has been written in sober prose, by one who possessed both solid sense and solid piety. " Beside the first conversion of a soul from a state of nature, there are after conversions from particular paths of backsliding, which are equally necessary to salvation. Every step out of the way by sin must be a step into it again by repentance." f You will find self-discerning Christians feelingly ac- knowledge, that, as in the material, so in the spirit- ual universe, He who made all things, " upholdeth all things :" that were not the eye of faith revisited often by the hand which first unsealed it, " and from the well of life fresh drops instilled," speedily in- deed, and fatally also, must *' the light" which is in them become " darkness."
If then you have a sense of the excellency of the gospel, a wish to participate its blessings, hail this desire as " the day-spring from on high." I would ad- dress you now on the supposition — God grant it may be erroneous — that you are not yet under the vital
* In the poem entitled " Giddiness." f Henry on Matthew xviii.
II. OR CONVERSION. 49
influence of that gospel : but be this ever so pain- fully apprehended — be it supposed that yourself or others cannot ascertain your possession of spiritual light, or that although you have seemed conscious to its beams erewhile, yet, from some hidden or some known and lamented causes, they are almost quenched — yet pray much, and hope much, pray with fervour, and hope with reliance, that they may either be now restored and multiplied, or, if not then genuine, may now be first bestowed. It is not for you to decide, that those former gleams of truth, though faint even then, and unhappily grown faint- er since, were not yet the gracious beginnings of a true conversion.
If you have found the remarks lately offered con- sonant to reason and to Scripture, you will not judge that hope to be precluded even when conversion is described as an instantaneous change. For we may fully admit it so to be, without any inference which should in the least discourage even those, who are brought the most slowly and imperceptibly " out of darkness into marvellous light."
If, indeed, it be affirmed, that conversion is, in ordinary cases, a change instantaneously complete in degree — this is a groundless and perverted ac- count of it, which both the Scriptures and experience variously and fully disprove. But if it be only meant that the change is instantaneous in its beginning^ and so far complete in kind, this is no more than may be said of other great changes. Day-light, for
50 DOCTRINE OF FAITH II.
example, is thus instantaneous : that is, there must be some point of time, where twilight might be cor- rectly said to end, and day-light to begin ; yet who can fix or mark the separating instant? But ima- gine that it could be marked ; imagine that a com- petent observer, one placed in the fit atmosphere and at the fit elevation, could always note the true moment of sunrise, does it follow that the instanta- neous commencement of this change from darkness to light would not remain to most of us unascertain- able ? Till we have always an horizon without mist or cloud, always a distance without grove or hill, who shall pretend to ascertain it ? The mariner on deck, or dweller on the shore, may now and then do so, when he watches the morning twilight in a cloudless sky, and catches the first ray that shoots over the ocean. It may, however, be justly doubt- ed, whether the first dav/n of spiritual sun-light can in any case be by man so ascertained.*' At least, while it is certain, that with all the " children of light, the children of the day," there laas such an instant, it is probable that, in a vast majority of cases, that instant, except to the Omniscient, or to some higher created intelligences, must be quite un- known. But who of us will doubt that the material sun has risen, " though he rose in a mist," if he now break through the dispersing vapours, or even if we have still a shaded day-light, without any
* See Note C, at the end of the volume.
11. OR CONVERSION. 61
view till evening of the orb from which it flows ; and who will decide whether the first faint li^ht which visited us from the clouded east, or over the edge of the forest, was previous or subsequent to his unseen rising ? If previous, still were those twilight rays its welcome pledges and its immediate harbin- gers. The commencement of this instantaneous and ever-recurring change is almost always unknown to us ; and its progress to completeness is invariably gradual.
Nor must this topic be dismissed without observ- ing, that the forcible figure which our Saviour so solemnly adduced in describing that great change which prepares the spirit for heaven — the figure of a new birth, or "regeneration" — is viewed in- considerately, not to say perversely, if it be thought to imply respecting that change, either a sudden completeness of degree, or a consciousness in the subjects of it as to the period of its occurrence. What was our natural life at the moment when it began ? It had an instantaneous commencement, and perhaps a completeness in kind : but how ex- ceedingly remote from completeness in degree ! How feeble the principle and acting of new-born life : — how diminutive and helpless the frame ; — and as for the mind, was not its existence for a time scarcely observable, and its developement a work of years ? — Can an infant be shown to possess, in the first weeks after birth, any distinct consciousness of its be- ing ? Has it subsequently any remembrance, I say F 2
52 DOCTRINE OF FAITH
II.
not of the moments in which life began, but even of the first months and years which followed ? Have we not also read or heard of cases, where natural life was so extremely weak in its beginning, or so sickly and tender in its early progress, as to be quite doubted of at first, and often desponded of afterwards, yet where intellectual vigour became eminent, and bodily vigour not deficient ? It is somewhat singular that the biography of a Christian author, from whom probably the first hint was derived by me of the thoughts which are now insisted and enlarged on,* affords an instance of this kind, which I am per- suaded ought to serve as an instructive illustration in respect to spwitiial life, with reference both to our judgment of ourselves, and our treatment of others. " So destitute was he at his birth of the signs of life, that he was thrown aside as dead. One, however, of the attendants, thinking that she per- ceived some motion or breath in him, cherished with such assiduous care the almost expiring flame of ex- istence, that it was preserved for the benefit of the world. From his infancy he had an infirm consti- tution and a thin consumptive habit." f Yet that
*■ " As every man knows he was born into the world, by a con- sciousness that he now lives and acts here, though it is impossible he should remember any thing of the time or circmnstances in which he was first produced into it — so may a Christian be assured that some way or another he was born of the Spirit, if he can trace its genuine fruits and efficacious influences in a renewed heart and life." — Doddridge Sermons on Regeneration, s. 8. p. 168.
t Kippis's Life of Doddridge, prefixed to Fam. Exp. p. x.
II. OR CONVERSION. 53
Doddridge lived, and nobly exemplified his favourite motto, " Live tvliile you live," what Christian does not rejoice to know and to remember ? A still more signal instance, of vast intellectual strength joined with bodily health and great longevity, all from the same frail, and even hopeless commencement, is found in the life of Sir Isaac Newton. " The help- less infant (at its birth) was of such a diminutive size, and seemed of so perishable a frame, that two Avomen who were sent to Lady Pakenham's to bring some medicine to strengthen him, did not expect to see him alive at their return." ^
With such facts and such analogies before us, may we not fitly ask the scriptural question^ with an eye at once to physical, mental, and spiritual birth and infancy — " Who hath despised the day of small things ? " Shall we not also adopt the cheering words of Doddridge himself, founded on that pas-
" Lord, if such trophies raised from dust Thy sovereign glory be, Here, in my heart, thy power may find Materials fit for thee."
This at least is evident, from such cases, and from general considerations also, that the analogy select- ed by our wise and gracious Lord himself, in those remarkable words, " Ye must be born again," on which also the term regeneration is directly founded
* Brewster's Life of Newton, p. 3. F 3
54 DOCTRINE OF FAITH JI.
— SO far from even justifying, in regard to the great spiritual change, expectations either of conscious- ness as to its commencement, or of suddenness as to its maturity, does, in all reason, lead us rather to ex- pectations directly the reverse. Would it be reason- able, or would it be treating with reverence the comparison chosen and reiterated by Divine wisdom, to conclude, that while the natural birth always presents a new life in utter weakness — the spiritual birth will usually unfold a new life in confinned stability and strength ? that while in natural infancy the powers of motion, thought, and action, are very long in their developement — in spiritual infancy they are at once mature ? that in the great physical change, the newly-born must be fostered by a daily Providence, cherished by a thousand human suc- cours, nourished, instructed, fed with milk, and then with solid food — but in the great moral change, no- thing analogous to all this is requisite for its ma- turity ? that, moreover, while it is impossible as to natural life that we should remember when it began, and was (as far as we can conceive) equally impos- sible that we should be then cotiscious of its begin- ning, the period of spiritual regeneration must have been a matter of consciousness when present, and must be so of remembrance when past ?
You will see that I all along suppose and imply the occurrence of some partial exceptions to those probable analogies which I have been aiming to ex- hibit. Such exceptions, both in natural and spiritual
II. OR CONVERSION. 55
physiology, are sometimes found. But in either department it would be alike absurd usually to ex- pect them.
And it deserves our attentive reflection, that had it been our Saviour's chief purpose in the choice of a figure, to preclude unwarranted expectations, no figure could be easily substituted which would be in that view so compendiously instructive. For this, while it expresses, in one word, with the utmost strength, the decisiveness of the spiritual change, contains within itself, in the obvious and partly in- separable circumstances to which I have referred — but which seem to have been frequently forgotten — what ought always to repress the fanciful, animate the diligent, and reassure the desponding.
Other scriptural figures, however, and particu- larly those derived from the phenomena of light and vision, we have found to be more adapted for a di- versified and copious illustration of the same great subject.
To those, therefore, while endeavouring to impress what has been already urged, I shall still venture once more to allude, and to say — if but some sem- blance or prelude to the healing beams of the gospel has been yet vouchsafed to you or me, let us not de- spond of its heavenly origin and its happy increase. If not even so much has been or is at present real- ised, still let us not despond, but implore in hopeful earnestness, that now " the dayspring from on high" may visit us, *' to guide our feet into the way of
56 DOCTRINE OF FAITH II.
peace." Though we are endangered, and may be ruined, by presumption and a false security, it is still emphatically true, that " we are saved by hope." Yield not, therefore, to the dread, much less to the hopeless conclusion, that it is now too late, or that your moral disease and insusceptibility are already too great and inveterate. When " the earth was without form and void, and darkness on the face of the deep " — a chaotic mass of barrenness and gloom — then it was that the vivifying moment came ; " and God said. Let there be light ; and there was light."
Even so the gloomiest night of sorrow and of con- scious ill-desert — in which, perhaps, outward calam- ity, inward compunction, bodily pain, mental fore- bodings and regrets, much unbelief and many fears, are all conspiring to blacken and agitate the chaos of the soul — may be that moment of extremity which God hath chosen, when He shall begin ef- fectually to remove its blindness or to chase the shadows ; that it may presently behold the " Sun of righteousness" arisen, and thrill under his quicken- ino' brio'htness.
Do not perplex yourself with the query, perhaps impossible both for others and yourself to solve — whether as yet any direct and efficacious beam from that great Source of influence has visited your heart ; but with earnestness of scriptural research and of devout supplication, pursue the promised blessing. Expect not either the commencement or progress of
II. OR CONVERSION. 57
spiritual life in mystic, unintelligible impulses, but in being taught of God to apprehend and feel with your rational perceptions and natural emotions, the truth, import, and cogency of those wonderful facts and doctrines so pre-eminent in his word, which it is of unspeakable moment for a sinner spiritually to dis- cern. Confidently hope, that, according to the Re- deemer's promise, if you " ask," you shall " receive ;" that the Great Comforter and Instructor, the Holy and Eternal Spirit, '* shall receive of his, and dis- close it unto you."
III.
ON SUSPICIONS THAT FAITH MAY NOT BE GENUINE, INDUCED BY THE FREQUENT OBSERVATION AND PARTIAL EXPERIENCE OF SELF-DELUSIONS.
You sometimes institute this anxious inquiry ; — If I do indeed appear to be favoured with a *' little faith," with a ray of that light " shining in the heart," which should be powerful to cheer, and guide, and purify ; still, amidst those self-delusions, which, even within the pale of Christian profession, are too often observed — and with some correspondent symptoms in myself — where is my sure ground of persuasion, that I possess in reality the " true light," the healing, renovating light from heaven? Its occasional intermissions or continued feebleness would not so much impair my hope of this, did I not meet with examples, and these of painful frequency, in which claims to the possession of it are evidently fallacious. — Have I not noticed some, and heard of
III. SUSPICIONS THAT FAITH, ETC. 59
more, professing to have " the eyes of their under- standing enlightened," and actually seeming to fix them with a most joyful intentness on those very truths and hopes to which the gospel invites, who yet in time of temptation have betrayed the nullity of its moral power, and are habitually betraying the extreme defectiveness of this, by not being so upright and true, not so pure and humble, not so charitable, patient, and self-denying, as their creed should in all reason make them ? Knowing that such falla- cies exist, having ground to suspect that they are numerous, feeling also in myself a proneness to the same disjunction or disproportion between my pro- fessed faith and its due effects, and experiencing often such spiritual relapses, such falls from excite- ment into coldness and unwatchfulness, as seem to mark and brand the instability of the principle, how shall I know that the hoped-for influence, now at best so weak, is in very deed Divine, or will not prove, at last, ineffective and illusory ? — In reply to such queries, we must admit, with deep concern, the existence of perilous delusions, sometimes total, sometimes partial ; and we have shared the dis- heartening apprehensions which they are fitted to awaken : yet, when you investigate the character of those most palpably insnared by them, you will, I think, perceive, that such have been willing cap- tives, content to substitute imagination for faith ; and you may at once shun the danger and abate
60 SUSPICIONS THAT FAITH III.
your despondent fear of it, by observing how much less it besets the self-examining, than the sanguine and self-confident. We cannot, indeed, hope to define or apprehend with precision, a state of mind which is, by the very supposition, unstable ; nay, the deceptiveness of which is in a great measure cloaked and hidden from the self-deceived ; but we shall perhaps best approach it, by conceiving, that in lieu of a belief and contemplation of the gospel facts as realities, there is in such minds a theory — vivid and complete, yet still but a theory — of the same facts as scenic visions : for I venture, in this connexion, to use the term theory, not in its philo- sophic or familiar sense, but in one which its ety- mology would seem to favour — the view of a theatric spectacle. The illusion in such instances may be far more perfect and prolonged, than that of the most fascinated devotees of the drama, who probably have not for more than some successive instants, be- lieved in, or supposed themselves to believe in, the action and decorations of the scene : still may the different illusions be mournfully parallel in this, that they lead to nothing practical ; that each is a mere luxury, a stimulant or opiate of the fancy, but has no sway over the temper and deportment.
Or perhaps the existence and nature of such cases, that is, of lively and zealous views of the gospel which yet prove morally inefficacious, may be more aptly illustrated by that perception of illusiveness,
III. MAY NOT BE GENUINE. 61
which is found in some cases to accompany our dreams. The marvellous facts of revealed religion are vividly contemplated and theoretically admired and loved : yet with a sort of occult or under per- ception, that they may be partially, if not quite, un- real ; or at least a sense that the belief of them by the party is not firm and real : (which of course in- volves the doubt of their being so :) — easily, there- fore, and instinctively, amidst such vague ambiguous views, will fancy select and repose on those aspects and qualities, which may at once excite and soothe ; eluding no less instinctively what would claim to control and regulate the heart. It may be objected, that this comparison is, in one very important point, ill-suited to our purpose, and the infidel may tell us it is in that point unwittingly faithful : inasmuch, as dreams are not only sometimes suspected or felt in sleep to be unreal, but always at last turn out to be so. Not always, however, (let me reply,) the objects which they represent. These are very often quite real and substantial.
Let us suppose that only one or two travellers had yet visited the boiling Geysers of the frozen zone, or the stupendous burning crater of Kirauea."* Ar- dentio has read their narratives. By some parts of them his imagination is strongly excited. He dreams vividly of those surprising scenes, and his
* In the island of Owyhee, or Hawaii. G
62 SUSPICIONS THAT FAITH III.
waking reverie is sometimes almost as glowing as his dream. Yet he has a sort of feeling, even while he dreams or muses, that the pictures and the ob- jects are but ideal ; — and when awake, a prevailing doubt as to the veracity or accuracy of these travel- lers, and as to the existence, at least in their mag- nitude or detail, of objects so astonishing. Sophron, on the other hand, is a person less apt, whether waking or sleeping, to form vivid and intense con- ceptions. His mental vision of these objects is less graphic and splendid than that of Ardentio. He has also his shades of doubt and clouds of sus- picion concerning the narrators and the facts, and yet he maintains a prevailing confidence in the fidelity of the former and the correctness of the latter. It may be objected — what you call So- phron's real faith in these things, differs but equivo- cally, when it becomes hesitating and clouded, from what you deem a delusive substitute for faith in Ar- dentio. There is suspicion in both cases. If both were merchants, and any gainful, though arduous enterprise of commerce could be grounded on the facts — if the crystals of sulphur* in the lava of Kirauea were described as ores of silver, or if the " beautiful siliceous incrustations " f on the margin of the Geysers, were said to possess the quality of jewels, would Sophron be more likely than Ardentio
* Ellis's Hawaii, p. 230. f Hooker's Iceland, i. pp. 142, 151.
III. MAY NOT BE GENUINE. 63
to send an agent thither at his cost ? — I presume he would be much more so. The doubts of Ardentio secretly prevail even while he is most absorbed and enchanted by the imagined sublimity and splendour of the scenes : those of Sophron chiefly intrude when his mind is dejected and beclouded, prone to question evidence and to magnify objections. It is true that, in his darkest and least sanguine moments, he might very reluctantly hazard anything on the veracity of these accounts ; but I conceive he would be far more prepared to do so, in serener hours, than the imaginative Ardentio even amidst his most de- lightful musings.
Reverting from this imperfect comparison to the states of mind which it was introduced to illustrate, we urge this substantial distinction, that in one case the moral inefficacy exists, while the objects are "vividly contemplated and theoretically admired/' that, in short, the suspicion of their not being real, is here combined with a lively and elated fancy, miscalled faith ; while, in the other case, it results from a clouded, sombrous imagination, apprehensive that the objects are not real, or that, if real, they are not believed, because discerned so "darkly." Now, if so, the attendant ineflicacy (even were it equal for the time) will be obviously of very differ- ent character and augury : the one is the inefficacy of what apparent faith there is, at its very brightest; the other, that of what real faith there is, at its very G 2
64 SUSPICIONS THAT FAITH III,
darkest ; the one party may be stationary and un- profitable even amidst the best combination and brightest exhibitions of the fireworks " he has kin- dled ; " the other is certainly not more so (it may be hoped not so much so) amidst the heaviest clouds which consciously obscure and make dubious each glimmering constellation of his sky.
Or to adopt another, yet a nearly related figure, there may seem as much difference between the view of humble faith, dim as it may be, and that of an elated fancy — as between a faint glimpse of the true sun, through or beneath a cloud, and the bright image of a mock sun or parhelion, on a cloud : be- tween the sight of real lakes and palm trees, from a mountain top, caught now and then, and tremb- lingly, through opening mists and hazy distances, and that of a cloudless mirage, the bright but false apparition of those same welcome objects, gazed on in the desert.
Of this kind, we need not hesitate to conclude, has been the religion or faith of heathens : the creed, if it can admit that name, of all mythologies. The pantheon of each idolatry can have been little or nothing else than a spectacle of imagination to its dreaming votaries. Accordingly, they might in turn be powerfully soothed or stimulated by its in- fluence, but still by a splendid reverie, not a sacred reality. They might yield themselves to the illu- sions slightly or profoundly ; but only just as far
III. MAY NOT BE GENUINE. 65
as the bias of the heart concurred : they could not therefore be checked in evil or impelled to good, even by what vras best in it, except so far as some terrors responding to innate convictions of Divine justice, were masked under the forms that fancy had embodied. But in those minds whose self-deception amidst the light of heavenly truth, we have been seeking to illustrate, the gospel itself seems perverted into something like a sublime mythology ; and though its holy scenes must be the very contrast of pagan fable, yet the holiest system, if it be but fer- vidly imagined, and not in some measure wakefully believed, will have little or no practical and con- straining power. It will excite transient feelings, but yet be very inoperative on habitual demeanour. We know that romance or fictitious tragedy, or a ground-work of historic fact under romantic or tragic embellishment, often produces strong emo- tions ; and this even when silently read, without any of the added illusions of the scene ; yet its real moral influence, in producing a spirit like that which it depicts as admirable, is I suppose exceed- ingly small. Biography, when authentic, though comparatively unexciting, practically moves a great deal more ; and actions that are believed to have been wrought for our own benefit, which move therefore to gratitude as well as imitation, have a still far greater moral power, a power of combined forces, and both eff'ective.
G 3
66 SUSPICIONS THAT FAITH HI.
Here let me introduce a thouglit, which, though rather digressive, should not, as it appears to me, be withholden. It was impressively stated, in a preliminary lecture, by a late eminent Scottish pro- fessor of natural philosophy, that the actual physical wonders of creation far transcend the boldest and most hyperbolical imaginings of poetic minds; "that the reason of Newton and Galileo took a sublimer flight than the fancy of Milton and Ariosto."* That this is quite true, I need only refer you to a few astronomical facts glanced at in subsequent pages of this volume, in order to evince. But it is not less true, and it is quite analogous, that by the moral wonders of Redemption, the loftiest flights of imagination are still more exceeded.
Those instances of the moral sublime, the pathetic, the heroic, which it is the very province and sphere of poetic invention (of romance and tragedy) to model or depict, are really and infinitely surpassed by the simply narrated facts of Christ's humiliation, labours, and self-sacrifice. There is indeed, else- where, a tinsel of the false sublime, derived from worldly gauds and decoration, from a complexity of device and a strong infusion of earthly feeling, which makes the fictions much more attractive to our pride, curiosity, and earthly affections ; but in the true sublime, what can approach the facts of
* Manuscript Notes of Playfair's Natural Philosophy Lectures.
III. MAY NOT BE GENUINE. 67
the gospel — what specimen of self-abdicating gran- deur, of unostentatious fortitude, of romantic and disinterested tenderness, can be once named with the " unvarnished tale " of the unlearned evan- gelists ?
This strikes me as one strong presumptive proof, that their tale is true ; that the history of redemp- tion is authentic. And not merely because it were passing strange, if such writers as those of the four Gospels should in their homely fictions have left all poets and inventors far behind, but also, because if their history were false, it would follow that human nature had in other instances exhibited or conceived acts of moral heroism, of which there is no known archetype or anticipation (so to speak) in the Divine. The reputed volitions and acts of creatures, and of very imperfect and depraved creatures — such as the patriotism of Curtius, the friendship of Pylades or Terentius,* the conjugal devotion of Eleanora — would have in them a generous self-sacrificing quality, not apparent in any revealed act, nor I think conceivable by us in any unrevealed act of the Creator.f My argument does not found itself on the truth of these or other such histories of self-devotement. Were they all fictions or exag- gerations, as some of them probably are, still the
* See this and some similar instances in Valerius Maximus. Exam. Mem. lib. iv. c. 7.
t See Note D, at the end of the volume.
bo SUSPICIONS THAT FAITH III.
moral idea developed in them, and with incompa- rably more grandeur in the story of our redemption by Christ Jesus, would be a human idea of virtue to which nothing analogous would be known to exist, or known even to be possible, in the acts or counsels of the Perfect Being.^ It may, I hope without irreverence, be added, that not even the idea of mere munificence can be realised from the ordinary gifts of God, (were they ever so immensely enlarged,) in the same sense as when a man be- stows " all his goods to feed the poor/' or to " re- deem his brother ; " because the amplest gifts of God's providence can in no wise straiten or im- poverish the creative Giver.
If redemption by a Divine Saviour were not a truth, (if Scripture were only to be taken in the sense of the " rationalists/') then, although power and wisdom would be divinely exemplified in creation, and amazing forhearanc in the treatment of sinful and ungrateful man, we should possess, for some other human excellencies, no express Divine Ex- emplar, nor even parallel. It could not be intelli- gibly enjoined by an apostle who should urge a self- denying, self-sacrificing kindness — " Let this mind be in you which" is also in the Deity. — For such a mind or act in Deity, would be on that supposition unascertained. It is then alone discovered, when
* See Note D, at the end of the volume.
III. MAY NOT BE GENUINE. 69
we discover and recognise in Scripture, the fact, that " the Word became incarnate, and tabernacled among us."* Its Divine exemplification (and as far as we can imagine, its only possible exemplifica- tion) to man, is through the mysteriously consti- tuted person of Christ ; who, " though he was rich, yet for our sakes became poor," and " being in the form of God," took on him, by some unknown occup- ation of uncreated glory, " the form of a servant."
Generosity and heroic love were then displayed to the universe by a veritably peerless and godlike model, when " the Lord of Life, unable of Himself to die, contrived to do it." f
He, therefore, who receives as true the record of our Lord's exinanition % and sacrifice, must find all other facts and ideas of moral elevation, self-de- votement, romantic virtue, among men, far beneath that Divine idea and exhibition of them. And this unquestionably is as it ought to be. He, on the con- trary, who regards that view of it as an exaggerated and fabulous misstatement of a simple martyrdom, ought, I think, to admit, not only that men have conceived an act more sublime than their Creator is known to have wrought, but, also, that in all vir- tuous suffering, active and passive, they in reality have achieved and endured what Deity cannot in
* John i. 14. See Dr. J. P. Smith, Scrip. Test. ii. 396, and iii. 69.
t Herbert — Prayer before Sermon,
70 SUSPICIONS THAT FAITH III.
any sense conceivably achieve or endure.'*^ For ex- cept in an assumed and passible nature, we cannot conceive of Deity as in any sense exercising those virtues or perfections, from which we may directly learn how to suffer, to renounce , to obey, " to spend and to be spent."
The act of the self- torturing Mucius, and the temper of the condemned Socrates, seemed to be, according to the loftiest and most philosophic no- tion of the Divine nature, not possible with God ; but when the " Son of man " — " God with us " — " came not to be ministered unto but to minister, and to give his life a ransom," then was it seen that the transcendent prototype of suffering virtue had ever existed in the purpose, and was now at length developed in the human acts and human endurance of Him who " was with God and was God :" that the original "patterns" or " models "t of these moral glories (of which human examples had pre- sented some faint and distorted outlines, or broken and imperfect sketches %) were " in the heavens " alone.
This appears to me quite worthy of being weigh- ed, as a presumption for the truth of the most won- derful and affecting of records, the incarnation and suffering of the Son of God. Such, however, was not
* See Note E, at the end of the volume, t Ti/TTos, Heb. viii. 5, et Act. vii. 44. + vTroSEiyfiuTa, Heb. viii. 5, et ix. 23.
III. MAY NOT BE GENUINK. 71
my direct purpose in adducing it : but to point out the probability that this great recorded fact, which ineffably surpasses and eclipses all romance — this "most touching or pathetic of all doctrines"* — may be mentally gazed upon as if romance, and attract some minds under that aspect only. 1 do not now at all contemplate the case of its being re- jected or (/isbelieved, but that of its being conceived as a picture, and not held and " held fast " as a fact. Hard it may be to discover and define the specific difference between a real yet doubting faith, and this sort of unreal, imaginative semblance of faith ; but that such a difference exists is pretty cer- tain ; and moreover, that in very many, perhaps in all pious and believing minds, a portion of this latter, fluctuating with inward states and outward circum- stances, generally mingles.
Hence we may no doubt likewise discern a pecu- liar danger, and infer an important warning, for the whole class of the excitable and sanguine. This class is to be found in every station of society ; it may be doubted whether more among its higher or inferior ranks : there is, besides, in every form of Christian worship and instruction some excitement provided for it ; most amply, doubtless, in the at- tractive ceremonials of the Romish church ; but not scantily in the popular preaching and devotional poetry of other communities. Let me not be
* De Stael.
72 SUSPICIONS THAT FAITH III.
supposed to entertain an opinion that tbe exercise of imagination in religion is censurable or not bene- ficial : on the contrary, when fitly regulated, the Christian graces are all exceedingly enlivened by its aid. Although, in the supposed instance of Ar- dentio, a lively and warm imagination has been re- presented as not accompanied by steadfast and prac- tical belief, (a case, it is feared, not uncommon,) it does not at all follow that these qualities cannot be or are not frequently conjoined. So far from it, their happy combination, as the peculiar "gift of God," has been the great means to endow and to uphold the most zealous, eminent, successful la- bourers in the " work of Christ." But I apprehend that in those of whatever communion, who strangely combine with zeal for gospel doctrines, and fervour of attachment to them, an evil temper and an irre- gular or unprofitable conduct, imagination is not auxiliary to faith, but is placed in the stead of it ; that their creed, if they will have it so called, is rather, therefore, that dreaming theory, that spec- tacle or reverie of the gospel, which we have sup- posed, than belief of the gospel as a substantial system of truths and facts. Imagination may be employed either with an aim to render the truth or reality more near and vivid, and practically appli- cable as such — or to obtain near and vivid pictures, without caring much about the realities and their uses. The same reflecting telescope may be em- ployed by different observers with dissimilar pur-
III. MAY NOT BE GENUINE. 73
poses. One class may look eagerly at the image of our moon, with her supposed oceans and volcanoes, or of the planets and their moons, as an exciting en- tertainment ; — the other class may be earnestly ob- serving a lunar eclipse, or the immersion of a satel- lite, as objects of serious and practical science.
Neither class is looking at those celestial bodies themselves, but at their small and imperfect images thrown upon the speculum ; the former, however, contemplate them rather as pictures than as actual orbs ;* the latter apply their view of these orbs to the most important uses : to regulate, for example, a perilous navigation of untraversed seas. Now, un- less the mental telescope — whether with or withou*^ a bright imagination for its speculum — be thus em- ployed when contemplating " things revealed," in seeking actual aid and guidance and government for our great voyage, so as to secure a heaven- ward course " and heaven the haven," it can with no more propriety be said that real faith is exercised, than that real science is prosecuted by the fruitless though possibly rapturous admirer of shadows and splen- dours on the moon's disk.
If these distinctions, so far as very inadequate
* The writer once knew a person of some education, of strong sense in worldly affairs, and of a generous temper, who, with unbe- lief in religion, professed his incredulity as to the magnitude and distance of the heavenly bodies ; persisting to consider them as only lamps of fire, placed, for oiir benefit and for ornament, in the nearer sky.
H
74 SUSPICIONS THAT FAITH III.
comparisons can explain them, be found intelligible and just, they should obviate that suspicion con- cerning the power and truth of Christianity, which may arise from witnessing the inconsistencies and. falls of some zealous professors ; and while they warn us against the snare which it has been thus at- tempted to disclose, they should arm us also against discouragement, although our own view of the gos- pel may rarely or never glow with those brilliant hues which a warm imagination enkindles. Let us be consoled, for their absence or their fading, by the strong conviction — that a ray of faith is worth far more than a rainbow of fancy.
The rainbow, however brilliant and complete, vanishes as the tempest thickens. The vivid theory or spectacle of the gospel may vanish like it in the gloom of a sick chamber, or of a troubled and debi- litated mind : but the ray pierces through the densest storms : though darkened and obstructed to the uttermost, it is still the visible consequence and pledge of direct or reflected sun-light ; and thus a " little faith," obscured and trembling, yet earnest and real, in the great facts and doctrines of salva- tion, may actuate and sustain the soul to endure and to obey, even while its powers are prostrate ; while " the whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint." He that, in doing or in suffering, walk- eth by this light, "he is in the light ;" and al- though it be but a feeble glimmering " in a dark place," how much more safe and happy is his lot
HI. MAY NOT BE GENUINE. 75
than that of those who " walk in the light of their own fire," and, if God's mercy prevent not, will " lie down in sorrow!"
It has been already intimated, that in characters which, we trust, by the possession of principles really heaven-taught, vitally differ from those of such un- happy self-deceivers, (and probably in your own,) fancy may yet in too predominant a measure uncon- sciously coalesce and mingle with belief; for the tendencies of nature are not extinct in minds where grace is infused. Some, concerning whom we may justly hope, that they are indeed believers, but whose warm attachment to gospel truth is not accompanied by so " much fruit," or not so destructive of faults and infirmities, as one might reasonably expect, be- tray by these marks the undue ascendency of imagin- ation and the torpor or scantiness of faith. The eye of fancy is awake, but that of the believing heart is too often closed or dim. The great constraining facts are not, as facts, brought much and impres- sively into contact w4th the spirit, and the visionary view of them which is most frequent, has little in- fluence on its practical resolves.
Thus also, I conceive, we may somewhat elucidate the sources of that spiritual distress and weakness which attend the fluctuations of feeling incident to many imaginative minds. We shall suppose such a mind endued with principles, more or less feeble, of divine and vital faith. Now, while imagination is vigorous and elated, it actively concurs with these ; H 2
76 SUSPICIONS THAT FAITH III.
SO actively and powerfully, that its host of splendid and swift auxiliaries may be too often trusted and gloried in, as if they were the best and tried forces of the soul. Those few plain and steadfast prin- ciples, given and strengthened from above, which must form the reserve and real force in conflict, seem lost in that " aery crowd," " by thousands trooping," or submit to be led by the glittering ad- vances of those whom they ought to govern. But at length, and perhaps suddenly, there ensues a dark reverse. Some disease within, or some per- plexities without, have " troubled the host." The array and chivalry of imagination are put to flight by the gloom, and from being vain-glorious auxili- aries, they turn at once to do the work of foes. For they now inspire confusion and dismay, proclaiming that all is lost ; persuading the mind that its firmest principles are wholly sunk, or were but ideal like themselves. True, the little band from heaven secretly stand fast and survive — like champions of whom we have read, that maintained in darkness the bridge or the defile — but now in sad desertion, struggling hard and often foiled ; smarting for the hollowness of those unsteady succours on which they had too much relied and calculated.
It is thus, I apprehend, that you may in a great measure account for those changes and declensions which discourage and afflict you. Not that I would seem to forget or limit the sovereignty or import- ance of direct spiritual influence both in its gifts
III. MAY NOT BE GENUINE. 77
and its withdrawments ; but we are not authorized to overlook instrumental causes where they exist ; and it is doubtless, often if not always, the method of Divine discipline to make our idiosyncrasy (or peculiar bodily and mental constitution) instru- mental to our spiritual vicissitudes. If then we are by temperament peculiarly liable to such reverses, we must learn to be especially prepared for them. In seasons when imagination promptly and perhaps ardently lends herself to hope, we must seek " wis- dom from above," to use and estimate her aids with caution ; as in their very nature temporary and variable, never therefore to be leant and rested on : — at periods, on the contrary, when she surren- ders herself most to fear, we must supplicate and employ a heavenly strength to stem the mischiefs and alarms of her confused discomfiture, and " stand in the evil day."
On the whole view of this subject, it is not to be inferred from the presence or the absence, the vari- ation or great instability, of some emotions and mental excitements, that there dwells in the heart no real or abiding principle of faith. We ought in- deed to call to mind, with humility and self-diffi- dence in the brightest hours, as we shall with sadness in the darkest, that very much of what scintillates and glitters is not solid and enduring. By such ex- perience we are to be " humbled and proved," warned and disciplined ; but we are not warranted to conclude from it, the non-existence of that which, H 3
78 SUSPICIONS THAT FAITH III.
though less superficially bright and abundant, has a sterling worth and an imperishable quality. There may, it is true, be fragments raised from a mine which are of quite delusive promise ; which abound in shining spar or metallic spangles, yet are found to yield not a granule of the precious metals : but does therefore the presence of those several sub- stances disprove that of precious metal, or is it even a presumption against this ? Far otherwise. On the contrary, those substances usually accompany, and) therefore, in some sort indicate, that which is sought.
So the presence of some romantic aspiring for what is perfect and unearthly, and a cast of mind in religion too imaginative and poetic, may variously alloy the Christian character, causing it deceptively to promise or display far more than the amount of its practical and real worth ; yet may it no way dis- prove the existence of true piety, but rather afford some hopeful indication that this genuine principle is not altogether wanting.
We have seen, in the rich mines of Cornwall, masses of ore first roughly broken, then pulverized by hammers, then washed repeatedly, in order to detach the metal from the earths, then heated to remove the glittering mundic combined with it, which becomes the most deadly of mineral poisons ; and lastly, we have watched the pure residue, small in comparative amount, but sterling in quality, smelted and ''delivered into the mould."
III. MAY NOT BE GENUINE. 79
In their proportions of foreign matter, those first crude fragments greatly differed. Sometimes but a few grains of pure metal can be severed. And this may hitherto be but too just and humbling an emblem of your Christianity and my own. Much more literally may we have to say, than devout Herbert wrote —
" The good extract of my heart
Comes to about the many hundredth part."
Yet let us not despond ; rather, in the phrase of miners, let us " adventure." We adventure on no earthly promise, but on His word who hath said, " Happy is the man that findeth wisdom — for the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver. — She is more precious than rubies."* — " Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." — By a deeper solicitude and diligence in prayer and scriptural meditation, let us labour fervently for a purer, richer vein (so to speak) of Christian attainment ; trusting in Him, who " sitteth as a Refiner and Purifier " still ; — assured, that as " the fining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold," so, " the Lord trieth the hearts ; " trieth them by various agents and expe- dients, " as gold is tried ; " '^ refineth them as silver is refined ; " f that He will but " purge in the furnace
* Prov. iii. 13, 15. t Zech. xiii. 9.
80 SUSPICIONS THAT FAITH III.
the dross and remove all the alloy,"* so that we shall come forth "as silver seven times purified." His " Word," his Providence, his Spirit, are " as a fire," " as a hammer that breaketh the rock," and as the cleansing stream. Much that is sparkling will be swept away and vanish, much that is bane- ful will be dissipated in the smoke of the furnace ; but some pure and solid particles will, I trust, re- main : in His hand they cannot be lost ; — and thus " the trial of your faith, (far more precious than of gold that perisheth,) though it be tried with fire," shall be to his " praise, and honour, and glory," in the final day.
We should beware of something like presumption under the garb of humility : taking heed lest sus- picion and caution do the work of rashness, when we hesitate or scruple to ascribe to special grace, any " good thing" which is found in us towards the " Lord God of Israel," — any measures of spiritual discernment, sincere attention, and awakened feel- ing. At the same time, let us honestly pray, and humbly watch, against our own spirit and " the spirit of the world," and for an accession of the Spirit which is of God : "f — who gives neither that *'of fear," nor of illusion, nor of presumption, but " of love, and power, and of a sound mind."
He can effectually teach and animate us to forget
* Isa. i. 25. Lowth's translation, f 1 Cor. ii. 12.
III. MAY NOT BE GENUINE. 81
"the things which are behind," in such a sense and manner as they ought to be forgotten, and to press " along the mark for the prize of his high calling in Christ Jesus ; " * rejoicing in Him who is the " Puri- fier " as well as Redeemer of his people, and need- ing in earth or heaven no other confidence.
* See Macknight on Philip, iii. 14.
IV.
ON FEARS THAT FAITH OR CONVERSION IS NOT GENUINE, ARISING FROM A NICE ANALYSIS OR SCRUTINY OF MOTIVES.
There is implied, in the apprehensions which dis- quiet you, what should in itself be matter of preli- minary thankfulness and hope ; — namely, that you do not reject revealed truth, but in some sense re- vere and receive it ; that you deeply feel at times its value and importance ; that you can trace many desires and purposes, some acts and habits, to its im- pulse as their motive ; or at least, as one motive which has assuredly combined with others to make the impulse adequate ; so that, had it been want- ing, the purposes and acts would not have been pro- duced. Such degrees of regard to Christianity, and such consequences arising from them, you will not disclaim. I advert to them not as in themselves at all sufficient to preclude your present fear, but
IV, FEARS FROM SCRUTINY OF MOTIVES. 83
as admissions on which some thoughts may be founded, tending both to evince to you that this fear is not necessarily just, and to correct those errors of the heart by the perception of which it is excited. When you trace and investigate, or dis- cover unawares, the secret springs of conduct, you are frequently distressed by the suspicion that your kind of faith may prove at last to have been not saving faith ; your sort of conversion not the real. I suppose the sources of this fear to be in your case chiefly the following. First, your dictinct know- ledge of the character or import of Christ's gospel — as a free and complete salvation for the lost — has clearly and perfectly informed you, that the truly religious or Christian kind of well-doing, is that which is prompted by the principle of love to God ; either under the modification of grateful filial love to Him as our infinite Benefactor, or that of re- verent and imitative filial love to Him as the in- finite Author and Exemplar of perfection. You are well aware that the Divine Founder of our faith, and the apostles whom he inspired, touch the true springs of devout and heavenly obedience, when they say, "Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect ; " " As He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy ; " and also, " Ye are bought with a price, therefore, glorify God ; " " I beseech you by the mercies of God, that ye pre- sent your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable ; " " Be ye followers of God as dear children ; " and
84 FEARS FROM IV.
that this strong declaration, " Though I bestow all my goods in alms, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me no- thing,"— must apply to want of love to God and a desire to please Him, as well as of love to man. You distinctly know that love to God is the first and great command, binding even originally on ac- count of our creation and preservation, and all the benefits of this life, but unspeakably the more on account of the inestimable and constraining mercy of redemption. Meanwhile you are painfully ap- prized by self- inspection, how often this pure motive of devout and grateful love, or reverential imitative love, as immediately prompting your obedience, is unapparent. Do not, however, overlook what ap- pears to be a just and important distinction. We are not to infer that this motive is non-existent whenever it is unapparent or unfelt : that there is no principle acting, because there may be no emo- tion or sentiment awake. It were indeed most happy to have this love always consciously actuating and impelling the mind as an emotion ; but it would be quite wrong to conclude that such is not the governing and primary impulse to a course of con- duct, because it may not, in very many details of that course, be sensibly so. Let us suppose that from gratitude and esteem to a distant or disabled friend, you undertook to manage his farm or su- perintend his merchandise. If in the daily variety of such transactions, those feelings or even imme-
IV. SCRUTINY OF MOTIVES. 85
diate motives were often absent from your mind — so that sometimes no direct impulse should remain except this general impression, (resulting from the judgment and feeling of times past,) that what you were now doing was right, and must be done — could it thence be argued that esteem and gratitude had ceased to be the actual principle and motive of your conduct? Is it not rather certain that these thoughts and sentiments might be frequently ex- cluded or blunted for the time, only by those very exertions and fatigues wdiich their own strength in your mind originally prompted ? The great question is — Are you doing those things by which you will serve your friend, and doing them diligent- ly ? Would this be the case if you had no love to him?
I grant that where other motives may concur, — such as the hope either of some tangible or ideal re- ward, the prospect of gain or commendation, — there is great reason to " examine and prove our own selves;" and the apprehension that such preponde- rate is probably the chief origin of your fear. For you, perhaps, hardly question the existence of some occasional love, both in the form of veneration and gratitude, to God, as a motive of your obedience : but you feel more sensibly the strength of others, and are consciously certain that this one never sub- sists and acts with unmixed purity ; rarely, if ever, with a clear undisputed predominance.
86 FEARS FROM
IV.
You own not that happy, unquestionable charac- ter— "singleness of heart as unto Christ;" but perpetually detect the movement of those proud and pharisaic, or those self-seeking and mercenary tem- pers, which the light and spirit of the gospel so powerfully reprove and explode. For these we ought doubtless to be ever humbled, and to exert against them a far more strenuous vigilance ; but while unallowed and combated, while prayed and watched against, with a true desire for the culti- vation and prevalence of those motives which are highest and most pure, their existence can afford no reason for despondency. And as to the anxious question of their present or occasional predominance, it ought not to be forgotten, that these unchristian and inferior motives, which you are concerned to eradicate, are not foreign and infused principles, but innate and worldly feelings, in their very nature sensitive and obtrusive : whereas the deep and heaven-born sentiment which you would have to reign in your heart and actuate your life, is of a spiritual, retired, and tranquil kind ; and were its gentle though constraining power greater than you can feel or believe it actually to be, its force might still remain frequently less apparent, its actings less perceptible, than those of other impulses which might combine with it. — A vessel heavily and richly freighted is ascending a navigable river. Each pas- senger remarks the variable gusts that swell her
TV. SCRUTINY OF MOTIVES. 87
sails, the light breezes which flutter in her pennons, the towing-ropes which are attached and acting from the shore ; yet without the tide, that unper- ceived and quiet, yet powerful and equable motive^ which silently uplifts and as silently bears her on — not all these other forces would either carry her keel over the shallows, or bring her weight steadily and effectively up the stream.*
But besides those movements of selfishness and pride, those hidden covetings of praise or estimation,
* This comparison, like many others, is applicable only in the single point for which it is adduced. It is an analogical instance in physics of what we think is true in morals — that the steadiest, strongest, and most elevating impulse is not always the most dis- cernible and obvious. To press the comparison at other points were to misapply and to pervert it. It may be a matter of no mo- ment at all by what impulses the ship is moved ; though the pilot, it is probable, would prefer a tide which of itself were strong enough, even to the fairest breeze that might shift or die away during her progress; and much more to any artificial force. Still the mere progress, and not the kind of impulse, is his great concern.
But if, by the misuse of this or any other figure,^ or of the state- ments with which it is connected, we should be at all the less soli- citous that motives purely evangelical may dominantly and more consciously impel and govern our course of Christian conduct, this would be abusing considerations which have been suggested with the hope of abating a hurtful anxiety, for the purpose of fostering an unhappy indiflference. Reference has been made in the preface to the possibility of such perversions. May both writer and readers be preserved from them.
• e. g. See p. 78, above.
I 2
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those wishes of personal distinction and influ- ence, or that secret sentiment of vain self-com- placence,^ which you are justly anxious to subdue, there is a disposition, more equivocal and obscure, yet not undiscernible from within, to perform duties chiefly with a desire to strengthen the " evidences " of our conversion ; to confirm or revive, by mul- tiplying the fruits of faith, the hope that faith is genuine and such as will " accompany salvation." Now this, if really adopted as a primary motive, (although half-latent to the anxious mind which instinctively acts on it,) is not scriptural or com- mendable.
We ought to be primarily and supremely influ- enced by a grateful adoring desire, to please Him who hath " first loved us," and who so " abundantly pardoneth," as to acquire each day and hour new titles to our love : not by a purpose or solicitude to prove to ourselves the fact that we do thus desire to please Him. Besides which, such a motive, when detected or recognised by us as the governing im- pulse, at once frustrates its own aim.
* Fenelon depicts this " modest pride," in phrases which would suffer by translation. — " II se mire avec complaisance dans son desinteressement, comme une belle femme dans son miroir : il s'attendrit sur soi-meme, en se voyant plus sincere et plus des- interesse que le reste des hommes : I'illusion qu'il repand sur les autres rejaillit sur lui ; il ne se donne aux autrcs que pour ce qu'il croit etre, c'est-a-dirc, pour desinteress^ ; et voila ce qui le flatte le plus."— CEuvr. Spirit, i. 139.
IV. SCRUTINY OF MOTIVES. 89
And yet, not the less, is it fit and requisite to examine, retrospectively, what have been the fruits of faith and love, as the proper and indispensable marks of the genuineness of those graces : which, be it observed, is quite a different thing from making it our direct aim, prospectively, to perform good works in order to acquire such marks, and because they will be needful to our comfort. You would not therefore be warranted in imagining, that while you feel it a duty, and sometimes a consolation, to examine past obedience as an evidence of faith, this at all implies that such obedience was designed and fulfilled for the sake of, or with a view to its constructing, such evidence.
The " prodigal son," welcomed with an unex- pected and overpowering effusion of paternal kind- ness, was bound unreservedly to trust in that cor- dial reconcilement and that free forgiveness : and then, on account of such exceeding kindness, as well as of his parent's general worth, to love him more abundantly, and in all things obey him from the dictate of love, with a heartfelt and disinterest- ed promptitude : it would also be very important to his real comfort to be satisfied of this, by a fre- quent review both of his habitual conduct and the spirit of that conduct ; — to ascertain or find proof that he was no longer in his heart an alien or an ingrate. But it would be wrong that he should entertain in his purposes or acts of filial duty, any I 3
90 FEARS FROM IV.
direct or primary view to this proof ; that he should be aiming to obey with promptitude or exactness, just ybr the sake of obtaining such an argument and such a satisfaction.
Indeed, it is obvious, as was before remarked, that if such were the governing and conscious mo- tive, it must necessarily defeat itself ; it would pre- clude the very evidence which it laboured to create : showing that the obedience was not properly filial ; not, in so far, the result of love, but of an anxiety to construct proofs of love, which, if they were all, would at last be counterfeit intimations of a love that was really wanting.
Yet, not the less, let me repeat, would it behove this repenting and accepted son to review his tem- pers, words, and acts, and inquire if they had been prevailingly such as filial love should prompt, in order to be assured that he has truly loved his ge- nerous and indulgent father, and to enjoy, as far as it extends, the legitimate comfort of that persuasion. It would not be safe that he should omit this self- review, except at seasons when the practical im- pulses and recent results of his affection and gra- titude have been so strong and indubitable as to evince themselves at once, and thus to supersede it. When they have been recently otherwise, when the marks of filial attachment have been feeble and dubious, when there have been wanderings of un- duteous disaffection, then is the liumhling retrospect
IV. SCRUTINY OF MOTIVES. 91
painfully needed. Then must it awaken him to muse intently on all the motives of devoted love, to recall his previous demerits, his father's sacrifices and gifts and relentings, his own subsequent un- thankfulness : to move, therefore, the distressing question, whether, while met by all the tenderness of that reconciled parent, he has yet been truly, on his own part, a reconciled child ; to admire the long-enduring kindness which has not cast him off for his coldness and ingratitude, but still waits to take him to its warm embrace : — till, while thus musing, the mingled sparks of shame and love, astonishment and contrition, be struck within his alienated heart, and his spirit be quite melted into the flow and channel of loving dutifulness anew.
Meanwhile, I am not aware that he would then be censurable, or that the filial genuineness of his affection and obedience, in these best and happiest moments, would be vitiated or alloyed — if he were gratified and animated by the secondary and con- curring thought, that his present temper and acts might be afterwards reviewed with comfort, as in- dications of grateful and unfeigned attachment — whereas a differing course would assuredly bring upon him, as it had already often brought, painful self-reproach, and just self-suspicion.
You will see how this representation applies, in a
J'ar higher and more affecting sense, to the relation
of a repenting offender towards his '* Father who is
in heaven." In such a mind, not only will the
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IV.
spirit of pride and legality, the delusions of self- sufficiency, and the least indulgence of hopes built on merit, be resisted and condemned ; but moreover that deeper subtlety which has last been noticed, of performing duties for the sake of earning or pur- chasing supplies of evidence and comfort, will, whenever it really betrays itself, be repressed and disallowed. Yet not the less will there be cherished a habit of self-scrutiny ; a retrospect which at times will yield some measure of blameless comfort and encouragement, but can never be allowed to foster pride : which also must ever give cause for new and often deep contrition, but certainly never should induce despair. Let this examination, also, whe- ther of past or present motives, be faithful and im- partial, but not scrupulous and adverse. Aim at the strict yet candid fidelity of a judge, not the jealous ingenuity and harsh unfair constructions of a hostile advocate. It is not, I apprehend, possible in fact, nor requisite as duty, that with all our past experience of those diverse and just effects which conduct has produced on feeling, we should entirely exclude or suppress an indirect and secondary re- gard, even prospectively, to the accession of evi- dences and comforts which obedience will procure, and to that want of these which must ensue from transgression or remissness ; but it would bean un- justifiable self- tormenting refinement hence to con- clude, that evidences and comforts are our primary and 7)iercenary aim.
IV. SCRUTINY OF MOTIVES. 93
Let US pray more and watch more for the sim- plicity and energy of filial love, that it may attain a more decisive and conscious mastery in the heart ; but not be dejected meanwhile by the existence and concurrence of other motives. Some of these are legitimate, in their due place and order. Others are to be checked and extirpated by diligence, but not by despair. The husbandman will never destroy the weeds by hopelessly imagining that there is no wheat in the blade.
Perhaps, also, to one possessing your mental habits, this advice of Fenelon may be not always in- appropriate : — " He who" (in common life) " would at every instant convince himself that he was acting from the dictate of reason, and not of passion or in- clination, would lose the time of action, would, pass his life in anatomizing his heart, and yet never as- certain that which he sought : for he could never fully assure himself that inclination, disguised under some specious pretext, did not cause him to do that which might seem to be dictated by pure reason. In this obscurity God places us, even as to the mo- tives of ordinary life. How much more inevitable is it to fall short of clearness and certainty, when we inquire into the most hidden operations of grace, in the darkness of faith, and in reference to what is spiritual ! This restless and determined research after an impossible certainty, is a movement of ijlature, not of grace. It is strengthened by the plausible plea of ^ holy fear,' of ' watching,' of
94 FEARS FROM SCRUTINY OF MOTIVES. IV.
guarding against illusion. But evangelical vigil- ance ought not to be carried to such a point as to destroy the peace of the heart, or to demand a clear view of those obscure operations which it has pleased God to veil. "^
* CEuv. Spir. iii. 425, abridged.
ON THE PAINFUL DOUBTS EXCITED BY THE PREVA- LENCE OF EVIL AND SUFFERING IN THE WORLD.
You encounter, in the daily walks of life, unnum- bered moral mysteries ; and can subscribe, perhaps, to the pointed remark of Mr. Cecil — " A reflecting Christian sees more to excite his astonishment, and to exercise his faith, in the state of things between Temple Bar and St. Paul's, than in what he reads from Genesis to Revelation ;" — a fact, which, while it strikingly exposes the folly of rejecting, on ac- count of difficulties, the light of Scripture, shows also how much we need that light amidst the pain- ful phenomena of our earthly condition. You are so constituted as to have a quick perception and susceptibility of these : and while minds not dis- cursive, not prompt in associations, engrossed by one object, or observing few, see and hear and road of the same occurrences without inference or
96 DOUBTS FROM THE PREVALENCE V.
questioning, you find this, at many periods, quite impossible. You are tempted at once to envy and contemn that apathy or dulness which travels on be- tween the hedgerows of habit, and sees an insect long struggling in the fangs of its enemy, as it sees a blossom fall, or a chrysalis disengage itself ; while to your own mind the wide-spread influence and reign of evil are suggested afresh at the minutest point of its display. Each fraction and each aspect of it is a new proposal of the one distressing mys- tery ; and, as that which is near and visible strikes us with peculiar force, it may be that to look on a toiling animal starved and lacerated by its barbarous master, or an unconscious infant cradled in the hor- rors of vice and destitution, has affected you even more than the cells and screws of inquisitors, or the persecutions in Japan, or the stripes which zealous assertors of freedom in Carolina still inflict on their defenceless slaves.
You want a general antidote for the sceptical and perturbing thoughts, which you know to be widely at variance with revealed truth, but which observ- ation and books and converse too strongly re- awaken ; tempting the dark suspicion that creation is, at certain points, neglected by its Author, or con- signed to the operation of laws in which evil must profusely and interminably mingle. It is true, as will be afterwards shown, that nothing short of re- velation, in its last and full completeness, is our " rock" and citadel, our "strong tower" of defence,
V. OF EVIL AND SUFFERING. 97
against such invading suggestions : but there are fundamental truths, which even natural reason can- not discard, and which revelation amply discloses, that must form the very basis of our standing place for resistance and repose. — First, in a universe which is immense, having an Author and Preserver who is infinite, what can we, his workmanship, rationally expect to know, except what He teaches or permits ? Secondly, by an omnipotent agent, with a boundless extent and duration in his works, what may we not expect to see vindicated, rectified, or compensated ? — These are commonplaces of theo- logy ; but they are habitually uttered and received, I suspect, with a very slight and contracted amount of meaning. A part of their very purport, indeed, if I may hazard the paradox, is to state how im- perfectly they can be themselves understood, while they would express the inability of all creatures, even the most exalted, to comprehend the Divine greatness.
One might imagine, on the first view of this sub- ject, that the lowest order of rational beings would be most sensible of that inability. But analogy and experience correct such an opinion, and lead us to conclude that higher beings have a far more extend- ed and satisfying apprehension of the infinitude and omnipotence of Deity, and a proportionate sense of their own limitation and weakness, which are cor- relative to these. The marmot of the Alps, or the lizard baskino: in the crevice of a rock, must have
98 DOUBTS FROM THE PREVALENCE V.
much narrower views of extension and altitude than the chamois, giraffe, or ostrich. A traveller in the defiles of the loftiest mountains sees nothing but their base, nor can he perceive their magnitude and his diminutive power to scale them, till he labori- ously reach some neighbouring elevation. If it be thus in reference to objects which, in comparison with the distances of the nearest worlds, are but as atoms, then consider what a point of view and ca- pacity of vision would be needed, in order to gain a like impression of the scale of some other works of God. What actual impression have we of the vastness of a planet ? If we could so approach it, that, although still distant, it should conceal very many of the heavenly bodies, itself half fill the celes- tial hemisphere, and present to us the amazing pros- pect of a mighty moving world, with its bright rivers and blue oceans, its sun-crowned mountains and dark forests — how different would be our mea- surement of our own littleness, of the immensity of that universe in which this huge globe was seen lately but as a petty star, and of the infinitude of Him who governs it !
Thus beings of larger capacities have, I doubt not, a much sublimer and stronger impression (even apart from any sensible discoveries of his personal glory) concerning the natural attributes of their Creator. It is probable that they also possess the power of immensely diversifying and endlessly re- vivifying this impression, by new and widely differ-
V. OF EVIL AND SUFFERING. 99
ent aspects of the Divine works. With unlimited means of locomotion, with a perfect faculty and reach of telescopic vision and microscopic inspection, how inconceivably may these be varied !
We, meantime, in the present state, are so far from holding^'a station of " vantage," that we oc- cupy the lowest point of developed reason ; a reason also blunted and enervated by moral degradation. The wonder is, that man, thus situated, should so arduously investigate and should have learned so much ; not, surely, that perplexing doubts and nar- row conceptions should still remain " the lot of his inheritance." When it shall please God to eman- cipate him into intellectual eminence and moral perfection, how much more widely will he expati- ate ; how much more experimentally confide ; with what new reverence estimate the Divine power and grandeur ! — But it is a part of duty and happiness, — in order to combat doubt and confirm adoring re- liance— that we should labour for a broader, deeper view of these attributes even here.
We fancy that we understand the proposition — God is irtjinite ; and that from this truth we infer his unsearchableness. But do we not in reality rather infer it, only from the slight and vague no- tion that God is very great ; an idea not merely be- low the incomprehensible truth, but which does not at all suffice for impression ? The opinion has been intimated by a distinguished writer, that those con- ceptions which most human worshippers form of K 2
100 DOUBTS FROM THE PREVALENCE V.
the Deity, do not at all equal the real attributes of some created natures. I believe that opinion to be indubitably well-grounded, at least in the following sense — that if such conceptions as we may reason- ably form of an exalted creature be studiously ana- lysed, they will then become much more impressive than is our habitual thought of God, while that thought remains undeveloped.
Comprehensive terms for great objects, (at least as far as I am conscious to the mode of their recep- tion and use,) seem little more than substituted 7iames ; mere symbols for the unknown. As in al- gebra one letter may stand for some vast quantity, so the syllables of the word infinite, or the ciphers or words which accurately state an immense num- ber or measure, are rather a sign instead of the idea, than any effective expression of it. Thus when the painful statement is made, that there are five hun- dred millions of idolaters and Mohammedans in the bondage of error, this total is too great for our minds at once to apprehend. Till it be some way developed, it conveys nothing expanded or distinct, but rather one vague apprehension of a vast whole. It is little more than the algebraic letter which de- notes an unknown quantity. It stands for a mul- titude, I might rather say a mass, indefinitely and obscurely great. We may be the more sensible of this if we attempt some method for its developement, however imperfect.
Imagine that the " angel" whom John beheld in
V. OF EVIL AND SUFFERING. 101
vision " flying through mid -heaven," having " the everlasting gospel to proclaim," were charged to announce the " glad tidings" to each individual of those contemporary millions personally and apart ; that he should devote to this office unremittingly the moments of each hour, and should use but a single minute in declaring to each wondering lis- tener, severally, that sacred message. Would the mere thought or utterance of the total (five hundred millions of mankind) suggest anything like this fact, or at all prepare you for it — that ninety years ^ov\di scarcely suffice for fulfilling a tenth part of that swift, unwearied task ? — that in order to its completion, the lives of that race must be extended as in the world before the flood, and even then a period of nine whole centuries be occupied, without an instant's in- termission, in uttering those compendious errands of God's good-will to man ? *
Such totals, therefore, although exceedingly li- mited in comparison with many others, we cannot, as totals, so far as I may judge from the incapacity of my own mind, intelligently contemplate. How much more then, when we say or hear — the Divine Wisdom and Power are infinite — is this idea un- explored, unpursued, even partially, (for I need not observe that it cannot possibly be comprehended^
* What a comment on our Saviour's statement and injunction, " The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few. — Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest !"
K 3
102 DOUBTS FROM THE PREVALENCE V.
unless we attempt some developement of a part — an infinitely small part it needs must be — of that infinitude! That infinitude is itself the totals the boundless integral, of which all number, distance, power, magnitude, intellect, are fractions : nay, fractions infinitely small ; (such must be the myste- rious fact ;) although some of them relatively to others are so immeasurably great.
Take, then, one of these fractions of intellect ; if the term may be allowed. Suppose a created intel- ligence to preside over one race of creatures in a planet of some other system ; a region peopled with living tribes as various and as numerous as those of our own world. We will not imagine him endued with any knowledge of the thoughts, or influence on the actions, of its rational inhabitants ; but charged only to regulate the instincts and acts of its birds or insects. When we think of either class, and its wonderful peculiarities — the architecture of both — the migrations, and refined diversities of song, among the former, or the arts, polities, and transformations of the latter — and the task of pre- serving these undisturbed from age to age in each individual of each species — it will be felt that a being so qualified and commissioned, would be a " watcher," or " ruler over many," to an extent that bafiles the human mind. Let it not be thought, however, that to imagine the possibility of a crea- ture's competence to this, or some equally extensive sphere of knowledge and of vigilance, is utterly ex-
V. OF EVIL AND SUFFERING. 103
travagant. Would a child, or a New-Zealander, or even an English peasant, although of the astrono- mer's own race, believe, if you could intelligibly in- dicate it to him, the knowledge of Herschel 1 Why may there not be beings of other races, to whom the wide and prompt combinations of Napoleon, the recondite calculations of La Place, and the prophetic forecasts of Bacon, (supposing these to meet in the same mind,) appear but elementary ef- forts, leading to results, which, for themselves, would be intuitive ; and who no more wonder at the incredulity of some gifted mortals respecting their higher range of intellect, than we at the scep- ticism of a ploughboy or Hottentot when we tell him of our measuring the moon, or calculating the lon- gitude ? It appears to me not doubtful, that there are such incomparably superior intelligences ; when we consider that man, in his present state, seems to occupy the lowest grade of rational existence. Dr. Barrow observes, " Beneath omniscience there being innumerable forms of intelligence, in the lowest of these we sit, one remove from beasts." * If so, there could be no extravagance in supposing created minds of the loftiest order to have capacities and offices far more extended than the being whom I have im- agined. Yet what conception have we of the prompti- tude and ubiquity even of that ruler of one minor department in one secondary orb ? And if this
* Works, vol. iii. p. 258.
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confound us, what do we expect to conceive of the at- tributes and reign of Him whose " understanding is infinite ! " What could the frogs or flies of Egypt be supposed to know of the faculties of that prophet who was made the instrument of their miraculous formation ? If they had been produced in the great desert, what would they have known of his legisla- tive code or judicial decisions, his visions in the solitude of Horeb, or within the cloud of Sinai ? Yet from the reptile to the inspired lawgiver is but a finite interval, and therefore, in comparison of that between the creature and the infinite Creator, incalculably small. This may strike some Christian minds as a monstrous and false analogy ; inasmuch as the difference between a mean creature, which they may suppose to have no immaterial principle, and a human being, whose essence is spiritual and immortal, will appear to them a difference not of gradation but of kind ; a great chasm of dissimili- tude intervening, such as they conceive to be no- where found within that scale of intelligent and spiritual natures which terminates in the Supreme. Without inquiring whether they do not err in the first supposition, I would observe that the second betrays that very limitation of ideas respecting the Infinite First Cause, which we ought to combat ; as if because the words "spirit," "mind," "intelli- gence," are applied in common to the created and the Creator, there were not a more absolute chasm between the Mind that creates and the mind which
V. OF EVIL AND SUFFERING. 105
is created, than between the fabric of the potter and the fabric of his clay ; the life of the insect and the life of the prophet.
There may, indeed, be decisive and summary thinkers, who ask and gain no help from circuitous illustration, but under the pressure of doubt will resort to this ons-^ thought — He that is unsearchable, whose ways I anxiously ponder, alone sustains these powers hy which I doubt. It is only by his strength that it has become or continues possible for me to question that of which " He giveth not account." How intrinsically absurd and presumptuous to be in these circumstances captious or distrustful, when, except for his own upholding hand, I could not, dur- ing another instant, conceive of his existence, much less descry or criticise his secret purpose !
There may be also those, who rise, at a glance, far above that mystic ladder which the patriarch saw, and have no need to measure, as we have now attempted, some lower steps of ascending and de- scending existence, in order better to apprehend the inaccessible grandeur of " the lofty One that inhabiteth eternity." I can conceive (and almost covet) such a comparatively prompt and powerful grasp of the human intellect ; particularly where it has been exercised in the very highest sphere of astronomic science. Still, for most minds, any mode of additional developement for what is so in- adequately impressed, may, I hope, be profitable. It will be so, however, if at all, chiefiy for the sake
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of ulterior consequences from these views. For there is nothing beneficial or consolatory in merely strengthening the conviction how unspeakably little we can expect to know — except it be linked with a proportionate persuasion how unspeakably much we may and must expect the Cause and Lord of all things both to know and do. Scepticism surrounds herself with the darkness of the former thought, and aims from thence her contemptuous assaults on faith ; but right reason, sustained by revelation, ad- vances to the second, and affirms that of Him who is Infinite it is impossible for the finite to expect enough ; since his means, and purposes, and doings, will, after all, be " most exceedingly or transcend- ently {vTrepeiarepiaaov) above all that we ask or think.^^"^ But whatever measure of this expecta- tion we happily attain, must obviously be founded on our real theism ; it can only be coextensive with our "faith in God;" and from the weakness and fluctuation of this principle, it is hard for even the Christian to keep to the blessed elevation of ex- pecting the infinite ; of practically holding fast this truth, that " with God all things are possible."
This train of thought, like most others, brings us more fully to recognise the great value of the gospel. It is true, that mere theism, acquired or aided, perhaps, by traditional revelation, assured some heathen sages of God's infinite knowledge and
* Eph. iii. 20.
V. OF EVIL AND SUFFERING. 107
power. The creed of Socrates on these points was thus eloquently stated to Aristodemus — " Consider, my friend, that your own mind regulates at will the frame in which it acts. We ought to conclude, therefore, that the intelligence which pervades the universe, orders all things at its pleasure ; and not to imagine that while your eye is capable of reach- ing distant prospects, the Divine eye is incapable of beholding all nature at one view ; nor that while your mind can meditate on affairs and objects here, and in Egypt, and in Sicily, the Divine intelligence is insufficient to embrace all things within its simul- taneous care."*
It is true, also, that the moral attributes of Deity were, in some measure, ascertained by natural in- dications. Conscience ever reiterated the inward monition, that there is somewhere a supreme tri- bunal and Arbiter of right. The revulsion of the mind from suffering, the sentiment of pity for an- other's sorrow, and indignation at another's wrong, concurred with the many marks of benevolent con- trivance throughout nature, to intimate that Bene- volence presides. Still were ten thousand adverse appearances ever warring on this happy thought. It was not even for him of whom Athens '' was not worthy," to evince conclusively to others or him- self, amidst all those dark anomalies, that the Being of infinite knowledge and power, is infinite likewise
* Xenoph. Memorab. 1. i. c. 17. p. 61.
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in rectitude and goodness. This was for Him only to demonstrate, who had already declared to his separated worshippers, "I am Jehovah, who exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteous- ness in the earth : for in these things I delight : " and who, after variously proclaiming this in records that hear the stamps and seals of his own pre- science, hath since confirmed it by the mystery of " loving-kindness " which those records foretold, certifying the universe by one " unspeakable gift," that
" His love is as large as his power ;
And neither knows measure nor end."
Then, as the apostle expresses it, " the goodness and philanthropy of our Saviour God shone forth ; "* and it has ever since been to believers, the regent phenomenon of our world ; by whose stupendous yet benignant light they preconceive and expect that flood of brightness which must at length be cast on all the gloom ; waiting the while with an assured submissive persuasion that " He doth all things well." It is very observable, as an implication which may raise our gratitude and hope, that when He who is One with the Father, refers (in words al- ready quoted) to Divine omnipotence, he does so ex- pressly and solely under this delightful aspect. It was in answer to the query, " Who then can be saved ? " that our Saviour spoke those memorable
* Tit. iii. 4, literal version.
V, OF EVIL AND SUFFERING. 109
words, *' with men it is impossible, but not with God, for with God all things are possible :" * inti- mating that this almightiness, which triumphs glo- riously over what we deem impossibilities, will be specially exercised in subordination to Divine love ; power being the infinite means, but love the infinite principle — and universal good, as coincident with His own glory, the boundless purpose — of the Di- vine administration.*
But further, the character, sufierings, and doom of this Saviour himself, if we believe in the details and estimate the effects of them, exhibit one of the most startling and painful mysteries of Providence that can be conceived, issuing in results of good which no human mind could have foreseen. We may as confidently ask — who could have feigned those details,t as, who could have expected these results 1 We contemplate (as Rousseau confesses in the person of his sceptical priest) a far more strik- ing and revolting scene than the condemnation of that revered philosopher whose words were lately cited. We see one whose virtue was spotless and transcendent, execrated, scourged, and impaled with
* Matt. xix. 26. Mark x. 27. Luke xviii. 27.
f " One may venture to say, that Christianity will never be over- thrown by argument, while such a character as that of our Saviour, and so supported, lieth open to the ingenuous and impartial. How came we to have it here ? is a question, to which a person, who doth not believe in Christianity, will never be able to give a substantial answer." Duchal, Presumptive Arguments, p. 106.
L
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the vilest criminals, and all demoniacal passions exulting in his fall ; and yet from this cruel mystery of injustice we behold suddenly springing up, and after the lapse of many centuries still spreading through the world, harvests of civilization, purity, and hope. The more deeply we explore its tend- encies and consequences, the more is this atrocity of " wicked hands "found to be made " the power of God unto salvation ;" but to measure the full scope of those consequences, we must wait till " principal- ities and powers in heavenly places," assist us to appreciate that " manifold wisdom," which, in their view, it illustrates.
After thus beholding a display of unparalleled evil, producing an unfathomed predominance of good, with what relieved and reassured feelings ought we not to meet those successive mysteries of sin or suffering which still cross our path, or exist in the world around us ! Are we justified in doubt- ing whether that Being can or will educe preponder- ating good out of all these, whom we know to have brought incalculable and still progressive good out of a scene of iniquity and agony more awful than any ? Of these, it is true, we witness some, and of some we read or hear in all their recency, and in all their detailed novelty of horrors ; and they may sometimes seem by their extent, or repetition, or multiplicity, or even minuteness, to acquire a more inexplicable character, than belonged to the death of
V. OF EVIL AND SUFFERING. Ill
Jesus ; but suppose that (instead of reading the Gos- pels as a long-familiarized narrative) we had been spectators after the paschal supper ; and in the prgetorium of Pilate ; and had stood around the cross ; and had then been the disconsolate com- panions of those who walked towards Emmaus, whose "communications" were so deeply "sad," and whose hopes had well nigh perished ; — What might we not have been tempted to utter or to feel concerning the Divine Providence in that dark hour? Yet had we yielded to distrust, how immensely should we have erred ! Do not the life and death of each among unnumbered happy Christians — a life, constrained by the love of Him that died — a death, softened and blessed by confidence in Him who " ever liveth," proclaim how great would have been the illusion of that despair ?
But if so, then what mystery of evil ought pre- vailingly to agitate or dishearten us ? What guilt, what endurance, what pangs of the sinless, what delay of remedy can we after this contemplate, and discard the cheering hope that a superior good, if not even now in secrecy attendant, will finally re- sult ? When to prior natural intimations and re- vealed assurances of Divine wisdom and goodness, we add this concurrent proof from fact, evincing that the wisdom and love of God can transmute the blackest crime into a source of blessings, and elicit the most glorious hopes from the profoundest L 2
112 DOUBTS FROM THE PREVALENCE V.
anguish — what contrary appearances should thence- forth cause us to " stagger, through unbelief?" We may still have frequent reason to feel — this is, in- deed, in my own weak and narrow view, a terrible and overwhelming mystery ; or that, although of a minute character — by many undiscerned — and by multitudes never thought of in its moral aspect — remains to me a most perplexing and insidious fact. But yet, were a thousand more such distressing enigmas of evil placed under our review, it would behove us to conclude with hope as well as sub- mission— all these are within the instant solution and the curative or compensating resources of Om- nipotent Beneficence : all shall co-operate for good in his hand who wields eternity and immensity to achieve the structure of his own glory ; who has re- vealed also not the mere vastness, but the inventive- ness, so to speak, of his remedial wisdom and love ; and from those appalling, agonizing scenes " ac- complished at Jerusalem," called forth the lustre of innumerable graces, and the promise of unfading joys. When we think of what Omnipotence can do, and of what Love has done, shall we not feel bound to say — " Is there any thing too hard for Jehovah ?" We may rise higher and higher towards this devout and delightful assurance ; but after the most ar- duous effort of reason, and the most solemn aspir- ation of faith, we must be conscious that there are heights where it would be incomparably more com-
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plete ; since " as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are His ways higher than our ways, and His thoughts than our thoughts."
It is not at all to be doubted, that, even for the highest of created minds, there must remain in the Divine administration mysteries unsolved ; and that their successive, though still partial solution, must be one of those ever-new satisfactions which the re- cesses of endless futurity reserve. But we can well conceive, that, after the first series of such solutions, all distrustful and painful doubt concerning what shall remain or accrue will utterly subside, and be converted into a tranquil, and unhesitating, though still astonished faith. Thus, in the present life, after having studied some dark predictions of Daniel or Isaiah, and found them marvellously and unde- niably fulfilled, we are prepared to await, with far more confidence, the fulfilment of other prophecies, which may still remain in unrelieved obscurity. Thus also the experience of memorable difficulties and singular extrications, in our own personal course, has often a measure of like salutary influence.
But when we shall pass into a second state of be- ing, and shall find many, perhaps all, the mysteries which distressed us here, scattered by the first day- break of another region, then must we, of necessity, attain a new and transporting reliance on the Infi- nite Revealer. New " clouds and darkness," in- deed, awful in their majesty, may still be gathering L 3
114 DOUBTS FROM THE PREVALENCE, ETC. V.
" round about his throne ;" but it will be never pos- sible to forget what doubts and terrors and despond- encies were turned to praises, in that moment when the curtain of mortality was rent ; and we shall hail those new secrets of heaven which cannot be too vast or multiplied, since they are all to be prolific, at length, of new adoration and delight.
VI.
ON THE DIFFICULTIES OCCURRING IN REVEALED TRUTH, AND IN THE STUDY OF SCRIPTURE.
We are often, it may be, much disturbed, when meditating on revealed truth, and particularly when reading the Scriptures, by philosophical, critical, or moral difficulties, or by miscellaneous objections and suspicions, which our minds rather insinuate in passing, than distinctly and formally present. Thus the very exercises which have been justly commended and enjoined, as special means of growth in piety and happiness, are frequently ren- dered to us an occasion for conflict and discourage- ment. This is a source of grief, not only at the time, but in the recollection that such is our pro- pension of mind ; and it is aggravated by observing, that many excellent Christians do not appear to share it. We could indeed view this with compla- cency as the privilege of the poor and unlearned ; —
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that of having their speculative difficulties less and fewer, while their other trials may be more severe. If we observe their happy simplicity, and sometimes sigh to be partakers of it, there is no contempt in the perception, and no bitterness in the wish. But when persons of finished education, and enlightened understanding, appear not only not to feel, but scarcely to discover difficulties ; when, having no such trials to interrupt their comfort in religious thought or scriptural study, they hardly comprehend or sympathize with those who deplore them — when we even find something of this characteristic in cer- tain expository writers respectable for learning and honoured for devotion — we are apt to repine, and sometimes to despond. We ask ourselves, how it is that these Christians of our own class enjoy while we suffer ; that they are edified and animated while we are " shaken in mind and troubled ;" that they can say cordially, " Thy testimonies are my delight," while we have much more cause to say, " Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law ;" " let the crooked be made straight, and the rough places plain." We regard the dis- similar experience of such persons, sometimes with discouragement and envy at their " un movable " and triumphant faith, sometimes with a half-grieved, half-proud (perhaps half-complacent) suspicion of their want of intellectual sharp-sightedness or strength ; and thus we vibrate between fear that the absence of a heaven-taught spirit may cause our
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own cavils and disquiets, and fear (by its implica- tions yet more painful) that the absence of a keenly investigating spirit causes their acquiescence and tranquillity. Now, there may be something oi iT\x\h in each side of this alternative ; and yet not so much as should greatly disturb or distress us. There are certainly two kinds of differences which may give rise to such a contrast. The one is in the intel- lectual constitution ; the other, in the moral temper and emotions. The former we cannot radically change ; nor, perhaps, though the change might exempt us from many trials, would we, if we could. The latter, by Divine help, we may acquire ; and in so doing we should acquire that, which being a source of strength and enjoyment in itself, destroys some of the anxieties referred to, and lightens all the rest.
In the intellectual constitution of some Christians, and those endowed with highly useful kinds of learning and ability, we observe what I must call, hot invidiously, but for want of better terms, a cer- tain hebetude or insensitiveness with regard to ob- jections. Embracing warmly and holding firmly the most momentous truths, they are no way prompt to discover, and still less to feel, the difficulties con- tained in the record which presents them, or which the truths themselves involve. Such minds, when truly ^'taught of God," may occupy most import- ant and successful posts as teachers of others. They are least likely to be retarded and perplexed
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in the aim and career of evangelic zeal. They may eminently bless, by a warm and unhesitating inculcation of essential truth, those numerous classes who possess an uninquiring temperament, or whose education has been not very enlarged, or in whom both these circumstances, by a joint and mutual in- fluence, concur to narrow the sphere of doubt, or repress its excursions.
But you, for whom the present train of thought is chiefly adapted, cannot acquire, if you would, such a mental structure. The native character and bent of your faculties may preclude this, even if no peculiar course of discipline has conduced to awaken and extend them. Nor, perhaps, (as I have al- ready conjectured,) would you, on the whole, desire to possess it, were this within your choice. For you will suspect that the mental quality or defect, whatever it be, which tends to blunt or to exclude objections, may tend likewise to obscure or to con- tract the view of exalted facts or doctrines : that the Shechinah of Divine truth, though steadily and gratefully contemplated by the eye of such a faith, must yet be " shorn of his beams ;" that the less ample or less movable glass of such a believer's perception, while it excludes unwelcome objects on either hand, circumscribes that broad and unde- fined glory, " dark with excessive bright," which belongs to your own wavering fitful pillar of celes- tial fire. Not that you or I are to assume a general superiority to such minds. Far from it. They may
VI. IN REVEALED TRUTH. 119
be less versatile or inquisitive, or may possess less promptitude and less scope, as it were, of lateral vision ; but withal much more strength and clear- ness in apprehending and defining the truths on which they fix. Neither you nor they can think or feel each in the other's manner, nor did the Father of spirits intend it. It is true of natural as of supernatural gifts, " there are diversities of oper- ations," and the great Ruler divides " to each one severally as He will." Your trials were, in some respects, to differ from theirs : your services like- wise, and your advantages, were not to be altogether of the same order.
But then we must not forget another class of minds, which, permit me to believe, have been unore prepared by native and acquired susceptibilities and powers, to discern and be afi'ected by difficulties than either yours or mine ; who yet, we have the highest reason to conclude, habitually meditate on revealed truth, and pursue the study of Scripture, with much less of pain, and with much more of spiritual profit, than ourselves. Shall we account for this difference by their greater capacity and su- perior vigour in answering and overcoming objec- tions, which enables them to subdue and trample down at the instant each pain or doubt which is awakened ? — Certainly not thus in every case ; in- asmuch as there are some difficulties in revelation which 710 human mind can at any time fully remove ; much less at every instant. We must account for
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it, I conceive, principally by their more devout and ardent apprehension, more constant and energetic hold, of those few most glorious truths, which, while invested by many difficulties and obscurities, shine through and above them all. Now this, as we have intimated, is, by the grace of God, attainable. Not the force and penetration of intellect, not the mass of erudition and strength of memory, which were in a Pascal or a Howe ; — those are nowhere pro- mised, and we have no ground to suppose they are anywhere dispensed, in answer to prayer. But that is attainable (for it is surely held forth as an object of the humblest Christian's successful de- sire) without which those qualities and attainments might have plunged a Howe or Pascal in the depths of frigid scepticism ; namely, a spiritual and affec- tionate adherence, a realising and appropriating attachment to the great things which God hath declared. This is the wisdom which he " giveth liberally," and for which we are all taught to pray, entreating " that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, may give unto us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him ;" that " the eyes of our understanding may be en- lightened ; that we may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance." *
Now, let minds of ever so great perspicacity, and
* Eph. i. 17, 18.
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research, and furniture, the most capable, therefore, of objections and resistance, become happily imbued with an admiring grateful love for the great dis- coveries of the gospel : let them come to meditate feelingly on a Being infinite in power and holiness, who is also infinite in pardon and in grace ; let them fix on the intense concentration of these glories at the cross ; and then, for them, the difficulties of revela- tion— though they do not disappear — recede into their proper dimness, and sink into their just dimension.
This supernatural unveiling of the Deity, this dis- closure of his righteousness and love in all their moral glories, is a centre ever-luminous, glowing, and expanding, whence the eye of their faith can- not be very long averted, and which casts its rays even upon objects otherwise suited to repel that eye, yet thus serving to guide back its glance towards the light by which their own gloom or barrenness or asperity are relieved.
Would we then read the Scriptures with more benefit and satisfaction ? We must seek, not so much, more learning, or more commentators, (al- though these are valuable in their place,) but, by earnest prayer and humble vigilance, an increase of faith, hope, and love, towards the great scheme of gospel truth ; the grand remedy of guilt and un- happiness and ruin ; for we may expect, in propor- tion as these graces are awake or dormant, cherish- ed or declining, to find scriptural reading a source of encouragement and comfort, or a source of
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disappointment and distress. I do not know that the difference which it has been thus attempted to point out admits of comparison with any contrasts in the actual scenes of nature, or in the incidents of secular life : but perhaps a slight apologue in the eastern taste, where fiction is blended with some scenery that nature offers, may contribute not unpleasantly to its illustration.
In a century long " before the flood," and in regions bordering on Euphrates, the youth Idoriel had learned by tradition from his pious ancestors the existence of a mystic cavern, through which he was assured that he might arrive at scenes explored but rarely since the Fall : even at that paradise which Adam forfeited. His dying father had solemnly urged him to become a pilgrim thither ; warning him, indeed, of the doubtful and rugged way, of the darkness and difficulty which might at- tend his entrance, and perhaps long impede his pro- gress ; yet still repeating — Go, my son ; enter and persevere. Light will spring up in darkness. Though Eden be tenantless and its groves lie waste, and the cherubim have resigned their needless watch, yet go ; for the very air of that once blessed garden, the murmur of its waters, and the odour of its silent woods, will prefigure to thee that better country to which the promised Deliverer of our ruined race will at last exalt the purified. — Idoriel heard with tears, and when he had committed to the tomb his parent's
VI. IN REVEALED TRUTH. 123
revered remains, and the sun of that funereal day was setting, he earnestly asked himself — Can I de- fer the pilgrimage which such a father has enjoin- ed 1 The youth rose before the following dawn, girded himself, and providing a small store of sim- ple viands, journeyed towards the entrance of the cave. It was situate, as he had been told by the departed, at the end of a sequestered ravine in the mountains ; and concealed by the projection of a low-browed rock. When he had pressed through the thorny gorge of the defile, and was stooping to explore the cavern's mouth, he heard laughter far above him. This came from the cell of a hermit- astronomer on one of the cliffs which towered round the pass, who, though dwelling so near the mystic cave, had not approached it, and would have sneer- ed in utter contempt at its reputed wonders. A warrior and a hunter from " the land of Havilah" were visiting this sage, who laughed scornfully to see a goodly youth below, creeping through bushes, and groping among the stones of the brook. They bade him leave wild berries for children, and come with them to chase the lion and leopard. But he heeded them not, and having at length discovered a low and narrow opening, which the rocks and trees had hidden, he proceeded with difficulty, al- ways stooping, frequently kneeling, and sometimes even prostrate, into the interior of the cavern. After this was gained he found no want of space, though he was compelled to bend low ever and M 2
124 DIFFICULTIES OCCURRING VI.
anon as he advanced. The cave expanded on his view ; while only a glimmering yet unearthly light pervaded it, and the small torch which he had brought with him burned dimly amidst its vapours. Vast stalactites hung from the roof, and seemed to carry back the date of this excavation towards the creation of the world, and of that paradise to which he hoped it would conduct him. At intervals the images of shepherds, priests, and kings, of sacrificial rites and holy symbols, were sculptured in colossal forms upon the rocky walls. All along beside his path there was a deep abyss, on which the vapours hung densely, and which his eye essayed in vain to pierce. At times the scene grew not only rude but dreary, — a sort of subterranean desert ; at other times sharp points unexpectedly wounded his feet : now and then also some hideous shapes issuing from the vapour motioned him to retire ; and the toi'ch at times so feebly dispelled that darkness, that his heart began to sink and his patience to falter. — Alas ! (he exclaimed,) perhaps my good and sim- ple-hearted father was deluded. He thought he had attained by this path to a view of paradise, but I fear he must have erred. He may have seen amidst its chaos of clouds some imaginary semblance of those happy gardens ; but this cave seems likely to be one which demons excavated, and where the sons of the giants have graven historic legends. It is ancient and magnificent, but I am weary of its ob- scurity, its beetling roofs, and rough, uncouth wind-
VI. IN REVEALED TRUTH. 125
ings ; I will go back to the fair valley of Euphrates, and dream of no paradise beside. And yet my be- loved father foretold these discouragements and hiii- derances, and admonished me nevertheless to per- severe. But then they are so great, so many, so continued, so wearisome. — He was turning to re- trace his steps ; when a white-robed figure gliding from behind a crag, thus chid the youth's irresolu- tion and revived his zeal. — Idoriel, son of Sethos, forsake not thy father's steps, despise not thy father's counsels. Follow on, and thou shalt know. Stoop yet again, even as a little child ; for this stage of thy pilgrimage demands it : bend in lowliness ; look intently for the light beyond thee ; invoke Adonai with fervour, and he shall give thee light. — The genius spoke and disappeared. Idoriel, amazed yet animated, resumed his purpose ; bent low to follow onward ; called more reverently on the God of his father, and looked intently towards the light be- yond. Nor was it in vain. For as the cavern's roof now rose again into loftiness, the volumes of mist above him seemed suddenly unrolled, and be- yond him a crescent meteor, like the new moon in miniature, but of a ruby light, shot its lustre through all the vault ; and unlike the moon, diffused a cheering v/armth. Idoriel's eye brightened and his heart beat quick. He looked around, and all the rough places and recesses of the cavern were tinged with living rays. The crags, indeed, had not lost their ruggedness, nor the sands their tedious flatness, M 3
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nor the abyss its precipitous and murky depth shaded by rolling vapours ; but the new illumination cast upon all these, now showed the pilgrim fully what he had before been ignorant of, that the cavern abounded with inestimable treasures. He had found, indeed, previously, here and there a gem, which the light of his own feeble torch detected, and which seemed beautiful and precious. But now each height and each recess disclosed them. The purest native gold was in the veins of many rocks ; " the pre- cious onyx and the sapphire " gleamed on every side ; and sometimes where that ruddy light fell full upon them, they became as " stones of fire." On the face of the blankest and most frowning rock, there sometimes shone an invaluable jewel; and some lay sparkling at his feet in the dry and sandy passages that intervened. Even from the clefts of the abyss which he despaired to fathom, these untold riches glistened, and seemed to relieve its terrors. He saw, too, that at least each principal and distinguished gem, as he gazed on it, grew brighter, and threw back, as if by magic, the very image and reflection of the crescent star. — In sooth, (exclaimed Idoriel,) though my progress through this ancient cavern has been sometimes dark and sad, and wearisome and intricate, yet is it full of countless riches and of grow- ing wonders. This glorious and guiding star be- speaks the presence of Adonai ; and the gems which it discloses seem to befit and indicate the approach to " Eden, the garden of God." In that region, as
VI. IN REVEALED TRUTH. 127
our seers and poets have assured us, were found not only the delicious luxuriance of flowers and fruits, but also mineral treasures in abundance. "The gold of that land was good." There was the sap- phire " and the onyx stone ;" and our first parents, yet blessed with guileless innocence, walked often when the sun had set, with friendly cherubim " in the midst of those stones of fire," which shone like glow-worms in the moonlight that revealed them. This cave, with all its discouragements, yet seems likely and worthy to be an avenue to that forfeited abode. — Idoriel's fancy was kindled, and his affec- tions were " stirred within him." He thought of his departed father ; he shed tears both of grief and joy ; and while, even through tears of sorrow, his eye was on the star of promise and his heart up- raised to God, he still advanced in hope and " went on his way rejoicing." But ere long he grew re- miss in the devout and the observant spirit which that good genius had enjoined. He now forgot to pray, and now was weary : he ceased to look to- wards the ruby light beyond him, because he had encountered a stone of stumbling ; or some rock of off'ence had bruised him even" through his sandals. Whenever these changes in temper and practice oc- curred, there ensued effects the most discouraging. A chilly vapour, arising from the abyss and gradu- ally condensing, involved him in its damp and dis- heartening cloud, hiding at once the crescent and all the treasures which it had made so visible and
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splendid. Little more than the first glimmering light remained : it sufficed, indeed, together with his taper, to discover the rudeness, the depths, and the windings, but it was attended by no warmth, and it revealed no brilliants. He might grope for a gem as at first, but if he found it, it was pale and frosty to his eye. He began to be haunted afresh with the thought of illusion and disappointment. Yet Idoriel could not now resolve to turn back. He remembered what wonders had been shown him. He had " seen the star" and all its minute but en- during mirrors, and though he was grieved and dis- consolate at this return of " gloominess," more sad than the heaviest "morning spread upon the moun- tains," yet he dared not renounce his desire or nour- ish his despair. — At least (he cried) if there he a paradise, and if there be access to it, this must be " the way." — He mused on the admonition of the genius, and self-convicted of neglecting it, implored with a heartfelt prostration the return of that sacred and consoling; lio^ht. But it beamed not on the in- stant; it revived not speedily. Yet his white-robed monitor, half seen amidst the cloud, was heard solemnly to whisper — Though justly rebuked and chastised for thy remissness, be encouraged " always to pray, and not to faint," always to " watch," and not despond. — Cheered by these words, the sorrow- ful Idoriel feebly persevered. With what grateful rapture did he find, after patient waiting, the cloud begin to be dissipated, and the long-concealed star
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appearing again beyond him ! not waning or more remote, but become a broader crescent, and of still more ruddy beam.
Thus he grew bitterly and joyfully acquainted with the secrets and marvels of the cave, and though " folly was bound up in his heart," he better knew its remedy. When mists began to flit before him, and the cold cloud to rest on him, he felt the warn- ing penalty, and sought to resume a more devout and earnest watch. And still at every point where he actually did this, the star reappearing grew to- wards a full-orbed radiance, and the gems around his path became more numerous and refulgent. At length the adventurer grew feeble with continued effort, and lay down to rest, like the patriarch long after at Bethel, with stones for his pillow ; weary, yet happy ; for he felt as if paradise were near. It was a deep sleep which had come upon him ; but in that slumber he was borne by the genius round a jutting rock which almost closed the exit of the cave, and woke reclinino; under the olitterino; arch of egress, where the fragrant groves of Eden lay spread beneath, and the sound of many waters echoed round him ; and the lively vision of a new Eden never to be forfeited, and of a second Adam, the Adonai from heaven, the glorious ransomer and re- storer of the wretched, was poured into Idoriel's heart.
I hope that to this slight allegory, when taken in connexion with the thoughts that precede it, no key
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can be found needful. But it is usual to subjoin the moral to the fable : and it may be well, even at the risk of tautology, that we rapidly review the purposed lesson. A tender reverence for parental example and injunction is among those means which Providence frequently and graciously appoints, to prompt the mind to a serious study of God's word. But, whatever the immediate persuasive, whether this filial love and veneration — or personal distress, or spiritual conviction, or speculative anxiety — those, who, having learned any thing of the spirit of the world, begin really to '^ search the Scriptures," cannot but feel, how entirely that potent and deri- sive spirit is against them ; how science and levity, pride and secularity and frivolousness, would all conspire in sarcasm at the tempers which the search must intimate. Yet often, in retirement from the notice of those scorners, and sometimes openly, in despite of them, from a just feeling how little they can claim to be patterns or arbiters of moral wisdom — this study is engaged in and pursued. Whenever it is so, the subjects to which the Scriptures relate are perceived to be vast and profound. Dark ques- tions of history and philosophy suggest themselves, and the great spiritual and theological secrets which no human mind can fathom, environ us on all sides. In some parts we are surprised by what seems irk- some and unimportant. In others weighty and painful difficulties repel and wound us. The feeble liorhts of our reason and our information cannot
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half dispel these obscurities, and we are tempted at times impatiently or despondently to ask our- selves— Can a volume, which so perpetually excites my doubts, and baffles alike my capacit}' and my research, be verily the holy word of God ; given as my only guide and way to heavenly wisdom and life eternal? Such, doubtless, is the unacknow- ledged and afflictive feeling of many an inquirer's mind. But let the great Inspirer of that holy word give a new prominence to its most affecting truths, or rather soften and prepare the mind to receive deeply their designed and natural impression — let Him " shine within the heart to give the light of the knowledge of his glory " (as it is unveiled by this volume) "in the face of Jesus Christ," and then at once are the aspect and estimate of the whole book essentially and benignly altered. Difficulties in- deed remain ; many of them perplexing, some im- portant, some inscrutable. But not a few are un- ravelled ; while others are illustrated, and all, in a measure, relieved, by those strong and glowing beams of Divine holiness and loving-kindness which are now thrown upon the whole. By the ever-cres- cent light and warmth of that forgiving Love which is felt to be the very essence of the revelation, are all its parts now examined and interpreted, or, where not to be interpreted, submissively yet hope- fully postponed. The appalling sins and miseries of man, and the terrific judgments from his Maker, which this book so explicitly and awfully records,
132 DIFFICULTIES OCCURRING VI.
are vindicated, as far as they can be, probably, to our present narrow faculties, from the dreadful mystery which involves them, by a view of the still greater remedial mystery of salvation. A multitude of precious truths, unequally interspersed, but won- derfully harmonizing — admonitory, consoling, pro- missory, predictive — are now discerned and valued, as reflecting, in their several modes and degrees, the one great light of the Divine perfection. In this temper of heart, that is, with a strong appre- hension and earnest '* acceptation " of " the glad tidings of great joy," the Scriptures, notwithstanding their unremoved difficulties, will assuredly be held fast as "the gift of God," the " word of life," the charter for eternity. But when this sentiment be- comes deadened or suspended — when, from remiss- ness in prayer, or an un watchful, unbelieving dis- position, we cease to contemplate with grateful tenderness those cardinal doctrines, and think coldly of the attributes displayed in God's own way of dis- pensing pardon, life, and felicity — then, while our hope grows faint, our doubts are strengthened and multiplied. We turn to dwell almost exclusively on what is distasteful or unsearchable, and every such difficulty acquires tenfold force.
The great antidote for such a state must be *' watching unto prayer ; " together with renewed though humble efforts to realize the deep necessity and unequalled worth of those same doctrines. Yet these best of means, in that languid and poor way
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of using them with which some of us are charge- able, may not at once, or even speedily, remove such feelings. If, however, they are sincerely and perseveringly resorted to, we may confidently hope they shall do so at length. " Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light ? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay himself upon his God." " The glorious gospel of Christ," when it shines again with new power in the heart, shall be yet more glorious and more wel- come. Our recent folly and unfaithfulness and pain shall have given us new reasons to prize it ; and difficulties shall be still more cast into shade by the blessed discovery. Let us press through these al- ternations ; which — by our own fault, or perhaps by the secret counsel and appointment of Him who de- signs to " humble and to prove" us — may yet be many. But ^' he that endureth to the end shall be saved ; " saved by those Divine and immutable methods which he too often failed to appreciate and rejoice in. And when, in the " deep sleep" of death, the Christian bids farewell to God's written revela- tion, then shall the immediate and unclouded light of Divine perfection burst upon him, and he shall be transported " to know, even as also he is known."
Meanwhile, though the complete Bible, if we hold it to be in all its parts a published revelation, should be as much accessible to all as the prospect of the earth and skies, yet it by no means follows
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that each portion of this collection of Scriptures ought to engage equally the attention of every read- er, or that of any one reader in an equal degree. If revealed truth contain, to adopt a well-known figure, " fords where the lamb may wade, and depths where the elephant must swim," the feebler is not called to venture daily where the flood may overflow or weary it. Had our pilgrim of the cavern, when new mists and darkness occurred, not selected that path where was most light and least obstruction, he would have been still more disheartened and bewil- dered. Had he thrust himself far into " the clefts of the rugged rocks," the guiding star might have been at any moment hid. And this seems one rea- son why the habit of biblical criticism is sometimes found to have lowered faith and lessened spiritual- ity ; because while the " things hard to be under- stood " are so much and sedulously investigated, the great things of God, the truths which " bedew, embalm, and overrun the heart," * are too little im- bibed.
He who is exploring the strata of a deep chasm, or searching a mine for subterraneous fossils, is no doubt investigating (and, it may be, very commend- ably) " the wonderful works of God ;" but if these be his habitual preferences and pursuits, he will sel- dom gather health and animation amidst the breezes and sunshine of the mountain landscape. He who
* Herbert, in the beautiful piece entitled " The Glance."
VI. IN REVEALED TRUTH. 135
is Studying with Selden the detail and principles of the Mosaic code, or with Lowth the structure of Hebrew poetry, is doubtless well occupied in exam- ining those Scriptures which are given *' by inspir- ation of God ; " but he must beware lest, while oc- cupied by the laws of sacrifice or the laws of metre, he should be too little conversant with that redemp- tion of which the Mosaic expiations were a tempo- rary shadow, and which the lyre of Isaiah could but prelude. To the weaker or more susceptible Christian I would say — Neglect no part of Scrip- ture wholly ; still less adopt selections unfaithful to your highest interests. But do not study most those parts which profit you the least, which are, in your experience, most difficult, and therefore some- times, at least, will be unfit for you. Do not enter on the visions of Ezekiel or Zechariah, the conquests of Joshua, or the wars of David, at a season when Peter's Epistles or John's Gospel, or devotional por- tions of the Psalms and Prophets, are better adapt- ed to your perusal. Some modern writers appear to intimate, that the study of every part of Scripture is to all persons equally a duty. But this is as if a shepherd, having a large and varied district for his flocks, should urge the weary and weak, in regular circuit, across torrents and up rugged paths, to pick the " herbs of the mountains," instead of encour- aging them to feed oftenest " in green pastures be- side the still waters."
I will only recall, in conclusion, the leading N 2
136 DIFFICULTIES 1^ REVEALED TRUTH. VI.
thought which has been enforced. Let us earnestly and hopefully seek an increase of faith and love : a more unintermitted and affectionate adherence to the most invaluable truths ; those which must be above all price, whenever sin is felt to be perilous and death imminent, and a full salvation from both the only glorious hope : which, therefore, when con- templated with steadfastness and fervour, will dispel much of the surrounding obscurity, and reconcile us to the rest.
VIT.
ON THE DESPONDENCY ARISING FROM A SENSE OF GREAT AND MULTIPLIED SINFULNESS; ESPECI- ALLY AS AGGRAVATED BY A PROFESSED RECEP- TION OF THE GOSPEL.
It happens with prescriptions for spiritual griefs and distresses, as with those for latent bodily dis- orders ; the medicines may be most valuable and efl&cacious in themselves, yet may frequently fail to reach our particular case. If we adduce to you (for example) St. Paul's noble proclamation of his Saviour's mercy, and solemn avowal of his own ex- treme need of it — "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.'' — you will probably say — Yes, but the apostle referred to sins before his conversion, and these, heinous as they were, I can readily conceive "blotted out" by an act of sovereign grace. It is true that, for my own offences, even of a parallel period, N 3
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(although of less " injurious " character and mag- nitude than his,) I can find less of extenuation ; inasmuch as I cannot forget the tender Christian instructions, and the keenly luminous rebukes of conscience, in despite of which they were fostered : nor, altogether, the inward malignity of those tem- pers, the hidden turpitude of those passions and imaginings, which they involved. I dwelt in that "world of iniquity" and traversed its recesses, while others could but observe it transiently and distantly as among "wandering stars;" so far, moreover, from saying with Paul that " I thought I did God service," 1 must confess, that knowing my- self a rebel, I " revolted more and more." And yet — with this afflictive distinction from his case, this darker, stronger title to the motto, " of whom I am chief," — I could still confidently indulge the hope that a pardoning God had " cast all those sins into the depths of the sea," had He but likewise " subdued my iniquities ; " were there proof as in- disputable as in the instance of Paul, of my being indeed " a new creature." But although, in desire and profession, 1 have long resorted to the refuge of the penitent ; although in purpose I have abjured iniquity, and have sought to present myself " a living sacrifice" to God, still so great and numerous have been my " secret faults," so fearful at many times the strength and mastery of "presumptuous sins," so far and often am I brought " into captivity to the law of sin and death," that I know not how
VII. FROM SINFULNESS. 139
to hope my renovation has been genuine. I trem- ble lest offences subsequent to so many prayers and vows on my part, to so much long-suffering kind- ness on the part of the Most Holy, should in all their hundred-fold ingratitude and baseness remain uncancelled, and consign me at last to woes intense- ly sharpened by the thought, that I was so long " almost a Christian," — " not far from the kingdom of God."
Yet it is not, I think, usually among such as have to acknowledge bold and unrestrained transgressions in former life, that we may expect the most anxious interest in our present subject ; for those who once gave unchecked indulgence to corrupt desires and irreligious habits, can hardly fail to recognise so much of practical change attendant on their Chris- tian profession, as to indicate at least some great re- volution of principle and feeling ; and, whatever be the power, or even incidental dominance, of a sin- fulness which they deplore, they must yet often re- vert to that prior change, with a degree of hope that it was truly " from above."
But you, it may be, have another kind of path and memoir to retrace. Your course has differed exceedingly from that of Paul or Augustine, of Bunyan or of John Newton ; you were not only brought up (like some of them) " in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," but you never (like them) scorned that admonition, nor overtly and daringly " turned from the holy commandment : "
140 DESPONDENCY ARISING VII.
you maintained from earliest years an unbroken outward respect, with a measure likewise of inward veneration, for the appointments and promises of re- ligion ; and though secret sins insnared and often fearfully enthralled you, yet were you not permitted at any time long to yield yourself their unresisting prey. Now from this state — when your feeling of the perilous evil of sin became more acute and poignant, and your sense of the value of the gospel remedy more deep and cogent — a most real and vital transition might take place, to the reception of God's mercy through an atoning Saviour ; and yet this transition be, even in your own view, compara- tively unmarked and slight. You had passed, as it were, into what was deemed the path of evangelic light and warmth, not from a dark and icy zone of indifference and hardness, but from some nearer and more dubious track. This it is which augments your doubt. You seemed, and still seem, to have been previously sailing, or drifting, however slowly and unsteadily and heartlessly, in almost the same course : for the climate, and the vessels in company, were not very dissimilar. — You question besides if you are indeed within the tropic line, because in- stead of those gentle and uniform gales which should there impel you heavenward, you encounter mists and calms and tempests, and often find the wind more boisterous and more contrary than before you were professedly steering towards the land of rest. But there is something in your case still more
VII. FROM SINFULNESS. 141
peculiar. Not only do you contrast, like other watchful self-examiners, the opinion of human wit- nesses with your secret knowledge of evils in your Qwn heart — and viewing these with the eye of in- terior consciousness, through the detecting micro- scope of God's holy law, find their multitude and deformity and restless force appalling — but you feel the just demand of your special privileges and ex- emptions. You were never imbued in childhood by intimate connexions, with prejudices against re- vealed truth . You saw and felt even then the mo- mentous grandeur of " the things eternal." Pro- vidential restraints have surrounded you. You are aware that bodily and mental temperament have ever contributed to deter you from flagrant trans- gression. And when, amidst these thoughts, you revolve your own unpublished annals, you perceive with dread how much more culpable each offence, of thought, word, and deed, must be in your case, than the gross outward sins of some who were not a thousandth part so enlightened or exempted or favoured. But above all, as you have advanced through successive years in a Christian profession, and have experienced, amidst so many relapses, the forbearance of your God, and yet — with these un- numbered debts and bonds of gratitude accumu- lating still, with life hastening to its period, with the great work of sanctification more and still more urgent, with the confirmed opinion of others that your heart must, long ere now, be " established with
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grace " — have found irresolution and corruption still prevailing against your principles and hopes — then has the gloomiest and most afflictive of all fears in- vaded and oppressed you, the fear that you are not in reality " transformed hy the renewing of the mind." You have awfully felt, perhaps, what one of our most original writers has thus forcibly stated, that the same sin " committed at sixteen, is not the same (though it agree in all other circumstances) at forty ; but swells and doubles from the circum- stance of our ages ; wherein besides the constant and inexcusable habit of transgressing, it hath the maturity of our judgment to cut off pretence unto excuse or pardon :" that " every sin, the more it is committed, the more it acquireth in the quality of evil ; as it succeeds in times, so it proceeds into de- grees of badness ; for as they proceed they ever mul- tiply ; and, like figures in arithmetic, the last stands for more than all that went before it."* Or (to ex- press more accurately what seems to be this author's allusion) you shudder to think that each new re- petition of the same sin is like a notation of units from the right of the page ; where each figure added on the left, though it be only a unit like the former, yet stands for a multiple of the last preceding. — Alas, (both you and I must say,) how fearful yet how true a reckoning ! how dreadful a " progres- sion !" How overwhelming and self-multiplying a
* Sir T. Browne, Rel. Med. pp. 100, 101. Ed. 1642.
VII. FROM SINFULNESS. 143
burden of offences ! — And my path (you will add) has been always full of light : I have been gently drawn, by various attractions, and by distinguished instruments, towards the way of peace ; Divine Providence has favoured me at once by restraints and incitements : — yet, while the world and the church may have seen little to condemn, I have been consciously " a backslider in heart," and been "filled with my own way." Worse than all, when a gracious God has seemed to " restore " me, and to lead me " for his name's sake " in " paths of right- eousness " anew, and the most affecting motives to watchfulness have multiplied while reviewing the pangs of past transgression, and the mercies which allayed them — still, after all this, have I been again and yet again unfaithful, and " a deceived heart hath turned me aside." The spiritual languor, the want of peace and joy, the strong temptations to utter unbelief under which I labour, seem to be the bitter fruits of all this reiterated ungrateful incon- stancy : and often does my heart interpret them as the too probable omens of that awful rejection which I may at last experience, when the faithful followers of their Lord shall be received " into everlasting habitations." For if so many and long-continued petitions and desires have not yet availed to pro- cure me " an overcoming faith" and a constraining love; if I have "come short " of true conversion through all these years of specious profession, but
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feeble conflict, and languid though frequent waiting upon God ; what hope can I possess, that, now or hereafter, with susceptibilities blunted by being long conversant with ineffective truth, I shall attain " a new heart and a right spirit," and feel efHciently and joyfully " the powers of the world to come ! "
We must ask, in reply to these dark fears and distressing presages, — What right have you to con- clude, that there has been and is no saving efficacy of Divine grace upon your mind, on account of the unceasing conflicts of a corrupt and degenerate na- ture? Or, rather, are you not unmindful of the anti-scriptural and presumptuous views which such a conclusion would imply ? By your own acknow- ledgment, you have offered up many and continued supplications ; and the deepest desire of your heart, though doubtless often interrupted and always con- tended with, has been and still is to attain real com- munion with God and freedom from iniquity. To what then do you ascribe this desire, and all the prayers, confessions, and endeavours, however great their imperfection and defilement, which it still has prompted ? You know that one of the earliest Di- vine declarations revealed in Scripture was this — "The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth ;" * and we are previously told " God saw that the wickedness of man was great " — " and that
* Gen. viii. 21.
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every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." ^'^ You remember that a prophet, many ages after, solemnly affirmed, in the midst of the only people who possessed a pure faith and worship, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked ; " you have read the more recent declaration of Him who " knew what was in man" — " From within, out of the heart of man, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, mur- ders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lascivi- ousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within." f
Can you then attribute your secret prayers, and unfeigned desires, and even feeblest efforts for holi- ness and obedience, to your own unassisted nature and will, — without consequences from which you would utterly recoil ? — without implying, that " that which is born of the flesh" is not "flesh," — that "every good and perfect gift " does not specially come down "from the Father of lights;" — that " the natural man " can discern " the things of the Spirit," perceive their excellency, and go on to seek them ; — without, in short, abundantly falsifying the word of God ?
We are not apt to consider how much pride and unbelief there may be in denying, although it be with a temper of self-abasement and " voluntary hu- mility," that it is God who worketh in us " to wdll
* Gen. vi. 5. . f Mark vii. 21—23.
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and to do;" that He also hath "wrought all our works in us ; " that we have nothing which we have " not received." The conviction ought to be more deeply impressed on us, that not only is it presump- tuous, and in some sense blasphemous, to question the power or willingness of Jehovah to forgive and renew us, if still unforgiven and unrenewed ; but that it also approaches, more than we are aware, to a self-righteous blasphemy and contradiction of God's word, if we say — I have indeed often prayed with sincerity, and (amidst unspeakable frailty and depravity) hungered and thirsted after righteous- ness ; I have soiiglit to lay hold of the gospel re- fuge, and to walk worthy of that high vocation ; but all this has been my own impulse and my own work, and not the operation of the Holy Spirit.* Yet this is what you virtually assume and affirm when you despond of your spiritual condition, and refuse to number yourself among those who are partakers of Divine grace. How does such a view of your state answer the apostle's question, " Who hath made thee to differ — and what hast thou that thou hast not re- ceived?" It answers by implication, though un- consciously, thus : — I have made myself to differ ; or mere circumstances have made me to differ. 1 have spiritual desires, and an anxiety for perfection, for obeying the will of God and benefiting others ; yet I have not received them specially fi'om Him ; they
* See Note C, already referred to at p. 50.
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are natural or accidental, or arise from the force of habits and associations. — "Many" (writes an old divine) " out of a dangerous error, think that the good which is in them and issueth from them, is from themselves, and not from the powerful work of grace." * When the matter is placed in this light, (and I see no reason for doubting its fairness,) a sincere and humble mind, which reveres the testi- mony of Scripture, which shrinks from false and arrogant pretensions, and would shudder at the thought of robbing the Almighty of the glory due unto his name, will, if I mistake not, be powerfully and solemnly restrained from denying, (even by implication, or apparently,) that where " a good work" appears to have commenced and to exist in the soul, it is " He vrhich hath begun" it ; f that it is a work "not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." % I would have you to be reduced and " shut up" (as it were) " unto the faith" of these revealed truths, on pain of the conviction, or at least suspicion, that you virtually discard them ; in assuming to yourself what the Scripture ascribes to the Eternal Spirit. And if this impres- sion be produced, it will conduce at once to hope and humiliation ; for it is certain that the latter sen- timent cannot be wanting, to mingle with your comfort and enhance your gratitude : since if you feel, as I trust you may be thus compelled to feel,
* Sibbes. f Phil. i. 6. + John i. 13.
o 2
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that it is still your duty to address the throne of mercy in the character of a child, you must needs go as a faithless and wandering, though returning child; "not worthy to be called" a son. You will be ready to preface your requests with the con- fession—
" I that have most ungrateful been
Of all that e'er thy grace received, Ten thousand times thy goodness seen,
Ten thousand times thy mercy grieved," —
And the ground of your hope, in this filial, yet un- filial character, will, in itself, be no other (though it may perhaps be stronger) than would be the ground of your hope as a convinced but unreconciled sinner, if you still, notwithstanding the thoughts now offered, should distressingly conclude or ap- prehend that you have never attained the adoption of " the children of God." For I am not uncon- scious that these arguments may not avail with you (nay, it is possible that with some readers they ought not to avail) in establishing the persuasion that your profession has been genuine ; founded in a true conversion of the heart begun. It would indeed be clearly presumptuous in those whom I address, (those who in principle are humble and sincere,) to decide that it has 7iot ; but I can im- agine cases among them where it will be still felt presumptuous also to determine that it has. Whichever, therefore, in the interior scrutiny of conscience, accompanied with prayer for heavenly
VII. FKOM SINFULNESS. 149
light, be at any time your decision, — whether you conclude, I have been hitherto but a " borderer," often close beside " the narrow way," but never really on it ; or whether — I have indeed been led into that path, but have treacherously and perpetu- ally declined and wandered from it, and when brought back have yet again gone wretchedly astray ; or whether you cannot ascertain which is the fact, and must cast yourself at last on the omniscient mercy of your Judge, saying, like the prophet, " O Lord God, thou knowest : " — still, let me repeat, the basis of your hope is one and invariable in it- self; and if you will humbly rest on it — prostrate, but prostrate before the mercy-seat — it is ample and immovable for you. Whichever you deem to be the worse and less hopeful supposition, — for this will depend partly on the kind of theology you have im- bibed, and partly on the turn of personal feeling, — we address ourselves to that worse and more pain- ful supposition, and would apply to it that one balm of hope which the wounds of conscience call for, which the expiations of heathenism proposed to furnish, but which neither false religion nor philosophy could yield ; which the Bible alone discovers and pre- sents, when it declares the exhaustless placability and evinces the infinite loving-kindnesses of the Holy and Just God. It is indeed fully admitted and deeply felt, that this very attribute of Divine mercy, so graciously revealed to us in many forms of promise, and in one unparalleled exhibition and o 3
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act, does itself awfully augment our guilt ; that the very resort and recurrence to it shows us also with a more and more terrific clearness, against what a " God and Father " we have knowingly transgress- ed ; that in one sense, therefore, it may seem to render hope or assurance more difficult to attain or to recover.
But while the greatness of this mercy convicts and abases, still must its victorious infinitude reas- sure and console. The doctrine of redundant and illimitable pardons, constitutes the glory and seals the Divinity of the " glad tidings ; " of that gospel, which the Irish version of Scripture (we are told) emphatically entitles — " The story of peace." It did so even to believers of patriarchal times ; much more " in these last days " when " God hath spoken by his Son," — when the " story of peace," the doc- trine of boundless pardon, is more fully developed, and still more strongly ratified. That doctrine pours into the mind, if strengthened to receive it with cordial and animated faith, a beam at once convicting, purifying, and healing ; which while it enlightens each secret " chamber of imagery," pierces also and scatters each defilement, and ef- faces each record of condemnation there ; bringing out more visibly, but to cancel as potently, the stains of guilt and the sentences of ruin ; shining in the heart to display the dreadful strength and complex- ity of its self-riveted chains, and to melt them in the glow and splendour of a Divine redemption : —
VII. FROM SINFULNESS. 151
which says, what no priest or hecatomb, no sage or disputant, can say with efficiency to the wounded spirit, " Return unto Jehovah, for He will have mercy, and to our God, for he will multiply par- don." * What less than this could meet your anx- iety and fear 1 What more than this, except by facts more forcible than words, to which I must presently advert, could Infinite Mercy say to dissi- pate them ? Without this promise of reiterated pardons, this boundless store of " mercies and for- givenesses," what personal trust or joy could the gospel of Christ inspire in you or in me ? If we could not hear this proclamation still renewed, as from the Saviour's lips, as from the Redeemer's cross — He will multiply, and multiply, and still multiply, his pardons — in vain for us would be the song of seraphs, " Peace on earth, good-will towards men." If the good-will were bounded, what fully awakened transgressor would not say and feel — Alas! " it extendeth not " to me. If we could sup- pose the Divine forgiveness offered but a hundred or a thousand times, how many a Christian would be unhappily conscious — Oh, I have forfeited it ten thousand times, and how shall it avail for 77ie ? — and if we should conceive of it as secretly limited, though without an assigned or discoverable limit, how would prevailing fear suggest — That unknown
* See Hebr. Isa. Iv. 7, and comp. Psa. li. 1, 2. The marginal Latin of those passages, in the version of Junius, is, " multiplicat condonando " " multiplica abluere !"
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boundary is passed by me ! And yet this very pro- cess, of suppositions alike gloomy and unwarranted by Scripture, takes place in the desponding mind. While we may admit in theory that God's revealed mercies in Christ, his power and will to forgive, are, like his other attributes, infinite, there is a latent temper and habit of distrust, which practically sets bounds to them. It is this limitation of" the High and Holy One," which seems to hold back not a few convinced offenders from the throne of grace, and many mourning believers, if not from the precincts of that throne, at least from reviving hope and from recovered peace.
Would we triumph over this unhappiness, and, I may add, over this kind of unbelief and sin, — then whatever be our views or apprehensions concerning our spiritual state, we are bound to meditate intent- ly on those scriptural arguments which will demon- strate that it cannot be a condition destitute of hope ; which will show the truth and force of that Divine declaration, made in immediate connexion with the promise of multiplied pardon; " My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord : for as the heavens are high above the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts :" thus forci- bly enjoining a belief, that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ will, in an extent very far beyond our reckonings or conception, " multiply " his pardons. I may, indeed, before adducing some of those scrip-
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tural arguments, here premise, that if there be Di- vine forgiveness at all, it must needs be thus. For, from our inevitable forgetful ness, as creatures, of a past multitude of sins, and also from our incapacity, as sinners, even could we recall the details and ag- gravations of them all, to sum up the complex pro- duct,*— to judge how opposed they are to perfect holiness, and how obnoxious to unswerving justice, — we cannot know the greatness and the multitude of the pardons requisite for us. Still less can we estimate or comprehend any infinite attribute ; least of all the attribute of mercy, "his beloved, his triumphant attribute ; an attribute, if it were pos- sible, something more than infinite, for even his jus- tice is so, and his mercy transcends that."f As well therefore might " the heavens cease to be un- measurably high above the earth," as our minds be able to compute or fathom those "forgivenesses" which may and will, by Him who possesses infinite mercy, be dispensed.
But we shall find that Scripture supplies still more affecting and important arguments. First let me inquire — Has not God himself in the latest and fullest revelation of his will, most strongly incul- cated on us the exercise of unlimited forgiveness to- wards each other ? What duty was so frequently and diversely enforced by our Saviour as this — which was embodied in his pattern of prayer, urged
* See the citation from Sir T. Browne, p. 142 above, t South. Serm. onProv. iii. 17. Works, vol. i. p. 21. Edit. 1704.
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as a direct precept, stated as an indispensable imi- tation of a Divine perfection, and exemplified by his own petition uttered on the cross? Besides all these modes of enforcement, a singular question of Peter ^ seems to have been ordained, or graciously overruled, to procure for the church, in his Lord's answer, an assurance not to be evaded, that this duty knows no limit ; that if we would aim to be " merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful," (which is solemnly pronounced essential to our own forgivenesSjt) we must be ever " ready to for- give." It is true, the parable which follows and illustrates that answer, hints, in the contrast of the hundred pence and the ten thousand talents, at the inevitably boundless disproportion between our ut- most mercies, and a small part of the compassions of our God. But from this very contrast, from the arguments and example by which the duty is en- forced, from the diversified injunction of it, and the special prominence assigned it as a grace, we are surely compelled to draw the happiest inference. For if it be strictly indispensable to the character of a good man, that he be always, and without limit- ation, "ready to forgive," — if the "followers of God as dear children," have strongly evinced that readiness, — as did Stephen, " a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost ^^ when amidst the storm of deadly assault, he cried, " Lord, lay not this sin to their
* Matt, xviii. 21, 22 ; and comp. Luke xvii. 4. t Matt. vi. 14, 15, and xviii. 35.
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charge," — if this was itself but an imitation of Him who in his human character was the " image of God " and of Divine virtues, and one of whose latest acts was to intercede for his murderers, — and if we believe his word, that " none is good " (originally) " save one, that is, God," — if, also, we are enjoined to be *' followers of God," — invited, and promised, and declared to be " renewed after the image of Him that created" us, commanded to be '^ merciful as He is merciful," and " perfect as He is perfect," — then would it not be blasphemous to imagine that this same excellence or grace, this gift " of his own," this fruit of his Spirit, so enjoined on the children of God, and partially exemplified by them, is less than supereminent and infinite (proportion- ably to his transcendent essence) in God himself ? — If we, being " evil," are taught and commanded ever to forgive, and if even fallen creatures, under the teaching of God's grace, have learned in some good degree this heavenly lesson, — is the One great Teacher and Exemplar to fall beneath them, by being less than infinite in any exercise of moral glory? " God requires of us" (writes Dr. Owen) " the forgiveness of others without bounds. This grace he bestows upon his saints, and manifests that he accounts it one of their most lovely and praise- v/orthy endowments. What then shall we say ? Is there forgiveness with Him or not ? He that plant- ed the ear, shall He not hear ? He that prescribes and bestows this grace, doth He not possess it ?
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This were as much as to say, though we are good, yet God is not : though we are benign, yet He is not. He that finds this grace wrought in him in any measure, and yet fears that he shall not find it in God for himself, doth therein, and so far prefer himself above God." *
You may object, perhaps, to the soundness or pro- priety of such arguments, — that when we are enjoined to exercise unlimited forgiveness, it is in our private character : whereas the Divine Being must ever sustain that which is sovereign and judicial : — that they also seem to imply a sort of irreverent claim, as if the Almighty had brought himself under an ob- ligation always to forgive, by commanding us always to do so ; — and that they would even, by inference, tend to impugn the doctrine of Atonement. But let it be considered (referring first to the last part of the objection) that this great doctrine runs through the whole Scriptures, and especially through those later parts of them, whence the above argu- ments are chiefly drawn : — that it is, and can be no other than " the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," in him " reconciling the world unto Him- self," of whom we at any time speak ; — that it was the same Redeemer who himself came to remove the only bar to our forgiveness, that likewise ut- tered the declarations and injunctions cited. The fact of His infinite satisfaction to justice, is therefore
* On Psa. cxxx. p. 303, abridged.
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all along understood, and tacitly carried with us, as obviating all impediments to the exercise of in- finite mercy. Nor do we vitiate or invalidate our reasonings from that glorious attribute, by assuming and including this revealed fact ; for the atone- ment or satisfaction of Christ can neither modify nor enhance that essential character and disposition of Deity. On the contrary, it flow^s from, and is the effect of it.
We should notice, on this subject, that the Divine Being is scripturally described, (and is, I think, also necessarily conceived of by us,) as bearing to- ward us both the paternal and the sovereign rela- tion. The former is original and intimate : much more so in one respect, than that of human pater- nity, which is but instrumental, not creative : more intimate also than the relation of Deity to creatures beneath us, (though He be in some sense the " Father of all ; ") for " God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." The latter — the sovereign and judicial relation — is not of such an intimate kind ; although indissoluble, it is but of- ficial ; if I may reverently apply that term to the supreme rule.
Now it is in \}a.^ former — in the creative and pater- nal relation — that we must needs conceive the Divine Being infinitely to possess every essential perfection, every grace or excellency which He enjoins and im- parts. Even equity or justice must be in God the Creator and Father of all, as well as in God the
p
158 DESPONDENCY ARISING VII.
Judge ; much more, therefore, mercy : though, for this latter, there cannot be, m the sovereign and judicial relation, (without some special provision to prevent ill consequence,) a room or scope entirely unlimited. This, I think, reason agrees vrith Scrip- ture to teach us. We find in the awful case of man, a great obstacle to it. By free forgiveness of all transgressors, even " being penitent," without some great expiation which might indicate, " save harmless," and make still more venerable the claims of justice, — so that the gift of remission should be wholly without prejudice to these, — the order of the moral universe, and honour of its Lord, would seem unavoidably endangered. Even the heathen philo- sophers, with their imperfect views of sin, would hardly have thought it safe or fit that great offend- ers, approaching the class of Sisyphus, Tityus, or Archelaus,*' should be freely, fully, and at once for- given and blessed, on account of mere repentance. But the infinite propitiation of Christ affords a safe- guard and vindication of justice amidst the bound- less mercies of the real and eternal Judge. It takes off or annuls (if one may so speak) all official hin- derances to the free and full effusion of essential kindness ; emancipates moral perfection from its own restraints ; gives room to the infinite yearnings of God's paternal heart. And that which prompted the sacrifice, is the essential " kindness and love "
* See Plato, Gorgias Ed. Routh, pp. 294 and 155 — and Note, p. 520.
VII. FROM SINFULNESS. 159
of " God our Saviour," himself : devising first a wondrous way to remove the necessity imposed by a Divine office, and to become morally enabled to put forth in act his infinite willingness to pardon. That willingness is not produced by, but did itself origin- ate and accept the sacrifice.
In the well-known case of the Locrian lawgiver, who enacted that adulterers should be deprived of sight, and then sacrificed one of his own eyes, that his offending son might retain one, and the law be not the less honoured, it is evident that the same "quality of mercy" might have dwelt as fully and vividly in his heart, although he had held that ex- pedient not available for its end, or although it had been rejected by the judgment of others. But in "God the Judge," — " glorious in holiness," — the very existence and early disclosure of that attribute of illimitable mercy, which he also enjoins, and in part confers upon the saints, has always predicted and implied some great and^^ po^ovision for its ex- ercise, although long unexplained. Such was the position of ancient believers with regard to the atone- ment. They knew that there imist arise some new and efficacious satisfaction to justice, because Jeho- vah had proclaimed " mercy for thousands," for- giveness of " iniquity, transgression, and sin." They had typical intimations of the nature of this satis- faction. How far they could interpret or apply these aright, we know not. They tacitly assumed, how- ever, and were warranted in so doing, the removal p 2
160 DESPONDENCY ARISING VII.
of all obstacles to pardon by Him who would " abundantly pardon."
Neither must the above reasonings be viewed as if indecorously urging that the Supreme Being ought to forgive ; or that a new claim on Himself is created by His own injunctions to us. We do not even insinuate this ; (any more than that the Al- mighty ought to be just or t7'U€, because He com- mands us to be so ;) but we say that the Perfect Be- ing, who inculcates and inspires mercy, must, by a glorious necessity of nature, (since He actually has removed, as it might be confidently expected he would do, all impediment,) illimitably exercise it. Nor is it, I hope, improper to add, that were this otherwise, then Jesus in praying for his murderers — a prayer which must have included their repent- ance as well as forgiveness — would have exercised a virtue enjoined by himself as Divine, inspired also by the Eternal Spirit, but yet surpassing the reveal- ed compassion of Deity ; which suppositions would be not more profane than confused and contradic- tory. The examination, therefore, of such objections (though they are natural and of apparent weight) will, as I judge, confirm, instead of disturbing, our confidence in the boundless grace of God. But then it may be further asked — Does not the analogy infer too much ? For would it not show, that the Divine Being must be expected to forgive even the impeni- tent, since our forgivenesses are surely to extend to these ? We answer, God does in one sense forgive
VII. FROM SINFULNESS. 161
the impenitent whenever he forgives, for it is only.- his mercy which makes them cease to be so ; which gives at once both '^ repentance and forgiveness ; " but the separation of those, both the judicial charac- ter and the nature of things forbids. Even human forgiveness, though it may be exercised, is not fully felt and partaken as a blessing, by the offender who remains hardened against his brother that forgives. And in reference to Deity, no expiation, as far as we can conceive, could procure for a being cofitinu- ing impe7iitent, an effectual participation and enjoy- ment of forgiveness. It would be as much as to say, that reconcilement and alienation might consist or coincide.
If, finally, you press or pursue this subject to the awful question, Why does not He who " multiplieth pardons " at once make all men penitent, and for- give them all, — or make all men penitent by, and in, the very act of his forgiveness ? — we reply only — Who can " by searching find out God?" — It is " high as heaven ;" what can we do ? " Deeper than hell ;" what can we know? " Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right ? " Let us be ex- ceedingly grateful that He confers on us some de- sire and will to repent, and that to the penitent, his mercies are boundless, both as " He giveth more " of the " grace " of repentance, and of new remission, and of new repentance still.
While engaged in meeting an objection, I have thus incidentally introduced that second and most p 3
162 DESPONDENCY ARISING VII.
forcible argument for infinite forgivenesses, which is derived from the act of Deity ; showing you how this inestimable truth, of the Almighty's boundless placability, is demonstrated in a way that far tran- scends our thoughts, by the means devised and em- ployed to make boundless pardons possible or fit ; — accordant with the inviolability of Divine justice ; — namely, the humiliation and sufferings of the Son of God. What pledge of Jehovah's infinite desire to pardon, and unchangeable " delight " in mercy, could we ask for or invent — that should equal or approximate to this ? If He who " layeth up the depth in store-houses," were to collect the ocean into the spaces of the sky, and pour it, drop by drop, again into its mighty bed, and declare — So many, so vast, shall be the multitude of my forgivenesses, — would He in truth proclaim his compassion to be inexhaustible, with so intense an emphasis, as when He " spared not his own Son," but permitted blame- less love to agonize, and be poured forth drop by drop, in the garden and on the cross, — saying with a silent force that rent the rocks, — All tlds, even this, expressly, that I may, though perfectly righteous, yet " abundantly pardon ; " only, that I may, though inflexibly "just," yet *' justify," and " sanctify," and " glorify " the ruined.
Once more, the truth which is so invaluable, and which is so demonstrated, may yet receive some corroboration from another thought ; namely, that thus alone (as far as we are able to conceive) can
VII. FROM SINFULNESS. 163
one great moral attribute of Deity be, in its infini- tude, exerted and displayed. His stupendous power and wisdom are perpetually evinced in the support of an immeasurable creation, which, at least in part, he declares, shall be imperishable likewise. But in what way could the vastness of his forbearance and mercy be occupied and made apparent, unless in relation to fallen, guilty, and miserable creatures whom He can forgive ? — creatures, moreover, whose ruin is so verily " to the uttermost," whose offences are so great and numberless, that nothing except a godlike, illimitable grace can be supposed " more to abound ? " I offer not this at all as a solution of the Origin of Evil ; to which awful question our faculties appear essentially incompetent ; still less as an impious plea for " continuing in sin that grace may abound," a state of heart dreadfully incompa- tible with penitence, and therefore with pardon : but, simply taking the facts — that our sins are over- whelming, and that God's mercies, which are in- finite, have in this our desperate case, their appro- priate sphere and scope of intervention — I adduce it as an " exercise against despair." It is forcibly touched on by Bishop Taylor in a passage of his works so entitled ; — " I am taught to believe God's mercies to be infinite, not only in Himself, but to us ; for mercy is a relative term, and we are its cor- respondents. Of all the creatures which God cre- ated, we only " (he should here, I think, have add- ed— so far as we are informed) " are, in a proper
164 DESPONDENCY ARISING VII.
sense, the subjects of mercy and remission. — Since, therefore, man alone is the correlative or proper ob- ject and vessel of reception of an infinite mercy, and that mercy is in giving and forgiving, I have reason to hope that He will so forgive me, that my sins shall not hinder me of heaven ; or because it is a gift, I may also, upon the stock of the same infinite mercy, hope He will give heaven to me ; and if I have it either upon the title of giving or forgiving, it is alike to me, and will alike magnify the glories of the Divine mercy." ^' — "Were not forgiveness in God " (observes Dr. Owen) " somewhat beyond what men could imagine, no flesh could be saved ;"f and elsewhere, " God will not lose the glory of these his excellencies, he will be revealed in them, he will be known by them, he will be glorified for them ; which He could not be, if there were not forgiveness with Him. "J '^ Now this forgiveness " (he remarks in another place) " is like Himself, such as becomes Him ; that answers the infinite perfections of his nature ; that is exercised and given forth by him as God. We are apt to nar- row and straiten it by our unbelief, and to render it unbecoming of Him." § And this, he justly argues, is to " dishonour God," as well as "to en- tangle our own spirits, by limiting his grace." At least this question, I am sure, may be forcibly press- ed on every desponding mind, — Ought we to be hope-
* Holy Dying, ch. v. sect. 5. (" An exercise against despair.") t On Psa. cxxx., p. 305. + Ibid. p. 283. § Ibid. p. 309.
VII. FROM SINFULNESS. 165
less of the extension to ourselves of a mercy in which we know that God " delighteth," because we are in that very condition which alone can give Him occasion to display it most admirably, to reveal it most divinely ?
I have thus attempted to bring under your view and my own, reasons, which appear unanswerable by any one that believes the Bible, why the extent of Divine " forgivenesses " must needs transcend our largest necessities and largest hopes. Here then, could we but feel as we reason, are sovereign anti- dotes against despair. Here is the unbounded and unfathomed ocean of God's mercies, into which we should be ever aiming to steer and impel our feeble bark of hope, away from those rocky shallows of our own narrow apprehensions, where else it must presently be wrecked or stranded. Give it this ocean-room, the immeasurable " breadth, and length, and depth " of the Divine compassions, and then, though every " stormy wind " of terror beat upon it with increasing fierceness, none shall finally over- whelm or utterly destroy.
I am quite conscious, however, that, in order to the happy and prevailing application of such argu- ments, we need far more than the mere statement of them, or even meditation on them ; we need an answer to more fervent prayer ; that we may be " strengthened with might by His Spirit," and thus " enabled to apprehend," * more efiectually, these
* Eph. iii. 16, 18.
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boundless and inspiring consolations. Still must we implore, without ceasing, the aid of that Eternal Spirit, that " Communicative Love," (as an old di- vine has styled the heavenly Comforter,) to touch our spirits with the feeling, though our reason can- not grasp the thought. For it must needs be with this attribute of mercy as with every attribute of Him who is in all things immense : when it is pre- sented to the intellect, we labour as it were to grasp a globe upheld by the enthroned King of kings, and we discover only, as we gaze and reach forth towards it, that it is incomprehensible ; that " the measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broad- er than the sea :" — yet let Him who bears it deign, with condescending sovereignty, to incline his scep- tre gently towards us, — and a quick radiation from all that orb of mercy shall flow into the heart, and we shall feel with transport, in our child-like little- ness, what angels in their elder greatness cannot comprehend.
We may, as professed believers, have contem- plated this doctrine of superabounding mercy, or at least have had it presented to us, in modes and at times unnumbered. But yet is it now, through its own augmented agency and power, poured into our souls with a new and healing vividness? Surely so Divine an infusion, if we quench it not, will mightily enlarge and gladden them, will animate and impel every pulse of spiritual life ; will especially prompt us to that growing forbearance and sympathy, with-
^'li- FROM SINFULNESS. 167
out which we can never advance in resemblance to Him who " multiplieth pardons ;" and will quicken every aspiration towards that realm of love where the redeemed must eternally emulate each other in the praise of his surpassing grace.
VIII.
ON THE PAIN ENDURED IN THE WANT OR LOSS OF SOCIAL BLESSINGS WHICH WOULD BE PECULIAR. LY DEAR TO US.
Solitude is but a comparative and indefinite term. The isolated Selkirk, as his complaint is pathetically imagined by Cowper, felt himself in loneliness, though " lord of the fowl and the brute." Yet, had his islet been even by these unpeopled, void of all other life, or only of the larger animals, that " mon- arch of all he surveyed" must have been much more desolate still. " Their tameness " was " shock- ing," but their disappearance would have been doubly so ; especially as he had found means to in- duce in some a sort of attachment to himself, and thus to indulge, however inadequately, the social and benevolent affections.* Where solitude has
* See the account of Selkirk ^ven by Captain Woodes Rogers, in Harris's Voyages.
VIII. SOCIAL BLESSINGS. 169
been meant and deemed to be cruelly complete, the discovery of but one living inmate of the cell, even a mouse or spider, has afforded solace. Something to feed and welcome, something to be aided or at- tracted by the captive's care, has been a matter of soothing interest. To have sentient creatures round us, which — though we may fastidiously decline to name them y^//oe£;-creatures — show an instinctive sense that they are the better for our presence, is a relief which must needs make the penalty of soli- tude less rigorous and less absolute. But even to witness animation and enjoyment, to watch the sea- birds wheeling round the clift', or the herd resting in the shade, though they may see our " form with indifference" — and though it may, in one sense, aggravate solitude to feel that they all have the kindred society which to us is wanting — is yet a source of pensive pleasure. It must have been so, one would think, to our first parent, before his Eve was formed ; a pleasure felt indeed to be exceed- ingly defective, but which he would not have lost without regret. On the other hand, the mere pre- sence of human beings, without any intercourse — as when we walk in crowded streets, and meet perhaps, through hours or days, no one with whom to inter- change a thought or feeling — this, it has often been observed, if not solitude, is as surely not society.*
* " this crowded loneliness,
Where ever-moving myriads seem to say, Go — thou art nought to us, nor we to thee — away !" ^ Keble.
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Yet how preferable this to the compulsory inter- course of those from whom the mind revolts ; which were far worse than solitude ! Thus Trenck or Bonnivard might willingly abridge the brief visit of a coarse unfeeling keeper, to resume their intimacy with the little speechless comrades of the cell.^
Nay, in cases far removed from such, there is a sort or degree of solitariness which some minds ha- bitually endure, amidst associations necessarily con- stant. There are those who find in the small social sphere to which sex, or youth, or age, or want of wealth restricts them, no mind of like capacities or tastes, or none possessing those highest, deepest sympathies with their own, which embrace " the things eternal ;" and without which other affinities of taste and habit are but shallow and inconstant.
Such privations — where, by the supposition, deep affection, earnest sentiments, and intellectual activi- ties are peculiarly excitable, but wholly ungratified, — must needs deepen every natural yearning for the most intimate attachments.
But let this case be even reversed. Let the social circle be extensive and acceptable, and nearer unions of kindred and friendship enjoyed. Still may the heart in secret sigh for m,ore. A tender or a fervent spirit will often long for that closest union, where soul is most intimately " knit with soul," and where confiding tenderness can mutually unbosom joys and
* " Prisoner of Chillon ; " line 265, and 1. 381.
VIII. SOCIAL BLESSINGS. 171
griefs, interests and trials, from the greatest even to the least. Many are the circumstances which may give to this desire a character at once of intenseness and of despondency. Affection may find no con- genial object, or it may be unresponded to, and even unknown. Disparities of rank or years, local remoteness, prudential checks, regretted differences of religious or secular connexion, may repress its indulgence ; or death may soon and fatally break its charm. These, no doubt, are chosen themes of ro- mance ; but they are not unworthy of a place in pages dedicated to truth ; for the mental pains which they involve are keenly real, and must occur in all grades of society that rise above the lowest form of barbarism.
Nor is this the only class of privations to which we now refer. From her days of whom Elkanah asked " Why weepest thou?" and the earlier times of the disconsolate Rachel, — how many hearts, in which the maternal pulse v/as beating with almost predictive warmth, have mourned to be childless : some, no doubt — though we trust, in these latter days, with submission befitting the heirs of clearer promises — praying earnestly for the gift deferred. If it be finally denied, bitter is the disappointed wish, as pure as it was ardent : if bestowed only to be resumed, still keener is the stroke by which God '* hath taken away," what seemed to the parent al- most her earthly all.
Not seldom does more than one of these wants or losses contribute to darken an individual's lot. Q 2
172 PAIN IN THE WANT OF VIII.
But let only one such be assigned ; and no heart affectionately susceptible will be able to conceal from itself the pain of destitution. Often might we hear, if thought were audible, the secret musing — How would that tender friendship, that treasure of affec- tion which is hopeless or for ever gone, soothe un- blamably the cares of life, and sweeten all its com- forts ; how would it sustain me in griefs and avert my steps from snares, engage me in benevolent and tender duties, excite the happiest thoughts, and quicken the most sacred purposes !
And there is much general truth in these feelings and expectations. It is quite true that, by the good pleasure of Him who ordaineth our lot, such ac- quisitions might induce a great diminution of pre- sent trial, and a great accession of usefulness and enjoyment. In very many cases, therefore, is it not only allowable but commendable, to seek and to pray for these blessings.
But yet how true likewise is the adage often re- peated by an old divine, and (though it may seem to the inexperienced or inconsiderate a sort of jejune truism) how important also ; — " Creatures are help- less things without God ; for every creature is that, all that, and only that, which He makes it to be ! " ^ In applying this maxim to our present subject, we need not suggest those strong or extreme cases, where the most ardent wishes, the most sanguine and
* Matthew Henry on 2 Kings vi. 27. A like saying had been common with his excellent father, Philip Henry.
VIII. SOCIAL BLESSINGS. 173
even pious hopes, have issued, by the very fulfilment of their aim, in utter and heart-sickening disap- pointment,— where passionate or deep attachment, apparently mutual, indulged perhaps at the cost of personal sacrifices, or perhaps by procurino; such from its object, — has, ere long, been wounded by an unkindness that would have seemed incredible, or has led to spiritual declensions and moral aberra- tions the most unhappy. Nor need we dwell on those deplorable instances in which a child, whose birth or whose recovery was once matter of intense solicitude, has proved no Samuel, but rather, like the sons of Eli ; piercing a parent's heart with many sorrows. We may advert to facts and cir- cumstances much less melancholy than these, and yet suflBicing to mar or disfigure the ideal ; to rend or soil the faultless, but slight embroideries, with which a creative imagination invests some of life's most genuine pleasures.
It is affectingly true, that in minds where the ca- pacity to weave this enchanting scenery is greatest, where the woof is of gossamer and its tints are of ethereal glow, there must the contact of reality most surely disarrange or discolour it. So that the very minds, which feel at times those privations and yearnings of the affections most deeply, may often, after their wishes are favourably realized, be most acutely perceptive and tremblingly sensitive as to the differences between the idea and the substance, the picture and the landscape. The magic tints of Q 3
174 pai;n in the want of viii.
the visionary painting did not change ; or the change was but as a variation of loveliness, from spring to autumn, or sunlight to a soothing shade ; but the real landscape must have its days of mistiness, and its hours of tempest. Discoveries and experiences of weakness, the collisions of practical life and fluc- tuations of daily feeling, misapprehensions to which our weak and limited reason is ever liable, distrac- tions and thwartings of the work-day world, in- firmities and faults of childhood and of manhood, — all, in short, on which an eloquent writer founded her impressive testimony that " Life is not a hymn," — has been discerned and felt with especial acute- ness by some who had endured the deepest previous pain at the delay of those enjoyments which make life most poetic. The presentiment or bare suspicion of such deductions, may avail to check the unchast- ened vehemence both of wishes and regrets.
Yet many whose emotions we thus would mode- rate— nay even the more reflective and foreboding, schooled in the illusions and the pains of life, and thus most wont to take refuge, when joys are de- nied, in the forethought of probably attendant sor- rows— will doubtless feel and say — These, after all, are pleas for resignation which serve much more to deject or exacerbate than to satisfy. Besides, there must be fallacy in a view of things which persuades us to acquiesce in foregoing the best and tenderest pleasures, on the single ground that they are sure to be alloyed and interrupted, if not extinguished,.
VIII. SOCIAL BLESSINGS. 175
by some contingent pains. On the same ground, the want of liberty, of learning, of competence, of reason, nay perhaps of revelation itself, might be paradoxically pleaded for as a matter of preference.
Others will add, with an afflictive remembrance of the past — -You would console by cheerless possi- bilities, but I mourn over heart-rending facts. I know by sad retrospect, that the comforts of affec- tion may be enjoyed, without any considerable share of those abatements by which you would detract from their anticipated worth. — This, however, is to imagine, that we would unduly extenuate that worth, or dissuade from the acceptance of such blessings ; whereas it is really a quite different aim to remind those from whom Providence withholds them, that these, like all temporal enjoyments, can- not be unmingled.
But I dismiss these unwelcome themes of conso- lation. I assume these privations to be as grievous as you sometimes feel them : I grant that they also might, if it pleased the great Arbiter, be so sup- plied, that there should be no sharp thorns or weighty crosses hidden in the delightful gifts. Yet this very supposition, welcome as it may be to the mind in which such hope is warmly cherished, must speedily conduct and compel us toward those high- est and final resources for comfort, to which all others are at best but subsidiary. For the more assured we could be, that refined and exquisite earthly gratifications, z/'possessed, or winle possessed.
176 PAIN IN THE WANT OF VIII.
would for US be unalloyed and untarnished — the more depressing the thought of their hourly pre- cariousness, of their swift and certain extinction ; unless as Christians we attempt — what none but Christians can afford or dare — to gather comfort in destitution (felt or feared) from the transitoriness of all possession, and pluck, as it were, some leaves of healing from the very nightshade of mortality. If this brief life were all, then truly were its selectest joys and deepest griefs, its hopes and wants and de- solations, but of small account ; its most chosen and endeared delights but a poor fugitive decaying all. The pensiveness and refinement which feel and ren- der these most precious, would render them also melancholy treasures. The " thought of death " which hovers upon all the fairest forms and muta- tions of nature, and finds a home in every poetic heart, would wear irretrievably a spectral darkness ; and we should say to each enjoyment as Herbert to his rose — the more hopelessly in proportion as it were bright and sweet and thornless, —
" Thy root is ever in its g;i-ave, And thou must die,"
If this life were our all, and known to be so, then indeed to be inconsolable for its whole ascertained penury and wretched mystery were inevitable and just ; but it would not be worth the while to sigh over its fleeting variations, its momentary differences or contrasts. We might be well too sad or desperate
VIII. SOCIAL BLESSINGS. 177
to weep over the want or loss of pleasures fatally evanescent, which at best could but tantalize and excruciate us with their dying sweetness.
But when we "know and are persuaded" that this life is not all — nay, that it is but " the twilight of our day," the dim and narrow " vestibule " of our existence, — then does the very fleeting character of its enjoyments present a pensive source of conso- lation under the want of them ; which, while thus made more impressively conspicuous, is also thus half divested of its gloom. The boundless radiance of immortality, while it contracts the '* vapour" that "vanisheth away" into a less hand's-breadth than the prophet saw from Carmel, softens and gilds the " little cloud " which it diminishes.
To toil or glide onward through our " few and evil " days, without the dearest of created blessings to soothe us, is to want that which, were it our all, would be next to nothing to possess, but which, be- ing not all, will be viewed hereafter as next to nothing to have lacked ; as the by-gone absence of too little a portion of happiness to miss ; a sort of in- finitesimal, heretofore subtracted from the sum of endless joy. Inestimable as it might have been " for a moment," still would the privation be too momentary to be at all counted in retrospect, if it were not that it must be counted gratefully ; since each cross which God appoints us here, however in itself " unworthy to be compared " or mentioned there, will be seen to have had a high prospective
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value towards heightening subsequent felicity. The best earthly joys that are withholden, are as grains of gold snatched by a descending angel from life's swift and troubled stream. You mourn that you find them not : but they are stored and combined elsewhere ; they shall form those golden vessels of the heavenly sanctuary, whence you may take "of the fountain of life freely." For it must never be forgotten, that these wants or losses, which, though indeed but transitory, are often, in our narrow mor- tal view, protracted as well as severe, have been adapted and designed to fix profoundly in our hearts the unalterable truth — that Uncreated Good can alone have an original and immutable reality ; — to incite our wavering desires after this " one Good — that is God ;" and convince us that, in the uncloud- ed experience of his everlasting favour, there is a bliss which infinitely outweighs all joys of finite af- fection : nay, that the glimpses and prelibations of that bliss, when it shall please Him who " is Love" to indulge with these the vigilant and waiting spirit, will amply compensate every other privation even here. And yet the pain of such privations — -which, so far from being culpable, indicates the strength of benevolent and kindly feeling — may itself not ob- scurely intimate, that the God of love will hereafter employ his perfected creatures as reciprocal media of those pure joys which must owe their origination, fulness, and perpetuity, to Himself alone. For I strongly dissent from what a few philosophizing
VIII. SOCIAL BLESSINGS. 179
theologians have appeared to hold — that the high- est and final attainment of bliss in the perfect love of God, will involve the cessation of subordinate affections. To imagine, under whatever colour of devout sublimity, " that among the blessed in heaven all love of the creature does utterly cease, and is for ever silenced in that region of happi- ness,"^ is not only to presume '* above that which is written," but to wander beyond the region of common sense.
It is assuredly lawful and right, that we love our fellow beings not only with a love of good-will, but with a love of esteem and complacency as far as they bear and reflect the Divine image, and with a love of gratitude as far as they are instrumentally valu- able and benevolent towards us ; and it is contrary both to all analogy and many scriptural intimations, to suppose that either of these sentiments will be extinct in heaven : nay, that they will not each be multiplied, enhanced, and blissfully animated there. The excellent Shaw seems in like manner to err by an excess of devotional aspiring, when he affirms that " we shall come to live upon God and delight in God alone, without any creature ; " f that " the holy soul shall feed upon Him singly, live upon Him entirely, be wrapt up in Him wholly ; " J
* Norris's " Letters coucerning the love of God," (1695,) p. 168. t Angelical Life — in the " Mourner's Companion," (Chalmers and Collins,) p. 366. + Ibid. p. 351.
180 PAIN IN THE WANT OF VIII.
alleging also that " angels delight not in any created comfort,"^ and that the perfected saints will thus " equal " them, in being " abstracted from all cre- ated things," so that the creature *' shall be no- thing at all to them or in them."t Much more scriptural and tenable is this devout writer's lan- guage when he only censures " living upon the creature, or a loving of the creature with a distinct love;" J and adds, "to taste a sweetness in the creature, and to see a beauty and goodness in it, is our duty : but then it must be the sweetness of God in it, and the goodness of God, which we ought alone to taste and see in it."§ The precept is just, though lofty, which he quotes and enforces — " In a particular being, love the universal Goodness : let the whole world be as the garden of God to you, from which you may drink something of the Divine sweetness." II But surely that temper, while fitly suggested as earnestly to be pursued on earth, is likewise the only one revealed to us as subsisting in heaven. When, going beyond this, it is attempted to imagine either " ministering spirits," or "glori- fied heirs of salvation," as having reached a further and absolute abstraction from the creature, we alter the scriptural notion of their social state of bliss, without any ground to believe that we substitute
* Angelical Life — in the "Mourner's Companion," (Chalmers and Collins,) p. 350.
t Ibid. p. 350. + Ibid. p. 35G.
§ Ibid. p. 357. II Ibid. p. 376.
VIII. SOCIAL BLESSINGS. 181
a State which would be really more perfect or exalt- ed. Doubtless, "the blessed and only Potentate" could create beings who should be fully and for ever blessed in the exclusive contemplation of Himself: each unacquainted with, and incapable of knowing, the existence of any creature ; conscious only to the beatific presence of an infinite Parent and Preserv- er. Possibly, amidst the multiform wonders of creation, there are found such lonely yet happy in- telligences, whose peculiar mode of blessedness may be designed to impress most strongly on other or- ders of the happy, the perfection of the Divine All- sufficiency.
It may be, — in some "wilderness of suns," Some heavenly Polynesia, calmly bright, Where scarce a breath the odorous forest waves, — Such eremites muse ; enrapt eternally In the sole vision of the boundless Mind. Created impercipient ; needing nought From hues or forms or fragrance, or the swell Of holiest harmonies in starry vales, Or glancings of the seraph's eye divine : But ever and alone the fount of life Imbibing, ere its hidden fulness gush In wellings of creative splendour forth ; Bath'd ever in that inmost plenitude ; Amid the primal and translucent depths Of glorious wisdom and enrapturing love. Latent, to these, all worlds : yet not themselves Unseen, nor by the hymning seraph view'd With imaugmented fervours ; visible Like hallow'd luminous statues, softly crown'd R
182 PAIN IN THE WANT OF VIII.
With evening starlight : too absorb' d in bliss
For local change, yet, through the varying mood
Of blissful contemplation, still instinct
With gesture most emphatic, and quick gleam
And changeful shade of meditative joy :
Till e'en celestials kindle as they gaze, —
Then marvel how th' unconscious can have touch' d
The chords that wake a thousand thousand songs.
— These too, perchance, e'en lowlier creatures eye
With half intelligent fondness, or recede
In wistful awe. The swift and gorgeous bird
From some far paradise, on rainbow plume
Slow floats — and stays her warblings — fain to watch
The hermit spirit's beauty.
But much more The saints, creation's nobler pilgrims, pause When guiding angels point, to linger o'er The solitary's rapture ; where — entranc'd In his interior heaven — to eyes unseen, And realms unknown, his voiceless ecstasy Proclaims the immense and all-sufficing God ; Who, should he shroud with an impervious veil This universe, and every happy mind From happy minds dissociate, would seclude Each in a Father's bosom ; each insphere Within that orb of glories increate, That uncaus'd universe whence nature sprang.
Such beings are imaginable ; but their existence, if not unlikely, at least is unrevealed. The only state of happy spirits, whether angelic or human, which Scripture discloses, is, as was before remarked, a social state. We may conclude, indeed, that all have their optional solitudes — perhaps attainable without new or separate locality by a power of com-
VIII. SOCIAL BLESSINGS. 183
plete mental abstraction, — in which they enjoy ex- clusively the contemplation of Deity. But this opinion arises from our experience of change as heightening enjoyment — a condition, it may be, of all finite natures ; and from a sense of the great limit- ation of our own faculties ; not from anything in- trinsically better or loftier in that supposed abstrac- tion. For we know that in Him who is essentially perfect, the highest and happiest contemplation must consist with eternal omniscience, perpetual omnipresence, universal and unsuspended agency. We know, also, and every lasting hope and joy are built upon the fact, that the love and complacency of this glorious Being are ever fixed on an " innu- merable company" of sinless and renewed crea- tures. Therefore, although there can be no propor- tion to this Divine capacity in any finite mind, yet assuredly the nearest resemblance and approxima- tion to the mind of our infinite Creator and Sa- viour, must be sought, not in abstraction from crea- tures or indifference towards them, but in the very reverse.
Besides which, it is obvious to inquire, wherefore that associated state which is revealed to us ; why that " innumerable company of angels ;" why that "general assembly and church of the first-born;" if it be not in order to enhance felicity ? Even if it could be shown that glorified saints reciprocate no love, except that of mere benevolence or good-will, would it be affirmed that there is no joy in thisloye. — R 2
184 PAIN IN THE WANT OF VIII.
the very love which moved Him who " delightetJi in mercy," to confer " His unspeakable gift ;" and our Redeemer to endure the cross ? — But further, mutual love of this kind between creatures, neces- sarily involves a mutual love of gratitude ; nor would it be less than unnatural and presumptuous to suppose the absence of that other love, which consists in esteem, admiration, and complacency, towards those who bear the image of the heavenly Saviour, and are presented " faultless before his throne." And why should either of these senti- ments — either a benevolent or grateful or com- placent affection — towards perfect creatures, be deemed to interfere with supreme love to God, or even with ultimate love to Him in the very act of intermediate love to them ? It is finely said by the writer above cited, " Every particular good is a blossom of the first goodness ; every created excel- lency is a dark draught of God, and a broken beam of this infinite Sun of righteousness."* But would it be a just consequence that there is to be no ad- miration, love, or joy, in viewing the reflected or refracted beam ?
If some erring devotee of Surya-f- were gifted with an eye more unblenching than we deem the eagle's, able to fix with unfatigued admiration on the sun's fullest blaze, would it follow that he must
* Angelical Life, in ibid. p. 376.
t The title of the sun in Hindu mythology. See Sir W. Jones's Poems, vol. ii. p. 93.
VIII. SOCIAL BLESSINGS. 185
do this unceasingly, — or would not the vision of that " great light " be virtually continued, although not direct, when he should turn to look upon " the sea- wave's multitudinous smile," * " the moon walking in brightness," or the " pearled and rubied clouds," where
" Myriads of diffusive dyes Stream o'er the tissued skies ? " f
Would he be likely to forget, amidst these brilliant reflections and refractions, the day-spring which first shed forth and still renews their splendour ? or would that lunar mirror and that rubied cloud, and " many-twinkling smile of ocean," each prepare him to turn to the sun itself with a deeper, though deluded, reverence 1
And when you shall look in heaven upon angelic " ministers of grace," or on some dear object of whom you are now bereft, or whom you loved in untold sadness because the sentiment could not be expressed, or could not be mutual ; when you shall find all excellencies, real or ideal, which you had conceived in creatures, verified and far transcended, and every pure and blameless ardour shall awake in the intimate society of those whom Jehovah has caused to reflect perfectly his glorious image, — will the beatific and adoring vision of the " Sun of
* See this fine phrase of ^schylus quoted, with the different version of it which is added, " the many-twinkling smile of ocean," in the " Christian Year."
t Sir W. Jones's Poems, vol. ii. p. 101. R 3
186 PAIN IN THE WANT OF VIII.
righteousness" be by such objects or feelings sus- pended ? and although it should be less constantly direct or exclusive, will it not, by these alternations, acquire at one season a milder loveliness, at another a sublimer majesty ? When you shall thus associate with perfect creatures, it is true you will, so far, admire and love the " shadows of that glorious es- sence with whom there is no shadow of change."* It will be in some sense but a *' bright cloud " of heavenly " witnesses " which shall encompass you ; but in its " myriads of diffusive dyes" you will ve- nerate that plastic all-pervading brightness, which can give even to the cloud an ever-during beauty, varying yet indissoluble.
Be consoled then under the vanished hopes, the unfulfilled wishes and repeated wounds, which you have suffered and may yet endure. " The hour Cometh " when, without any infringement of su- preme devotedness to the Author of all good, you shall give to glorified creatures a love alike pure and fervent ; mediately to them, but ultimately to Him ; feeling that all their moral and material beauty is in itself derivative, but in Him unchanging; in them also destined to be permanent, because it is his will and promise that it shall not decay. Anti- cipate the unreserved endearment, the perfect love of heaven, as means by which the God of grace will manifest his beneficence and glory. " Remember
* Shaw's " Angelical Life," p. 377, in the " Mourner's Com- panion."
VIII. SOCIAL BLESSINGS. 187
how short the time is," ere the dejection of a lonely heart may he exchanged for the full sunshine of blessedness, and all that living and love-breathing imagery, which shall reflect and variegate its beams. Till then, may " the Lord direct your heart into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ.'*
IX.
ON ADVERSITIES IN PECUNIARY CIRCUMSTANCES.
Notwithstanding a great number of distressing facts which wear the contrary aspect, it is soothing to conchide on the whole, that the order of Divine Providence, and the progress of human affairs un- der that hidden administration, are lessening from age to age the general sum of violent and extreme adversity.
The civilization and science, the public spirit and prudential foresight, which have grown with the growth of enlightened Christianity, form a sort of lower parallel, in temporal benefits, to the sublimer blessings which the gospel has diffused ; so that its complex influence is seen to have abated the inse- curities and terrors of " the life that now is," as well as those, more momentous, of " that which is to come."
IX. PECUNIARY ADVERSITIES. 189
There is in this concurrence an obvious fitness and harmony. It yields a kind of collateral pledge for the loftier promises of that " godliness/' which " is profitable unto all things." There would have been some discordancy, had a religion which pre- dicts, even for this world, an era of glorious peace and blessedness, rendered meantime the social and individual state of man more and more calamitous on the whole.
It is well, therefore, to recollect with gratitude and hope, how far that is from being the fact. In what may be specially termed the ages and domains of Christian civilization, those dreadful visitations of disease have become less multiplied and less de- structive, which, by striking most awfully at human life, " shake terribly " the whole social fabric : and although a grievous scourge of this kind has re- cently filled many parts of our land with mourning and others with dismay,* yet I trust we may regard its desolations as actually far less wide, and its speedy recurrence or long duration as far less pro- bable, than they would, by the unchecked operation of natural causes, have been at remote periods. In the fourteenth century, and in each of the four successive reigns of Elizabeth, James, and the first and second Charles, this island was ravaged by pes- tilences which, in the extent of their depopulating havoc, were greatly more terrific.
* See note, p. 6, above.
190 PECUNIARY ADVERSITIES. IX.
The horrors also of famine, which in the first- named century were dreadfully experienced in Eng- land, have been rendered much less an object of dread, not only by a better regulated industry, but by the resources of a vastly extended intercourse with distant nations.
It should, doubtless, be far more solemnly and submissively remembered than it is — in reference to both — that we are ever, and most absolutely, " in the hand of" Him, who could give to " his sword " the pestilence, a quite unsparing commission, or in- flict, on every region, simultaneous and protracted barrenness. But we do not omit to feel and ac- knowledge that " very great are His mercies," when we attribute, instrumentally, the rareness and miti- gations of those dire distresses, to such advance- ments in society as have attended on His higher gift ; — themselves, therefore, equally ordinations of His undeserved goodness; — yet the natural and happy effects of which. He could, at any moment, and in any measure, frustrate.
In the same order of concomitance with Christian civilization, have massacre and rapine become less prevalent in war ; * feuds, assassinations, and out-
* We trust also that war itself, in states blessed with enlightened Christianity and civil freedom, becomes yearly more an object of moral aversion and political opposition ; that governments are be- coming themselves more wise on this great point, and will at all events find their " subjects wise " enough henceforth to check the cruel " game " prompted by reckless ambition, or by a spirit adverse to conciliation and fairness.
IX. PECUNIARY ADVERSITIES. 191
rages, more rare in times of national peace ; pillage and palpable extortion have been checked by set- tled laws ; conflagrations have grown less frequent and incontrollable : and against the effects of these, as of some other losses, securities have been devised, by which, though the love of gain might invent them, the cause of humanity is served. I select one minor instance, (casually presented to me,) of the frequency of one kind of those calamities; which, perhaps, may be more impressive than general state- ments as to all of them .
It appears from the annals of one of our most ancient cities, that of Gloucester, (which happen to come under my notice while writing this piece,) that, during the first century from the Norman in- vasion, it was four times destroyed by fire, and in the following century as often \ though if any place could be safe by precaution or protection, it might be one where kings often held their courts, and pre- lates their synods.
If we meditate on the plagues and fires, the dearths, the oppressions, and intestine wars of earlier history, we shall not be very prone to conclude — " the former times were better than these."
Has it then ceased to be true, that " man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards ? " Are sudden, conspicuous, and extreme reverses gone out of date, or can modern prudence wholly ward off or remedy them ? The memory of our own day of revolutions and convulsions strikingly proclaims the negative.
192 PECUNIARY ADVERSITIES. IX.
How many have yet a strong remembrance of that epoch when princes and dignitaries from the nearest continental shore took refuge here from public tu- mult and threatened destruction ; stripped of their estates, palaces, and honours, and forced to engage in irksome employments for a dubious support ! (n the year 1793, the present sovereign of France, then the young and destitute Due de Chartres, a member of one of the most ancient reigning families, travel- ling with a single domestic, on foot, over the snowy Alps, approached the hospitable convent of St. Go- thard. " He rang the bell, and a capuchin appear- ing at the window asked in Italian — What do you want? Some nourishment for my companion and myself, replied the wanderer. We do not re- ceive foot-passengers or persons of your sort here, rejoined the capuchin. But, reverend father, we will pay what you demand — said the duke. No, no, the inn opposite is good enough for you, said the monk ; and pointing to a miserable shed where the muleteers stop for refreshment, he closed the window, and disappeared."* Surely this one slight scene might teach us, that the account of vicis- situdes incident to greatness three thousand years ago — "He poureth contempt upon princes, and causeth them to wander in the wilderness wherein there is no way " — has not become wholly inappli- cable by the lapse of ages.
* Lady Morgan's " France." — A fine painting commemorates this occurrence.
IX. PECUNIARY ADVERSITIES. 193
But we need not go to the houses and memoirs of sovereigns, in order to seek a fair and fit applica- tion of the phrase, " He poureth contempt upon princes." The prophet Isaiah's language, in his vivid picture of " Tyre the crowning " — " whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers the hon- ourable of the earth,"*' has become singularly appo- site to those of Genoa and Venice in their turn, and still is, in some points, to those of our own " mer- chant cities." Yet we have seen the successors of the Dorias and Durazzos tenanting obscure corners of their splendid palaces ; and of late years, in our own country, how many have been cast down as by an earthquake, from the refinements of education and of luxury to the hard and bitter trials of de- pendence ! If some of my readers have become ac- quainted with such a change experimentally, they will feel as if other forms of kindred disaster should scarcely be compared with that of the class in which they are numbered ; and may imagine, per- haps less justly, that some aggravations of circum- stance or character give to themselves individually a sad pre-eminence of sufiiering even among that class.
There are, however, other modes and degrees of pecuniary adversities, in some respects much less severe, and yet not trivial, which especially belong
* xxiii. 8.
S
194 PECUNIARY ADVERSITIES. IX.
to our own times and country ; consisting not in sudden and total overthrow, but in a quiet, partial, continued subtraction of means and resources. It may be not inaptly expressed in the Scripture phrase which precedes that lately quoted ; " They are min- ished and brought low ; " a phrase descriptive, more or less, of the present condition of multitudes ; applicable, in a painful sense, to that of many who never possessed more than a very small share of this world's goods, who moved in a lowly sphere, and ac- quired their daily comforts by daily exertions. Yet these they did acquire, with moderate toil and tran- quil regularity, obtaining " food and raiment," and the simplest conveniences of life, with little fear that the sources of supply would be interrupted or reduced. But national or local changes, the con- sequences of public policy or of others' private ruin, of war, or peace, or mechanical inventions, have gradually brought them to a state of penury ; if not an actual destitution of things " needful for the body," still an anxious difficulty in procuring these ; with measures of hardship, dependence, and priva- tion, which they never expected would be mingled in their lot.
Another class less numerous, but still not small, and more likely perhaps to meet with these remarks, is that of persons who have been in what are termed " easy circumstances," either employing their pro- perty in respectable kinds of trade, or placed above
IX. PECUNIARY ADVERSITIES. 195
the necessity of any such aid for their support. Many of these were heretofore fairly ranked among the rich ; according to what seems the truest defini- tion of that word, — the having a competent dispos- able surplus above those claims which the Jit habits of our social station lay upon us. But they have ceased, by a succession of changes, to be, in this sense, rich. Their means have variously failed and been contracted ; and while they have seen some, who were at the summit of affluence and display, whirled suddenly, with broken reins and a fearful crash, into the valley, they have found themselves led from their much less lofty position, not hastily or ungently, perhaps, but by a strong hand, far down the hill-side. They may still have consider- able means and many comforts. They want not ^\food convenient." But they are checked in their former scale of liberal and hospitable expense, though it was never at all ostentatious, nor was thought improvident. They are become less able " to do good and to communicate ; " and they anxiously foresee that, should this train of minor but successive assaults on their always moderate prosperity be continued, they must at length be painfully straitened. Such changes and prospects are of various shades as well as from different causes ; but even of those who in the less degrees experience them, it may be said — "They are minish- ed," — if not with equal truth, — "They are brought s 2
196 PECUNIARY ADVERSITIES. IX.
low." It will also be felt by themselves, and should not be forgotten by those whom more ruinous losses have overthrown, that these lesser adversities are painful, as being scarcely known or reckoned on except by those who encounter them. Where they do not compel or warrant that decisive and visible change of habits, which duty or expediency, or both, may prevent or retard, they produce little or no change in the external estimate of cir- cumstances ; they receive therefore little or no sym- pathy, and are met with little or no allowance. The other instances to which I have adverted are of a more broad and striking character : but this last sketch may be verified by not a few with sad- ness, as that of their own unwelcome though unno- ticed allotment.
To render, however, such dispensations the less unwelcome and depressing, nay in some respects to reverse their influence, is an oflice to which, if ever any moral system can be so, the Christian system must be competent. The old philosophy boldly affected to perform it, and not without some suc- cess ; but the gospel undertakes the task with in- comparably greater power ; and if we are not, in a measure, thankful learners, the weakness of our faith is of necessity betrayed. With regard to that primitive body of believers whose rise and sufferings the New Testament records, so far were they from being distinctly encouraged, like the Mosaic church,
IX. PECUNIARY ADVERSITIES. 197
by a hope of temporal indulgence, — so far from re- ceiving any pledge of immunity from worldly trial, — that adversities were to them a special matter of their Lord's prediction and promise; were to be marks of genuine discipleship and paternal adop- tion ; and were made both by Christ and his apos- tles a subject of beatitude.
This, we may observe in passing, yields strong presumptive confirmation to the claims advanced by the exalted Founder of our faith ; to his con- sciousness of the reality and force of his own cre- dentials ; — that he hesitated not to propose to a peo- ple enamoured of wealth and pleasure, a religion linked to calamities, and ofiPering no secular prize or allurement. None, surely, but He who was giving miraculous proofs that He could heal and resuscitate and pardon, and was about to ratify those proofs by his own triumph over death, could have afford- ed to invite and attach followers with that strange and gloomy promise, " In the world ye shall have tribulation ; " or with the austere command, " Sell all that thou hast, and follow me." We are not in- deed thence to infer, that the possession of ease or wealth is incompatible with the reception of Christ's gospel, any more than that an exemption from violent persecution annuls the character of a dis- ciple. Neither penury nor martyrdom were in- variable accompaniments of Christian faithfulness, even in the first age. The church had then its s 3
198 PECUNIARY ADVERSITIES. IX.
Joseph of Arimathea, its Gaius and Philemon. No one, however, can study the general tenor of the Christian institute, without perceiving that we ought not to " think it strange" if, as followers of Christ, we be " minished," — or even " brought low."
Yet it may be that we are sometimes much in- clined to think it so ; since the contention and bias of nature are often too strong for the submissive conclusions of grace. You may say — If these ad- versities had assailed me while I was still estranged from God, and spurning or slighting the message of his reconciling love, I could readily interpret them as a salutary though stern discipline for bring- ing me to the revealed refuge : but, on the con- trary, they have gathered and pressed around me, long since I had embraced that refuge, and had aimed to realize in daily habit the principle of con- secrating temporal blessings to the service of my Lord. He was pleased, indeed, for a time, to smile on me by the growing favours of his constant pro- vidence ; but, in later periods, " all these things are against me ; " and the change, besides being adverse to my usefulness as well as comfort, is not apparently in all respects conducive to personal im- provement ; since, by fomenting tempers of dissatis- fied regret and unquiet foreboding, it rather impedes and distracts my Christian course.
Doubtless, if we unhappily misuse, or are not watchful duly to interpret and improve, these and
IX. PECUNIARY ADVERSITIES. 199
Other " manifold " trials, they may all acquire that lamented tendency ; but it would be not the less true that they were both graciously designed, and accurately measured, as indispensable for our eter- nal good. Indeed, if we trust in the care of a " re- conciled God and Father," it cannot be questioned that these adversities were fit and requisite, though their uses should happen to be quite beyond our con- jecture ; especially when we observe that some of them have been made to originate from counsels and transactions of our own which had an aim pre- cisely opposite, and in themselves appeared quite legitimate and promising ; when losses have arisen from the very steps cautiously and plausibly taken for prevention of loss ; from the errors of friendly and experienced advisers ; or from connexions formed on discreet and disinterested principles. Issues so adverse, and so little calculable, seem to indicate, that it was in the plan of Providence to frustrate our reasonable expectations ; and this no doubt for important ends, were they ever so latent.
But some general and important uses of pecuniary checks and disappointments, even to real Christians, are surely, by the help of revelation, not undiscover- able or obscure.
Such modes of adversity will practically remind you, though by a very distant approach to resem- blance, of the earthly condition of our Divine Sa- viour ; and by this suggestion itself you may be
200 PECUNIARY ADVERSITIES. IX.
taught, that they are appointed to constitute, in your case, a means and part of conformity to Him. Are they slight and unobserved as compared with the violent reverses of some others 1 Still, if you acute- ly or pensively feel them, if your latent pride be wounded, and your complacency disturbed, will you not appreciate with new wonder " the mind which was in Christ Jesus ? " Will you not of necessity reflect — Am I reluctant to be somewhat circum- scribed and " minished," and did the Lord of all things freely consent to be " brought low ? "
Are you, on the other hand, more conspicuously or decidedly humbled ? Have you been cast down from a state of wealth and comparative dignity, to that of narrow supplies and dependent endeavours ? If we even addressed a mendicant prince or a de- serted sovereign, a second Belisarius in penury, or Dionysius in exile, we should have still to ask, not in the spirit of insult or insensibility, but with a de- sire to condole and to animate, — have you heard of or remembered that " Prince of life," that *' King of kings," who " made himself of no reputation, but took on him the form of a servant ? " — who, " though he was rich " in all the splendours of Deity, " for our sakes became poor," assuming our frail and necessitous nature with all its wants and sorrows ? — That " great mystery of godliness," in- deed, transcends not only our comprehension, but still more our subject. There would be something
IX. PECUNIARY ADVERSITIES. 201
little less incongruous in comparing to it the most signal and total of mere human reverses, than the most ordinary and mitigated. We have rather to contemplate now, that preference by our Saviour, among human conditions, of poverty and lowliness, which is so memorable, and was doubtless meant to be so monitory. I am very far from judging, (and have indeed already guarded against the inference,) that all followers of Christ must needs endure, more or less, this particular kind of adversities, in order to an essential conformity with Him. The " Father of our spirits " has various methods at his choice, by which substantially to produce and develope that conformity. He can " minish " or impoverish in bodily health ; in mental vigour ; in the treasures of friendship or of reputation ; and in either way sufficiently conform his adopted children to the image and sufferings of Him, who was " the first- born among many brethren."
Yet it is evident, that when trials of the same kind are appointed, when, instead of riches having been unimpaired, or gainful occupation having in- creased, they have been diminished or have disap- peared, then are we, in one respect, led more to- wards the footsteps of our Master. And what Christian can resolvedly wish and deliberately pray, (notwithstanding the secret conflict often in his heart,) that this sort of approach, which after all may be still but distant, had not been ordained ? Who that has read and in any measure believed
202 PECUNIARY ADVERSITIES. IX.
those words of Jesus, " It is enough that the servant be as his Lord? " or the words of Paul, " If we suf- fer with him we shall also reign with him ? "
But, amidst the inward conflict to which I have adverted, it will perhaps be urged — Since we cannot be (as you just now admitted) conformed to the hu- miliation of our Redeemer fully — so far from it, that his must ever remain infinitely greater — why these particular adversities in addition to many more ? or why so severe in degree ? or wherefore in this succes- sive and continued form ?
Let it first be called to mind, that these particu- lar adversities have ever constituted a frequent ingredient of those very trials with which the Al- mighty has seen meet to visit not a few of his dis- tinguished servants. It is true, this part of their afflictions is in a great measure withdrawn from notice amidst the more prominent and keener dis- tresses which it has accompanied. But was it, therefore, the less real ? When the wealth of that Arabian prince and patriarch on whom " the bless- ing of the perishing had come," and who had " caused the widow's heart to sing," was quickly devastated by repeated strokes, — had this kind of calamities the less of intrinsic rigour, because thrown into the shade, as it were, by grievous disease and bereavement and reproach? — When the chosen apostle of the Gentiles, who had probably till then enjoyed all the advantages of life, suffered in his new career " the loss of all things," so as some-
IX. PECUNIARY ADVERSITIES. 203
times to hunger and thirst and be insufficiently clothed, — were these privations the less real because we almost lose sight of them — as he also sometimes might — amidst imprisonments and scourgings, and murderous assaults from those whom he toiled to save ? In the first-mentioned hardships Paul was but the forerunner of a cloud of witnesses and con- fessors, who "took joyfully the spoiling of their goods." We are prone in their case, as in his, to overlook that species of adversities, just because it is eclipsed by others still more grievous. But, again I would ask, was the forfeiture of property, or the loss of profitable employ and comfortable support, the less afflictive in itself, because then at- tended with stripes or cruel mockings, mutilation, or exile ? Yet these were persons whom our Saviour emphatically pronounced " blessed." Your experi- ence, it is probable, even as to one kind of adversi- ty among the many, will scarcely bear comparison with theirs : but were it equally severe, would this at all imply unkindness on his part, who thus dealt with apostles, with evangelists, with the noble army of martyrs, and who meanwhile bade them " rejoice and be exceeding glad?" You will object, per- haps, that their trials, as being for the name and cause of Christ, were tests and demonstrations of fidelity, and, therefore, grounds of joy ; but that yours are devoid of this consolatory character. Re- member, however, that when it has pleased God to remove such persecutions, they can no longer form
204 PECUNIARY ADVERSITIES. IX.
the test of Christian faith and constancy. A sub- missive and grateful endurance of those afflictions which are common to all, (but of which believers may usually expect an ample share,) with a special reference to their Master's will, must be now amongst the strongest proofs of their allegiance and their trust.* Could you then, upon a serious review, whether of church history or of Scripture predic- tions, deem it a clearer token of your Saviour's love and care, if the tide of worldly prosperity had been always rising, if the gale of success were ever with you ?
But while it behoves you to feel and to acknow- ledge, that He who " careth for you " must " do right," and also that appointments which are in unison both with his personal example and distinct predictions, may be presumed accordant with his most gracious purposes, it will be more satisfying if you can also discern other weighty and merciful reasons for these appointments. And how, with the New Testament before us, with its assurances that the grand object of God's dispensations is to detach us from this world, recall us to Himself, prepare us for eternity — together with some observ- ation of mankind and knowledge of ourselves — how shall we fail to discover such reasons ? In the
* Archbishop Leighton intimates, that " a private despised af- fliction, without the name of suffering for his cause," borne " gladly," is among the highest tests.
IX. PECUNIARY ADVERSITIES. 205
tempers and habits which unchecked prosperity so often generates, what a commentary do we find on the various warnings of the gospel as to the danger of abounding in riches ! Not that instances are wanting, either ancient or modern, of good men who may have passed quite unhurt through this ordeal. The "father of the faithful," and Job in his redoubled wealth, and a Thornton and Reynolds in our own times, could be " very rich," not only without " shipwreck of faith and of a good con- science," but perhaps without being the less spiritu- ally-minded, or desiring the less earnestly " a better country." The question, however, still remains, — Have we any reason to be confident that such would have been our own case ? No one, I suppose, could frame the presumptuous expectation or extra- vagant wish, that God might bestow on him corre- spondent measures of wisdom and of grace, in order that he might be as safe and spiritually prosperous as some of those very wealthy believers. This would be prescribing its methods to Divine sovereignty with a boldness which strongly evinced the need of humiliation. We must accept our measure as it is ; both of natural tendencies, and spiritual gifts : and then ask, — If that share of means which God in- trusted to me had been yearly augmented, or yearly undiminished, does it appear likely that I should not have "trusted" more in this world's possessions? Is it probable that, amidst an accession of worldly prosperity, or even with no ebb and interruption of
T
206 PECUNIARY ADVERSITIES. IX.
it, I should have embraced the gospel so firmly ? Can I even assure myself that as good and right a use would have been made by me of the larger gifts of Providence as is now made of the less? — It will assist us perhaps in this inquiry, to remember, how we have in past life actually been carried by certain positions of affairs or impulses of the mind, into aims and undertakings, both laudable and the con- trary, which at other periods, both previously and since, we could never have expected to pursue or to achieve ; for we shall thus in some sort judge how greatly, — how far beyond all present calculation, — certain differences in the course and turn of our affairs might have changed the current of our pur- poses, the nature of our connexions, and " the spirit of our minds." Besides, are you conscious, as it is, of no unfaithfulness towards God in temper or in practice ? Have you never had reason, while pro- fessing to be his, to appropriate to yourself that ancient charge, " My people have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and have hewn out to themselves cisterns ? " — Has there been no need for you to be feelingly convinced, that these cisterns are " broken," or fragile? When God has disappointed you as to worldly wealth, he has in effect broken one of the chief cisterns which you, or others before you, have diligently hewn. Possibly he has over- thrown it at a stroke ; " dashed it to pieces like a potter's vessel : " more probably he has let the con- tents in part escape by unseen flaws ; or filter away,
IX. PECUNIARY ADVERSITIES. 207
as it were, through the very pores of the reservoir. If it had been quite otherwise, if you had hewn more capacious cisterns, and sculptured and adorn- ed them, and no flaw had yet been detected, would you have been so likely to return in humility to Him who says, " If any man thirst, let him come unto me ? "
Connecting these considerations with the former, may it not be still the more confidently expected of you as a Christian — that whatever regrets, or even repinings, you may sometimes be possessed with on account of pecuniary adversity, you will even then utterly shrink from adopting, uncondi- tionally, the presumptuous prayer, — Restore, O Fa- ther of mercies, the gifts which Thou hast taken away, or hast caused to make to themselves wings and fly? — When you contemplate the brevity and precariousness of this life, — when you meditate on His wisdom and compassion, who alone can be our "guide even unto death," — you will "covet earn- estly " no gift but " the best : " spending your fer- vour in that noble prayer, " Lord ! lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us ; " — conscious that the Author of all good can thus put more gladness in your heart, than ever was conferred by the abund- ance and increase of earthly possessions. And while you so " ask " of Him who is " our portion for ever," who alone can teach us unwaveringly to choose, and fit us eternally to enjoy, that all-sufficient portion, — you will try to sum up your desires and regrets as T 2
208 PECUNIARY ADVERSITIES. IX.
to things temporal, in the words of Him who en- dured the cross ; " Not as I will, but as Thou wilt : " — nor need we scruple to associate with them a poet's beautiful declaration : —
" Give what Thou wilt, without Thee I am poor, And with Thee rich, take Avhat Thou wilt away."
X.
ON THE FEARS OF A WIDOWED MOTHER.
A HEAVY burden has devolved upon you ; and we know it presses hard on a wounded, desolate spirit. You feel that the lost companion, who, even from the first, so kindly and intimately shared it, would, in coming and distant years, if spared to you, have borne a much weightier and more indispensable portion of the load. As yet, indeed, it may be, you have only to watch over a helpless and unconscious charge : but though this includes many actual cares, you cannot limit your solicitude to the passing hour. While the busy and gentle hand fulfils its offices, the more busy and restless heart expatiates through the dubious future. Yoa glance onward to those months, when the little one, now playfully engrossed with his cowslips or his pencil, shall have risen into youth, and must incur the incompensable
210 FEARS OF A X.
want of paternal judgment and restraint, through all the steps of tuition, and in the choice of destina- tion for life. Or you look on those whose *' delicate- ness and tenderness " time will less diminish ; — and while your own impaired health may forebode the uncertainty of their remaining parent's days, you meditate on the trials and hazards of orphan daugh- ters with a still deeper sigh. Your resources also for the support and benefit of those so beloved and so dependent, (it is likely,) have, by the same event, been painfully abridged ; and you predict with sad- ness how much more this will be felt, as their occa- sions for aid shall progressively augment and multi- ply. But this is not all. You are a Christian ; and your inmost solicitude contemplates interests that extend beyond the boundaries of time. You desire intensely and supplicate continually, the spiritual and endless happiness of those so dear. That stroke of bereavement which has marred your earthly comforts and aggravated all your cares, has too keenly graven in your heart the thought of eternity, for it to be long obscured ; and you there- fore anticipate with a new dread those moral dan- gers of the world, in which, as they advance, the cherished objects of your care must mingle. You foresee, for those who will have to enter on its ac- tive pursuits, inevitable contact with its deceits and perils ; and sometimes a trembling anxiety, at once for their temporal and eternal welfai-e, and for that fortitude and wisdom on your own part which the
X. WIDOWED MOTHER. 211
adjustment of these claims may demand, oppresses and almost OA^erwhelms you.
Although conscious that these afflictive feelings often rise to a degree which is culpable, you still cannot appropriate a distinct condemnation of them from our Saviour's precepts against " anxious fore- thought," * because you know that, besides not be- ing personal or selfish, they relate ultimately, and in the largest measure, to interests ''not of this world." Nor is the excuse which you found on these distinctions at all inadmissible. It rather claims our warmest sympathy and respect. Eternal good is represented by Him that came down from heaven, as the fit subject of profound solicitude : and if a large philanthropy, if a deep concern for the true and final happiness of others, be " the fulfilling of the law," — if it be the temper of angels towards our foreign race, and of those who have imbibed the mind of Christ and the apostolic spirit, towards the remotest of our own, — how much more where the closest bond of nature all but identifies your ofi"- spring with yourself, and affection yearns over those who have begun within your own embrace their pil- grimage towards immortality! No one condemns St. Paul for his daily " solicitude " f concerning " all the churches;" still less for that "heaviness and sorrow" on account of his "brethren" and
* Matt. vi. 25—34. t 2 Cor. xi. 28. It is remarkable that the origmal word is the same as in the above-cited texts of Matthew's Gospel.
212 FEARS OF A
X.
" kinsmen," (though only a national consanguinity were meant,) which moved peculiarly his " heart's desire and prayer that Israel might be saved." No one who is not estranged from faith and charity will censure the daily tears of Monica, the devout and widowed mother of Augustine, poured out to the God of mercy for her son's conversion : on the contrary, what Christian would not venerate and love that persevering fervour of maternal intercession which the son so gratefully records ? But the principle and feeling of solicitude may be just and pure, and yet the measure of it excessive, or the mode erro- neous. You are prone, I may venture to suppose, very often to transfer your own from the all-import- ant issue so fitly and piously desired, to intervening means and distant obstacles; to those events, en- gagements, and connexions, which, as you imagine, may obstruct and defeat that happy termination ; or rather that happy acquisition of blessings not to terminate. You seek to pierce, not for yourself in- deed, but for these other selves, the shades and labyrinths of this world's transient future. Not for yourself, because you humbly trust that Divine Mercy has taught you to seize the sacred clew, or rather has " apprehended " you with a rescuing and sustaining hand ; and though you should walk in a yet deeper darkness, you would hope and resolve to " stay yourself upon your God." But for them you tremble as imagination paints their untried way. You shudder at the precipice and the torrent ; you
X. WIDOWED MOTHER. 213
dread the rugged tract and the luxuriant valley, the crowded scene and the solitary : forgetting that it may be in that most perilous juncture, — or in some part of their course the most opposite to what you would select, the most similar to what you fear, — that the " Guide of their youth " will meet them with his free and unchangeable compassion ; and from that memorable hour of weakness, error, or wretchedness, will lead them "by the right way." Undue anxiety, even when its source and subject are of the most justifiable kind, is not only reproved by our conscious and insuperable ignorance, but lies open to the severer rebuke of being deeply tinctured with a want of " faith in God." As to the former, could we need confirmation, the events of every day and of all society would yield it. Even were the temporal welfare of your family the limit of your earnest wishes, were the prosperity of this life (for I apply not the term happiness to what is brief and unsatisfying) all that you would invoke for them, you know how impossible it would have been, not only for the fond parent they have lost, but for the wisest and greatest of mankind, to fore- tell or effect with certainty what would conduce to this. Sages might fail to divine^ and monarchs to secure it. You know that all kinds of worldly advantages — brilliant talents, large acquirements, hereditary rank, ample wealth, — have proved, in multiplied instances, the instruments or occasions of temporal ruin. Character, and health, and life
214 FEARS OF A X.
have, by turns, been sacrificed amidst those splendid perils. You have seen sometimes the amiable and virtuous, who possessed almost every personal and relative privilege, plunged by a sudden malady, or an unworthy associate, into depths of distress. On the other hand, you have observed positions of com- fort and success, respectability and honour, attained through all the varied paths of early danger, diffi- culty, and suffering.
You tremble to see the little barks in which your dearest hopes are deposited, now launched with so feeble a convoy ; and to think that even from this they may so soon be parted. But remember that were the convoy even princely, the frail skiffs and the protecting ships would be alike upon a treach- erous ocean. The richest galliot, and the armed fleet that surround her, are alike exposed to the tempest, if not to the foe. The convoy may be dis- persed ; the enemy eluded, and the skiff preserved. The modern Caesar twice safely traversed the whole Mediterranean, without protection, amidst hostile armaments ; and while he, as infidel as Julius, only invoked his fortunes, the providence of God for- bade his capture till a mysterious and unhappy course should be fulfilled. And cannot and will not the same hand direct (not in judgment, but in mercy) the course of those whom parental love con- tinually commits into his keeping ? The same power that scattered an " invincible Armada," guides the nautilus into its petty creek ; and has wafted many
X. WIDOWED MOTHER. 215
an exhausted mariner, in an open boat, without a compass and with failing stores, into some " quiet haven."
Human life would still be a course through a trackless deep or a perplexing labyrinth, even were earthly prosperity the only goal. But how much more is prediction baffled, and the guarantee of all human vigilance in itself inadequate, when we in- clude in our estimate those vast and unseen reali- ties which, with you, are happily paramount ; out- weighing, as they do, all the unsubstantial gains of time. If the short-sightedness confessed in that ancient question, " Who knoweth what is good for man in this life 1 " might be still acknowledged, even though the days " which he spendeth as a shadow," were the whole of his existence, — how much more when the shadow forms but the preliminary veil to a destiny that is boundless ! A sense of our inca- pacity to foresee the spiritual effects of this life's in- cidents and changes, though it must not relax cau- tion or paralyse exertion, ought surely to modify all our prayers, desires, and efforts, for the earthly wel- fare of others, as well as for our own ; introducing into all of them this heartfelt reservation, — "The Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good." Au- gustine relates that his devout mother had earn- estly deprecated that change of his residence, from Carthage to Italy, which was, in fact, the means of his conversion. Doubtless her grief at the thought
216 FEARS OF A X.
of separation was mingled with the dread of his incurring greater transgressions, and being still fur- ther alienated from piety. The immediate object, therefore, of her earnest prayer was, that his depar- ture might be prevented. " What, O my God ! " (he writes,) " did she at that time entreat with such excess of tears, except that Thou wouldest not per- mit my voyage ? But in thy profound and hidden counsels, listening to the deeper object, the cardinal point of her desires. Thou wert regardless of what she then implored, in order to accomplish in me what she ever implored."* Perhaps this Christian parent, even while thus hurried away by tender affections and forebodings, exercised a more sub- missive spirit than her son ascribed to her. But we should ever remember that the very supposition of these prospects beyond the tomb, which create our deepest anxieties, both relative and personal, — itself involves and is built upon the fact of God's perfections and providence. When, as Christian parents, we yield to a desponding or agitating tem- per of mind as to the unknown course and destiny of our children, we not only seem to mourn over that want of prescience which is the allotment and condition of our being, but we really betray the feebleness of our trust in that great Ruler and Fa- ther of his creatures, from whose own declarations
* Confess., 1. v. c. 8. Exaudiens cardinem desiderii ejus, non curasti quod tunc petebat, ut in me faceres, quod semper petebat.
X. WIDOWED MOTHER. 217
of holiness, and acts and promises of mercy, it can alone be inferred that the course of those whom we love is truly so momentous. Had not the Almighty revealed himself in the person of that *' beloved Son, " who, by his authoritative voice, but more im- pressively by his vicarious sufferings, promulgated the incalculable worth both of the human soul and of its ransomed patrimony, then would those ulti- mate hopes and fears, which possess you on behalf of your beloved charge, have never been awakened : you would have had, probably, no fixed expectation of a life to come ; certainly no knowledge as to the connexion of happiness in that life with pardon and spiritual renovation in this. You would have been incompetent to form, for yourself, or for them, the " sure and certain " hope of a perfect and unchange- able felicity ; inasmuch as nothing in your view of the human nature and condition, and nothing in your ignorance of the Divine, could warrant or even suggest such a hope. The source, therefore, of your deepest anxiety, should be the source of its cure ; should afford its sovereign antidote. If you grate- fully believe in an immortal life to come, then must you believe that He who proclaims and confers it is the " God of all grace," the God who is " Love ; " who has given unspeakable proof of his compassion, as excelling (to use his own pathetic language) not only a Father's pity, but even a mother^s ten- derness.
218 FEARS OF A X.
You will answer, perhaps, — Alas ! no comfort can arise even from these gracious attributes, and these consolatory declarations, as to the happy issue of my children's course, except Divine truth per- sonally affect their hearts. Most true. But let it not be forgotten, that we serve " the God of hope :" that he " delighteth in mercy," and is able to do "exceeding abundantly above all we ask;" that since he has expressly enjoined and encouraged in- tercession, it would be profane to imagine that earn- est supplications, (and especially parental prayers,) having the highest good of others for their object, should be wholly or usually ineffectual.
Who will venture to assert, that when a parent's sincere and believing, though imperfect petitions, combined with such practical vigilance as our in- firmity admits, have been the child's inheritance, — that child is likely to pass into another world un- visited by heavenly mercy ; unrepenting and un- blessed ? Are we even warranted in indulging the fear, that if we, "being evil," perseveringly entreat this best of gifts for our children, our heavenly Fa- ther will refuse to bestow on them " the Holy Spi- rit " which he has promised to them that ask ? What rio-ht have we to conclude, that this blessins:, which it is our first duty to implore, and w^hich is unconditionally promised, will be withholden when it is solicited for them ; solicited by those in whom all the sentiments of nature are a pledge for un-
X. WIDOWED MOTHER. 219
doubted sincerity, if not for unwearied ardour ? By what principle are we authorized to limit or depre- ciate the efficacy of intercessory prayer? It is, surely, prayer of the purest and most heavenly kind. It has for its very essence and impulse, the spirit of love. It is the kind of prayer in which Christ abounded on earth, and which He continues in hea- ven. And in the case of those whom you " love as your own soul," how shall it not be often winged with a peculiar fervour ? Nay, I doubt not you have sometimes felt, — Though my supplications for myself have this day been so distracted and luke- warm, at least my supplications for my dear children have been truly from the heart. We grant that intercession, even for those most beloved, as for all others, whatever be its warmth or frequency, cannot essentially and supremely promote their spiritual good, unless it be graciously accepted as instru- mental in procuring for them personally the grace and spirit of prayer. Without this, indeed, it may be instrumental to avert or mitigate evil, to pre- vent many sins and sufferings, or many aggrava- tions of both. But how are we justified in forebod- ing that it will not ultimately, nay speedily, procure that grace, which shall prompt our children to pray with earnestness for themselves; that it will not be owned of God by his mercifully g. anting them convictions, early and deep convictions, of the value of heavenly truth ; such as will bring them truly to u 2
220 FEARS OF A X.
his Mercy-seat ; and in that great disclosing day, "when the thoughts of many hearts shall be re- vealed," will be found linked in his secret records with the solitary effusions of a parent's love ?
On these grounds we may surely acquit of pre- sumption him w^io said to the mother of Augustine, " It cannot be that the child of those tears should perish." Monica, we are told, received his conso- lation as if sent by Heaven. Nor should you, or any devout parent, hesitate to share it. It is a thought which may transmute the tears of despond- ency to tears of joy ; which may give a happy warmth to each tender admonition, animate each prudential endeavour, and* shed a calm upon your spirit amidst that distressing uncertainty which must attend some of your decisions. Indulge the bright anticipation of final inseparable union : pray with confiding hope for a blessing so immense : resign, not with careless indolence but with devout acquiescence, every intervening scene and change, into His hand, who, as you well know, has led his most beloved " sons and daughters " through paths of danger and perplexity, to penitence and joy. Rely on him who shall " gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom." Originally and efficiently all good must flow from Him ; but instrumentally, you may, in all likelihood, hereafter trace their blessedness to your sharpest sorrows, — to the more fervent devotion, and genuine reli-
X. WIDOWED MOTHER. 221
ance, and tender vigilance, which those afflictions wrought, — and to those subsequent trials in their own course, which you contemplated with dread, but which God in mercy pre-ordained to bring them to Himself, and reunite them everlastingly with you.
u 3
XI
ON THE CHRISTIAN INTERPRETATION OF MYSTERIOUS CHASTISEMENTS.
In contemplating the afflictions, however severe, of those around us who are in revolt against God, who violate at once His law promulgated in Scripture, and the anterior law recorded in the heart, we can- not be wholly at a loss to perceive in them a pur- pose both just and gracious. They are less perplex- ing to faith than either the sufferings of inferior creatures, irresponsible and sinless, or of the peni- tent and obedient, the returned and adopted children of God. For we have discerned, and have ourselves experienced, their reclaiming tendency. What so effectual as pain and privation, to bring the " lost sheep " back to the " Good Shepherd " and com- passionate " Bishop of souls ? " And under the con- stituted order of God's dealings with rebellious man, — in which we must either humbly acquiesce or
XI. MYSTERIOUS CHASTISEMENTS. 223
fruitlessly speculate, — it is often very plainly requi- site that such chastisements be " sharp and long." Nothing less, in many cases, than a keen pressure of most " grievous " anguish, suffices to bring back the hardened offender, contrite and suppliant, to meet the overtures of paternal kindness.*
In observing also the subsequent pangs and griefs of those who have thus returned, and still more in enduring such personally, we can often discover that they are needful for correction ; designed to improve and chasten those who still " in many things offend ; " that the Father of our spirits thus treats his adopted children " for their profit, that they may be partakers of his holiness ; " the actual defects and evils by which they differ from the model and standard of that holiness being thus abated or expelled : — that in this manner He curbs the re- mains of pride, chastises corrupt self-indulgence and love of the world, rebukes a neglect of devotion, punishes those " secret faults " which have marred the peace and honour of the Christian course, and quickens the view and desire of those divine realities which are too often strangely obscured by this life's cares or enjoyments. You are abundantly conscious, that you still need such corrections ; although you may "faint" not seldom, and sometimes almost
* Even heathens perceived the fitness and necessity of pain to reclaim the wicked. See Socrates in Plato's Gorgias, p. 294. Edit. Routh. The whole passage is in more than one view re- markable.
224 CHRISTIAN VIEW OF XI.
murmur, at their character or their degree. Where are the believers who can presume to say, that cor- rective chastisement is, or will be in this world, quite superfluous for themselves?
And yet, looking at the course of others, perhaps of some that are most dear to you, you feel it diffi- cult, and may even deem it culpable, to assign this reason for their sufferings, disappointments, and pri- vations ; which you see to be exceedingly acute, greatly protracted, or variously aggravated ; and which therefore often bear an appearance the most dark and inscrutable.
Do you then, let me ask, enough consider, that sufferings, when allotted to the " heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ," have an ulterior and su- perior use ; the use of completion or exaltation in obedience ; that, in other words, they are designed not only to correct, but likewise to perfect or to elevate ? •
If you doubt whether this end can be justly re- garded as distinct from that of correction, — which we admit to be usually, and, perhaps, always con- joined with it,— consider that the sinless Redeemer, in his human nature, is declared to have " learned obedience by the things which He suffered." But one of the chief aspects in which that glorious Per- son is presented to our view, is as a faultless ex- emplar of human excellence or virtue ; and this also in those parts of his course which especially fulfilled a far more exalted and inestimable pur-
XI. MYSTERIOUS CHASTISEMENTS. 225
pose ; namely, his sufferings. For this we have the express testimony of an apostle, — " Christ also suf- fered for us, leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps ; " * where the foregoing context evinces the writer's meaning to be, not merely that He who suffered left us an example generally, but that his sufferings were especially thus designed. It was therefore a distinct and material end, though far from the highest and ultimate end of them, — to afford a specimen and pattern of the most arduous human virtue. Jesus, although infinitely dignified, and infinitely dear to his heavenly Father, and en- tirely free from sin, yet could not, without the en- durance of his great and various sufferings, have exercised and displayed, as man, so sublime a per- fection of obedience. We have, indeed, mentioned obvious uses of suffering, in regard to fallen and re- volted, and even to recalled but imperfect human beings, which evidently and totally differ from any that it had, or could have, in relation to Him *' who knew no sin." As the sufferings of Christ, on the one hand, fulfilled an entirely different and infinitely superior end to those of any other human being, — that of the expiation of sins, — so, on the other hand, do the sufferings of apostate but redeemed creatures promote an entirely different end from any which they could accomplish personally in the holy Saviour, — that of the subjugation of sins. While, ho^TCver,
* 1 Pet. ii. 21.
226 CHRISTIAN VIEW OF XI.
this dissimilarity exists, a remarkable affinity or identity subsists together with it : one great and honourable use of sufferino; beincr common to the followers of Christ with their Lord, — the only one which can be so ; which we have already termed the use of completion or exaltation. Were it not for this point of intercommunity, there would be much less strictness and fitness in the phrase lately cited from St. Peter, and in that strong expression of St. Paul, where, having styled believers '^ joint- heirs with Christ," he adds, ''if so be we jointly- siiffer, that also we may be jointly -glorified with Him ; " ^" language precisely adapted to indicate communion in the character and end of suffering. With regard to our Saviour, it must be superfluous to show, that the endurance of suffering could have, as it respected himself, the last-mentioned use alone. It were blasphemy in this case to attribute to it any reclaiming or corrective use. When we are told that He thus " learned obedience," nothing else can be meant than that He thus was enabled to ex- ercise and exemplify a more elevated obedience, than he could else have done, and than our first pro- genitor could have done, had he persevered for ever in sinless virtue witJiout suffering. This is express- ed more distinctly in another remarkable passage. — " It became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto
* Rom. viii. 17. See Macknight's translation, and in each case the compound word of the original.
XI. MYSTERIOUS CHASTISEMENTS. 227
glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." * But if acquiescent endur- ance was thus a crowning constituent of moral per- fectness in Him that took our nature upon him, why- should it not be so, — or rather, how shall it not be so, — in those ransomed and adopted " heirs of God," whose perfection consists in being " co-heirs with Christ," and " conformed to the image of his Son? " View in this light the afflictions on which it some- times oppresses us to meditate, and see if that per- fective tendency, that close resemblance of character and purpose to the trials which our Lord endured, does not avail at least to abate our wonder, and dis- pose the mind to waiting adoration.
You may have known a devoted and highly-gifted Christian, who has zealously embarked in some special task of philanthropy, — whether that of in- viting men into " the kingdom of God's dear Son," or combating on their behalf some forms of injustice and cruelty, or promoting some mode of their positive comfort and improvement, — arrested by a disabling stroke, and without any extinction, per- haps without diminution, of mental energy and zeal, entirely laid by from those activities in which he was ready " to spend and to be spent." This is a very startling and mysterious check. But let it not be forgotten, that while the cause, already, or at no
* Heb. ii. 10, — literally — "to perfect, (or complete) through sufferings, the Prince of their salvation."
228 CHRISTIAN VIEW OF XI.
long interval, may be prosecuted by other instru- ments, he that fain would serve it is meantime " learning obedience," — practising a harder, nobler lesson in the school of true discipleship, — " by the thing which he suffers." Nothing M^hich he could have achieved or attempted in the way of active duty, nothing even which he could have home in the pursuit of that duty, would have been so ar- duous, as to bow to this unlooked-for prohibition ; and while compelled to say *' My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart,"* to add, " The Lord gave " strength, " and the Lord hath taken it away ; and blessed be the name of the Lord."
You have known also, perhaps, such a benevolent and ardent mind, intent on the service of God and the happiness of men, itself visited with afflictive weakness. Bodily health may have been, or at least have seemed, unbroken; but languor and prostration have come upon those mental powers and sentiments which were so awake and vigorous. The very " will to do good " seems wanting. It is merged in the oppressive sense of incapacity. The " fervour of the spirit " has vanished, and, at least in the sufferer's apprehension, cannot be rekindled. This will appear a still more marvellous and con- founding infliction. Yet, from its very strangeness
* Job xvii. 11.
XI. MYSTERIOUS CHASTISEMENTS. 229
and heaviness, it is obvious to infer, that the sufferer is called to the acquisition of a still more difficult and refined "obedience." To be thus assailed and " smitten at the heart," thus " emptied " or de- nuded in the innermost recess of feeling, — especially when such a state involves, as it often must, dis- tressful doubts as to the greatest truths, or as to personal interest in them, — may be a far vreightier trial and sharper test of submission, than martyr- dom, with the firm and elated hope bestowed on many martyrs, itself could be. That is a deep and lofty lesson in the discipline of passive virtue, in which the learner still cleaves to his great paternal Teacher, though unable not only to render Him animated service, but to realize His unseen presence, and much more to appropriate His unseen smiles.
You have seen, it may be, a good man's warm endeavours baffled by perverse and unfeeling oppo- sition ; or fruitless through the sloth or prejudice of those who should concur with him. He has ex- ercised a disinterested and patient earnestness, but has been requited with indifference, sometimes per- haps with scorn. He is compelled to say or to sus- pect, " I have laboured in vain ; I have spent my strength for nought." *
What a grievous wound to the spirit ! What a chilling damp on the fervent and dedicated heart ! But he who feels it, and can add with some measure
* Isa. xlix. 4. X
230 CHRISTIAN VIEW OF XI.
of the prophet's resignation, " Yet surely my judg- ment is with the Lord, and my work with my God," — is practising assuredly an exalted and happy obe- dience in " the thing which he suffers."
Trials akin to this may occur with sharp and peculiar aggravations even in the closest privacy, and in the nearest bonds of life. Efforts for the spiritual, moral, and temporal welfare of dear con- nexions may all have been apparently frustrated and lost : many prayers and counsels, many aids and toils, many tender expostulations, may be yet in vain. To acquiesce here, — to bow to the dark appointments or permissions of Him whose " way is in the sea " and whose " footsteps are not known," — to bear the denial or postponement of the most pious and ardent desires, — what an agonizing pitch of "hardness" for the "soldier of Christ!" How many a sorrowing but not murmuring relative, full of anguish, yet meekly bending to the sovereignty of God, has thus been led up the Hinty steep of Christian endurance ! You have witnessed it ; and perhaps with an amazed disquietude. But do we not here behold the "goodness" as well as "se- verity " of God ? How eminently are those patient mourners " learning obedience," by the uncom- plaining though heart-sickening sadness of their " hope deferred !" That hope may yet perhaps be fulfilled ere they go hence, and gild their latter days with a tranquil sacred delight ; but perhaps, not till they are " ascended to their Father ; " — even
XI. MYSTERIOUS CHASTISEMENTS. 231
as His unexampled prayer, who implored, " Forgive them, for they know not what they do," was an- swered, after his ascension from our world, in the penitence and peace of thousands who had scorned and resisted his whole ministry of love.
Sympathize tenderly therefore in the sorrows of such hearts ; but be " not offended." They are '^ bearing the cross " with Him who wept over Je- rusalem. They are " learning" an unreserved de- ference to Divine wisdom, and reliance on Divine mercy. In proportion to the painfulness of their tuition will be the exaltation of their joy.
Once more — you may have observed, or watched over, a Christian who appeared mature in piety, "ready to be offered," fully "meet for the inherit- ance of the saints," but who has been long, very long, detained under the grasp of cruel disease, lingering on a bed of pining sickness, racked with unremitting pain : or, if the malady has, on the contrary, been rapid, you have witnessed intense pangs it may be, which seemed to pour " gall and wormwood " into the very " bitterness of death." You have been led to ask mournfully at such a sight, — Why all this — why not a calmer dismissal of the prepared and expecting spirit ? Why these pains prolonged, or accumulated, or sharpened, when a merciful Father, a compassionate Redeem- er, is about to receive the departing and beloved sufferer to his own embrace ? — To these queries we must accept, and may with reason accept, the x 2
232 CHRISTIAN VIEW OF XL
scriptural answer, which has been repeatedly ad- duced. The beloved sufferer, though an adopted son, is still "learning obedience:" attaining that last and highest gradation of perfective endurance which worketh for him " a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." The grace by which he endures this final test, — "not charging God fool- ishly," but trusting in His wise and merciful design, — although it be God's own gift, and can afford no shadow of a plea for boasting, — shall be " counted worthy " of a rich and " full reward." By these pains and languishings is he brought into closest union, into holiest conformity, wdth Him that " en- dured the cross." The human exaltation of our Lord himself has been ascribed to that endurance as its cause. He " became obedient unto death^ even the death of the cross ; — wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name."*' Surely then, by the various forms of bodily and mental suffering, as probably as by any mode of faithfulness in active duties, t may his followers be aj5pointed to graduate for their stations in his " Father's house ; " to " pro- cure to themselves an excellent degree ; " J to be " counted worthy of double honour ; " § to have " an entrance ministered to them richly into the ever- lasting kingdom of their Lord and Saviour ; "|| to
* Philip, ii. 9, and comp. Heb. ii. 9, 10.
t See 2 Thess. i. 5 — 7. J 1 Tim. iii. 13. Macknight's translation.
§ 1 Tim. V. 17. II 2 Pet. i. 11, Tr\ov<nois.
XI. MYSTERIOUS CHASTISEMENTS. 233
be numbered with those who " came out of great tribulation;" who are before the throne of God and " serve Him day and night in his Temple."
Doubtless, as was before suggested, if you person- ally endure such distresses, you will feel that they are properly chastisements, merited and corrective : and so will those whose similar afflictions you observe. Nor is it to be questioned, that in all the sufferings of fallen man, even those of the most advanced be- lievers in their latest hours, a corrective quality and design may mingle : but that does not preclude, even in your case, and still less in theirs, the high- er and perfective quality and purpose. Neither is it for you or me,— though great and awful be our conscious demerit, and chastisements be far more deserved and needed by us than our fellow crea- tures might account them,— to define and circum- scribe the aims of Him that correcteth in mercy, as if He could not associate with this a more latent and still diviner purpose when he appoints the rod. It were presumptuous to dispute or set aside, what scriptural statements and inferences establish, that it is their perfective quality and use, as distinguished from the corrective, which identifies the sufferings of" the members" with those of the exalted" Head ;" and that this quality and use may, therefore, proba- bly enter into every " chastening," even of the un- worthiest and least faithful of the " children of God."
But our view at present has been chiefly directed to the course and the trials of others; and of those X 3
234 CHRISTIAN VIEW OF XI.
who are much more advanced. Let it be impressed on our minds in reference to such, that those "friends" or "brethren" of Christ most strictly and precisely " suffer with Him," * just so far as their sufferings have in them what is beyond or above the corrective character. But the more they suffer " with" or like their Master, the more pre-eminently doubtless shall they "reign with Him." f The apostles appear to have recognised this design in their own appointed conflicts. Though Paul dis- tinctly acknowledges a corrective or preventive use, when he writes, " Lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh/' J he at other times intimates the strict communion of believers in suffering with their sinless Lord. "The sufferings of Christ " (he had declared in the same Epistle) "abound in us;"§ and elsewhere he an- nounces it as part of his supreme desire that he might know the ''fellowship of his" Lord's " suf- ferings, being made conformable unto his death." || To another society he declares, " I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and in my turn fill up the re- mainder of the afflictions of Clirist, for his body's sake, which is the church." ^ Though he chiefly rejoiced that these things were endured in the ser- vice and for the benefit of the church, and in that
* Rom. viii. 17. t 2 Tim. ii. 12. + 2 Cor. xii. 7.
§ 2 Cor. i. 5. II Philip, iii. 10.
H Col. i. 24. Macknight's translation.
XI. MYSTERIOUS CHASTISEMENTS. 235
respect also resembled his Lord's, there is no reason to doubt that he rejoiced likewise in their perfective or completory, and, if I may use the term, in their honorary character, as means and marks of com- munion and coheirship with Him, " who for the suffering of death was crowned with glory." '* Peter uses similar language: " Rejoice, inasmuch as ye participate (or communicate) in Christ's sufferings : that, in the revelation of his glory, ye may exult for
joy-" t
I know not indeed how we, who possess a nature susceptible of pain and " compassed wdth infirmity," can conceive of obedience thoroughly or extremely tried, except through this ordeal of suffering. There may be, and we doubt not there are, other modes of adequate trial for spirits unfallen, — whether they be incapable of pain or othervv^ise ; — modes which, though having no pain in them, are yet some way as effectual and conclusive (perhaps even extreme) in attesting their obedience. Yet there is some- thing strangely illustrious in the fact, that lapsed and renovated creatures acquire a sort of conformity and communion with the Son of God, which beings that have never suffered cannot be imagined to pos- sess. If there be first a something surpassingly glo- rious in the peculiarity and condescension of his suffering *' for us,^' there is next a something re- ciprocally glorious in the peculiarity and honour of
* Heb. ii. 9. f 1 Pet. iv. 13.
236 MYSTERIOUS CHASTISEMENTS. XI
our suffering " with Him.'' May we not reverently conceive it one purpose of Eternal Wisdom in per- mitting man's apostasy, to illustrate, as it had not been and could not perhaps otherwise have been illus- trated, that mode of spiritual discipline and elevation which consists in the endurance of pain — thus in- troducing an unprecedented kind of victory, a novel sort of triumph and of victors, into the " ge- neral assembly " of the blessed ? — the " Lord of glory " and " Image of the invisible God" Himself assum- ing a crown which celestials never won, and bring- ing " with Him, out of great tribulation," a new array of " more than conquerors," from whom new glory shall redound to " Him that loved them," and at whom the heavens shall wonder?
XII.
ON MENTAL ILLNESS OR DEBILITY.
Our fallen nature owns three sources of infirmity and suffering, — the corporal, the intellectual, and the spiritual ; * which, though we can often experi- mentally distinguish, we sometimes imagine more distinct than in reality they are. Instances, no doubt, are found, of a wonderful distinctness, and almost a seeming independency, of those several states. Thus the intellectual strength of some men has been evinced in arduous public effort, while enduring acute bodily pain. Thus again, in the midst of torture by disease or martyrdom by violence, there has arisen a high degree of spiritual joy. Some also, under the lash of guilty passions, and the smart- ings of remorse, have yet seemed to possess their
* The term spiritual is, of course, used in the moral and religious sense ; to which, by Christians, it has been almost exclusively ap- propriated.
238 MENTAL ILLNESS XII.
bodily vigour and mental promptitude unbroken. It is, however, quite rare, for the intellectual health to be even transiently shaken, without some cor- poral sympathy ; and even without some moral or spiritual pain being thus induced or heightened. Usually, when the mind, the medium both of sens- ations and emotions, is weakened or perturbed, all that are painful become the more so, and all that are pleasurable, the less. We somewhat illustrate, though without really explaining, this law, when it is said, in familiar metaphors, that the mental me- dium, like a stained or clouded glass, now mars the hue of what is bright, and deepens what is sombrous.
There are exceptions, indeed, to this ; for the in- tellect, in later life, may be consciously impaired and circumscribed, yet the bodily powers and percep- tions not sensibly abated, and the moral and spiritual comforts happily enhanced.
But while we have thus examples of distinctness, (and in all its forms,) — the contrary cases, of compli- cation, are abundantly more frequent. It is matter of trite remark, how the mind and body act upon each other. Such indeed is their hidden recipro- city of influence, that it often defies the most self- analysing consciousness, and the most observant professional skill, to pronounce where such affec- tions originate ; whether some insensible bodily dis- arrangement gave rise to the languor of the mind ; — or some disorder more strictly intellectual first
XII. OR DEBILITY. 239
untuned the physical functions ; — or whether some secret wound of conscience, or sense of grief or shame, or wrong, or disappointment, has wrought on either, or both : and how far, in these cases, a predisposition of the mind or body rendered that grievous at one time, which might have been harm- less at another.
While, however, all this is latent, it will be often felt, and perhaps still oftener seen, that there is a mutual action, a pervading sympathetic malady. And although intellectual weakness (which is our immediate subject) may not, in the decline of life, produce any spiritual gloom, this is because the Christian mind has learned to acquiesce in its own perceived decay, as a common ordination of Provi- dence ; the appointed lot of age. But when such a visitation comes (speaking humanly) before its season, then is it naturally productive of discom- posure and complaint ; the more so because exag- gerated by the mind which endures it, and viewed as humiliating, perhaps judicial. It is true that Christian patience will mitigate these feelings ; yet with a conscious premature suspension of mental health and vigour, spiritual serenity and abounding hope seem incompatible. As I judge it therefore likely, that some sort of dejection as to the highest of all interests mingles in your case, I shall after- wards advert to this ; yet assuming that intellectual debility is felt and acknowledged by yourself as its prevailing symptom. You suffer, then, the
240 MENTAL ILLNESS
XII.
mortifying consciousness, that your power to think, — with the previous clearness, vivacity, and con- tinuance,^— is now interrupted ; that the mind is be- reft of its elasticity and strength. You feel, it may be, as if the invisible organs of thought, so exqui- sitely framed by the Great Artificer of all things, were all or most of them injured or withdrawn ; as if " the wheel " were " broken at the cistern " of truth ; the shining coil of imagination snapped and motionless ; the " silver cord " of fancy and of feel- ing deprived of all its tones, and " mute as if the soul were fled ;" the lenses or mirrors of the mind (to repeat a former allusion) all tinged with gloomy hues; all "sicklied o'er with the pale cast" of thought.
Or, if you dislike such marked and extended me- taphors in describing mental powers and acts and deficiencies, (though some metaphors we needs must use,) you feel, at least, that there is a hidden dis- ability beyond your skill to relieve, and which it demands all your faith submissively to abide.
Now I ask you not, either by way of solace or re- proof, if there might not be, in some grievous bodily disease, a measure of afifliction less endurable ; for this is obviously a question of degree : it would in- deed be most presumptuous for you to conclude, that He who made us could not inflict a corporal agony which might surpass yet heavier mental griefs : while there are, on the contrary, lighter bodily pains and weaknesses, for which, I doubt not,
XII. OR DEBILITY. 241
your present sorrow would be thankfully exchanged. But I ask you — (and it behoves us all, under our several modes of trial, to recollect the " measured " character of Divine corrections) — would the adcli- tio7i of an excruciating bodily pain, supposing it of' course not to deaden or obliterate your present feel- ings, be no aggravation of them ? Would no ca- lamity or guilt of your dearest connexions increase your actual unhappiness? Would no error, vice, or crime into which you might fall, add sharpness to what you undergo ? Such queries must at least convince the mind, — unless its malady be too in- tense for argument, — of the strong reasons which remain for unmurmuring submission ; and for hold- ing fast the principle of gratitude, though the happy emotion may not be excitable beneath that load which " weighs upon the heart." I address you as not bereft of judgment, not wholly insensible, there- fore, to the force of these considerations ; and as de- sirous of being ever submissive to God's will, though much and often failing in that aim. Let me now show you that the writer of these lines is not quite '* unknowing of the ill" which you endure, by entering a little into the dark views which you yourself may take of it. I am fully prepared to agree with you, that such an affliction, in several respects, exceeds that of any bodily disease, unless when the latter is extreme, and deemed to be in- curable. First, because this mental pain involves
Y
242 MENTAL ILLNESS XII.
in itself the grievous quality of prevalent fear ; a deficiency or inertness of hope. Fear is its very essence ; fear from a sense of inability or ill desert, from the dark undefined perspective of all future evils, or from an expectation that your present in- competence and reluctance to the offices of life may be heightened, till the mind be wholly paralysed and overthrown. Not that there is really an entire ex- haustion of that which " springs eternal in the hu- man breast." As art has not rendered the vacuum of the air-pump absolute, so can our nature scarcely experience, in its present condition, a really total void and exclusion of hope. But even art can produce a vacuum in which the butterfly seems lifeless, and the thistledown falls like lead ; and God permits sometimes such a deep destitution of hope within the heart, that the slight wing of fancy becomes torpid, and the very motes amidst which it fluttered, are all sunk and still : so that it may seem to the sufferer as if hope were extinct for ever ; forgetting that He with whom are " the issues of life," who " openeth and no man shutteth," not only can but may pour in a life-renewing stream, and fill the soul with gladness. Those who have had proof of this, — who have hailed, and perhaps not seldom, that reviving change, — will, of course, be comparatively secure against even the imagined deprivation of all hope. If Christians, they some- times, at least, will acknowledge, " God hafi deliver-
XII. OR DEBILITY. 243
ed," and He may '''yet deliver." Still there must remain that dismal prevalence of fear, which, as was before said, is the very essence of dejection.
This wiU suggest distinctions, as plausible as they are afflictive, to defeat all hopeful inference from former restorations ; such as added years ; the in- veteracy of the evil ; the less pardonable because re- lapsing acts of sin or folly which have procured returning chastisement : and though all this may equally apply to bodily afflictions, yet it is obvious that these are very often alleviated by hope ; fre- quently just ; but sometimes more palpably san- guine and deceptive, than the w^ant of it in mental illness is melancholic and deceptive also.
The last-named characteristic contributes to an- other peculiarity of your distress, too well known by those who have endured it, — namely, that some of your acquaintance do not understand, and none (at least as you now conceive) can estimate it fully. Indeed, if we speak strictly, such is the very truth ; for how can even the general malady (much more the special case) be apprehended in its weight and keenness, except by one who is at the time a fellow- sufferer ; — since it has been often noticed, both in ourselves and others, that the remembrance and even belief of mental pain is far from clear and realizing, soon after a contrary state of mind suc- ceeds ? This is much less the case as to bodily dis- orders ; because the signs, localities, and remedies of these have been usually apparent and tangible ;
244 MENTAL ILLNESS XII.
while the pangs and faintings of the spirit, the vision- ary train of confusion or dismay, the flitting host of dark evasive shadows, are equally, by their vague- ness and their multitude, beyond the grasp of recol- lectioUe So that, were it not for certain proofs de- rived from words or acts to which the mind is known to have been then impelled, or from written memorials of its past emotions, there might be not even a belief, still less a strong remembrance, that so much was suffered. Nor can even those proofs bring back (and it is a provision of mercy that they shall not) the perception of that which they attest. If, in mental health, we could plunge into the ideal yet not unreal past, as fully as in mental sickness we imagine and concentrate the ideal though uncertain future, it were hard to conceive of our tasting present good with tranquillity, or con- templating without dread the probabilities yet un- revealed.
But since it is thus, and kindly, ordered, that the mind, when such evils have ceased, can no longer thoroughly sympathize with its past self, how hope- less that to minds of a mould and temperament quite diverse, they should be intelligible. The writer was once joined by a traveller in the prime of life, whose profession claimed of him to " weep with them that weep," but who averred, that he had " never felt five minutes' pain." A fellow-traveller, happening to be acquainted with this stranger's history, observed, when he had left us, that " in
XII. OR DEBILITY. 245
truth he ought to have felt much pain ;" — meaning pain of the moral kind. But, as far as outward in- dications could be trusted, he was alike unfamiliar with any and with every kind. If it may be thus, even where peculiar cause for pain exists, and where a liberal education has tried its softening power, what may be looked for from those in whom facul- ties slenderly improved, as well as naturally limited, are joined with this insusceptibility 1 What wonder if the spectacle of your " dulness," " fancifulness," and " mopishness," should tune such " hearts of oak" and " nerves of wire,"
" To wit that puppet prompters might inspire."
The poignant remonstrance, full at once of pathos and of sarcasm, from which these phrases are bor- rowed, must have done much in our own land, where such afflictions are thought to have peculiar prevalence, towards awakening the more capable and instructed to a deeper view of trials which per- sonally they may have not endured ; teaching them at least the neglected lesson, that " sorrow is a sacred thing." Yet there are men both strongly intelligent, and on some points strongly susceptible, who will fail to understand your sadness. Their own vigour and fortitude seem to preclude their conceiving it. With them it is but matter of faith, (if I may so use the term,) and not of comprehension. They will not deride, but they cannot condole. In fact, although " the harp of thousand strings," as our Y 3
246 MEJJTAL ILLNESS
XII.
frame has been poetically termed, displays to anatomists such complex wonders as might almost warrant the hyperbole of '''ten thousand thousand" in another poet, — and though this figure is yet more appropriate, in many cases, to the mind, — there are some minds which should be rather compared to the finest wind instruments, vocal without a string ; they have strains both soft and sonorous : a violent shock would mar them : but as they cannot yield tones like the chords of the more fragile, so they cannot well estimate an untuning of which they are themselves not capable.
You lately suffered, it may be, from a fracture or dislocation; from the failure of a merchant; from the death or peril of a dear connexion : those friends could then heartily feel with you : — you now suffer more and longer, and they are only perplexed at you ; or even may not discern the existence of a malady, which you would certainly despair of ex- plaining. It may thus happen that (although in society) you suffer without sympathy, justly hope- less of convincing others that your pain is not a weakness, whimsical and self-created. You are quite aware that, when it is estimated thus, there must be consequently a disposition to censure and contempt, degrees of which may even mingle and alternate with friendly Concern ; since irresolution and infirmity of temper and purpose, while the will seems in any sense free, can rarely be viewed with unmixed compassion or unimpaired respect. You
XII.
OR DEBILITY. 247
will also be exceedingly prone to exaggerate these penalties by suspicion ; (for such is the bias of your mental state;) to imagine that your " friends scorn" you ; and that you detect the sentiment which they study to conceal. Nor are you without degrees of self-reproach and self-contempt, which make you regard as more probable, more just, and more afflict- ive, the sentiments ascribed to those around you. You perceive some vices of the mind by which your malady is heightened, and which it nourishes ; for when, in our corrupt nature, is not moral disorder implicated with the intellectual ? You detect some- times pride, or cowardice, or sloth, adroitly borrow- ing for shelter the tattered cloak of your infirmities. Besides, that very pride, concurring with the blunt- ed moral perceptions which indicate our fall, prompts us inwardly to despise weakness more than sin ; and of weakness you are now acutely conscious : for you cannot but suspect that some of the spectral forms which confront you, are, in truth, but insects, seen, as by the most powerful microscope, in the magic glass of fear. Thus the sense of culpability and that of self-delusion combining, disquiet and dishearten you afresh.
Further, as was before remarked, your disorder can scarcely fail to affect the state of spiritual feel- ing. An accession of sensibility will give vividness to the remembrance of guilt, and darken every awful anxious contemplation. It is not my object now to enlarge on this class of your griefs, but I
248 MENTAL ILLNESS XII.
will not overlook it, especially as it may be for these you most despair of an adequate and real sympathy.
Friends who possess, as to other points of your distress, refined discernment, true affection, and a degree of personal experience, may yet, it is painful to reflect, no way conceive the spiritual anxieties you encounter, nor appreciate the Christian peace which you have lost, or which you are earnest to secure : so that amidst the confidential intercourse of as- siduous kindness, the deepest of your wants and sorrows may be inexplicable still.
Although it be too common, for it is often super- fluous and fruitless, to expend thought and time in delineating an evil, rather than in urging means or considerations that may alleviate or remove it, I have held the present an excepted case ; because it is the well-known complaint of most who undergo this kind of trials, that they are not comprehended, and perhaps cannot be. Even the faint views now given may somewhat tend to disprove this, and show that your afiliction is, at least in its leading characters, " common to man." Every complex malady is indeed in some sort unique ; like every brier, and every tarantula, it is unlike each beside ; yet the species is the same. You will say that I have not given the colouring, nor sounded the depth, of what you feel ; nor touched with precision the especial points of your discomfort. This is ad- mitted ; and more than this, — again I must remind
XII. OR DEBILITY. 249
you, — when it shall please God to restore your vigour or tranquillity, you will yourself have lost the power to do so. But if an unwilling traveller through the passes of St. Gothard or the desert of Sennaar, find proof in the sketch-book of another that those wilds have been crossed, he must not infer from the slightness or defects of the outlines, that it was not amidst storms and snows as fearful, or thirst as insupportable, as he himself endures.
It is time, however, that I attempt, more directly, to re-animate that hope, which may be now but as a buried spark.
We will assume, — to put it at the worst, — that this affliction is to you a new and " strange thing," a calamity unfelt before ; or else that, although you must admit some similar trial past, and therefore some former recovery, you can yet assign to your- self such important and melancholy differences in its present causes or aspects, as seem to preclude the comfort that might otherwise justly be deduced from any previous instance of relief. You feel^ therefore, sometimes, like a lonely seaman in a shat- tered bark, reduced to the scantiest allowances, and with the dread that these must fail him ere he reach the haven. Your small remainder of hope and energy is wasting, and you " know not what shall be on the morrow." But forget not, I pray, that this very ignorance of the morrow, combined with your knowledge of the good providence of God, should itself withhold you from an absolute
250 MENTAL ILLNESS XII.
despondency. His power to relieve and rescue, it were atheism to doubt. But I ask, whether as to his will, and the usual methods of his government, there be in any case more ground to hope for his immediate succour, than in such as yours ? — imme- diate, not in the sense of instant, but of being not conveyed through any perceptible means. True, both reason and revelation testify that He " up- holdeth all things," the body as well as the spirit ; and that, by whatever instrument, " He woundeth and his hands make whole." "^ But yet we feel and observe that mind has a more immediate action upon mind. Even human minds swiftly inform, excite, console, dissuade, or stimulate each other, by the slightest symbols of thought, sometimes by one whispered word, one speaking look, one instan- taneous gesture. How much more shall He who pervestigates and sustains our very being, be likely to reverse and rectify its inmost state, without any medium ; or if by a medium, yet through some change of function, suggestion, or motive, so latent and so transitory, as to be utterly indiscernible by us 1 If therefore you think or say, — My powers of mind, or my peace of mind, cannot be restored without a miracle, — remember that, in reference to mind, that which, as it respects the absence or latency of means, will appear as if miraculous, is not at all improbable. It is true, that because the
* Job V. 18.
XII. OR DEBILITY. 251
sequence of our mental states cannot be viewed as subject to fixed laws,* such changes, however great and immediate, would not be what we term miracles. But when mental illness is removed, as it frequently is, in a manner entirely hidden and unsearchable, to w^hat should a theist ascribe this but to the sovereign act of God ? Such instances graciously assert his prerogative and title as " the Father of spirits : " and from the twofold warrant of observ- ation and experience, some can aver that they are not unfrequent. In your kind of affliction, there- fore, there is peculiar ground for hope, (though so little actual possession of it,) that you may be fully and speedily relieved by an unseen but ever-present Power.
Yet I would rather insist on instances less unex- pected and surprising ; because these are more numerous ; and because, having ensued on the use of fitting means, they cannot be perverted (as the others might be if they stood alone) to defend a neglect of such. Besides, some young persons may encounter a temporary ebbing of the spirits from the vivacity of childhood, into pensiveness and gloom, without being apprized, while their social circle and their knowledge of biography are small, how incident this has been to thoughtful minds before them. The Holy Scripture, — though I shall
* See Thoughts on Private Devotion, pp. 49, 50, and p. 54.
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not suppose it, by any reader of these lines, an unexamined book, — may not have been at all com- sulted in this view. If it be so, there will be found strong indications of such feelings in one of the very noblest among sacred writers. Many are the passages in his Psalms, which, though they may be applied to the pressure of bodily sickness or ex- ternal griefs, have yet such superior appositeness to spiritual pains, and to reliefs obtained from them, as appears to indicate that they were chiefly so prompted and designed. Indeed the temperament of their author would itself be a strong presump- tion of this. Thus the first of " harps," " the soul of David," far more powerful and harmonious than his " instrument of ten strings," was some- times, at least in his own esteem, untuned ; " dumb with silence," " so troubled that he could not speak." Thus also the lyre of that " lamenting " prophet, whose elegy Bishop Lowth has pronounced unrivalled, expresses, amidst many outward calami- ties, griefs peculiar to a dejected heart,^ and the pious thoughts and hopes which conduced to allay them. Thus the harp of our Herbert, one of the sweetest and holiest that were ever waked in Britain, descants on the depressions and revivals of his own spirit with that grateful wonder which betokens no feigned experience.
* Lamentations iii.
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" Who would have thought my shrivelled heart
Could have recover'd greenness ? It was gone Quite underground : as flowers depart
To see their mother-root when they have blown ; Where they, together, All the hard weather, Dead to the world, keep house unknown.
And now in age I bud again :
After so many deaths I live and write : I once more smell the dew and rain. And relish versing. O my only Light, It cannot be That I am he. On whom thy tempests fell all night.
These are thy wonders, Lord of love !
To make us see we are but flow'rs that glide ; Which when we once can find and prove. Thou hast a garden for us where to 'bide. Who would be more. Swelling through store. Forfeit their paradise by their pride." *
But if only poets and divines were mentioned, it might be erroneously supposed, or falsely insinuated, that such afflictions have arisen from the imagin- ative character of the one class, or the grave and awful vocation of the other. Let me add, there- fore, that the philosophic Boyle has described -his own dejection, occurring in the midst of youth and variety, and the advantages of prosperous station,
* Herbert's Poems— The Flower, pp. 211, 212. Ed. 1826. z
254 MENTAL ILLNESS
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as so profoundly painful, that '' although his looks did little betray his thoughts, nothing but the for- biddenness of self-despatch hindered his committing it ; "=^ and records, that under this melancholy state of mind he laboured many months.
Even the more illustrious Newton, endowed, as his able biographer observes, " with an intellectual strength which had unbarred the strong holds of the universe," distinguished also by " unbroken equanimity," and by " weakness of imaginative powers," yet, apparently from the influence of some disappointments, endured in middle life an op- pressive " nervous disorder." He wrote, " I have neither ate nor slept well this twelvemonth, nor have my former consistency of mind." The at- tempt, indeed, of French sceptics, to represent this temporary illness as a continued mental aberration and decay, has been most justly rebuked and tho- roughly defeated ; yet the true statement of the case suffices to remind us that the mightiest mind is easily vulnerable ; while the entire recovery and very prolonged healthfulness, both bodily and men- tal, of this eminent man, who, at the age of eighty, " was fully able to understand his own Principia," afford a cheering memorial of the kindness of Providence. t Will not these signal and indisput- able examples forbid you to despond ? If you are
* Quoted in Jones's Cliristian Biography — Article Boyle, t See Sir David Brewster's Life of Newton, pp. 224, 232, 234, 235, 318, 319.
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tempted to distinguish and separate your own case from all of them, as marked by some peculiar guilt, and having in it a punitive character which no one of those might partake, consider whether you are not questioning, as it respects others, the testimony of Scripture, that all men deeply need correction from the hand of God ; or else refusing, in your own case, the testimony of that same Scripture, that, when the Father of our spirits corrects, even most severely, he does it " for our profit."
Now in the greater number of such restorations, we have every reason to believe that appropriate means v»^ere not omitted : and I therefore indulge the hope that when a few of these, although they will possess no novelty, are suggested to your atten- tion, you will not prejudge or reject them as neces. sarily unavailing.
I would admonish you, in the first place, not to act on those mistaken impressions which may urge you to conclude, that physical causes have little or no part in your present affliction. Moral causes and intel- lectual symptoms are perhaps, to your consciousness, so predominant, that you are disposed to account what is bodily (if indeed perceived by you) to be merely incidental, and of no weight or moment. But permit me to say, you have neither power nor right to decide this question, without that comj^lete inte- rior survey of your being which it must be an ex- travagant pretension for man to assume ; and which perhaps belongs, exclusively, to Him who formed z i
256 MENTAL ILLNESS XII.
US. You were above reminded that, in such disease, the point of origination and the predisposing causes are for the most part hidden. So therefore doubt- less may its complex character remain. The bodily state may intimately affect the mind, even when there is no sensible bodily ailment. It is not that I would recommend you to adopt complicated or violent, or prolonged medicinal means. Upright and able professors of the healing art will them- selves rarely counsel you to this. They have often merited and v/on the confidence and gratitude of such patients by a contrary advice ; by prescribing only the gentler and the simpler remedies, and by enforcing rather the curative properties of genial air, of moderate labour, of active and extended though not distracting change. Follow, as much as may be, those disinterested and experienced coun- sels, and discard your own fallacious notion that these expedients are quite indifferent and fruitless, because it is the mind which suffers. Recollect that the mind, though not matter, is not disembodied; that it receives its impressions and performs its functions by a system of material organs ; that whatever therefore can restore and invigorate the action of these organs, directly tends to re-establish its capacities of cheerful, vigorous exertion ; nor can this re-establishment be often expected without some attendant bodily change, however slight and undiscerned.
Let me further advise vou (as far as circum-
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Stances may adnnt) to choose at present that kind of intellectual engagement, and limit yourself to that share of it, which are proportioned to your mental state. The sufferer from visible and known bodily illness, whether general or local, will usu- ally, without hesitation, observe this obvious rule. But not unfrequently, I believe, in mental illness, the more strenuous kinds of effort are, on some erroneous ground of judgment or feeling, too much attempted and pursued. No convalescent from fever is ashamed or self-reproved at feeling unable or unfit to climb a steep ascent, nor will he there- fore have a distaste for seeking exercise and re- freshment in some more level paths until his strength return. But the student, or member of a studious profession, who can assign to himself no palpable undeniable reason why a long calculation should perplex, or a train of investigation weary him, may feel it a dereliction of duty to decline his accustomed pursuits ; until the new experience of present inaptitude, and the mortifying sense of dis- appointment, combined with the exhaustion of this ill-timed effort, still more depress his mind.
To remark that this should, if possible, be avoid- ed, is not to inculcate indolence and inaction, but only that selection of mental occupations which will not increase your illness or your painful sense of it.
There are those who will say to you — Resist these feelings ; give them battle ; resolutely vanquish z 3
258 MENTAL ILLNESS XIK
and suppress them. — Even friends who in some measure understand your affliction, may sometimes, with the kindest, best intentions, urge this on you. Shall I second and enforce 5wc7i exhortations ? — Besides that I would not willingly lose or impair your confidence — I could not do so in sincerity : but must rather assent to what you perhaps may an- swer, that as well might you be enjoined to change the weight of the atmosphere, as to remove by an effort the pain or weakness which you suffer. Yet I firmly unite with your best friends in saying, — it is a state, which, except it were the will of Heaven to aggravate, you can, as hitherto, for a while en- dure. Do not cast into the cup new ingredients of despondency, nor make it bitterly effervesce by your repinings. Do not omit duties, if at present indis- pensable, because they are burdensome ; nor aban- don others permanently, because they cannot at this season be performed. Pursue, however feebly, what is fittest now to be pursued. The sick or wounded soldier cannot make a rapid march or hold the front of battle. But he may perhaps be the sen- tinel even of to-day. He may occupy the trench or rampart : and, if not even so — shall he therefore cast away his armour ? Another sun, another conflict, may find him, re-endued with strength and ardour, among the foremost bands. Mean- time forget not. — " They also serve who only stand and wait:" — and that service, as performed in weakness and in loneliness, may be the hardest of
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all ; the most decisive of their loyalty and faithful zeal.
Having thus alluded to the Christian warfare, it is surely most appropriate for me to remind you, in this peculiar exigency, to look for help from Hea- ven. When St. Paul exhorted his brethren, " Take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day," he at once sub- joined the comprehensive injunction, " Praying al- ways with all prayer and supplication in the spi- rit:"*— and the remarks already offered on the immediate character of that relief from mental ill- ness which is sometimes realized, afford you especial encouragement to use this great resource. Not that we are warranted to expect a blessing on prayer in the perverse or indolent neglect of other means : yet may the Father of our spirits see fit often to ac- cept it, not merely as the paramount means of his rendering those others effectual, but also as that which shall avail instead of them. This may hap- pen likewise in bodily restorations ; yet their more frequent connexion with physical means is too ob- vious to be questioned ; so that, to mental healing, prayer is far more likely to become the immediate antecedent.
Besides, as far as your distress is really, and on just grounds, of a moral and spiritual kind, so far you cannot rightly look to physical means for its
* Eph. vi. 13 and 18.
260 MENTAL ILLNESS XII.
removal, nor, I am persuaded, will you. Here therefore prayer, grounded on the study of God's promises, which will ever prompt it, is your exclu- sive resource. And let me add, — if they be indeed God's promises, ultimate success is not dubious. The cure of bodily disease may, for wise reasons, not be granted ; and when a few years are come, it assuredly will not : the cure of intellectual debility or pain may be mysteriously withholden : but the attainment or recovery of spiritual safety (I affirm not this of spiritual joy) is as sure to the persever- ing suppliant as the word of God is true. Either the gospel you have heard must be a false and imaginary gospel, (and that supposition, however gloomy in itself, would annihilate any alarms which its solemn statements and its defective reception had inspired,) — or else, the promises of the true and " everlasting gospel," so boundless in their extent and adaptedness, must needs be available for you. "All manner of sin and blasphemy," said our gracious Redeemer, " shall be forgiven unto men," that is, to the penitent who implore forgiveness. The ex- ception made of " blasphemy against the Holy- Ghost," is no exception affecting the penitent, but must be understood to involve in its very nature a hard contumacious continued impenitence. Those who thus " resist the Holy Ghost," and " trample under foot " redeeming blood, are persons who, so far from " coming to Christ," contemptuously alto- gether reject him.
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" Him that cometh to me," (that merciful Saviour proclaimed,) " I will in no wise cast out." " If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to for- give us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unright- eousness." " The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth from all sin." Here, therefore, contrite prayer is the sole but the infallible refuge.
" This condition" (observes Dr. Owen) " is a sin- entangled soul ofttimes reduced to ; it can discover nothing but this, that God is able, and can, if He graciously please, relieve and acquit him. — Where- fore they cast themselves on God's sovereign plea- sure, and say with Job, ' Though He slay us we will put our trust in Him.' — We see not our signs and tokens any more ; evidences of God's grace in us, or of his love and favour to us, are all out of sight. — Nor is there relief to be had but by and from Him. We will then bring our guilty souls into His presence : what He speaks concerning us we will willingly submit to. And this sometimes proves an anchor to a tossed soul ; which though it gives it not rest and peace, yet saves it from the rock of despair. Here it abides until light more and more breaks forth upon it."* But I am not forgetful that, whether your distress be chiefly of the intellectual or the moral cast, if it be severe, if it prostrate and debilitate the powers, you will tell me that you cannot pray. And truly if prayer necessarily
* Owen on Psa. cxxx., pp. 150, 151, abridged. See also Fene- lon, CEuv. Spir. t. iv. p. 311. (Lettre au P^re L'Ami.)
262 MENTAL ILLNESS XTI.
included a self-conceived, orderly, fluent, unbroken utterance of thoughts before God, such as would beseem the office of one who conducts 606v'«/ worship, then might you justly plead a present inability. But that this is far from being the case, may be most conclusively and variously shown by a refer- ence either to Scripture facts or to general consider- ations. It may no doubt be fit that such a kind of prayers be offered even " in secret," whenever and wherever the present capacity is bestowed ; for our Maker is surely entitled to the best of that intel- lectual strength which at last must be weakness in his sight. But even then the mental exertion, the vigour of thought, the aptitude of diction and of dis- tribution, are clearly not the essence of devotion, but its adjuncts. That prayers may not be the less *' fervent and effectual " because not vocal, nor pro- longed, nor continuous, nor varied, is evinced by those of Nehemiah when he stood before the king ; of the sorrowful Hannah ; of the contrite publican ; and even of our blessed Saviour himself in his hour of mental anguish. But indeed, were it otherwise, how should the child, the illiterate, the speechless, the sick, the dying, offer prayer ? Yet all these peculiarly need to ofier it ; and when happily awakened to their wants, do, by Divine help, and with Divine acceptance, yet without any removal of natural imperfection or infirmity, pray, " in spirit and in truth." " Jehovah heareth the poor, and despiseth not his prisoners."
XII. OR DEBILITY. 263
— " A broken heart shall please Him more Than the best forms of speech."
Nor have some of the most gifted as well as devoted suppliants been exempt from seasons of weakness, or of mental bondage, which compelled them to take refuge in these views of the alone essential qualities of prayer. Such a state is affectingly expressed by A'Kempis. ^' Oh let my sighing move thee, and my manifold desolation here below. Jesus, bright- ness of eternal glory, solace of the pilgrim spirit, before Thee my lips are voiceless, and my silence cries to Thee, — how long shall my Lord delay ? I am wretched, imprisoned, laden with fetters, till thou revive me with the light of thy presence, and bestow new freedom."* It is remarkable that the excellent Scougal, a bright ornament of the Scottish episcopal church, has described prayer which is not oral, nor even silently verbal, as the highest kind of devotion ; not the resource of weakness, but the ex- pedient of intense, unutterable feeling. He writes, " This mental prayer is of all other the most effec- tual to purify the soul, and dispose it unto a holy and religious temper ; and may be termed the great
* De Imitat. Christi. 1. iii. c. 21. p. 111. The expressions of the original are beautiful. " Moveat to suspirium meum et desolatio multiplex in terra. O Jesu, splendor aternae gloriae, solamen pere- grinantis animae, apud te est os meum sine voce, et silentium meum loquitur tibi — usquequo tardat venire Dominus mens ? — Miser sum, et quodammodo incarceratus, et compedibus gravatus, donee luce proesentiae tuae me reficias, ac libertati dones."
264 MENTAL ILLNESS XII.
secret of devotion, and one of the most powerful instruments of the divine life. Certainly a few of these inward aspirations will do more than a great many fluent and melting expressions."*
Now although this exalted kind of mental prayer, which the author describes as the result of deep previous meditation, be exceedingly different from any which you can at present offer, — yet his esti- mate of silent devotion in general may conduce to forbid your depreciating or counting for nought your voiceless " supplication in the spirit," however con- fused, incoherent, or oppressed.
Not that you are advised to acquiesce even now in such a kind of worship only. Aids to oral devo- tion are of easy access. Those who most disapprove the use, as well as prescription, of forms, would cer- tainly not contend that the words of all true prayer must be wholly self-originated. Such a notion would exclude those scriptural phrases by which the best of what are called free prayers are in general abundantly enriched. Possessing therefore a Bible, or even a Psalter, you can be at no loss for the form and matter of devotion. What so apposite to your dejected state as some of the petitionary Psalms ? Their very want of apparent continuity and method, as well as their simple but intense language of com- plaint and entreaty, may render them more conso- nant than any prayers which can be found elsewhere,
* " Life of God in the Soul of Man," a little work distinguished by exalted piety, chaste beauty of style, and calm sobriety of thought.
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at once with the feebleness and with the sorrows of your mind. Select the passages which are most ap- propriate. On such engraft, or with such some- times intermingle, those brief variations of confes- sion or petition which your case may dictate : — it is only the spirit of atheism which doubts that such prayers are heard, and only that of distrust in Christ's advocacy which doubts that (if the heart go with them) they will be mercifully answered.
Once more, allow me to warn and solicit you in the spirit of Christian friendship, — shun every new source of moral and spiritual pain, every indulgence of imagination or conduct which your heart con- demns. You may very fitly " have left undone" certain things which, in another state of mind, you " ought to have done : " — but beware lest you now yield, more readily than at other periods, to do or meditate those things which you " ought wo/." Your present state of feeling has its especial tempt- ations ; and those may be now strong which would sometimes have been easily banished or subdued : for what foe or what allurement is not strong to the enfeebled? The human mind always covets a state of complacency ; of ease, if not enjoyment ; and now that you are without mental pleasures, without spiritual comfort, without buoyancy of hope, with- out energy of immediate action or alacrity of busv forecast, — any thing which exacts no effort, but ex- cites imagination or attracts the senses, promising thus to lull and obliviate pain, or soothe with sensitive 2 A
*266 MENTAL ILLNESS
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delight, will address itself to you with a perilous charm. Your dim suspicion that the slightest in- dulgence would now entice you to that which will be unquestionably culpable, and that thus your " sorrows shall be multiplied " and sharpened by the keenest of all pangs, may be met by a sophism worthy of our arch-enemy, — that you cannot be more wretched than you are. Assent not for an instant to this treacherous fallacy. You tvlll be, by indulging in what is evil, incomparably more wretched than you are ; and if you now make one step either in deliberation or in wishes towards it, your weakness almost necessitates your fall. Wait then submissively for those brighter hours which the Great Dispenser and Restorer of all blessings can speedily assign you. Prefer even the protract- ed faintness of mental inanition to the touch or taste of luscious but destructive poisons. The caution is important and seasonable whether you receive it as literal or metaphorical. I would not be understood to inculcate a scrupulous or superstitious rigour, but only that you sedulously shun both what in itself is evil, and what will directly, perhaps from your past experience too assuredly, conduct to evil. Even apart from the highest grounds, — the purely Chris- tian and unalterable grounds — of argument against this, your acute susceptibility of mental pain is in itself an argument, why you should not hazard the self-infliction of this most grievous kind of wound. An excellent Christian authoress evinced both friend- ship and penetration in writing thus to the late
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distinguished but unhappy John Henderson, — " I know you have so high a sense of right that you can never be well, while you are not satisfied with your own conduct."*
If pain of mind has been thus unhappily sharp- ened, a return with humble contrition to the right path, and to the pure fountain of gospel consolation, is the only specific to assuage that self-condemning pang : and thus may it yield at length to an in- genuous filial melting of the heart, in the sense of your own sin and folly, and of God our Saviour's abundant loving-kindness : so that his own sur- prising declaration may be fulfilled in your expe- rience, '^ I hid me and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart : I have seen his ways and will heal him : I will lead him also and restore comforts unto him."
It has been thought not unsuitable nor unim- portant thus to digress, at considerable length, from the subject more immediately proposed ; because, as I have more than once already intimated, dis- tresses of this deeper character may be very frequent- ly (if not always) expected to accompany, in minds that are morally and spiritually awake, the state of augmented sensitiveness and prevailing fear.
* Letter of Mrs. Hannah More, given in " Cottle's Malvern Hills, Poems and Essays," vol. ii. pp. 364, 365. The whole letter is highly valuable ; and the work of Mr. Cottle, which preserves it, contains many interesting facts and reflections. See especially a brief Essay " On the size of the Bible," vol. ii. p. 366. 4th edit.
268 MENTAL ILLNESS XII.
The few remarks which I have now to subjoin will in some measure be applicable to any modifica- tion which your mental affliction may assume.
It will of course tend to consolation and promote submission, if I can impress on you some designed and probable henefits of this heavy trial : such as may outweigh not only the pains, but even the dis- abilities it has brought upon you, the moral dan- gers which it involves, and even some actual evils which it appears to create or to foment. These uses, at least during its infliction, you may be little able to collect or to discern. You will rather say — How strangely sad that I should be thus " led into tempt- ation," brought into a state which induces and in- vites it! How melancholy and judicial in its as- pect is this fact, that my affliction should be such as incapacitates me for cheerful and successful service actively, and for a right temper of mind even passively ; exposing me, like *' a city broken down and without walls," to each irruption of evil, to the agitating assaults of cares and trifles, to vain and corrupting thoughts, to the suggestions of the impious, and the wiles of invisible foes.
Let me remind you of that rule so necessary for those that have " need of healing," — do not assume to be decisively a judge in your personal case. We have seen a patient in low fever or latent inflam- mation, and even his best friends grown distrustful of that medical decision which still applied the lancet, which forbade all that was stimulating or even
XII. OR DEBILITY. 269
nutritive, and persisted in what were apparently the most debilitating measures. Yet the sufferer, though increasingly distressed, though swooning, though helpless, was not radically weakened or per- manently disabled ; but, if I may so accommodate a Scripture phrase, " out of weakness was made strong." — How much less are we entitled to dispute the remedial severities, the regimen, the mode or measure of privation, ordered by the great Physi- cian of our spirits ; or to estimate at present their ultimate effects !
But, in truth, the sanative tendency is far from being in all respects unapparent or obscure.
You have perhaps been quite conscious (for a mind which thus suffers has usually the self-scruti- nizing introspective cast) of a want of due tolerance for weaknesses and defects in your associates ; for the obtuseness of some, for the morbid and childish apprehensions of others, for the moral narrowness, or ungraceful and unseemly habits which obtrude themselves on your displeased attention. These faults of human nature you have not well borne with. Your impatience, if not expressed, may have been negatively betrayed. You have not attained, even in trifles, the charity which " suffereth long," which " beareth all things."
"The more perfect one is," (wrote an eminent student of the human heart and of the Christian temper,) "the more one is reconciled to imper- fection. The Pharisees could not endure those 2 A 3
270 MENTAL ILLNESS XII.
publicans and sinners, with whom Jesus Christ asso- ciated in so much meekness and benevolence. When self is renounced, we enter into that divine magna- nimity which nothing wearies or repels."*
It will scarcely be doubted that your present humiliating discipline is greatly adapted to promote that attainment ; by correcting the censorious and intolerant spirit, which, had you been quite exempt from such chastisement, might have been most in- juriously augmented and confirmed. You might have then been altogether indisposed, and almost un- able, to recognise, m the permanent defects of others, the wise appointments of Providence, or, in their temporary or superinduced infirmities and failings, the stroke of the same hand. Your scorn or irrita- tion would have been unallayed by pity. Whereas you are now compelled to feel, — I was misjudging and unkind ; ready to despise those who shrank from a small or imaginary danger, or were slow to comprehend what appeared to me a simple truth : prone in my heart to lay all to the account of in- dulged timidity, or wilful sloth, or wandering inat- tention. But now I am taught that " my moun- tain," in its seeming strength and loftiness, was but of infirm materials; and find myself in the position of those whose slow or fearful or vacillating steps I had contemned.
This remembrance, when it shall please God to
* Fenelon, CEuv. Spir. t. i. p. 255.
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lift you up, will surely continue to abate (if not en- tirely control) a temper which is culpable in your own eyes, and must be far more so in His who knows at all times your essential weakness, and who Himself, although infinitely above the most exalted of his creatures, despises not the meanest.
You are also learning not only to tolerate, but in some degree to sympathize. You have felt the in- ability of most to do so, and you know therefore, that your experience, though grievous to yourself, may be soothing and valuable to others. St. Paul distinctly assigns this as an eminent advantage to be derived from " tribulation" and deliverance, — " that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we our- selves are comforted of God."* You will say — This ability to comfort others implies a restoration wdiich I cannot hope for. It does so ; many beside you, however, have quite as despond ingly said, " My strength and my hope is perished ^^om the Lord," — and the time may be at hand when you, like them, shall own, " He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, and out of the miry clay — and hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God."
You are learning, meanwhile, that most import- ant lesson, — your entire dependence upon Him. There are those who less need to acquire the sense
* 2 Cor. i. 4.
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of it in this manner, because other kinds of trial unceasingly and effectually recall it. The continu- ance and sufficiency of their employ and its requital are so doubtful, (a case grievously frequent in our own land,) that with most literal meaning have they to entreat, — "Give us this day our daily bread : " — or their resources hang on the frail tenure of another's life ; — or they are liable to recurring at- tacks of bodily disease, which make their own un- usually precarious. Even if you liave had some of these mementos, it is very possible that, in your firm and sanguine mood, they failed to impress on you your immediate and entire dependence. But if so, what would be effective except your present correction ? " Who teacheth like Him ? " Espe- cially if you have been in full bodily health, and possess what is called, by a strange mis-alliance of terms, an " independent fortune," and were thus in danger of trusting at once in your uncertain strength and yoi^r ^' uncertain riches," — what so calculated to dispel these illusions as your actual affliction 1 You now perceive that bodily health may be not perceptibly affected, and worldly resources neither impaired nor menaced, and yet the course of feeling and the capacity of action be secretly quelled and fettered and brought low. You are now taught to ask,^ — and it is only in kindness we remind you of it, — " Who hath made me to differ ? What was it that I had not received? Why did I glory as though I had not received ? " Why treat as inde-
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pendent inalienable possessions, those mental or moral attainments, which are, in fact, no more so than bodily health or worldly prosperity, but equally, and even (to appearance) more immediately^ in the hand of God ?
It may likewise be to you a solace, and a salutary warning to those who never dream that they may or can thus suffer, (if any such eye should glance upon this page,) to remember that the greatest elevation of rank or mind does not secure its possessor from the extreme of mental ruin. The first of princes or of statesmen may sink into fatuity, into sudden aber- ration, or more gradual dotage, and his mind be, not like the columns of Thebes or Palmyra, majestic in its fall, but, like those of Babylon, indistinguish- ably crushed and lost. He who " by the might of his power and for the honour of his majesty " had "built" that Babylon, — letting the sceptre drop, and taking a place beneath the level of his slaves, affords at once a memorable rebuke to mortal arro- gance, and a monument of God's gracious and re- storing power.^ — We read of an illustrious com- mander of modern times, that, " during the last two years of his life, his faculties had so declined," (nor was this in advanced old age,) " that scarcely a trait was left of the Great Conde."^ Our own day has furnished examples of minds eminently active and influential on the world's theatre, which
* Dan. iv. 30, 33. t Rees, Cyclop. Article Coude. He was bom 1621, died 1686.
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have sunk in "total eclipse."* Be grateful that yours is so partial ; and remember that for you, as a Christian, or one who aims at that character, there are special grounds of hope that God will not or- dain the aggravation of the evil, or the permanence of its present degree.
Neither yield to the thought that, in your actual state, you are wholly incapable of contributing to the good of others. Not only may such degrees of resignation as you are enabled to evince, be highly instructive, but it may be found at last, (though this would be no sound plea for carelessness of pro- ficiency, or in the choice of means,) that God has often chosen to accomplish most good by the weak- est instruments, or by the stronger when in some way incomplete. Even a skilful artisan sometimes effects more with a worn or fractured tool, on ac- count of some particular adaptation in it to his special purpose, than he might have done with a whole assortment of the brightest and the keenest. If you have long used endeavours, always imper- fect, and sometimes most distressingly feeble, for the good of those around you, have you not been now and then reminded of words which you are quite conscious were spoken in weakness, or of some small gifts bestowed amidst dejection, which yet appear to have been not without results ? How can
* Need I recall to the memory of my elder readers a Romilly, a Whitbread, a Londonderry ? Self-destruction awfully intimates "total eclipse" — intellectual or moral.
XII. OR DEBILITY. 2/5
you be certain but that, after all, the seeds which shall " prosper " most, will be not those which you scattered with a strong arm and an elastic step, but which you sowed in tears or dropped almost at ran- dom, when weary and " in heaviness 1 "
In conclusion, let me again invite you to dwell much on that sustaining thought, — the infinite power and compassion of our God : — on his gracious declaration to the suffering and murmuring pilgrims of the wilderness, " I am Jehovah that healeth thee ; " — on that prominent and cheering character of his miracles, when " manifest in flesh ;" — " He healed all that had need of healing." Who should despair of final relief and '^ perfect health " * when such has been the promise, and such have been the pledges, of the Divine Physician ? Doubt not that He is able to present even you " faultless, before the presence of his glory, with exceeding joy ; " to do far more than restore those mental and spiritual powers, which have been hitherto, at the best, so imperfect and so frail : to capacitate you for serving Him eternally with unwearied devotion and una- bating pleasure : to endow the spirit with such celes- tial harmony and vigour, that it shall ever ardently will whatsoever its perfected nature can render, of adoring service to its Author and Redeemer, — and shall ever be as entirely capable to effect, with unre- mitting and delighted energy, all the services it wills.
Forget not, — since you always know, and often * Acts iii. 16.
276 MENTAL ILLNESS
XII.
feel, the connexion between the infirmities of the spirit and those of a corruptible and mortal frame, — that the perfection of this Divine healing will be felt and owned, in its coming victory over corruption and mortality ; when those prophecies, once obscure, " I will ransom from the power of the grave ; — O grave, I will be thy destruction,"* — shall receive their bright fulfilment ; and the inherent weakness of the " natural body" be exchanged for that glory of the '^ spiritual," which pain and death can never more assail.
Meditate on this heavenly cure of all which now humbles, depresses, and excruciates our ruined na- ture,— the spirit healed of sin and woe, the mind and body rescued from their sad communion of an- guish and debility ; the whole renovated creature " made meet for an inheritance in light," there to dedicate immortal health and blessedness to Him whose "perfect gifts " they are. Think how cri- minal it were to disbelieve, and how blamable as well as unhappy it is to despond, when " God, who cannot lie, hath promised ;" promised, that though w^eariness and helplessness and agony, as well as death, may intervene, — yet the hour of healing is at hand ; when the spirit shall be filled with " power and love," the body raised to unchangeable vitality, the whole creature endued with faultless conformity to the Possessor and Giver of all bliss.
It is exceedingly difficult, no doubt, for you, under
* Hosea xiii. 14.
XII.
OR DEBILITY. 277
existing depression, to conceive and anticipate, and above all, to appropriate to yourself personally, this glorious change. But though your hold on it be ever so faint and distrustful, you cannot, I hope, re- nounce it. With reference both to that ultimate and perfect cure, and to intermediate alleviation and relief, you are bound to remember and to venerate His words who said on a different occasion, — " With men it is impossible, but not with God : for with God all things are possible."
2 B
XIIL
ON DISTRUSTFUL ANXIETY FOR THE COMING OF CHRIST. A NEW YEAR'S OR ANNIVERSARY MEDI- TATION.
Has not our impatient weariness, or timorous dis- trust, too often echoed, inwardly, that taunt of scoff- ers,— " Where is the promise of his coming ?"
From their tone and spirit indeed we painfully recoil : yet the same question which they urge in flippant mockery, our hearts may whisper unawares in silent sadness. When the infidel derides our dearest expectation, we know his " wish" is " father to that thought : " and yet our own misgivings, con- demned and combated by faith, may be his secret allies.
We muse cheerlessly on the ages that have rolled away ; the many corruptions and declensions of the Christian cause ; the slowness of its genuine triumph since those years of infant strength, when it bruised.
XIII. ANXIETY FOR CHRIST's COMING. 279
as ill its cradle, the serpents of idolatry ; on the unchanged aspects of the natural world, where " all things continue as they were ; " on the tardy or even questionable amelioration of the moral. In such a mood of gloomy retrospection, must we en- counter with new pain those reckless " sports " of sceptics which are " death to us" and to all solid hope : the wretched speculations by which, while they profess to liberate, they would, in fact, lay waste ; and just for the sake of levelling the fences of our " narrow way," would make a trackless de- sert to loiter and to perish in, without even the far- off vision of a better land. " As with a sword in our bones " these " enemies " of holy truth " reproach " us, " while they say daily," as in the old time be- fore us, — " Where is thy God ?"
But surrender nothing either to their cold raille- ries or your own anxious musings. There remains a spoken and recorded word of promise. " Ex- ceeding broad " are the attestations it has since ac- quired ; and far other echoes revive, and far other voices respond to it, than those either of levity or despondence. The Saviour in whom we have trusted assured both his adherents and his adversaries of his future majestic advent ; in figures and in ex- plicit statements ; personally, and by the word both of angels and apostles. " I will come again, and receive you unto myself," was the language of his affection on the solemn eve of parting : and when He appeared in glory to his exiled servant, with 2 B 2
280 DISTRUSTFUL ANXIETY XIII.
new admonitions and predictions for the suffering churches, — "Behold, I come quickly" — " Surely I come quickly" — was the message at once of warning and of love.
The lapse of centuries indeed has long since taught the church, that its terms must not be interpreted by the narrow measure of our days or generations : but each century has meanwhile affixed, or en- larged, some vast historic seal, on the divinity of the record which contains it. " The bands" who would " rob" us of our only real wealth, do but vainly declare the " pearl of great price " in our shrine of Scripture to be spurious, till they can break or obliterate those seals of heavenly truth which are set upon the shrine itself by the broad and far- extending annals of the church and of the world.
These extrinsic confirmations of the " precious promises," we should sometimes review : nor will the task be laborious.
With a glance you can revert to that empire of the first Ceesars, where a splendid starlight of in- tellect did but adorn, without dispelling, the shades of atheistic and idolatrous darkness that brooded and mingled over its wide regions, fostering all deadly fruits. You see the sudden "day-spring from on high" shedding on those realms a rapid moral illumination; and — where philosophy had been all but powerless, — kindling the hopes, ruling the hearts, purifying the lives, and hallowing the
XIII. FOR Christ's coming. 281
deaths of myriads. The fact is in itself marvel- lously and delightfully convincing ; but it gains fresh power as an argument of faith, when you ex- amine how that strange and mighty revolution had been distantly foretold ; that in writings unstudied and contemned by Greeks and Romans, but com- posed and treasured as prophetic by a people alien and averse from other nations, there had been ex- tant for ages predictions of that very change ; of a great future renouncement of idolatry, which (as one of those same writings itself incidentally testi- fied) was without example ; * — of its origination, also, by a single illustrious Teacher, of whom, through a long antiquity, it was variously declared that " to Him should be the gathering or homage of nations ;" t that "the Desire of all nations" should '^ come," J that the "isles" should "wait for his law," § that God would give him " the hea- then for his inheritance," || that he should be " a Light to the Gentiles," % and the " pleasure of Je- hovah should prosper in his hand;"** — of the great prevalency of that new power ; expressed as follows — that in the days of the fourth great mon- archy (the Roman) should " the God of heaven
* Jer. ii. 10, 11. "Pass over the isles of Chittim, and see ; and send vmto Kedar, and consider diligently, and see if there be such a thing. Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods ?" — Comp. Jer. xvi. 19 — 21. t Gen. xlix. 10. Dr. J. P. Smith's version. Scrip. Test. i. 247- + Hag. ii. 7. § Isaiah xlii. 4. || Psalm ii.
^ Isaiah xlix. 6. ** Isaiah liii. 10.
2 B a
282 DISTRUSTFUL ANXIETY XIII.
set up a kingdom" which would " consume" all hostile powers, and " stand for ever ;" a kingdom emblematically called " a stone cut out without hands," destined to smite and crush the " great image" of idolatrous dominion, — to become it- self " a great mountain," and to fill " the whole earth."'*-
* Dan. ii. 31 — 44. — " So long as the civil history of the ancient world shall last, under the scheme of its four successive Empires ; so long as the introduction of Christianity, in the place and order previously assigned to it, shall remain upon record, and its visible reign exist ; so long as the conclusion of the Iron Empire of Rome shall be known in the promiscuous partition made of it by the host of northern and eastern invaders ; — so long there will be a just and rational proof of the inspiration of these illustrious prophecies of Daniel." ' — It is not within my scope to advert to those prophecies concerning our Saviour's life and death which the New Testament verifies, but only to glance at those, the fulfilment of which is broad- ly marked on the pages oi secular history. In respect to both classes of predictions, the book of Daniel seems pre-eminent. Abbadie, in examining what this book foretells as to the first advent and kingdom of Messiah, remarks that " one knows not which most to wonder at, the evidence of truth which is found in it, or the prodigious blindness of those who perceive not that evidence." After stating ten wonderful correspondencies between these prophecies and the events, he comments on some of them to this effect, — What could be a more indisputable mark of the prophetic spirit than to have foretold the destiny of the Jewish people as ensuing on the coming and death of Christ ? Who will imagine that it depended on this writer to cause that Jerusalem should be ruined, and " the sanc- tuary destroyed," and " the sacrifice and the oblation cease," when a person called the Christ or Messiah should be "cut off? "2 Great events may sometimes be foreseen by the combined light of
1 Davison's Discourses on Prophecy, p. 528. 2 Dan. ix. 26, 27.
XIII. FOR Christ's coming. 283
How shall we not discern, in the wide diffusion and permanence of that light which Christ revealed, himself " the Light of the world," — a glorious accomplishment of those long-predicted wonders ; especially when we include the fact, too little no- ticed, that where this light has been once prevail- ingly diffused, although it often has been, and con- tinues to be, dreadfully and ruinously darkened, yet rarely, if ever, has 2yoli/theism resumed its ancient sway .
Meditate next on the singular and hapless race, among whom alone arose that lengthened series of predictions ; from whom also the mighty religious innovation which fulfilled them, first went forth : and see in their whole story since, and their con- dition at this day, the fulfilment of another series scarcely less extended ; predictions bearing strange reference to their own fearful destinies ; begun more than three thousand years ago by their venerated lawgiver, renewed by their most honoured prophets, sealed at length by Him whose mission they so fatally despised. From the foretold and frightful doom of their metropolis and temple, from the
experience and penetration ; but that this should be the period to " make reconciliation for iniquity " — to " bring in everlasting right- eousness " — and "to anoint the Most Holy," — that the death of Christ should connect itself with such events as these, is what no human sagacity could anticipate. " Surely the Divine wisdom would not have ordained these things to happen in complaisance to the fancies of an impostor or enthusiast." ^
1 Ver. de la Eel. Chret. t. i. p 488 et supra. (Edit. 1689.)
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frustrated attempt to rebuild that renowned sanc- tuary,* from their " proverbial " ignominy j-f- their unparalleled " scattering " J and "■ sifting," and distinctness still "among all nations," "like as corn is sifted in a sieve ;" § in short, from the whole judicial sequel, in "plagues" thus "wonderful," and of so "long continuance," || — how can we choose but gather clear " instruction," as well as deep " astonishment," % at the verification of the oracles of God !
Once more, retrace the simultaneous rising, the concurrent greatness and parallel decline, of the Mohammedan and Papal tyrannies, — the two vast forms of Antichristian domination ; — and in these awful scenes of our own era, spreading over two- thirds of its whole extent and unfinished still, further ascertain the prophetic claims both of Jew- ish and Christian scriptures. Remember that the nation who reject the mission both of Paul and John, had, long before the times of these apostles, placed the book of Daniel in the sacred canon.**
* Ammian. Marcell. lib. xxiii. c. i. f Deut. xxviii. 37.
• X Deut. xxviii. 25 and 64; Levit. xxvi. 33; Jer. ix. 16; Ezek. V. 10, 12; Hos. iii. 4.
§ Amos ix. 8, 9. || Deut. xxviii. 59.
H Ezek. V. 15 ; on which see Davison's Lectures on Prophecy, pp. 452, 453.
** The predictions on these and other great subjects, contained in the book of Daniel, which has been termed by Mode ' " a sort of prophetic chronology of the kingdom of Christ," require too wide
1 Quoted ill Bishop Kurd s Lectures, p. 80.
XIII. FOR Christ's coming. 285
Consider whence could spring the immense antici- pations of either writer, much more the circum- stantial, difFering, yet accordant anticipations of each, as to scenes so buried in a remote inscrutable futurity ? — except from the dictation of Divine fore- knowledge. Ask yourself, with a commentator whom few will rank among the credulous, ^' Were these words written after the events ; or can the congruity of the descriptions with the things them- selves be reasonably ascribed to chance ? " ^ Or generalize a passage in which the same author par- ticularly refers to the later prophecies of Antichrist, but which applies, with yet greater force, to those of much higher antiquity, — If in the days of Daniel, Paul, or John, there were vestiges of such a sort of powers in the world ; or if there ever had been any such powers; or if there was then any shadow of probability that there would be such powers in
and exact comparison %\itli the world's history, to be at all duly ap- preciated by mere reference to that book itself. This is also true, in some measure, of the predictions concerning Antichrist in the writings of St. Paul and St. Jolin, though readers, possessing some general acquaintance with the annals of Romish Christendom, can- not but perceive in tliem wonderful delineations of the tyranny and corruption of that church. See 2 Thess. ii. 3, 10 ; 1 Tim. iv, 1, 4 ; Rev. xA'ii. and xviii. The full impression can only be gained by a studious examination of the agreements between these prophecies and history both ecclesiastical and secular, much too detailed for this work. I subjoin, however, a few extracts from the w^orks of learned inquirers, which show the impression on their minds re- sulting from such an examination. See Note F, at the end of the volume.
* Dr. Samuel Clarke on the Attributes, p. 429.
286 DISTRUSTFUL ANXIETY XIII.
the world, much more in the church of God ; and if there be not now such powers, actual and con- spicuous ; and if any brief sketches of them, drawn after the event, could describe them more strikingly than they were described by those writers so many ages before they existed ; — then let it be believed that these prophecies were not of God.*
It should also be distinctly noticed, that although each of those great accomplishments of prophecy might, very long ago, in a qualified sense, be called complete ; yet is each of them ever since, and still, in a continued and ulterior process of completion.
Thus the predicted spread of monotheism among the Gentiles was largely and wonderfully verified, even before the cruel reign of Diocletian ; but who does not know that it has since advanced, and is ad- vancing,— though with deeply mysterious checks and fluctuations, yet indubitably, — towards a final and universal fulfilment. Besides the great (though very imperfect) northern conversions of the middle ages, part of which have been, by subsequent reforma- tions and awakenings, purified, — we see, moreover, a whole western hemisphere colonized, in later times, by nations not idolatrous ; and there amidst the un- exampled growth of population, (in what must be, if this world long endure, one of its mightiest con- tinents,) we hail a wide revival, a deep and growing vitality, — notwithstanding much overt and daring
'^ Dr. Samuel Clarke on the Attributes, p. 439, abridged and altered.
XIII. FOR Christ's coming. 287
opposition, and some fanatical alloys, — of " the faith once delivered to the saints."
Meanwhile the light of real science in the farthest East, co-operates with the desires and energies of Christians ; chasing and " casting out " those phan- toms of a gross mythology, which can no more work their work or spread their wings in its full sunshine, than those " moles " and ^' bats " to which as fit associates they were anciently foredoomed. Infidels may sneer at the limited, slow, and unstable conquests of the cross ; nor shall we contradict the epithets : yet let us conceive for an instant the '* prophet monarch " of Judsea unapprized of all events on earth, since the time when he predicted in Jehovah's name, " The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion;"*— " The Son " (his Christ^) "shall have the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession." J And now let the geo- graphy of Christendom and of missions be suddenly unrolled. Would he deem the fulfilment of those oracles equivocal or narrow, and his "soul be cast down within him," when " looking from the land of Jordan, from the hill Mizar," over waves which no ship of Tarshish ever crossed, he should find his own hallowed songs, " the songs of Zion," read in the hut of the Esquimaux and New Zealander, chaunted in the kraal of the Hottentot, and in the churches of Tahiti, — when he should hear the name
* Psa. ex. 2. t Psa. ii. 2, and 12.— see the Septuagint.
t Psa. ii. 8.
288 DISTRUSTFUL ANXIETY XIII.
of " the Son," " the Christ," resounding on the shores of the Ganges and Ohio, and " mark" those "towers" and consider those "palaces," where God is known for a " refuge," adorning the once savao;e banks of Thames and Delaware ? — Would not rather some of his own lyric melodies now burst from him afresh, and a new and warm significance be thrown into those strains, "Jehovah gave the word : great was the company of those that pub- lished it ! Thou hast ascended up on high : thou hast led captivity captive : thou hast received gifts for men?"
So, as to the dispersed preservation of the He- brews ; that phenomenon was already striking and complete in the eye of Cyprian or Eusebius,* though the time had been then comparatively brief of their unprecedented doom : much more so in the long subsequent age of " the great Cond6/' who profess- ed that it was of itself, to his mind, an unanswerable argument for the truth of revelation. But its con- tinuance since his time, in connexion with an un- decaying expectation by that people of their great Deliverer, through a new age like ours, in which old distinctions and ideas have themselves been scattered and " trodden under foot of men," has been, and becomes year by year, more signally in- structive still.
Thus also do we witness, beyond any former
* See Euseb. Demonst. Evang. lib. ii. c. 4. lib. v. c. 23. lib. vi, 13. and Prepar. Evang. lib. i. c. 3.
XIII. FOR Christ's coming. 289
generation, the protracted existence, and the unre- trieved decline both of the Papacy and of Islamism ; and though their long-enduring sway and slow pro- clivity to fall, may render these scenes less " mar- vellous in our eyes," we know that this slowness is but analogous to that of other sequences and move- ments which Providence has ordered or permitted, both in the physical and social system.
In this manner events that, during ages, have stood forth as stupendous seals for the veracity of God's holy word, become still broader and more palpable by the accession of those new margins and inscriptions, which revolving centuries mysteriously annex.
Nor is that scorn of unbelievers, which has grown more overt and hostile, since scriptural and active piety revived conjunctly with civil and religious freedom, an impredicted scorn. Have we any title to expect that, in our " last days," it should cease, unless when the awful advent which it challeno;es, shall suddenly rebuke and silence it for ever ?
Let such men " set their mouth against the hea- vens," while their " tongue walketh through the earth," as if they held the " line and measuring reed "^ of the Eternal : we must still ask — where- withal shall they blot those marks and signets of His Prescience? How can they reach to deface those vast and self-enlarging seals, " graven as with
* Ezek. xl. 3.
9 n
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an iron pen " in the living '' rock " of history ; comprising the greatest national and religious revo- lutions from the days of Tiberius to our own, and closely answering to diversified trains of predic- tions, whose remote priority no rational examiner disputes?
Are not these seals most manifest and indelible 1 Do they not remain unchanged, (save by augment- ation,) although thousands of resisting minds should receive no impression from them ? What less then can they be held to attest than the Divine inspiration of the writings in which those prophecies were of old recorded, and the omniscient, unceasing sovereignty of Jehovah who inspired them ? — What less than that " the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth"—th?it " His eyes are upon the ways of men," that He " understandeth their thought afar off," and " work- eth all things" — though concurrently with man's free-agency, — " after the counsel of his own will ? " — what less than that (as these Scriptures solemnly announce, and as reason compels every real theist to believe) He is the " God of truth," the " Holy One," " who cannot lie," and whose " mercy en- dureth for ever?" Are we, then, heartlessly to relinquish our trust in those of his predictions and promises, which as yet are /^wfulfilled ? He who by his first despised and unacknowledged advent transformed the worship and habitudes and senti- ments of half the world, has said, " Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand
XIII. FOR Christ's coming. 291
of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven ; " * and again, by the pens of apostles, " He shall come to be glorified in his saints ; " and, " Behold, He Cometh with clouds ; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him."f These latter passages, let it be observed, are from the very same books of the New Testament which have before been cited as containing wonderful prophecies in part fulfilled, and still in progress of fulfilment. We may add that the book of Daniel, which was cited with those, anticipates likewise, in distinct and lofty terms, that glorious final coming. " I looked in visions of the night, and behold with the clouds of heaven came one like a Son of man. — His do- minion is an eternal dominion, which shall not pass away, and his empire that which shall not be de- stroyed." :j: Shall we refuse a patient credence to assurances like these, from Him whose " deter- minate counsel and foreknowledge " the very same writings, by the fulfilment of their other great ora- cles, demonstrate, and are themselves thus proved to have been prompted by Himself? If scoffers mock our hopes, and defame His attributes and
* Mark xiv. 62 : comp. Matt. xxvi. 64 ; xxiv. 30 ; and xxv. 31. See Note G, at the end of the volume.
t 2 Thess. i. 7—10, and Rev. i. 7.
X Dan. ^ii. 13, 14. Dr. J. P. Smith's version, Script. Test. i. 448. " The Rabbinical commentators, without exception, appear to have acknowledged the application of this text to the Messiah." Ibid. 450. Note B.
2 c 2
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dispensations with the charge of what " men count slackness," it were well to ask, — for our own profit if not for theirs, — How near was Messiah's ^r.9^ victorious coming, when Balaam, in reluctant trance, had lately uttered, " I shall see Him, but not now, I shall behold Him, but not nigh ; there shall come a Star out of Jacob ; " — when one patriarch had de- clared in dying, " The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, until Shiloh come ;" and another amidst his anguish had triumphantly exclaimed, " I surely do know my Redeemer, the Living One, and he, the Last, will arise over the dust ;" * — or when Abra- ham, yet earlier, was divinely promised, " In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed ? "
Had your lot been among " dwellers at Jerusa- lem " in the days when Pompey made Judeea tri- butary, or when Crassus seized the treasures in its temple, would you have been then less prone than now to ask — Where is the promise of Messiah's coming ? — What indication was in those times dis- cernible, (unless it were that gloomy and ambiguous prospect, "the sceptre" ready to "depart from Judah,") of his appearing whom the ancient oracles foretold? Yet within one century after, the " Star out of Jacob " had arisen ; the Gatherer of the na- tions, the Light of all earth's families, had sent forth his heralds to the Gentiles ; the Redeemer had lived, and suffered, and departed, in whom
* Job xix. Dr. J. P. Smith's version, in Scrip. Test. i. 286.
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millions since have had " a lively hope," that they, like him, shall *' arise over the dust;" and from that epoch the seals of the world's history are at- tached inseparably to the volume of the church's hopes. For never since has there been wanting some great and progressive class of facts, respondent to those same and other trains of signal and remote prediction. And have we not in these, a mode and series of prophetical testimony far more sustaining to our faith, than all the succession, diversity, and amplification of ?mfulfilled prophecies concerning the Christ, could be, to those, who before his first advent, " looked for redemption in Jerusalem 1 "
How can we bend willingly to these testimonies the mind's eye and ear, — tracing thus the earliest signatures of what claimed to be Heaven's Pre- science, re-written by vast events on the tablets of the living world, — hearing thus the solemn voices of " Moses and the prophets" echoed by facts that, through all "latter days," have filled the trump of history, — without a deepened impression that "verily" there " is a God who judgeth in the earth ;" that "the Holy One of Israel is" indeed " our King," that his " counsels of old are faithfulness ; " that " good is Jehovah, eternal his mercy, and for all generations his truth?"*
Then, if, amidst the freshness and strength of this impression, we turn to meditate the order of the
* Psa. c. — ult. literal version.
2 c 3
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universe around us, — what clear perpetual echoes are hourly thence also responding to the word of promise, and to every proof of a Divine administra- tion, in the movements which we call processes of nature, and too faintly recognise as agencies of God ! The amazing mechanism of the heavens ; the familiar succession of yearly verdure and of daily sunrise ; the ever-controlled and refluent tides ; the uniform instincts of unnumbered animals ; in- cessantly reassure us, though we listen not, of an Omniscient vigilance and immutable fidelity. Among the most astonishing parts and evidences of this complex order, (and indeed the great index by which many other parts of it are observed and as- certained,) is the exactness of those celestial motions which mete out what we call our Time. The pro- longation of these (like the continuous progress of some fulfilments of prophecy) is a cumulative or germinating argument for the steadfast unintermit- ted reign of the Most High.* By how much therefore the " promise" is deferred, while yet we calculate from heaven's unerring dial the years of its delay, — by so much, in that very reckoning, do new sums of proof accrue, for the perfections of the Promiser. Each century which has become complete, each eclipse which has been computed
* " Those mighty orbs proclaim thy power, Their motions speak thy skill, And on the wings of every hour
We read thy patience still." — Watts^s Lyrics.
XIII. FOR Christ's coming. 295
and observed, each waxing and waning moon, every year that has been joined to the eighteen hundred that are for ever gone, — nay each diurnal rotation of our earth in its swift and accurate career, — while made by scoffers a new plea and topic of disbelief, has been in effect one added and punctilious tribute of creation to the perfect rule of the Supreme : — at once a fulfilment of the special promise, " Sum- mer and winter and day and night shall not cease," * and a ceaseless echo to the authoritative words, " Hath God said, and shall He not do 1 or hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good ?" f — " My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure ! " J
When we reach, therefore, either in personal or public calendars, some new annual demarcation of that vast but divinely regulated progress, — when the " noiseless foot of Time" seems to touch one of those great invisible chords that measure out his realm, — and his own memento of the transient and the dying vibrates at a birth-day's sunset on the heart of one, or at a new-year's eve upon the hearts of nations, — this very thrill of feeling should bring with it to faith, nay and to reason likewise, a new memorial of his unchanging " ordinances," who " hangeth the earth upon nothing;" who " causeth the day-spring" both natural and spiritual "to know his place ; " who has said, '' Behold, I come
* Gen. viii. 22. f Numb, xxiii. 19. + Isaiah xlvi. 10.
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quickly, and my reward is with me, to give unto every man according as his work shall be ! "
Must we still be taunted with the word " quickly^'' — as if irreconcilable with this prolonged delay ?
Ask him who so refers to it, — especially if, though " undevout," he have any acquaintance with astro- nomy,— whether he considers the swiftest of dis- covered planets, Mercury, to move " quickly " in its orbit ? and whether he will accept a computation which some observers have greatly exceeded, as to the distance of the fixed stars? Then suppose, (and of course as a mere supposition,) that no sooner had the Prince of Life ascended — perhaps by in- stantaneous miracle — "far above all heavens," than He actually began the triumphal and judicial regress of his final advent ; and ever since, encompassed by " his mighty angels," has approached us with a velocity equal to that with which Mercury revolves. Question the objector, how soon would this awful procession reach our world even from the nearest star ; and he may answer you, — In about eight thousand years. Should he however add, — This were but a lingering rate of progress for Him who orders and impels the flight of sunbeams, — let it be remembered that the local distance we have as- signed for the commencement of that progress is re- latively narrow : that the " heaven of heavens," the central glory,* the abode of the " Majesty on
* Note H, at the end of the volume.
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High," is, in all likelihood, immensely more remote: Herschel having "discovered objects whose distances he estimates to be so great, that their liglit must have been nearly two millions of years in travelling down to us." * But the radiations or undulations of light possess a velocity so surpassing and incom- prehensible, that for this among other reasons its materiality has been questioned ; and yet a space which light has been twice ten thousand centuries in traversing, " probably comprehends but a small part of the universe." f
Let us therefore imagine (which I repeat, in no degree implies or intimates such an opinion) that the " sign of the Son of man " were not to be " re- vealed from heaven," for millennial cycles of ages vet to come, — would it even then be for modern philosophy to insinuate that he spake not truly, or even not literally, when afl&rming, " Behold, I come quickly ? "
Must an orb, compared with whose rapidity the voice of thunders and the flight of our swiftest mis- siles of destruction are but tedious, be yet eighty centuries % traversing a small portion of our visible
* Phil. Trans. 1802. Quoted in Vince's Confutation of Atheism, p. 29.
t Ibid.
X This comparison is founded on the statement in Rees's Cyclo- pedia, that " a cannon ball moving at the rate of about 19 miles a minute, would be 760,000 years passing from the nearest fixed star ;" and that " sound, which moves at the rate of about 13 miles a
298 DISTRUSTFUL ANXIETY XIII.
heavens, — must rays or undulations which are in- conceivably more rapid than that orb, be millions of years in reaching us from some remoter star, — and shall it be said that the '* chariots of God " are like those of Egypt's host, who " drave them heavi- ly," because not yet arrived at these suburbs or out- skirts of creation from the central throne and "right hand of the Most High?" Ere He who *' sitteth thereon " shall have fulfilled his glori- ous progress, " travelling in the greatness of his strength " more swiftly than planets or than sun- beams in their courses, with all that " dread mag- nificent array," — how many proud measurers of *' hand-breadths," who exclaim, forgetful of their boasted science, "Your Lord delayeth his coming," may have been borne away by inexorable Death to meet Him ?
If the rapid undulations of the minutest sound, and the far more rapid movements of planets, are strictly governed by Him with whom is "no varia- bleness," nor does any irregularity betray even " a shadow of turning," shall not his own approach be expected with as confident and " patient waiting," as the return of comets that have vanished from our skies ?
But while thus the fixed and moving worlds, — at
minute, would be 1,120,000 years " traversing the same distance. It is stated in Bonnycastle's Astronomy, (p. 31,) that Mercury in its course round the sun " moves at the rate of about 105,000 miles an Jiour ; " more than 130 times as fast as the flight of sound.
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once by their sameness and their revolutions, their remoteness and celerity, — utter unnumbered echoes to the recorded " word," — so also that change and progression in human affairs, which, amidst much of like sameness and stability, become yearly more observable, present to us another order of corrobor- ative facts, which, though on a minuter scale, are perhaps not less significant. I have said, — amidst much of like sameness and stability ; — because in many points, the unchangeableness and complete- ness of Divine sovereignty are strongly manifested in the limitation of human nature as to its capaci- ties and its advances. The boasted " perfectibility " of certain self-sufficient and imaginative speculators in Europe, remains as ideal as the earthly immor- tality of Lao-Kung in China.* Still, as in the psalmist's age, "the days of our years are three- score years and ten." The bodily form and consti- tution, the daily wants, the mental affections of man are mainly unaltered. His Maker and Pre- server " hath appointed the bounds that he cannot pass." No philosophic voice dares tell us, " He that believeth on me shall never die : " "I will raise him up at the last day : " but the Divine voice which -spake those words with authority, and in whose name they are reiterated, still challenges the " wise " of this world to add " one cubit to his stature," or " make one hair white or black."
* Barrow's China, p. 463.
300 DISTRUSTFUL ANXIETY XIII.
Amidst those permitted advances, and noble aug- mentations of power, which we are now to speak of, man remains at most points as dependent as ever, unable to add one month to his life, or one muscle to his frame. He is still constrained, as in the days of ancient times, to view himself as a being " fear- fully and wonderfully made " by some invisible but unchanging Power ; and those changes in the con- dition and capacities of the race, of which in his generation he is invited to avail himself, are the permitted work of nations and of ages ; in which his own share, if it be any, is for the most part very minute. Yet on the other hand, amidst all this sameness and these marked restraints, how import- ant and accelerated are those advances of human science, art, and power ! The great though simple invention of " imprinting,"* with all its consequent applications, — which has given means of cheap and boundless diffusion for scriptural and all other know- ledge,— that likewise of optical instruments and mathematical processes which have perfected the art of navigation, — the recent accession to this and other modes of locomotion, by an immense motive force both on sea and land, — the conjunct tendency of these things to spread both scientific and revealed truth swiftly throughout the world, and the fact that each of these discoveries was made in countries en-
* This word (seen on old title-pages,) may include, I think, with typography in all its modes, the kindred arts of lithography, en- graving, etc., with their most recent improvements.
XIII. FOR Christ's coming. 301
lightened by the gospel, — all these are wonderfully consonant with the written and once spoken pro- mise, '' Behold, I come!" They are as new voices in the wilderness of earthly labours, or amidst the desert of human disappointments, which cry, " Pre- pare ye the way of the Lord, make straight a highway for our God."
I doubt not that some of the "wise-hearted,"* the ingenious and inventive, forgetting whence their own talents came, have sneered at the language of Moses, when he describes the " son of Uri " as " called " and filled with a heaven-descended " spirit," that he might " devise curious works," might attain expertness in arts unknown to his nation, and aptness to teach others also, in order to the prompt completion of a fitting sanctuary. But such scorn, if not atheistic, is at least self-idolizing and superficial. " The Father of lights," while he confers and sustains in those who indulge it each faculty and each acquirement which they possess, does but permit that infatuation of their pride, that blind deification of second causes or successive means, by which they learn to despise a reference to His special providence almost as much as to His special grace. It must still be true in the judgment of real theists, (and not the less for that chain of
* Using the term in that very limited sense which it has in Exod. xxviii. 3; xxxi. 6; xxxv. 25, etc. — Those texts are curiously illus- trated by a passage in Aristotle, Eth. Nicom. 1. vi. c. 7. 2 D
302 DISTRUSTFUL ANXIETY. XIII.
causes or instruments which those men exclusively regard and boast of,) that " every good gift " de- scends from God. Particularly with respect to every intellectual power and effort, the question of a most ancient book will never lose its force, — " Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts, or who hath given understanding to the heart ? "* The same book supplies our only right answer, — " The inspiration of the Almighty." f
Whatever hyperbole and approach to impious flattery there may be in Pope's epitaph on our great philosopher, none but a virtual atheist can doubt that it expresses a great truth in declaring,
" God said, Let Newton he : " +
and so concerning each and all of our race, un- known or well known, illustrious or obscure, who, whether by aid of a long train of previous lights and preparatives, or by seeming fortuity, have con- tributed something to the advancement of mankind, it should be distinctly recognised that He who or- dereth all things, has " in very deed for this cause raised them up," or for this same purpose endowed them. The antecedent or surrounding train was laid either by the cumulated labour of ages, or by the rich concurrence of natural gifts ; still it is as true, though not as manifestly so, of Faust or Gutten-
* Job xxxviii. 36. t Ibid, xxxii. 8.
X See Note I, at the end of the volume.
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burg, Galileo or Watt, as of Bezaleel and Aholiab, that the Great Disposer " called them by name," and ordained them "to devise curious works."* If " the Assyrian " was " the rod of his anger," the "staff" of his " indignation," t why shall not a Bacon, or a Davy, or a Kepler, be viewed as wands of his beneficent power, cleaving, as it were, the waves of obscurity and error ; smiting out the streams of knowledge in the wilderness ; or " blos- soming," and " yielding " unaccustomed fruits ? "Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or the deaf, or the seeing, or the blind ? " — or who confers the vigorous, capacious, penetrat- ing intellect? There are, it may be, proud pos- sessors of that gift (though I hope such a spirit has very rarely been associated with British science) who would scorn to be denominated instruments in the hand of the Supreme Intelligence. And so, doubtless, would the royal Assyrian have scorned to be termed the unsuspecting scourge in the hand of Divine Justice.J But in each case we may per- tinently ask, — " Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith ? " § We are obliged, as theists, and let it be also our consolation, as Chris- tians, to trace in those advances which arise amidst the sameness and feebleness of human society, and
* Exod. XXXV. 30—32.
t Isa. X. 5. See Abp. Seeker in Lowth's Isa,, vol. ii. p. 106.
X Isa. X. 7. § Isa. x. 15.
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which facilitate the accomplishment of revealed promises, — new tokens, and preludes of their ap- proaching completion ; new parts, as it were, in that grand overture, whose very discords have in them a latent harmony ; still ushering in the per- fect consummation ; still burdened with these solemn strains of prophecy, — " Surely I come quickly," — " Behold, I make all things new ! "
Once more, amidst many awakening secular changes, there is yet found a durability in the chief tenets and best emotions of the devout members of Christ's church, which yields a further and happy attestation that their source has been Divine. We might, indeed, have ranked this among the widen- ing seals of prophetic promise ; the fulfilment, thus far, of those distinct assurances — " Lo, I am with you always " — " The gates of hell shall not prevail :" — but passing by its claim as a fulfilled prediction, let us view it simply as an unexampled fact. Do not the steadiness and brio;htness of these sea-lig^hts, (the true followers of Christ) through the tempests of all ages, contribute to show that they are founded on the everlasting rock, and fed with fire from heaven?
Although the principles of the religious system least remote from ours, — that of Mohammed, — should prove equally enduring, this would present no parallel. For who will pretend that in the best adherents, — the " true church " if I may so speak — of that false prophet, (much as he was indebted to
XIII. FOR Christ's coming. 305
the gospel,) there has been or is that purity of moral principle ; that chastened and transforming ardour of faith, hope, and charity ; that pure but enlightened self-denial and philanthropy ; of which indisputable specimens still are found, under each diversity of name and form and section, among the disciples of Christ? We wonder not, as far as human nature is concerned, at the permanence of the Mohammedan system. "The world" is not against it, for it was constructed to suit and capti- vate the world ; and if its " methodism," a zeal for its forms or for its fanaticism, were despised and persecuted, the world would cease to " love its own." These forms, and this fanaticism, it possesses in common with all or most of the idolatrous systems which it condemns. The mosque, therefore, is not as a sea-built light-house, with all the waves of worldly passions sapping or assaulting it : it was reared on the iron pillars of force, and its gilded lamps have been fanned by luxurious breezes. But Christian churches, properly so called, that is, the "faithful " of each communion and of each assem- bly, forming collectively the church universal, — and each of these faithful persons themselves, — are in some true and important sense, (though less ob- viously than in ancient times,) still "light-houses in the world." ^ Each cherishes the separate yet
* Phil. ii. 15. Saurin (Ser, vol. ix. p. 460, as quoted by Doddr. n loc.) suggests this allusion.
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combining spark of faith and love ; and all conspire to brighten in their day those beacons which have withstood the storms of time, and shed some moral and celestial light even on the darkest ages of our era. They have glowed brightly amidst the hurri- canes of persecuting violence which threatened their extinction, and they still glow, if dimly, amidst the pestiferous vapour of unbelief which seeks to chill and quench them with its paralysing enmity. And even if many should be quenched, (as some unhap- pily have been,) and many should " wax cold," — nay were there only left, which may God forbid, " seven thousand " of our millions, who had not bowed in the self-idolatry of the godless, — yet would the " burning " and growing ^' light" of those, amidst their desolateness, still confirm their mutual trust that God "abideth faithful." More than this, it would be an earnest of that new and swift diifusion, which his good pleasure can, in any region, and at any moment, give, to " the light that shineth in darkness."
In this sense the sighing of the heart, — when, though alloyed by impatience or distrust, it is yet devout and hopeful, — the Christian's spiritual atti- tude of vigilant expectance,* " looking for and hast- ing unto the coming of the day of God," — is as a flamy gem, like those related to have blazed upon
* airoKapaSoKia. Rom. viii. 19, and Phil. i. 20.
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the High Priest's mystic breastplate ; * sparkling forth legibly — man is not "made in vain," but made to be reunited with his God. — Sceptics have said, " If God had given a revelation, he would have written it in the skies." i- But besides its being, in one sense, true and obvious that He hatli done so ; and in another sense, (as Dr. Paley has remarked,) con- trary to the analogy of the whole system of things that He should do ?>o ;% it is also most cheer- ingly true and apparent that He hath written it in the earth; placing within " earthen vessels " (as in the lamps of Gideon) heaven-descended flames, ever aspiring, discernible already by their warmth and gleaming, but ready first to shine forth brightly when the frail pitchers crumble. Such flames in- urned, and sometimes in the meanest clay, have been always many; still breathing heavenward, and each one — like a "tongue" of fire — responding to each word and echo of the heavenly promise — " Even so, come. Lord Jesus."
That ardent Rutherford, whose letters, through twenty years, had overflowed with ceaseless aspira- tions, " Oh would my Lord cut short the months and hours, and overleap time, that w^e might nieet,"§ often in his dying weakness uttered the im.passioned wish, " Oh for arms to embrace Him ! oh for a well-tuned harp ! "
The devoted Herbert, whose temper seems gra-
* Joseph. Ant., iii. 8. L' Estrange, p. G9. t Paley's Evidences, v, ii. 347. :J: Ibid. § Letters, p. 239.
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phically expressed in his poem entitled " Home," beginning,
" Come, Lord, my head doth burn, my heart is sick,
While thou dost ever, ever stay ;
Oh show thyself to me. Or take me up to thee ! "
said, a little before he departed, with a calmer fer- vour, " I shall shortly leave this valley of tears, and dwell where these eyes shall see my Master and Saviour Jesus." — " And this is my content, that I shall live the less time for having lived this and the day past." *
Howe, in a brief memorial of a benevolent and Christian physician, Dr. Henry Sampson, states, " In all my conversation with him, nothing was more observable than his pleasant and patient ex- pectation of the blessed state which he now pos- sesses ; the mention whereof would make joy sparkle in his eye, and clothe his countenance with such tokens of serenity, as showed and signified submis- sion, with an unreluctant willingness to wait for that time which the wisdom and goodness of God should judge seasonable for his removal out of a world which he loved not ; nor yet could disaffect from any sense of its unkindness to him, but only from the prospect he had of a better.^' f
How fully the biographer himself partook the temper which he here delineates as evinced by a
* Life, prefixed to his Poems, p. 4L t Works, i, 096, 697. Fol. edit.
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friend, remarkably appears in his having " once told his wife, that though he loved her as well as is fit for one creature to love another, yet if it were put to his choice whether to die that moment, or to live that night, and the living that night would se- cure the continuance of his life for seven years to come, he declared he would choose to die that mo- ment."*
And lest it should be insinuated that, however it may be with divines or devotees, this holy flame has now gone out in minds really imbued with modern science, quenched by that broad clear day-light, — as our coal fires are found to grow faint and lifeless if exposed to the bright sunbeams, — I shall add the recent instance of a physician distinguished by sci- entific and literary merit ; the late Dr. Thomas Bateman. In an excellent memoir, (composed, I am informed, by his sister,) we are told that he had been inclined " to the wretched doctrine of Mate- rialism," and " sceptical respecting the truth of Di- vine Revelation." But exactly twelve months be- fore his decease, (which occurred " in the prime of life, at the age of forty-three,") he attained a hap- py persuasion of that truth which he had long opposed. It deserves attention, that during four previous years of illness (from 1815 to 1820) he continued in " total estrangement from God and religion ;" and not less, — that " his mind retained
* Calamy's Memoir of Howe, prefixed to his Works, v. i. p. 74.
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all its powers in full vigour to the last moment of life, and was never once clouded or debilitated." — *' During the last week especially, the strength and clearness of his intellect and of his spiritual per- ceptions were very remarkable ; and on its being one day observed to him, that as his bodily powers decayed, those of his soul seemed to become more vigorous, he replied, — They do, exactly in an inverse ratio ; I have been very sensible of it." — " He con- versed with the greatest animation all the day and almost all the night preceding his death, princi- pally on the joys of heaven and the glorious change he was soon to experience, often exclaiming, — What a happy hour will the hour of death be ! — Some of his last words were — Oh yes ! I am glad to go, if it be the Lord's will. — He shut his eyes and lay quite composed, and by and by said, — What glory ! the angels are waiting for me ! Then, after another short interval of quiet, he added, — Lord Jesus, receive my soul ; — and, to those who were about him, — Farewell. These were the last words he spoke." In about ten minutes after this he breathed his last, on "the 9th of April, 1821, the very day on which, twelve months before, his mind had been first awakened to the hopes and joys
of the ever-blessed gospel." " What a contrast "
(adds his biographer) " did his actual departure form to what I had reason to apprehend, when I watched over his couch in London, expecting that every moment would be his last ! and when, with
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a hard indifference and insensibility, he talked only of going to his ' last sleep ! ' And how can I wor- thily acknowledge the goodness of Almighty God, who effected such a change in his state ! "^
Thousands of Christians, quite unknown to fame, but well known to "brotherly kindness," have evinced in their humble days of life and hours of death, a desire and hope as fervid and as pure. And is not each such instance, near us or remote, a living voice the more, — testifying, like all the rest, that heavenly power awakened it ? One of the devout men who have been mentioned as strongly exemplifying this spirit, thus comments on its origin: — "He that hath wrought us for this selfsame thing is God.''' — " For that such a work should be done upon such creatures ; to mould them into such a frame, that now nothing terrestrial, nothing temporary, nothing within the region of mortality will satisfy ; but they are restless for that state wherein mortality shall be swallowed up of life, — this is the work of Deity, f
The natural desire of life to come, and the dread into which this is changed by crime, are justly adduced by sound philosophy as among the "strong presumptions of a future state." J But this natural
* Memoir in the Christian Observer, Nov. 1821, pp. 665—672. A still later and not less signal instance — in the same scientific pro- fession,— is that of Dr. John D. Godman, an eminent naturalist and lecturer on anatomy, in America, who died in 1830, a sketch of whose life is published by " the Society of Friends." t Howe's Works, i. 680. + Dugald Stewart, Act. and Mor. Powers, ii. 206, et sup.
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desire is manifestly faint and variable, in compari- son with that new and concentrated sentiment of hope and love which burns in hearts that have most steadfastly embraced the gospel promise. Is not this latter therefore to be held " a strong presump- tion," a noble experimental argument, for the re- alhy of that pure and lofty happiness from which sinful nature shrinks, but which this gospel at once discloses and makes lovely ? — Let us watch and pray for growth in every grace, that we may be far more unquestionably numbered among these aspiring wit- nesses, whose "citizenship" is so manifestly "in heaven." It should be remarked that the Divine origin of those desires and hopes is confirmed, by their not being of a selfish character ; not sighs of mere personal heaviness or pain^ — not for mere per- sonal deliverance from conflicts and from sorrows — but sighs which are sympathetic ; first with the whole body of Christ, — for " if one member suff*er all the members sympathize ; " * then mingling with the interceding groans of all that mystic body with and for " the whole creation ; " for the last triumph over sin, and every pang that flows from it ; for that blest day when the Spirit of God shall move upon human hearts as once upon " the waters," and all our alienated race shall hail and adorn and celebrate his " great salvation ! "f
* 1 Cor. xii. 26. t " I am more and more convinced, (said Dr. Payson on his death -bed,) that the happiness of heaven is a benevolent happi-
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Such was the sympathy of Paul when he wrote, — " Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved ;" and when his love to the Philippian church tempered and checked within him the fervent wish for what he knew to be " incomparably better," — '*to depart" and to be " present with his Lord."
These surely are not the feelings of an earthly and degenerated nature, but derived from Him with whom the apostle longed to be " at home ; " who " loved the church, and gave Himself for it;" the " Good Shepherd " who " laid down his life for the sheep." It is true that some of us are distress- ingly conscious of the languors, intermissions, and even dubiousness, perhaps, of this spirit in our- selves ; yet none who perceive its excellence, and pray for its perfection, can be warranted to despair that they shall participate the boon : rather is it our solemn duty to believe, that, by Him who will not *' quench the smoking flax," the spark which he has kindled is discerned in all its weakness, and shall be cherished still.
This spirit of sympathy embraces even the in- ferior forms of sentient life. It looks, as we have said, in pensive hope upon " the whole creation ;" " travailing in pain " as for some great deliverance ; and sighs for that new paradise where all modes of
ness. In proportion as my joy has increased, I have been filled with intense love to all creatures, and a strong desire that they might partake of my happiness."
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blameless suffering, incidentally the fruits of sin, shall cease for ever ; amply compensated perhaps, as well as terminated, by unforeseen resources of Almighty goodness. But far more constant and deep will be these sentiments, on behalf of such as are linked with us in the strongest bonds of nature and society. Often too faint and superficial to- wards the whole church and towards mankind at large, — they will be more profound and fervent, as indeed they ought to be, in reference to friends and kindred and fellow Christians, with whom we are especially " knit together in love." Let it not be thought, that piety, while it expands our affections, is meant or adapted to equalize or level them. It permits and consecrates to each heart those closer and dearer affinities, while it creates a new affinity with all the brotherhood of Christ, and asserts our original relation to the wider brotherhood of man ; prompting continually the great entreaty, " Come, Lord Jesus," and make these fraternities but one, — " one fold " under " one Shepherd."
Thus indeed will the whole sympathy and inter- cession of Christians be collectively most wakeful and intense ; when each indulges the especial effu- sion of their warmth and fulness in those nearest, deepest channels, which affection and association must have wrought around us. How often may we thus be prompted to pour forth the devout petition, " Come, Lord Jesus," in each varied acceptation which it admits ! — as it implores either his spiritual
XIII. FOR Christ's coming. 315
coming to renovate the unrenewed, to soothe the disconsolate, and perfect the departing, — or his last and visible advent to transform the living, and sum- mon forth the dead.
How earnestly on behalf of those who are " bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh," from whom we know a few short years must sever us ; — that this Divine Redeemer would embrace them with us in a yet stricter, happier union, — or, if we be thus unitedly already his, would mature us together for endless companionship in that mansion which He ascended to provide !
How tenderly for the " near and dear " whom v/e would fain have locally nearer or by intimacy dearer ; whom seas or continents may have sun- dered from us, or whom differences of communion and education may at some points dissociate, or with whom other causes may preclude the unrestrained expression of a deep regard, — that he would spi- ritually come to each, make us more indubitably one in Him, and prepare us for that Home where vastness shall involve no remoteness, where diversity shall induce no shade of alienation, and where the tenderest sentiments of hallowed love may effuse themselves without reserve and multiply themselves for ever !
How fervently as to the nearest and dearest that
are gone, — who already " sleep in Jesus," whom,
in the pomp of that Divine appearing, " shall God
bring with Him ; " — that He would soon present this
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perfected and blissful train, among whom we are each to recognise some that were " lovely in their lives," and, spiritually, in their deaths more " love- ly ; " who, if the " patience of hope " and the gen- tleness of meek endurance be pledges for the new and heightened loveliness of forms which death has marred, will at "his coming" put on the fairest forms of " incorruption," the undying types and due concomitants of a spiritual beauty that shall best reflect his own ! Even a chief of modern sceptics could perceive, that " the most consoling hope" which "the beneficent Divinity confers on virtuous minds," is that of " reunion, where there shall be no more tears of parting ; " and could own that " a profound and vital sentiment has inspired and excited and enlightened our reason, to make it embrace with transport this precious expectation, the desire of which behoved to wake, not in cold philosophic understandings, but in hearts which loved." *
With what superior certainty and warmer trans- port may Christians fix on this "consoling hope," inspired and sanctioned for them, not merely by
* jD' Alembert, Eloge de Sacy. Quoted in Stewart's Act. and Mor. Powers, ii. 223. The same thought is beautifully expressed by a modern poet of the same nation.
" Apr^s un vain soupir, aprfes I'adieu supreme,
De tout ce qui t'aimoit, n'est il plus rien qui t'aime ? —
Ah ! sur ce grand secret n'interroge que toi ;
Vols mourir ce qui t'aime, Elvire, — et reponds-moi ! "
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the dim though earnest visions or glimpses of nature, but by the explicit promise of a perfect social bliss ; when our '^ Father" of whom '' the whole family in heaven and earth is named," shall have " gathered his children together," and He that " is not ashamed to call them brethren," shall have called them visi- bly into fraternal oneness with Himself! The blessed and celestial character of such a promise, the tender hope with which unnumbered Christian hearts adhere to it, the accordance both of the pro- mise and the hope with our universal nature's best presentiments, — are they not all divinely prophetic of the issue ?
May we pray for the augmented, unremitting ardour of such hope, as a heavenly voice bearing witness with our spirits, whispering in the darkest solitude, " Behold, I come quickly," and eliciting evermore the responsive supplication, " Come, Lord Jesus !"
And since we know that the blessedness of this visible coming, and our gladness in the forethought of it, must essentially depend on a previous and abundant spiritual coming of " Christ in us, the hope of glory," — on our being more and more re- newed and changed into his moral image, — our prayers, both personal and intercessory, on this great subject, must ever include (as was hinted be- fore) these paramount requests. They should be like the " fervent " entreaties of Epaphras for his brethren at Colosse, — that they might " stand perfect 2 E 3 "^
318 DISTRUSTFUL ANXIETY XIII.
and complete in all the will of God ; " and of Paul for his Thessalonian converts, that " the very God of peace would sanctify them wholly, and their whole spirit soul and body be preserved blame- less unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. ^^ Let us ask for each other and ourselves — " Even so corne, Lord Jesus ;" come, first, and sway thy spi- ritual sceptre here with a more constraining and emancipating power : let it touch and unveil and banish every hidden foe. Communicate richly thy own lowliness and purity. Hasten the hour when this shall never more be all that we dare profess, (as now amidst contests or disquietudes of heart,) " I love to love thee!"* — but when at every moment we may warmly breathe the exulting declaration, " Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love Thee ! "
Let us unite with a divine of the last age in his petitions for this heavenly love : " Oh, make it great in us, good Lord, as well as in Thyself ! Cause it to do marvels in our hearts, at it hath done in Thine ! " t or with St. Bernard in a former age, " Hasten, O Lord, delay not. For the grace of thy wisdom, or the wisdom of thy grace, has its short approaches ; % — where by no arguments or discus- sions, there as by some secret steps, may we ascend to the torrent of thy pleasures, to the full joy of thy
* See Note J, at the end of the volume.
+• Bp. Patrick's Glorious Epiphany, p. 94.
X " Compendia."
XIII. FOR Christ's coming. 319
love. He to whom this is given — faithfully seek- ing, faithfully knocking, — often suddenly finds him- self there." *
And when we contemplate more peculiarly the last and glorious advent, what prayers more appro- priate and excellent than those of the first-named writer I — " Oh, let the splendour of that day irra- diate my soul, even at this distance from it, and leave no space void of its light and comfort ! Yea, let it eclipse all other joys ; and by its glistering beauty,, cause the small contentments of this world to seem but as so many glow-worms, which shine only in the night. — The spacious heavens hope to be filled with the majesty of Thy glory. The sun is but a weak image of Thy brightness, and will be content to go out to make room for Thee when thou appearest. Whatsoever is lovely confesses it is but Thy shadow. Possess Thyself therefore, Lord of life and glory, entirely of this heart, which hath been too long estranged from Thee. Impress such a lively sense of Thee and of thy glory there, that I may sooner forget myself than Thee and thine appearing ! " f
* See Note K, at the end of the volume, t Patrick's Glorious Epiphany, pp. 114, 109, abridged.
XIV,
ON THE PROMISE OF "ETERNAL LIFE " AS THE GREAT REMEDY OF EARTHLY SORROWS.
There are woes of no unfrequent occurrence, which miserably baffle each proposal, and strike dumb each voice, of philosophic or worldly consolation, whether from lighter or severer schools ; which those do but mock, with solemn or flimsy trifling, who would lull the sufferers into a dream of earthly possibilities, or harden them by a stern theory of pre-established fate.
But the revelation of the Most High God up- lifts itself, like a never-setting sun, over the most dark and frowning, the most lofty and imprisoning heights, of calamity and hopelessness. Our Saviour, just before his own predicted agony, calmly enjoined his sorrowful disciples, " Let not your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also in me.
XIV. PROMISE OF ETERNAL LIFE. 321
In my Father's house are many mansions. — I go to prepare a place for you." " I give unto my sheep" (he had previously declared) ^''eternal life, and they shall never perish."
So his most beloved follower, at the close of a long and suffering mission, testifies, " This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life ; and this life is in his Son : " while another apostle, once a blasphemer of that holy name, declares, " The gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord :" and, " Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." What wonder if with such promises, received and embraced in " full as- surance of hope," Paul was constrained, amidst his varied martyrdoms, to " reckon the sufferings of this present time not worthy to be weighed against the glory that shall be revealed."*
Would we, however, practically and atailingly unite with him and other saints in this most blessed " reckoning," — would we derive from the promise of "Eternal Life" that strength in sorrows, and that stimulus to duties, which the reality and mag- nificence of the prospect should induce, — we must make it a matter, not of nominal or cursory regard, but of heartfelt belief, and of earnest meditation ; contemplating, so far as our powers admit, the im- port of the gift ; though it is obvious we must find
* Rom. viii. 18, See ScMeusner.
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in it depths and heights that will ineffably surpass them.
The term " life," without an epithet, is some- times used in Scripture as an emphatical expression for happiness. " He that hath the Son hath life." — " I am come that ye might have life." =* The very idea of life, in this its highest sense, as the conscious existence of a moral being unfallen, or perfectly and blissfully restored, — is one which, till we are ourselves thus entirely and indefectibly restored, we cannot fully realize. Even apart from that attri- bute of endless continuance which appears to be in truth inseparable from it, there is something in such a life which must transcend the thought of any not possessing it. The gift of its beginnings does but faintly intimate that perfection of which it is the earnest. Some devout persons, indeed, have attain- ed, even here, such degrees of this " life," which is
* " The life which we now live," (■writes Bernard,) " is rather death ; not life properly, but a death-like life." " There shall we truly live, where life is a lively and a living life." — I have tried, at the expense of style, to give something like the force of his own Latin phrases : — " Haec enim vita qua vivimus, magis mors ; nee simpliciter vita, sed vita mortalis." " Ibi vere vivitur, ubi vivida vita est et vitalis." ^
Milton has very forcibly expressed the same sentiment in one of his finest sonnets : —
■ " This earthly load
Of death, called life, which us from life doth sever." 1 Sti. Bern. 0pp. p. 558.
XIV. ETERNAL LIFE. 323
" hid with Christ in God," as to " take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, for Christ's sake ; " yet we have not found the most eminent among these pronouncing themselves wholly freed from spiritual corruption and paralysis and pain ; the marks and remainders of that spiritual " death " from which God's mercy has begun to raise them.
How fitly all sinfulness or moral defect is scrip- turally designated " death," we may infer from this ; that the term Life describes the highest possession, and sometimes the very being, of the ever-blessed God, and of Him who is one with the Father. " As the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself."
Such were the words of Christ : and his apostle afterwards wrote ; " The Life has been manifested, and we have seen [it,] and bear witness [to it,] and we announce to you that Eternal Life, which was with the Father, and has been manifested to us."*
These august titles of " the Life," the " Eternal Life," thus ascribed to Him who " was with God and was God," correspond also to the most holy and awful name, Jehovah ; which denotes essential and eternal existence.
Life, then, is the essence and blessedness of the "only Potentate." He " only hath immortality." It is his to confer the mighty boon, and his free grace bestows it not only on beings never separated
* 1 John i. 2. Dr. J. P. Smith's version, Script. Test. iii. 83.
324 PROMISE OF XIV.
from Him, but on those who, through his beloved Son, are reconciled and re-united to Himself. But it is, I venture to conclude, not possible on earth, for the most advanced believers to apprehend, even in speculation, still less experimentally, the per- fectness of such a life. How few may have en- joyed a single lioiir, which would equal their own faint conceptions of that pure felicity ; reposing, as it were, on one celestial charmed spot amidst the wilderness, from which the sense of sin and infirm- ity, and fear, and grief, was banished ; the fulness of Divine communications having, for a little space, utterly superseded or subdued it ! Yet we are taught to meditate not on an insulated section, a transitory portion, of that life, but on the boundless expanse of it above and beyond the wilderness. The gospel invites us to pray to " the Father of glory," that He " may give unto us the spirit of wisdom and re- velation,"— that we " may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance."
The contemplation, therefore, of "eternal life," accompanied by prayer for heavenly light and strength, is a sacred duty and privilege of Chris- tians. And surely the attempt at this will constrain us to prayer ; for how are we lost as we commence, and still more as we pursue it !
We possess indeed artificial measures, by the ad- dition and succession of which we conceive of pro- tracted time. Even those notations which human
XIV. ETERNAL LIFE. 325
skill has devised for very small portions of its flight, when immensely multiplied in imagination, can bear us onward mentally through enormous periods ; — so that when the hour strikes, or the very pendulum vibrates, a mind which feels the brevity of this fleeting scene, and glances at the vastness of futu- rity, will not seldom listen (with the wakeful poet) " as if an angel spoke."
We have also natural measures of time. You observe the sun ; now near, it may be, to the vernal equinox, or to the winter solstice ; and you know that since it last occupied, relatively to us, the same position, our earth has rolled through its great orbit, and another year is gone. What would be the im- pression of the " solemn sound," if at some annual period, a fixed number of loud and distinct thun- derings told us the world's age, and announced a year complete ! — how much more if, at each close of some greater natural epoch — such as the terres- trial years of some remoter planet's revolution — an alarum of another tone, and yet more awful, pro- claimed the close and sum of such periods ; or, in the language of that world's chronology, such greater years I For the impression, if we may judge by experience, would increase in a direct ratio with the length of the period indicated. Yet this, though it might add a deep solemnity to our thoughts of prolonged duration, could not enable us to conceive of " eternal life," but only to make us feel more 2 F
326 PROMISE OF
XIV.
fully that it is inconceivable ; for eternity is the negation of all limit, — and accumulated measures, whether very small or very great, are still but modes of expressing limitation. If there be exalted crea- tures, (and this is surely probable,) who can review many more millenniums than we can months of ex- istence, that will deepen rather than solve for them the mystery of " an endless life ; " since the whole retrospect, with all its multitude of scenes, will be known and felt to be a point, in comparison with the unfathomed existence yet to come.
Although the words " everlasting life," " eternal happiness," be familiar to the lips and ears of Chris- tians,— what can be so utterly foreign and adverse to all earthly experience and prospect ! What position so gloriously new, so rapturously opposite to every habit of human thought, as the first in- vestiture with a felicity that shall never end ! Here, the more we are endued with that reflection on the past and comprehension of the future which dis- tinguish rational minds, the more must decay, and change, and evanescence press upon us. We look on the monuments of antiquity, and they have fallen ; on the flowers of a new spring, and they are fading ; on the countenance of affection, and it sinks in death. The words of a French writer are but as the voice of humankind, when he exclaims, " I entreat in vain a few more moments ; life escapes and flies : I say to the summer night — Be
XIV. ETERNAL LIFE. 327
slow, but morning comes dispelling it. Man has no haven ; time has no pause ; it rushes onwards — and we are gone."
Oh, what a startling security, what a superhuman novelty of bliss, will be in that moment, when the Christian shall first feel within himself that he can die no more ; perceiving also in the celestial aspect of those whom with transport he recognises, that " neither can they die any more," being " children of the resurrection ! " What will it be to ffaze for the first time on eyes that never shall grow dim ; on a face that shall be always radiant ! — to touch, with a hand that cannot moulder, the harp that cannot be untuned ; to be first made conscious of a spirit that never more may faint, and a joy that must eternally be cloudless ! And what, to meet the same eyes of benevolence and rapture, when millions on millions of happy ages have been numbered, — and to find then the " fulness of joy" unabated, the perspective of glory unabridged ; the ascending vista of eternal life thence pictured in a still receding and more mysterious immensity, as contrasted with the abso- lute vastness yet relative nothingness of that far-ex- tended past. " Eternal life ! " If all the winds of heaven might be concentrated to fill the trump that should proclaim it, the blast would be but too feeble for the theme : if all the constellations of our fir- mament were grouped afresh to blazon those few letters on the vault of heaven^ how unspeakably still would the fact excel the legend ! 2 F 2
328 PROMISE OF XIV.
Let this oppressive sense of our incapacity, and that of all dying creatures, to realize such prospects, furnish a sublime argument of their boundless grandeur. No less than this is " the prize of our high callino; of God in Christ Jesus." No less than this "the gift of God," which we think and hope that we believe in ; and in some sense, if we are indeed. Christians, do believe in. How marvellous that we can ever forget it ; that we are not on the contrary almost absorbed by it ! Yet more marvellous, that we can forget its Author ! If such be the incalcu- lable donation, what must the Donor be ! If such the untold riches of a humble penitent's inheritance, what the sovereign munificence of Him who shall pour forth this " weight of glory " from the stores of his own Being, not only for " an innumerable company of angels," but for a "multitude which none can number " of redeemed transgressors also.
It may indeed be well for the Christian, in his pre- sent state of frailty, that by his faintness and inade- quacy of conception, such an expectation should be partially veiled. We have heard of a subversion of the mental faculties occasioned by the sudden accession of great earthly wealth. Yet what a con- temptible pittance, what a counterfeit mite, as it were, would be the wealth of the whole world, and ten times a patriarch's life in which to inherit and enjoy it, — as compared with " life eternal ! "
But it is not merely from inadequate conception, — nor from forgetfulness of the unseen, nor from
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ETERNAL LIFE. 329
the power of temporal and sensible things to involve and oppress and fascinate us, — that we are not more consoled or incited by that amazing prospect of the life to come. Our languor of feeling is ascribable in great part to the defectiveness of faith. There is a distrust or hesitation in our hearts. The promise, even obscurely as we view it, seems too stupendous for our littleness ; the grace and joy too super- abounding for our deep demerit.
Now, although it be wisely and graciously or- dained that our conceptions in this life should con- tinue feeble, it is most devoutly to be desired and sought that our faith and hope should cease to be so.
Consider therefore some reasons, from which, by the Divine blessing, it may appear the more credible that so immense and inestimable an inheritance is designed for you.
We find it perhaps less difficult to exercise faith even in that unparalleled " mystery of godliness," — the incarnation, sacrifice, and resurrection of the Son of God — than in the promise of this as its per- sonal effect. For in reviewing that awful drama of Divine love, we behold the redemption and rescue of a world. But when, after " reaching forth " to- wards eternal life as the purchased fruit of that re- demption, we turn from those dazzling contempla- tions back into a mean and sinful selj\ — well may we recoil in shame and wonder from the thought of 2 F 3
330 PROMISE OF XIV.
such a gift and such a destiny. As an ingenuous little child, who would think himself but too happy in the gifts and the kindnesses proportioned to his in- fancy, knowing that his faults have made him liable to a just suspension even of these, — if you could take him to a height whence he might survey a whole paradise of shining pleasures, and say, — All these things will I give you, — might well be prompted to answer, — My father, you cannot mean it : all these things for 7ne !
How then may we best combat and silence the suspicion (urged sometimes as a taunting charge by the unbeliever's pen) that it is presumptuous vanity to indulge so vast a hope ; how strengthen our confidence, till we " stagger not through un- belief," even at this mighty and overpowering- promise ?
First, by calling to mind, that not only the trea- sures and resources, but the gifts of God, must, in order to be worthy of Himself, be godlike ; and therefore immense. What gift too great for the Majesty of the Self-Existent, " the King Eternal, who is, and was, and is to come, the Almighty ! " and how shall the most boundless exhaust his gene- rosity or diminish his abundance ! It is well known that gifts, even from man to man, are expected to bear a proportion to the rank and ability of the giver. A great sovereign bestows imperial dona- tives. Petty and slight benefactions, though some-
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times beyond the claims or hopes of the recipient, would degrade the crown. Darius, or Artaxerxes, and the slave whom he might " delight to honour," and might therefore choose to invest not only with freedom but with a principality, were by nature on a level ; creatures " of yesterday," sinful and mor- tal ; — yet the elevation, by mere state and office, of the one above the other, renders quite credible the princely gift : but between the " King of kings" and the subjects of His sovereign mercy, there is a disparity, essential as well as official, greater than that of the " heaven of heavens " from the " closet" where you kneel before Him. What, then, if the Possessor of all power and glory choose to dispense to his frail creature " life eternal ? " Will there be anything in the largeness of the gift which outvies and surpasses the supremacy and greatness of the Giver ? Rather, may we not ask, could anything less than infinite be a gift fully appropriate to the grandeur of Him " that inhabiteth eternity'? " Let it be remembered, that if He bestow immortal life on beings far above us, on the most exalted and perfect of all celestial creatures, the gift must in- finitely exceed even tlieh- conceptions, which can be but finite : — nay, I think, will exceed them the 7nore, on account of the largeness of their finite ex- perience.* Yet none would deem this an objection
* See pp. 326, and 97, above.
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to the credibility of such a gift ; on the contrary, it would appear of all things most improbable, that the Author of good should cause the life of those glorious and holy beings to cease and be extin- guished.
And if, on the other hand, it should please this " God and Father of all," to endow some creatures beneath us with a second and endless existence, who would not view this as an added trophy of omnipotent beneficence, raised on the ravages of pain and death, by exalting and perpetuating what had seemed to us but perishable and mean ?
It may indeed be objected — The actual gifts of God in this world are on a scale directly opposed to such reasonings ; they are brief, scanty, preca- rious ; life itself is so ; much more all which life includes : on the fugitive character of what we here possess, you have been yourself expatiating. The analogy of nature therefore is quite adverse to that prodigious expectation which you would infer or corroborate from the infinitude of Him in whom you trust.
I reply, — Those temporal bounties of Divine Pro- vidence, however kind and various, are not pro- perly gifts but loans ; loans for a transient and pre- paratory use. It were no wrong to that incessant Goodness which imparts them, to call these the " prison garments," diet, and accommodations, of the not yet liberated though ransomed captive.
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Their scantiness and insufficiency are ordained to excite his watchful ardour for the time of manu- mission, and for the real, exhaustless gift of " durable riches," from his all-sufficient and infinite Deliverer. In this sense we may without presumption say, there is but one " gift of God" to man ; the commencement and the growing hope on earth, and the plenitude in heaven, of our joint* " life eternal ; " of that " in- heritance " which comprehends all good. — Or rather it behoves us to ascend far higher, and say, this is itself comprehended in the essentially Divine and '* un- speakable gift" of "Jesus Christ our Lord/' — of that "Eternal Life" which "was manifested," — that Son of God who " quickeneth whom He will," who declared, — " He that believeth on me hath ever- lasting life ; because I live ye shall live also ; " and "ye shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you : " — who was Himself given to be " Head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all." It is also by these last invaluable facts and doc- trines, that we can alone hope to overcome other arguments of personal diffidence and fear, as to the possibility, for us, of so glorious a possession, — argu- ments more just and painful than any which our mere littleness or frailty could suggest. We are self-arraigned of guilt, unworthiness, unthankful- ness. The very proclamations and " powers of the
* Rom. viii. 17.
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world to come," — the solemn thoughts and absorbing meditations of it, by which we have sometimes been occupied, — stamp a character of criminal infatua- tion on our subsequent neglects and trespasses, con- demned by light so marvellous and convictions so profound .
We feel, besides, our very defective preparedness for that exalted and divine felicity. A perfect bliss seems beyond the rational humility of hope, in those who have so much offended ; and especially when that endless duration is contemplated, without which it could not be perfect, — with this overwhelming pro- mise must our conscious ill-desert appear awfully at variance.
Relief can be found only in that same evangelic record where the promise is itself contained ; which rebukes our distrust by the amazing declaration, " God so loved the world that He gave his only be- gotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should have everlasting life." " He that spared not his own Son, how shall He not witli Him also freely give us all?^' "Who is he that condemnetli?" and surely we may add — Who is he that circmn- scriheth? — "It is Christ that died." Who will presume to abridge or limit the glory and infinity of the result ?
It becomes, in truth, impossible, when the per- son of Christ is once seriously regarded as Divine, to expect or conceive any less than transcendent and infinite effects from his voluntary humiliation,
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and his surprising offices of love. The death of God's " own Son" is incomparably more astonish- ing than the " eternal life " of fallen but rescued mortals. The descent of true Divinity, by union with our nature, to an earthly cross, is far less con- ceivable than the ascent of guilty but glorified humanity to a heavenly crown. Procured as this redemption was, " not by corruptible things, but by the precious blood of Christ," except the result were a felicity unchanging and indestructible, there would appear nothing in the issue proportioned to the stupendous cost. Had but one spirit in the creation fallen, and could we suppose for that ruined one the infinite atonement marvellously offered, and pro- curing "life eternal," there were yet in this one endless result a sort of infinity, correspondent, in that sense, to the infinity of the offering ; whereas, on the contrary, were redemption from wrath ex- tended to all fallen spirits, human and superhuman, and were their number a thousandfold greater than it is, still had this redemption been but to a termin- able life and blessedness, there would have been actually nothing infinite in the effect and reward of the Redeemer's love. Nay, there would have ar- rived a period (whatever be supposed its remoteness) in which all direct results from it would have ceased, and been extinct ; a supposition so inadmis- sible, that even to advert to it may appear almost irreverent. If, therefore, we believe in redemption.
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as achieved by Him " in whom dvvelleth all the fulness of the Godhead," the character of this act itself, and of Him who wrought it, must demonstrate the eternal life of the redeemed, even although their eternal life were not distinctly promised.
It seems, on all grounds, but consonant to the majesty of the universal Lord, that there be gems about his throne which cannot perish or " wax old," as well as garlands which may fade and be replaced. Matter, with its vicissitudes of beauty and decay, is but as the garland. Spirits, in their intelligent and moral splendour, redeemed and renovated, or sustained in their primeval purity, — these are the gems which he himself hath polished ; nay, which were "purchased and cleansed with richer blood." — For who knows but that " his holy angels" have been morally upholden in " their first estate," by that view of Divine holiness and the malignity of evil, which the human redemption first prospect- ively and then actually supplied ? — Is it, then, too vast and satisfying a recompense for the " travail " of the Redeemer's soul, that "jewels " preserved or ransomed at so dear a rate, should shine eternally, — and that none should " pluck them out of his hand? " Is it not due to the glorious humility and costly love, of Him who *' came to save that which was lost," that there 'should be no futurity — ^^no coming age even beyond the ages of ages — in which it will not still be sung, and ever vet to sing, — Lo !
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these are the trophies of that ancient victory won in the infancy of Time ; these are they which came out of 2:reat tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them w^hite in the " blood of the Lamb ; " tliese are they who have their security and pledge for " endless life," in the Divine grandeur of that enterprise which their blessedness commemorates, and must for ever commemorate. Should the Eter- nal stoop from his throne, the Son of God disrobe himself of his celestial glories, and the result be a perishable triumph, an inheritance that fadeth away? Rather let the guilty and the frail consent, with self-renouncing, wondering gratitude, that " He be admired and glorified" in their endless exaltation, — though they cannot lose, in contemplating those honours which accrue to Him, the sense of infinite disproportion in the gift to ihem. And here let me observe, that this accordance between the " eternal life " of the spirits of the just, and the Divine " pre- ciousness " of their redemption, confirms the truth of this latter doctrine, as well as of the former ; and that without any fallacy of reciprocal reasoning. For of " eternal life " there are distinct scriptural promises ; and some who (to our surprise) do not find in the New Testament the Divinity and sacri- fice of Christ, yet deduce and expect, from those its promises, the saints' immortal happiness. But this doctrine is, in my apprehension, a collateral and corroborative proof of the other. If creatures so 2 G
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rebellious, defiled, and ungrateful as ourselves, are to expect the inestimable gift of "life eternal," must not this be the result oi some " great mystery of godliness," some moral miracle in the counsels and acts of the Supreme, which has made the dona- tion compatible with His attributes and sovereignty ? Thus does the promise itself prepare us for the record that " this Life is in his Son," — that the " unspeakable gift " was first o/his Son, then to his Son ;— of Himybr us, of us to Him.
And now, after thus attempting to weigh the credibility of the promise, — nay, I presume to add, when salvation, by a Divine Redeemer, has been once admitted, the moral necessity of this vast con- sequence,— seek to be animated and consoled anew by these " unsearchable riches of Christ." Review the feeble thoughts which were at first presented ; or rather let your own awakened emotion multiply and vary and enhance them. Labour to know more of the " love " (and of the " life ") that " passeth knowledge." Use the sounding line of devout and unrestrained meditation, that you may more and more discover the depths of Christian hope to be in- deed unfathomable. Ascend the holy mount, that you may gaze abroad upon that ocean without boundary, whose waves are lost in the sun-light of *' the heaven of heavens." As you contemplate thus a coming eternity, awfully "at hand" yet boundlessly afar, — your spirit, though overwhelmed
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by the immensity, may be also enlarged. It may expand and be calmed, while it broods on that glo- rious abyss ; — till you shall turn back to the cares and sorrows of mortality, as a voyager, who had been long on the Atlantic, might cross the stony track and troubled stream within some narrow- glen. Remember that we also are voyagers, and must soon be gone. Whether this be a vale of few or many tears, whether the scene be tranquil and bright, or dark and tempestuous, we must launch away. Think of the isles and mansions of that eternal deep, to which He that " brought life and immortality to light " invites and guides you ; where He has prepared an abode, perhaps a succession of abodes, each more sacred and happy than the last, in ^vhich his eternal grace and your eternal joy shall be realized ! It is not here so much my object to urge the claims of this " hope laid up in heaven " on our zeal and active vigilance, as those which it pre- sents for our unrepining submission. Yet can the former be possibly unfelt or undiscerned ? Can such a prospect, believed and meditated, fail to awaken in our inmost souls a living gratitude, and insuppressible desire? Will it fail to divorce us from the love and habit of sin, and make us more flexible to the will and discipline of our Lord and Saviour, as " vessels " to be moulded and " pre- pared " by his " sanctifying " hand ? * Will it not * 2 Tim. ii. 21.
2 G 2
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arouse us into steadfast, practical solicitude that we may know and " do his pleasure ? " And shall it not constrain us to endure with comparative cheerfulness, or at least without a spirit of murmur- ing, the burdens of this life which " vanisheth away ? " But, oh ! how imperfect are these influ- ences ! how null even and extinct, as to sensible and cheering efficacy, except the grace and provi- dence of God reanimate and strengthen them ! how marred and intercepted by clouds of unbelief and earthliness, or of care and despondency ! — We are forced to take refuge, — not I trust as self-deceivers, but as those who earnestly implore '' help of God," — in the oft-repeated truth that "eternal life " is His "free gift, through Jesus Christ;" for surely that ruined, feeble, inconstant man should earn it or should win it, is a thought which only ignor- ance and arrogance can cherish. Let us entreat of Him, whose godlike gift it is, to consecrate our un- worthy hearts for its reception ; to give us daily far more of its initial bliss in a true assimilation to His image ; to make those streams of Heavenly life more quick and fervid which are infused from the fountain of redeeming love, which circulate through the mystic body of our Lord below, — and which, when these poor mortal th robbings falter and are stopped in death, shall flow and beat for ever as the countless pulses of real and celestial life, — never to be suspended till that " Head over all "
XIV. ETERNAL LIFE. 341
shall droop, — never to stagnate till the " Fountain of life " itself run low, — never to languish till the very heart of Him that loved and ransomed us be cold : assuredly eternal therefore ; surviving all things finite, still fresh as His own sympathy and undeclining as His Power.
2 G 3
NOTES,
Note A.
" For man not to he horn is far the hest ; and the next best, as soon as j)ossihle to die.'' — Page 1.
The same sentiment, in nearly the same language, occurs in a well-known passage of Sophocles, (Ed. Colon. 1. 1225.
" Not to be born, all destinies excels ;
But if born, then by earliest doom to go
"Whence we have come, the next and second good."
A friend, conversant in classical literature, regards the passage in Cicero as a translation from that of the poet ; but it seems to me more probable, that both derived it from some common source ; particularly as Cicero not only says nothing of Sophocles, (whereas he quotes like sentiments from Euripides, Crantor, and Ennius, severally by name,) but refers to the saying above quoted, " Non nasci," etc., as contained in a story respecting Si- lenus and Midas.
Dr. Elmsley, in his Annotation on that passage of the (Edipus, cites a very similar one from Theognis, which may be rendered thus : " Not to be born is for mortals of all things the best, and never to gaze on the sun's swift beams : — but being born, to
344 NOTE A.
pass as soon as possible the gates of Hades, and lie beneath an ample heap of earth." — (Sentent. 1. 425.)
Adding, therefore, the passages of Sophocles and Theognis, which Cicero does not mention, to the several others which he refers to or cites, I think we may view this melancholy sentiment as frequent and almost proverbial among heathens. Pliny has referred to it as a prevalent opinion : — " Multi extitere qui non nasci optimum censuerunt, aut quam citissime aboleri." — " There have been many, who have judged it the best thing not to be born, or to be annihilated as soon as possible." — Plin. in Prsefat. 1. 7., quoted in Tooke's Pantheon, Art. Silenus. Nor was it con- fined to the polished and the poetic, or even to the civilized. Valerius Maximus remarks, " That tribe of Thracians deserved the praise of wisdom, who, by celebrating the birth of man with tears, and his obsequies with merriment, show that they have discerned the true character of our condition." L. 2. c. 6. § 12.
And Herodotus (from whom possibly the Roman derived that information) writes of the Trausians, a Thracian people, that they are " peculiar in their behaviour at births and deaths. When a child is born, the nearest relatives sit in a circle around the babe, and bewail the evils which, in consequence of birth, it must endure ; recounting all human sufferings ; but the deceased they inter with sport and rejoicing, proclaiming that he is in all happiness (or good fortune) by being liberated from so many ills.'' (Terpsic. §.1.) Nor are we to understand the historian as here intimating, that these Trausians had any fixed expectation what- ever of a life to come ; by entrance on which the deceased might be said to be in happiness. The happiness or good fortune must be taken to consist in a mere negation, or cessation of the ills of this mortal life ; inasmuch as he had just before mentioned an- other tribe, the Getae, who expect immortality (oi aOavaTiKscn), and from whom he distinguishes the Trausians. He had pre- viously explained the doctrine of those Get© not to mean a pre- tension to earthbj immortality, but an expectation of the immor- tality of the soul. (Melpom. §. 6.) Had the Trausians held this
NOTE B. 345
tenet in common with them, it would have been directly to his purpose to name it ; and therefore it is to be inferred that they rejoiced in death as a negative good ; having no expectation of positive good to follow it. — May not this opinion concerning birth and life as a calamity, which seems to have so much and so naturally prevailed among heathens, have formed in all ages one motive and one excuse for the widely-spread practice of infanticide ?
Note B.
" Other writers have dwelt on the illustration of the Divine per- fections by the Atonement" etc. — Page 15,
The following is part of a passage dictated by Dr. Johnson to Mr. Boswell. *
" "Whatever difficulty there may be in the conception of vica- rious punishments, it is an opinion which has had possession of mankind in all ages. There is no nation that has not used the practice of sacrifices.
" Whoever therefore denies the propriety of vicarious punish- ments, holds an opinion which the sentiments and practice of mankind have contradicted from the beginning of the world. The great sacrifice for the sins of mankind was ofiered at the death of the Messiah, who is called in Scripture the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world.
" To judge of the reasonableness of the scheme of redemption, it must be considered as necessary to the government of the universe that God should make known his perpetual and irre- concilable detestation of moral evil. He might indeed punish,
* See his Life of Jolmson. Edit. Croker, vol. iv. pp. 498, 499.
346 NOTE B.
and punish only the offenders ; but as the end of punishment is not revenge of crimes but propagation of virtue, it was more be- coming the Divine clemency to find another manner of pro- ceeding, less destructive to man, and at least equally powerful to promote goodness. The end of punishment is to reclaim and warn. That punishment will both reclaim and warn, which shows evidently such abhorrence of sin in God, as may deter us from it, or strike us with dread of vengeance when we have committed it. This is effected by vicarious punishment. No- thing could more testify the opposition between the nature of God and moral evil, or more amply display his justice, to men and angels, to all orders and successions of beings, than that it was necessary for the highest and purest nature, even for Divinity itself, to pacify the demands of vengeance, by a painful death ; of which the natural effect will be, that when justice is appeased, there is a proper place for the exercise of mercy."
That strong and pointed reasoner, Richard Baxter, had, long before, with arguments substantially very similar, met the ob- jectors who alleged — " It doth, sapere scenam, sound like a poetic fiction, that God should satisfy his own justice, and Christ should die instead of our being condemned, and this to appease the
wrath of God," etc. He answers, " Ignorance is the great
cause of unbelief. — If the word satisfaction offend you, use only the Scripture words, — that Christ was a ' sacrifice ;' ' atonement ; ' ' propitiation ; ' ' price ; ' etc. If this be incredible, how came it to pass that sacrificing was the custom of all the world ? God hath no passion of anger to be appeased, nor is he at all de- lighted in the sufferings of the worst ; much less of the innocent : nor is his satisfaction any reparation of a loss of his. But, do you understand what government is : and what Divine Government is, and what is the end of it ; even the pleasing of the will of God in the demonstration of his own perfections ? If so, you will know, that God's penal laws might not be broken by a rebel world, without either execution of them according to their true intent and meaning, or such equivalent demonstration of his
NOTE c. 347
justice as might vindicate the law and Lawgiver from contempt, and attain the ends of government as much as if sinners had suffered themselves ; and this it is we mean by a Sacrifice or Satisfaction. Shall God be a governor and have no laws ? or laws that have no penalties, or are never meant for execution ? Were it becoming Him to let the world sin on with boldness, and say — God did but frighten us with a few words, which he never intended to fulfil ? — or should he have condemned the whole world according to their desert ? If none of all this be credible to you, then certainly nothing should be more credible than that his wisdom hath found out some way to exercise par- doning, saving mercy, without any injury to his governing justice and truth ; and without imboldening transgressors in their sins : a way which shall fully vindicate his government, and yet save us with the great advantage of honour to his mercy, and in the fullest demonstration of that love and good- ness which may win our love. And where will you find this done but in Jesus Christ alone ? "
Reasons of the Christian Religion, pp. 406—408. Edit. 1667. Abridged.
Note C.
" It may, however, he justly doubted, whether the first dawn
of spiritual sun-light can in any case be by man so ascertained." — Page 50.
" all this has been my o^vn impulse and my own work, and
not the operation of the Holy Spirit." — Page 146.
It will not be supposed that I am ignorant or unmindful of the distinction made by divines, and very formally by the old divines, between "common "and "special" grace. But this
348 NOTE c.
distinction is not the less real, if, like twilight and daylight, dawn and noon-day, the difference be purely of degree. Such indeed appears to be the accepted theological view of it. Since writing the passages to which this note refers, I have met with the fol- lowing " definition " of " special grace ; " — " The communication of grace to any soul in such a degree, as actually to bring that soul to faith in Christ and consequently into a state of salvation, may properly be called Special Grace;"* — and with the subjoined valuable passage in the posthumous Sermons of John Howe ; which appears to me to confirm, in a manner alike sound and forcible, the encouragements it is attempted in the above pieces to convey, and indeed in some points, both as to the turn of thought and expression, remarkably coincides with them.
" There are some previous essays tending to life that
you are under the present seizure of, even now, while you are looking God-ward ; it is somewhat of life, or of preparatory workings that have that tendency and that cognation, which have taken hold of you ; because it is plain such thoughts are internal, and are the springs of an internal motion ; and there is no internal motion v/hich is not to be looked upon as a kind of vital motion : though it is true, indeed, there are fainter be- ginnings that are extinguishable, yet there is a great matter to have some beginnings ; for if they are yet such as are extin- guishable, they are yet also such as are improvable, and may rise and come higher, till they come beyond the sphere and verge of common grace, into the verge of special grace, which two spheres do very closely border and touch upon one another; and he that is upon the extremity, the extreme verge (as I may speak) of common grace, is often upon the very verge and brink of special grace. And, as you are in the way of God, a way that hath a good look and tendency, God is in the vray with you. — You are to impute it to his being with you, that
* Doddr. Lect. vol. ii. 248, Def. Ixxxiv.
NOTE D. 349
there are inclinations and dispositions that tend heaven-ward, that tend towards that good and blessed state. You are to take heed of arrogating anything in this kind to yourselves. Suppose it be yet but common grace; — common grace is grace ; and if it be grace, it is not nature ; it is not to be attributed to you, — you are not to arrogate and claim it to yourselves ; — This is of me. The thinking of a good thought, we have not a sufficiency for, as of ourselves ; we are not to claim that ; and there is many a good thought that may be short of saving grace ; but we should take heed of assuming it to ourselves ; and therefore if there.be inclinations and dispositions towards that way, and towards that state which you are to design for, and are profess- edly bending your thoughts towards, yet say, you have a Divine presence with you : for these things are to be ascribed to Him. All such previous workings and dispositions, you must say, they do all lay claim to a Divine Author ; such a wretch as I must lay claim to nothing that hath any the least appearance of good in it." *
These statements may be most strictly applied to the " worse and less hopeful supposition " mentioned p. 149, above, and therefore, by stronger reason, to other cases of a dubious character.
Note D.
" would have in them a generous self-sacrificing quality, not
apparent in any revealed act, nor, I think, conceivable by us (that is, as a truth, if redemption by a Divine Saviour were not a truth) in any unrevealed act of the Creator." — Page 67.
" nothing analogous would be known to exist, or known
* Howe's Works — Edit. Hunt, 1827, vol. viii. p. 189, abridged. 2 H
350 NOTE D.
even to be possible, in the acts or counsels of the Perfect Being."
Page 68.
" as far as we can imagine, its only possible exemplifica- tion to man by a veritably peerless and godlike model." —
Page 69.
Although the reasonings in which these passages occur, ap- prove themselves to my mind, yet (as Dr. Pye Smith has ex- pressed himself in a disquisition on the Trinity)—" I feel the awful ground on which I have advanced ; " and shall be prompt to retract or modify these views, if any fallacy or dangerous consequence shall discover itself as involved in them.
Since these sheets were first printed, I have seen a work, not previously known to me, but apparently valuable to the inter- ests of religion, in which the statement of some " systems of divinity " and of " certain preachers " — " that there never was, and never will be, through all the ages of eternity, so wonderful a display of the Divine glory as in the cross of Christ," * — is censured, and I think with reason, as " a presumptuous as- sumption."— Yet it is not impossible that some of the above phrases, or others in the passages from which they are taken, may be misconceived to intimate that very " assumption." The expression " a veritably peerless model " — will scarcely be so understood, when the limitation " to wiaw," in the preceding sentence, is noticed.
As to some other expressions above cited, although I do not believe that any display of Divine attributes so wonderful and glorious, would have been " conceivable by us " as real, " or known even to be possible," had it not been for the fact and history of man's redemption, — yet might unnumbered such dis- plays (similar, or entirely ofe^similar, but of equal or even supe- rior extent and efficacy) have nevertheless taken place, or be as yet to come, in the immense dominions and endless reign of Him who is " Love." A very singular theory, — arguing the actual
* Dick's Christian Pliilosopher, p. 503, and p. 532.
NOTE D. 351
occurrence of similar redemptions in all other worlds, — was communicated by a nobleman, (characterized as of *« great learning, taste, and judgment,") to Dr. Olinthus Gregory, and inserted by him — though not, it seems, with unqualified ap- proval—in his " Letters on the Christian Religion." * I cannot accede to that theory, (unless there were scriptural evidence to confirm it,) because, besides a diff'erent objection to which it may be liable, it would imply an extent of moral evil in the uni- verse which I feel that we have no right to assume, and much reason to recoil from.
Nevertheless there is nothing in the above reasonings which would be at variance with it.
That the true and perfect Divinity should " assume a passible nature," and be thus " in purpose and act, the prototype of suf- fering virtue," f would not, I apprehend, (as has been already stated in diff'erent terms,) have even been conceived by us as a credible fact, in reference either to our own or any other race, an- tecedently to the promulgation of the gospel ; but now, having once attained the conception and belief of such a fact, we can never be in the least entitled to conclude that wonderful Divine interpositions of *' generosity and heroic love " cannot have taken place on behalf of other beings ; nor even to affirm that this is improbable.
* Vol. i. pp. 304 — 309. — This nobleman (we learn from a sub- sequent edition of Dr. G.'s work) was the late Earl of Carysfort. t Page 70, above.
2 H 2
Note E.
." that in all virtuous suffering, active aiid passive, they In
reality have achieved and endured what Deity carinot in any conceivably achieve or endure." — Page 69.
A CRITIQUE in the " Presbyterian Review," which, by its fa- vourable estimation of this volume, has truly afforded " Chris- tian Encouragement " to myself, (the more as I know not even the name of the writer or editor,) and to which I gladly thus express myself obliged, — has offered the following stricture on the above cited passage ; which I have felt to be well worthy of attention.
" It seems to us, that his desire to strengthen a favourite pre- sumption, has here led Mr. Sheppard to press his argument too far. Had it been stated that the work of redemption has given the proof and the example of a virtue resident in Deity, which had otherwise been left undiscovered, we should have admitted the strength of a presumption founded on such a consideration ; but when the general truth seems to be implied, that every human virtue must have its prototype in the Divine character, and that every representation of Deity, which does not exem- plify this throughout, must necessarily be incomplete, we cannot go in with the reasoning. There is at lec^st one act of human virtue, which can have no archetype in him, in whom is no sin, — the struggle with, and victory over inward corruption ; — and one such instance proves the general principle to be incorrect." I am not convinced, that the instance adduced by the acute and Christian reviewer, " proves that principle to be incorrect" which I designed to advance. No virtue, (whether " human " or of other fallen beings,) which results from sin or sinfulness exist- ing in the agent, can " have its prototype in the Divine charac-
NOTE E. 353
ter ;" because it is an act occasioned by, or springing from, in- herent and personal moral evil ; and the creature who exercises it, would have been infinitely more like God, if he had never come into the state where he could exercise it ; and will be " like Him," entirely, only when he shall be no more able to exercise it. But " virtuous suffering " in the cases supposed, does not imply sin or sinfulness as necessary to its existence ; though exercised by depraved parties, and the piore wonderful on that ground.
We might put (or suppose) an unfallen angel in the place of Pylades or Socrates, and then our argument would stand thus, — that it were strange, a creature, although sinless and exalted, could achieve and endure what Deity could not in any sense conceivably achieve or endure, or what (in other words) would appear, (before the revelation of '• God in Christ,") according to philosophic notions of Deity, to be in no sense or manner " possible with God." Suffering, it is true, whether it were the virtuous suffering of Adam if he had not fallen, or of Gabriel who has not fallen, or the sinless suffering of an insect which cannot fall, — implies imperfection ; but it does not imply sinful- ness, nor in the last case even peccability; and to say, that, except by assuming the mere physical imperfection of a pass- ible nature, the Deity could not (as far as we can conceive) exercise some virtues which sinless creatures can, appears to me to involve no general principle that is incorrect or dan- gerous.
We have considered in Essay XI. pp. 224 — 227, how such sinless suffering formed " a crowning constituent " and exhi- bition of moral perfectness in the Son of God.
It is, however, freely confessed, that the statement in question was not originally made without some hesitation, and if on further research or argument it be shown to be strained, I should at once feel it a duty to rescind the passage.
2 H 3
Note F.
Extracts from the conclusions of some writers on prophecy, more particularly as to the fulfilment of predictions relative to the corruptions of Christianity.
'•'■ which show the impression on tlieir minds resulting from
such an examination." — Page 285, note.
Dr. Hartley gives, in a summary manner, his impression on this subject, as follows.
" The fourth branch of the prophetical evidences are those which relate to the Christian church. Here the three following particulars deserve attentive consideration :
" First, — The predictions concerning a new and pure religion, which was to be set up by the coming of the promised Messiah.
" Secondly, — A great and general corruption of this religion which was to follow in after times.
" Thirdly, — The recovery of the Christian Church from this corruption, by great tribulations ; and the final establishment of true and pure religion.
" The predictions of the first and third kinds abound every- where in the old prophets, in the discourses of Christ, and in the writings of the Apostles.
" Those of the second kind are chiefly remarkable in Daniel, the Revelation, and the Epistles of St. Paul, St. Peter, St. John, and St. Jude. In how surprising a manner the events of the first and second kind have answered to the predictions, cannot be unknown to any inquisitive serious person, in any Chris- tian country. At the same time it is evident, that the pre-
NOTE F. 355
dictions of these things could have no foundation in probable conjectures when they were given. The events of the third class have not yet received their accomplishment ; but there have been, for some centuries past, and are still, perpetual advances and preparations made for them." — David Hartley, Works, vol. ii. p. 161.
The learned and lamented author of " Discourses on Pro- phecy," delivered of late years in the Lecture of Bishop War- burton, thus comments on St. Paul's prophecies in 2 Thess. ii. 3—10, and 1 Tim. iv. 1—4.
" In the predictions of the corrupted state of the Chris- tian faith which we are now considering, there are definite signs of a foreknowledge very different from the deductions of probability, calculated on the general principles of human weak- ness or human depravity. The prophetic criteria are precise ; and they are such as must be thought to have militated with all rational probability, rather than to have been deduced from it." — Davison, Discourses, p. 479.
And the same writer thus sums up his review of the parallel predictions in the Apocalypse : " The complexity of things in this single piece of prophecy is sufficiently manifest. And since the complex whole has, point by point, been fulfilled, and that not in an obscure corner, but in the heart of Christendom, and in the most conspicuous station of the Christian world, the in- ference from that completion is not to be evaded." — Ibid. pp. 481, 482.
A modern writer of great research (the Rev. C. Forster) re- marks, " Daniel has clearly foreshown the appointed fate of the Jewish polity and people. He has also unquestionably foretold the fortunes of the western church : and has drawn a full and exact portraiture of the spiritual tyranny, which should arise and prevail in that portion of Christendom. This being the case, the analogy of Providence and that of Scripture would
356 NOTE F.
seem alike to require a corresponding prophetic attention to the parallel events which were to occur in the eastern portion." * He then proceeds to show at large that the eighth chapter of Daniel is distinctly predictive of Mohammedanism.
In the subsequent section of his work, the same author gives, with his own views, those of some others, concerning the pre- dictions of the " eastern horn," or Mohammedan Antichrist, as contained both in the book of Daniel and the Revelation of St. John.
"We proceed" (he writes) "to connect those remarkable prophecies of the book of Daniel, which have been applied to Mohammed and his followers in the preceding section, with the strictly parallel and still ampler predictions, delivered concern- ing them in the Apocalypse of St. John. * In the prediction of Daniel,' observes a learned writer of our own times, f ' Moham- medanism alone is spoken of ; its two principal supporters, the Saracens and the Turks, are not discriminated from each other : a general history of the superstition, from its commencement to its termination, is given, without descending to particularize the nations by which it should be successively patronized. In the Revelation of St. John this deficiency is supplied : and we are furnished with two distinct and accurate paintings, both of the Saracenic locusts under their exterminating leader, and of the Euphratean horsemen, of the four Turkish Sultanies.'
" With one slight correction, this statement may be received as a just representation of the case. Daniel, we have seen, had already described the two distinct powers in question, under the titles of ' the King of the South ' and * the King of the North.'! But his descriptions want characteristic national
* Mahom. Unveiled, vol. i. Sect. 2. p. 167. f Faber.
X " Dan. xi. 40, contains a well-known prophecy, received by in- terpreters, with one consent, as a joint prediction of the Saracenic and Turkish empires, under the titles of the King of the South and the King of the North."~Ibid. p. 193.
NOTE F. 357
traits, to bring them home to the Saracens and Turks ; which traits, as might be reasonably expected in a revelation so much nearer to the event, the ninth chapter of the Apocalypse ap- pears to embody in its symbols. Intei-preters are justly struck with the historical exactness of these delineations : but none have done the subject more justice, in the expression of their admiration, than the late learned and exemplary Dr. Zouch. — ' The prophetic truths comprised in the ninth chapter of the Apocalypse are of themselves sufficient to stamp the mark of Divinity upon that work. When I compare them with the page of history, I am filled with amazement. The Saracens, a peo- ple which did not exist in the time of St. John, and the Turks, a nation then utterly unknown, are there described in language the most appropriate and distinct.'"*
I have selected this passage, as conveying, in a small compass, the general impression made on three able inquirers by the cor- respondence of the modern events referred to with those ancient writings. — To theirs may be added that of the Rev. A. Keith, (given in his Signs of the Times,) who has elaborately examined these prophecies of Daniel and St, John ; and remarkably illus- trated their fulfilment by the statements of Gibbon, Saadeddin, etc., availing himself (as he had excellently done in his former work on prophecy) of the unconscious aid of enemies to our faith. The detail of his facts and arguments, (in which theii- strength greatly consists,) cannot be exhibited in an abridged form- I only cite a few passages which give some view of their outline. — "The interpretation given by Daniel, (viii. 21,) in literal terms, of the vision of the little horn of the he-goat, is an exact representation of the rise, nature, and history of Mo- hammedanism. The vision was to be at the time of the end. And at the time of the end, in the things, not visions, noted in the Scripture of truth, the forms under which Mohammedanism actually appeared, or the two great successive governments by
* Maliom. Unveiled, vol. i. pp. 210 — 212,
>358 NOTE F.
which it prospered, practised, and prevailed, and with which it has ever been identified, are introduced and delineated ; and the kingdom of the Saracens, and more circumstantially, of the Turks, under the names of the king of the south, and the king of the north, are described with all the accuracy of actual his- tory. Mohammedanism is thus, in the^r*^ instance, described, so to speak, by itself, or without any express specification, of the Saracenic and Turkish powers. These, in regard to Moham- medanism, had both one character and object, and needed only in that respect to be united into one view. But in regard to their history, in a political sense, as distinct empires, varying as to the period and place of their origin, and the mode or degree in which they respectively executed the same work, they did admit of and received a separate illustration.
" After the same pattern and parallel, in which Daniel thus first portrayed Mohammedanism in one vision, and afterwards in another the empires of the Saracens, and of the Turks,— John in the Apocalypse represents them anew. In the different forms of religion, Mohammedanism appears, symbolically indeed, but undisguisedly, in its genuine character." — •' It was a red horse which symbolized the faith of the warrior-prophet, or on which he and the kings who subsequently represented him did sit : and to him was given a great sword. It was his character and office to take peace from the earth. Such of itself was Moham- medanism. But the hands in which the sword was successively put, were different. And while each, who was to hold it, was to be the defender, propagator, or chief of the Mohammedan faith, — the former distinction is renewed and further developed ; and the king of the south and of the north are represented under their appropriate characters of the first and second woe. Mo- hammedanism arose at the time of the end when the transgress- ors had come to the full. And at the time of the end, the Sara- cens, and afterwards the Turks, came against an apostate and idolatrous church, headed by the pope, who magnified himself above all. And in exact keeping with their character and com-
NOTE G. 359
mission, the appropriate designation as woes has its best illus- trations, both from the previous announcement of the things that they were to do, and the historical retrospect of the things that they have done." — Vol. i. pp. 320—322. The whole of this writer's remarks on the predictions concerning Mohammedanism and their fulfilment (See especially chapters iii., viii., xviii., and xix., vol. i.) are highly curious and important.
Note G.
*' Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.^' — Page 290, 291.
Some expositors consider this declaration of our Lord to the high priest to refer wholly to the destruction of Jerusalem, render- ing the expression ctTr' aprt ("hereafter") "within alittle while." But the term is as indefinite as " hereafter." It more strictly means " henceforth," and so taken, would be inapplicable to an event forty years, or one year, or at all, distant. It is also re- markable that the word when conjoined, aTrapn, may signify " certainly," " fully." See Schleusn. in airdpTi.
The several declarations of Christ relative to his " coming with clouds and in his glory," must, it appears to me, ultimately and chiefly refer to his yet future and glorious advent ; though some of them have also an intermediate and figurative allusion to his judicial coming, now long past, to destroy the guilty Jerusalem and scatter the impenitent Jews.
Commentators have properly spoken of the prophecy of " the tribulation of those days " as mixed ; inasmuch as different terms of it (in Matt, xxiv., Mark xiii., and Luke xxi.) apply respect- ively (literally) to the destruction of Jerusalem, and to the " end
360 NOTE G.
of the world." But the true idea of that prophecy is appre- hended by no writer whose observations I have seen, so happily as by the ingenious Abbadie. After deducing from the ob- scurity and seeming non-fulfilment of these predictions, a strong argument against their having been interpolated into the gospel after the destruction of Jerusalem, — he thus proceeds — " But do we not escape here one difficulty by a greater ? For if all the signs which were to attend the ruin of Jerusalem did not really occur, where is the truth of the prophecy ? Some reply, that Jesus Christ here expressed himself like the prophets, who speak of God's coming, and of the heaven and earth's trembling, when he visits man with any extraordinary dispensation of good- ness or of justice.
" They add, that those judgments of Christ (on the Jews) are described as an advent, and a striking advent, on account of the dreadful retribution then inflicted. But I prefer another thought, in my view more reasonable and more natural — which is this, that our Saviour not judging it a proper season to undeceive his followers — who from natural prepossession imagined that Jerusalem and the temple would never perish but with the world, — entered into their notion, and represented these two events by one common delineation.
" I conceive there might be several reasons which influenced him to do thus. For besides that obscurity is the characteristic of prophecy, and that this behoved to be mingled with shadows like the rest, in order that none might foreknow the time of its fulfilment — God having reserved to himself that knowledge, as this very prophecy declares — was it not moreover suitable that Christ should follow the method of all the prophets, — that of uniting events remotely separate in one prophetic view, indi- cating that the most widely distant are contiguous in the eye of Deity ? Besides which, the destruction of Jerusalem being the greatest and most perfect symbol of the end of the world, what could be more appropriate than, by thus adopting the views of the disciples, who conjoined the two events, to give us a vision
NOTE G. 361
of the latter through the medium or veil of ^the former ? Pes- tilences, wars, and famines preceded the one: — there will be like preludes to the other. The tribes inhabiting the holy land were full of consternation when they beheld the curse of Heaven fall upon them; — so shall be all the tribes of the earth when God shall destroy or devastate it in the great day of his appear- ing. The ruin of Jerusalem succeeded the preaching of the gos- pel in the then known world :— the end of the world, apparently, will not take place till all barbarous and then unknown nations shall have been called to faith in Christ. There were false prophets and Messiahs before that desolation :— there shall be false and seducing teachers, saying, Lo here is Christ, and lo there, before the final day. Jesus Christ gathered, before the fall of Jerusalem, the elect from the four winds or quarters of the earth, into Christian churches, and this by the preaching of his mystic angels (or messengers) the apostles : — at the end of the world he shall send the true angels or messengers of his glory to call his elect from the dust.* Comets and terrific meteors announced that city's ruin ; the smoke of the burning metro- polis and temple obscured the sun and stars ; — doubtless the desolation of the whole earth will be accompanied by appear- ances more awful. f The destruction of the Jews was rather sudden and unlooked for : — the last day will come as a thief in the night. The city and temple were destroyed when the Jews had filled up the measure of their sins : — this world of ours must perish when the time of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled ; as Christ announces in the prophecy we are examining.
" It appears that the disciples continued impressed with the notion of which we spoke ; for when a report arose that John would not die, founded on Christ's saying, * If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ? ' they appear thus to have un- derstood the coming as at the end of the world, because they considered that event simultaneous with the destruction of
* 2 Tliess. i. 7 ; conf. 1 Thess. iv. 16. f 2 Peter iii. 10.
2 I
362 NOTE G.
Jerusalem. St. Paul afterwards found it necessary to correct the same impression.*
" And in fact we cannot wonder if this prophecy of Christ, which his disciples faithfully recorded, left such an im.pression. For, on the one hand, he characterized his advent in such terms that it seemed it should be followed by the last judgment; and, on the other, he had frequently declared that all these things should happen " in that generation ; " and that some who were present should not taste of death till they had seen all these things. — Uniting, as our Saviour did, two events in one descrip- tion, but two events of which the one was subordinate to the other, the former being the image or type, the latter the sub- stance ; his prophecy consequently was to have two accomplish- ments— one near, the other remote.
" This appears to be the true key or unravelling of all those difficulties. — The disciples confounded two distinct and distant events — their Master thought fit to leave them under that mis- taken preconception. — It is always fit that the event should verify the prophecy, and not that the prophecy should obstruct the event. Prophecy therefore must be dark before its fulfil- ment, but luminous afterwards."
He subjoins this important remark : " Whether my views or those of another be adopted to explain some difficulties in this prophecy, is immaterial. I lay much more stress on two truths which, in my judgment, are clear. One is, that from the circum- stantial character of this prophecy, it is quite absurd to regard it as composed after the event ; — to suppose that an inventor would take occasion from the ruin of Jerusalem, where only Titus and his army appeared, to make Christ declare in predict- ing that event, that he would come on the clouds of heaven, and send his angels to gather his elect from the four winds, that his advent would be glorious and like the lightning, that all the tribes of the earth should mourn, etc.
* 2 Thess. ii. 2, 3.
NOTE G. 363
"The other truth is, that notwithstanding some shadows which God has seen fit to mingle in this prophecy, it is yet ex- tremely exact. "What, in efi"ect, do we find in the history, which is not seen before in the prophecy ? " *
Some acute observations follow on the utter improbability of the prophecy being an interpolation.
Bishop Porteus refers to Mr. Erskine (afterwards Lord Ers- kine) as having publicly declared that he considered this pro- phecy, if there were nothing else to support Christianity, as ab- solutely irresistible, f
The subject of the twofold sense of prophecy, or of what I should rather term its nearer and farther senses, where the nearer fulfilment is allegoric of the later and chief sense, is ably and elegantly stated in Bishop Lowth's 11th prelection on He- brew poetry, " On the Mystic Allegory," in which the image first presented is " not " (as in common allegories and parables) *' a pictured adumbration, but a solid and express effigy ; and though it depicts the person or quality of another, possesses and retains its own." — " Its manner," (he afterwards adds,) " is very various. Sometimes the Near image so appears and rules that it scarcely lets the Remote shine through. On the contrary, and this much oftener, the Remote shines so strongly as to al- most extinguish the Near." |
*' This mystic allegory, by its very obscurity, so accords with the prophetic scheme, that it affords an appropriate, and, as it were, the legitimate form, by which future events may be most conveniently foreshadowed."
For aught that appears. Bishop Lowth had not in his mind, when he wrote these remarks, our Saviour's prophecy concern- ing Jerusalem and the day of Judgment ; but they serve to corroborate and illustrate the scheme of Abbadie.
Bishop Porteus, in his valuable lectures on Matthew, (Lect.
* Ver. de la Rel. Chret. tom. ii. pp. 91—94, 95.
t In his speech at the trial of Williams.
X Edit. 1753. Oxonii. pp. 97, 98.
2 I 2
364 NOTE G.
xix. on the 24th chapter,) suggests a somewhat similar view of these predictions. He observes, — " In the prophetic writings two subjects are frequently carried on together." — " Our Saviour seems to hold out the destruction of Jerusalem, which is his prin- cipal [primary ?] subject, as a type of the dissolution of the world, which is the under [ulterior ?] part of the representation." And again, — " The prophecy itself was probably intended by Jesus as a type and an emblem of the dissolution of the world itself."
The fitness and beauty of such adumbration or typical method of prophecy is beautifully illustrated by another prelate, under the figure of a " robe." None but the symbolic style " hoXh/old and drapery enough to invest the greater subjects, while yet it readily adapts itself to the less considerable, Avhich it ennobles only, and not disfigures." *
I add an observation which is, at least, curious, on the two- fold meaning of certain words employed in the prophecy to which this note relates. A^rapri which has been already noticed, (used Matt. xxvi. 64,) may mean " hereafter " or " ere long " in reference to the nearer fulfilment, and " certainly " in reference to the later ; according as it is read in a divided or conjoined form. So ytviCL (Matt. xxiv. 34) may mean "generation"— that then living, — as to the former, and " nation " or " people " as to the ulterior sense. Brennius, Mede, and Sykes maintain- ed that our Saviour's words bear this last meaning : t " This nation shall not be lost or cease to be a distinct one till the judgment day." If those writers held that to be our Lord's sole meaning, I cannot concur with them : but it may neverthe- less have been his secondary and larger meaning. Nor is Arch- bishop Tillotson's objection to this valid, (Wks. iii. 526,) except as against the exclusion of the proximate sense. J I think the
* Kurd's Introd. to the Study of the Proph. pp. 312, 313. 2d Ed.
t See Doddr. in loc.
X That the wordy£V£a may allow the wider sense, the archbishop admits. — Our Englisli word " race " is in like manner applicable in both senses.
NOTE H. 365
expression, " immediately after the tribulation of those days," (Matt. xxiv. 29,) by which some are perplexed, may be like- wise viewed as having both a nearer sense and that ampler one which Archbishop Tillotson assigns to it ; i. e. the continued tribulation of the Jews during all the prophetic days of their dispensation, "immediately after the end of which perhaps" (according to the large measures of prophetic language) " the forerunning signs of the end of the world may ensue." *
Note H.
" that the ' heaven of heavens,' the central glory." —
Page 296.
Lavater, in a passage which I abridge from his " Aussichten in die Ewigkeit," (" Prospects into Eternity,") thus refers to the "heaven of heavens." — "All the systems of worlds, judging from analogy, have probably a great common centre, round which they revolve, as the planets round our sun. This centre of the immeasurable universe we may conceive to be the most perfect scene of material existence, unspeakably exceeding in grandeur and beauty anything which we can represent to our- selves in this our dark abode.
" This central world may be deemed the ' heaven of heavens : ' the region where the Infinite pours forth the utmost plenitude and riches of his majesty; which the immortal author of the Messias has thus glanced at,"t
* Tillotson's Works, iii. 526. t Lavat. Aussicht. t. i. pp. 246, 247. The original of the lines which follow (as quoted by him) will be found in Klopstock's Mes- sias, Ges. i. 11. 197 and 230. My version is attempted in his own metre ; the hexameter ; and is cited from the whole canto so render- ed : see London Christian Instructor, 1821, pp. 248, 300, 361, 461. 2 I 3
366 NOTE H.
"No faintly glimmering planet Nears the destroying blaze : in pale obscurity, far off, Cloud -wrapt nature revolves scarce seen : or visible only All her worlds minute, as when, by a wanderer's footstep, Earth's low atoms, the haunt of worms, are scatter'd in sunshine.
Round from that central heaven a thousand avenues radiate,
Of unseen extent, with bordering suns environ'd.
********
There, 'mid encompassing suns, beams forth that 'heaven of
heavens ; ' One unmeasur'd sphere ; creation's archetype ; treas'ring All perceptible beauty ; which thence in fast-flowing torrents Through the encircling realms of wide infinity fluctuates."
Cramer, in a note on this passage of the Messiah, observes that " Klopstock's imaginations were always consistent with astrono- mical possibility."
A speculation of astronomical science was, probably, in this instance, the direct source of his and of Lavater's views ; for " Dr. Halley conceived the whole solar system, together with all the systems of the stars, to be in motion round some point, which is the centre of gravity of the whole." *
I add, on the subject of that ''supposition" with which the present note stands connected, that since motion, and rapid motion, of some kind, is a prevailing, and perhaps (according to Halley's theory) a universal law of celestial bodies, there can be at least nothing contrary to analogy, in supposing that a nebulous orb (such as comets are observed to be) f may
* See Bonnycastle's Astronomy, p. 308.
t " The nucleus of the comet is usually enveloped in a dense ne- bulous stratum." In many of them, however, the nucleus " seems wanting, and they present only a nebulous mass, having a gradual condensation towards the centre." In some cases, (as in the second comet of 1811,) "the whole nucleus presents only a globular mass of nebulosity." In the comet of 1811 the depth of this "shining envelope at one time amounted to no less than 25,000 miles."
NOTE H. 367
form the majestic moving abode, or vehicle, of Him who " Cometh in the clouds of heaven," *— " with his mighty angels, in flaming fire," f — " with power and great glory." J Such a supposition is quite consistent with the belief that our Lord re- sumed, in his transfiguration and ascension, and will in his second advent, the " Glory of the Lord "— " Glory of Jehovah " — or Divine Shechinah : (see Exod, xxiv. 16 ; xl. 34, 35 :)— for the "bright cloud" or "cloud of light" — {vi(p£\r} (pujTog,) Matt, xvii. 5, — and even the " flaming fire" — (h Trvpi <p\oy6g,) 2 Thess. i. 8, — are to be regarded as only the vehicle or tabernacle of that Uncreated Glory.
Still this has been introduced, (let me again observe,) as a mere supposition, and simply with a view to meet one particular mode of unbelieving sarcasm. I am aware it may be said— You have attached an arbitrary meaning to the ambiguous word " quickly," which the sarcasm itself would not convey ; as if it had been intimated— Your Master promised you to come quickly; that is, He promised a rapid though progressive approach :— whereas, in fact, it was only meant to say — Your Master pro- mised to come noon ; (whether instantanteously or gradually ;) but the interval is already long.
I answer,— it certainly appears to me most likely, that the advent of our Lord, with an angelic retinue, will be not instan- taneous but progressive ; however rapid. We may indeed con- ceive of a miraculous transit, even of created and embodied agents, instantaneously from heaven to earth ; and of occasions where this has occurred, and would again be probable ; but the
" The tail is only a continuation of the nebulous envelope." " The tail of the great comet of 1680 was computed to be no less than one hundred millions of miles in length." " The comet of 1744 had a tail above seven millions of miles in length." ^
* Dan. vii. 13 — Rev. i. 7.— Matt. xxvi. C4. t 2 Thess. i. 7, 8. % Matt. xxvi. 30 — Luke xxi. 27.
1 Milne's Prize Essay on Comets, pp. 6, 8, etc.
368 NOTE H.
idea of progressive approach, on that grand occasion, seems to my mind more august and appropriate.
Let, however, the whole supposition be disapproved, or dis- missed;—let it also be expected, — (an expectation which that supposition no way contradicts, and which some interpretations of prophecy, and some " signs of the times," appear to favour,) — that the second advent will not be very long deferred : still those views of time and space which have been thus brought before us, may tend, meanwhile, to illustrate St. Peter's declar- ation, that " a thousand years are with the Lord as one day : " and that we must not measure celestial eras, any more than ce- lestial motions and velocities, by our narrow earthly scale. Is it not probable, that even to created beings, who may have existed millions of years, the term of man's life on earth appears almost ephemeral ; — his afflictions as the lot of some hours, if not of " a moment ; " — or the whole continuance of our era, thus far, as a period rather of eighteen weeks than of eighteen ages ?
May not also the " days " and " weeks " by which years and periods of years are prophetically expressed in Scripture, in- volve some allusion to that sort of extramundane reckonings ; and do they not, if thus viewed, assume a new kind of fitness or impressiveness, as more approaching to the language of celestials, or of a higher sphere ? Of course, such reckonings may differ vastly more from any proportions we have suggested, than those, which have now been vaguely supposed, severally differ from each other : nor is it meant to intimate the existence of amj o?ie ratio of celestial to terrestrial time : for if measures of duration are employed in celestial worlds, it is to be supposed, that, accord- ing to the several motions of those worlds, they vary. But the whole speculation may serve to convince us how little "the times and the seasons," in the great course of Divine dispensa- tions, can be expected to accord with, or be measured by, our personal estimates.
Note I.
" ' God said, Let Newton he.' "—Page 302.
Since writing this passage, I have met with a very similar kind of reference to Pope's well-known epitaph, — though the direct or chief application of the thought here urged be there less general, being limited to the particular " providential bless- ing " to be recognised in the rise and " genius of Bacon," and of " Newton " himself. It is contained in a valuable lecture, " On the Advantages of the present Times with regard to Free- dom and Knowledge," by Mr. John Bullar, of Southampton. (Longman, 1832.)
I have not thought it expedient, even had the coincidence been still more close, to rescind the above passage. Such re- semblances of thought and illustration must become more and more numerous as books and discourse are multiplied ; and it may perhaps only need (as I have elsewhere intimated *) a larger acquaintance with them, to be convinced that all our thoughts and expressions, with some variations, have been an- ticipated.
Note J.
^- IV hen this shall never more he all that we dare profess,
(as now amidst contests or disquietudes of heart,) ' I love to love T^ee.""— Page 318.
The expression, " I love to love Thee," which to some readers appears strange, has been used by several writers. St. Bernard
* In Thoughts on Devotion, Note D, p. 274, new Edit.
370 NOTE J.
employs it, with other related and some nearly parallel phrases ; and offers on them subtle questions, which I shall not introduce. But his more simple devotional statement in which those phrases occur, may be encouraging to many.
" With all my strength I tend upward unto Thee, — into Thee, O chief Love, chief Good ! Yet the more strenuously I do this, the more grievous my relapse beneath my own aspirings ; (tanto retrudor durius infra memetipsum sub memetipso;) and when I consider and examine and judge myself, I become to myself a subject of laborious and of tedious doubt. Yet, O Lord ! I am surely certain, (certe certus,) through thy grace, that I have the desire of desiring Thee, (desiderium desiderii tui,) and the love of loving Thee, in my whole heart and in my whole soul. Thus far by thy agency I am proficient, that I desire to desire Thee, and love to love Thee."— aSo/zVo^. in 0pp. p. 511.
Elsewhere he writes, addressing himself, — " The affection of love is naturally in thee. He whom thou seekest is in thee, if he is in thy love. If not there, not in thee. But him whom thou seekest, thou wouldst not seek if thou didst not love. Thou hast therefore whom thou seekest, and he is within thee, or possessed by thee (penes te). Let us even enter, O my memory, and all my afi"ections, let us enter, and by remembrance, contem- plation, intuition, enjoy the chief Good, and all the good which he imparts."— ^'o^zYog. in 0pp. p. 509. c.
Note K.
" * faithfully seeking, faithfully knocking, often suddenly
finds himself there.' " — Page 319.
This sentiment of Bernard, as well as that of the last quota- tion from him, is corroborated by the expectation and experience of Christians in very different communions from his, and distant from him both in age and country.
A devout German of the Reformed Church, thus writes : — "Habitually and patiently expect his coming, that he may him- self undertake the work, and enable us to serve Him, willingly, joyfully, and perfectly, to all well-pleasing, in his more imme- diate presence, and in the light of his countenance. — Do not let us suffer our courage to fail. It is a small thing with Him, to cause us to find that in our souls in one moment, without trou- ble, which we may have sought for years, externally, with much labour. May the God of love, whose delights are with the children of men, assist us to attain this blissful state."— Ze/e, etc. of Gerhard Tersteegen.
Dr. Payson said, about three weeks before his departure, " Perhaps there is nothing more trying to the faith and patience of Christians, or which appears to them more mysterious, than the small supplies of grace which they receive, and the delays which they meet in having their prayers answered : so that they are sometimes ready to say, ' It is in vain to wait upon the Lord any longer.' He then mentioned the text, * Wherefore gird up the loins of your minds, be sober, and hope to the end, for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.' Adding, — A large portion of the grace which Christians are to receive, will be given to them at the second coming of Christ, or immediately after death ; and this will be
372 NOTE K.
always in proportion to their prayers and exertions here. Chris- tians need not therefore be discouraged at the slov/ progress they make, and the little success which attends their efforts, for they may be assured that every exertion is noticed, and will be rewarded by their heavenly Father." — Life, (abridged Edit.) p. 135.
INDEX.
Abbadie (on Daniel's prediction) cited, 282, 283 (note) ; — on the typical or twofold prophecy in Matt, xxiv., 360 — 365.
Augustine (on his mother's prayers) cited, 216.
Advent, second, of Christ, — a matter of promise and of trust, 278 — 280, 290, 291, 298 ;— its delay no disproof —notwithstanding the promise that it shall be " quickly," 292, 293, 296—298 ;— may be rapid yet remote, 367 ; — prayer for a right anticipation of it, 318, 319.
second, of Christ, predicted in Matt, xxiv., 359 — 365.
Adversities, diminished by the growth of pure Christianity, 188 — 191 ; — yet abound, 191 ; — to be expected by Christians, 198; — designed for our profit, 199.
pecuniary, their important uses, 199 — 201 ; — in them- selves rigorous, 202 ; — but imply kindness, 203 ; — further uses, 204—206.
A'Kempis, on prayer, cited, 263.
Animals, the lower, supposed wholly material by some, 104.
Antichrist, the predictions of, wonderfully fulfilled, 284 — 286 ; — im- pression of several learned WTiters as to this, 354 — 359.
Apologue of Idoriel, illustrative of experience in the difficulties of Scripture, 122—129.
Atonement, not impugned by the doctrine of infinite Mercy, 156 ; — is an effect of that, 157 ; — its necessity to Divine government, 158; — a provision for the exercise of mercy, 159 ; — an unparallel- ed pledge for boundless pardon, 162 ; — Johnson and Baxter, (on it,) cited, 345—347.
Barrow, Dr. Isaac, on man's low station, cited, 103. Bateman, Dr. T., his illness and Christian joy, 309, 310. Baxter, Richard, (on the atonement,) cited, 346, 347. Beings imaginable who know no other creature, 181,' 182. 2 K
374 INDEX.
Belief of wonderful facts difficult when anxious, 16, 17.
Bernard, St., (on peculiar grace,) cited, 318 ; — (on our mortal life,) cited, 322 ; on love to God, 370.
Bible, all parts of the, not equally suitable to be frequently read, 133—135.
Birth, natural and spiritual, their analogy, 53, 54 ; neither can im- ply maturity, 54.
Bliss immortal, will make earthly wants next to nothing, 177, 178.
Body and mind, their reciprocal influence, 238, 239.
Browne, Sir T., (on the progressive guilt of sin,) cited, 142.
Carysfort, Earl of, his views of redemption, 351.
Cecil, Rev, R., (on mysteries,) cited, 95.
Chartres, Due de, anecdote concerning the, 192.
Chastisements, their reclaiming tendency, 222, 223 ; — their correc- tive use, 223 ; — need of them felt by us, 223, 224 ; — their perfec- tive use, 224, 232 ; — the disabling, very mysterious, 227, 228 ; and the disappointing, 229, 230, 268.
Cholera, referred to, 6, 189.
Christ, his sufferings not only expiatory, but exemplary and com- pletory, 224 — 227 ; — his followers have fellowship in these, 226, 234, 235 ; — a peculiar honour in this, 235, 236 ; — the glorious and eternal results of his death, 334 — 338.
Christianity, has lessened the ills of this life, 188 — 191 ; — presump- tive arguments for its claims, 109, (note,) 197 ; — its corruptions and slow progress tempt to doubt, 278, 279 ; — but its growth wide and sure, 287, 288.
Christians, the serious, their views of life not the darkest, 1 — 4 ; — their hopes of future social bliss the highest, 316, 317.
real, are individual proofs of the divinity of their creed,
305—311.
Church of Christ, the real, evinces its own heavenly -origin, 304 —311.
Cicero, on human life, quoted, 1, 2 ; — how consoled by a friend on his daughter's death, 2 ; — on remorse, quoted, 3.
Civilization, Christian, abates plague and dearth, and the ills of violence, etc., 189—191.
Clarke, Dr. S., on the Divine will and agency, 20 (note) ; — on the prophecies of Antichrist, 285, 286.
Coincidences of thought, must multiply, 369.
Comets, their nebulous envelope, 366, 367 (note).
Comfort, in what the true consists, 10, 29, 30 ; — this greatly needed, 33 ; — and all-sufficient and attainable, 34, 35.
Conde, his mental decay, 273 ; — his reference to the state of the Jews, 288.
Coming of Christ, (see Advent,) spiritual in us, to be prayed for, 317, 318.
second, " with clouds," conjectures on the, 296 — 298.
INDEX. 375
Conception of exalted finite powers, not extravagant, 103.
Conflagrations, their frequency in former times, 191.
Conscience, (of sin,) its accusations, 11, 12.
Consolation, without revealed truth, very defective, 2, and 320 ; — greatly needed by many, 4 — 7 ; — some of a gloomy kind, 185.
Consolations, Christian, may be very indistinctly attained, 5.
Constitution, intellectual, not to be changed, 117, 118.
Contemplation, in Deity, consists with omniscient activity, 183.
Conversion, Christian, its principle, 29 ; — though simple, a great change, 38, 39 ; — fears as to its genuineness, 40 ; — may be sud- denly complete, 44 ; — but its completion usually gradual, 44, 45 ; — retarded by remissness and relapses, 45 — 47 ; — instantaneous in beginning, (and so in kind,) but not in degree, 49; — despondency concerning it to be shunned, 55, 56 ; — desire for evidences of it should not be a primary motive, 88, 89 ; — doubts of its reality from relapses into sin, 141 — 143.
Creation, its wonders exceed the imaginings of poets, 66.
Cross of Christ, the centre of moral perfections, 33, 121.
D'Alembert (on re-union in a future life) cited, 316.
Daniel, his prophecies wonderfully fulfilled, 282, 283, (note,) — 284, 285 (note).
Davison (on the Avritings of Daniel) cited, 282, (note,) and 355.
Daylight, its gradual rise illustrative of spiritual change, 50.
Death, a Scripture term for a sinful state, 323.
Debility, intellectual, its effects, 238, 239 ; — self-reproach under it, 247 ; — undue mental efforts, in this state, to be shunned, 257 ; — teaches charity to the failings of others, 269, 270 ; — and sym- pathy, 271.
Deity, the greatest of mysteries, 18, 19 ; — agency of, incessant and universal, 20 (note) ; — cannot be conceived to exercise certain virtues except in an assumed nature, 69, 70 ; — this statement ex- plained, 352, 353 ; — conceptions of, how inadequate, 97 — 100, 105, 106 ; — moral attributes of, imperfectly ascertained by philoso- phy, 106, 107 ; — has a paternal and judicial relation to us, 157 ; — dependence on, taught by afflictions, 272 ; — forgetfulness of, astonishing, 328.
Dejection of mind, fear is its essence, 242 ; — yet admits peculiar hope of immediate relief, 250, 251, 259 ; — instances of its occur- rence and removal ; — David — Jeremiah — Herbert, 252, 253 ; — Boyle — Newton, 253,254; — patient endurance urged, 258 ; — and prayer, 259 — 265 ; — augments the danger of temptations, 265, 266.
Dependence on God's will, taught by afflictions, 271, 272.
Desire, Christian, of happiness, not selfish, 312, 313; — extends even to lower creatures, 313, 314 ; — fervent for friends and kin- dred, 314—316.
Desires of pious benevolence and affection, baffled, 229, 230. 2 K 2
376 INDEX.
Despondency as to conversion, arising from sinfulness, 137 ; — ex- postulations against it, 144, 145; — as to our interest in eternal good, how to be relieved, 333, 334.
Difficulties, scriptural, (see Scripture,) experienced and partially overcome, 130 — 133.
Distress, spiritual, reliefs for it not always appropriate, 137 ; — specially caused by sins after professed faith, 138, 139; — the gos- pel remedy addressed to its worst supposition, 149, 150; — in- creased by mental illness or debility, 247, 248.
Doddridge (on regeneration) cited, 52 (note) ; — his extreme weak- ness at birth, 52; — (on "the day of small things,") cited, 53; — his definition of special grace, 348.
Doubt, itself an intimation of God's upholding energy, 105.
Dreams, half conscious, or reveries, illustrate a delusive or imagined laith, 60, 61.
Earth, its motions, believed oiioseli/, 17 ; — how if a matter of new
interest, 17, 18. Education, religious, may render conversion less marked, 139 — 142. Energy, mental, mysteriously impaired, 228 ; — a severe infliction,
228, 229. Enjoyments, social, the highest often denied, 170 — 172 ; — when pos- sessed, often imbittered, 172, 173; — the ideal not realized, 173,
174 ; — all on earth transient, 176. Epidemics abated by Christian civilization, 189. Evidences of our conversion, prospective eff'ort for these not fit or
availing, 88 ; — but retrospective examination proper and requisite,
89, 90 ;— should be strict, yet candid, 92. Evil, moral and penal, how incredible if unknown experimentally,
23 ; — of the heart, strongly affirmed in Scripture, 144, 145 ; — its
origin inscrutable, 163. Example of our Redeemer, its moral influence, 28 ; — one purpose
of his sufferings, 224 — 22*7. Existence, by many heathens, not deemed a good, 1, and 343 — 345.
Faith, erroneously decried by some, 36 ; — is conversion, 29, and 36; — a " main-spring," 38; — has its degrees and changes, 40, 76, 77 ; — doubts of its genuineness, 58, 59; — spurious or imagin- ative semblance of it, illustrated by scenic illusions, 60; — by dreams, 60, 61; — delusive and genuine, by supposed cases of Ardentio and Sophron, 61 — 63; — essence of the distinction, 63, 64, 71 — 73; — far more valuable than imagination, 75, 76; — its sincerity not disproved by variations, 77, 78 ; — doubts of this on account of mixed motives, 83, 84, 86 ; — its defectiveness great, 328— 33J.
in Christ's redemption, produces aversion to sin, and love to
God, 26, 27.
Fears as to spiritual and eternal prospects, very prevalent, 7 — 9.
INDEX. 377
Fenelon (on self-complacence) cited, 88 (note); — on scrupulous self-inspection, 93, 94 ; — on tolerance of faults, 269, 270.
Fluctuation of religious experience, one of its causes, 75, 76.
Forgiveness, unlimited, a duty, 154, 155.
" Forgivenesses," boundless, the doctrine of, consoling and power- ful, 150, 151; — nothing less sufficient, 151; — is certain, 152, 153; — argued from the inculcation of forgiveness on us, 153 — 155; — no irreverence in this argument, 160, 161; — the proper display of God's greatness m respect to mercy, 163 ; — needs to be revealed to fervent prayer, 165, 166 ; — happy tendency of it, 166, 1 67 ; — fully promised, 260.
Forster, Rev. C, on the prophecies of Antichrist, cited, 355 — 357.
Friendship, active without emotion, illustrative of a certain religious state, 84.
God, (see Deity,) the "gift" of, imperial and immense, 330, 331, 333 ; — the temporal bounties of, only loans, 332 ; — the eternal, consonant to his glory, 335.
Good, immense, educed from a startling mystery of evil, 109, 110.
Gospel of Christ, a vague view of it insufficient, 12, 13 ; — its un- speakable value, 13, 14, 320, 321 ; — glorious and powerful, 24, 25 ; — summary of it, 32 ; — its power and freedom, 32, 33 ; — what else could be so precious ? 33 — 35 ; — invitation to it, 34, 35 ; — the desire to receive it, a happy indication, 48 ; — seems viewed by some as a sublime mythology, 65 ; or as if romance, 71 ; — tends to reconcile to adversity, 197.
Gospels, their invention not credible, 67, 109 (note).
Government, the Divine, upholden by Christ's sacrifice, 14, 15 ; — love, its principle, 109.
Grace, peculiar and unlocked for, the hope of, encouraged by Chris- tian writers, 371.
special, not to be rashly disclaimed, 80, 146 ; — definition of
it, 347 ;— Howe's view of it cited, 348, 349.
Gratitude towards God to be cultivated, as a principle, 84, 241.
Gratuitousness, the character of the Christian salvation, 31, 32.
Happiness, heavenly, to be social,179 — 186; — and benevolent ; Dr. Payson on this, 312, 313 (note) ; — the desire of it a presumption of its reality, 311, 312.
Hartley (on the Prophecies) cited, 354, 355.
Heathen, their wavering hopes of a life to come, 2 ; — owned crimes to produce the greatest pain, 3 ; — their creeds merely imagina- tive, 64 ; — philosophers, saw the neccessity of penal s-uffering, 158, 159 ; — and of chastisements to reclaim, 223 (note) ; — many of them viewed life as an evil, 343 — 345.
Henderson, John, letter to him, cited, 267.
Henry, M. and P., a saying of theirs, 172. 2 K 3
378 INDEX.
Herbert, and M. Henry, on reconversions, 48 ; — Herbert, his dying words, 308.
Herodotus (on the opinions of the Thracians) cited, 344.
Holy Spirit, a Comforter and Teacher, 10; — his work of grace not to be arrogated to ourselves, 146, 147 ; — sin against, what, 260.
Hope of spiritual blessings, a duty, 55, 56 ; — preliminary grounds for it, 82 ; — the same ground of it for saint and sinner, 148 ; — boundless scope for it in God's mercies, 164, 165.
of spiritual good for those dear to us encouraged, 220.
may be all but extinguished by dejection, 242, 243 ; — con- siderations which should foster it, 249.
Howe, John, his readiness for death, 309 ;-^(on the desire of hea- ven,) cited, 311 ; — (on common and special grace,) cited, 348, 349.
Human beings need consolation, as such, 4.
Humility, spurious, to be shunned, 80, 145, 146 ; — true, combined with hope, 147, 148.
Idolatry, its wide destruction by the gospel, memorable both as a fact, and as a fulfilment of prophecy, 281 — 283.
Idoriel, his allegoric progress through a cavern to Paradise, 122 —129.
Illness, mental, instances of its existence and relief, 252 — 254 ; — its extraordinary removal the act of God, 251 ; — means not un- availing, 255 ; — physical causes of it probable, 255 ; — means recommended, 256, 257 ; — likely to be relieved by prayer, 260; — does not preclude all usefulness, 274 ; — to be hereafter divinely and gloriously healed, 275, 276.
Imagination, sometimes appears to be substituted for faith, 59 ; — in religion dangerous, when unregulated, 71, 75, 76; — useful, when auxiliary ; illustrated by the telescope, 72, 73 ; — consola- tion under its deficiencies, 74 ; — often forms an ideal not realized, 172—174.
Imaginative, caution to the, 75 — 77.
Immortality, an infinite gift, whether to low or lofty creatures, 331 —333.
Impenitent, in what sense forgiven, 156 ; — why not as such, 156, 157.
Incarnation of Deity, its wonderfulness and seeming incredibility, 16; — is credible, 19 — 24; — and worthy of God, as demonstrating his moral perfections, 21 ; — appears more so than some minor wonders, 22 ; — more credible than Evil, 23, 24 ; — but amazing and awful, 24, 25 ; — yet cheering and efficacious, 25 ; — exhibits Him as the prototype oi suffering virtue, 70 ; — its eflects must be infinite, 335.
Incredulity, extreme case of it, 73 (note).
Inlanticide, how palliated, 345.
INDEX. 379
Infinitude of Deity, not enough considered, 97 ; — more perceived by
higher intelligences, 97, 98 ; — not explored by us, 101 ; — involves
omniscience and omnipotence, 106. Insects, illustrate the Divine attributes, 21 — 23. or reptiles of Egypt, what knew they of the works of Moses,
104. Intelligence, a created, supposed to rule the birds or insects of some
world, 102. Intercession of Christ on the cross, 155, 160. ■ — affectionate, for others ; its efficacy should not be
doubted, 218, 219; — sometimes not answered soon, 230, 231. Inventions, their wonderful progress, an effect of God's providence,
and responds to his promise, 300 — 304.
Jerusalem, Christ's prophecy of its fall, and of the end of the world,
considered, 359 — 362, 364, 365. Jews, predictions concerning the, wonderfully fulfilled, 283, 284 ; —
more wonderfully as years go on, 288. Johnson, Dr. Samuel, (on the doctrine of Atonement,) cited, 345,346. Julian, a saying of his, 37.
Keith, Rev. A., (on the prophecies of Daniel,) cited, 357 — 359. Klopstock (on the central heaven) cited, 366. Knowledge, Christian, the basis of comfort, 10.
Lavater (on the heaven of heavens) cited, 365.
Leighton, Archbishop, (on affliction,) cited, 204 (note).
Life, a Scripture term for happiness, 322 ; — in its highest sense a term of exalted import, 323, 324,
another, the desire of, a presumption of its reality, 311, 312.
human, gloomy vieAvs of heathens concerning, 1 , 2, and 343 — 345.
eternal, the explicit promise of Christ, 321 ;— not conceivable
by us, 324 — 326 ; — first experience of it surprising, 327 ; — difficulty of belief in, 329 ;— grounds of its credibility, 329—338 ;— duty and effects of meditation on it, 338 — 341.
Love, the infinite principle of the Divine sovereignty, 109 ;— this fact involved in the very revelation which produces our spiritual anxieties, 217; — may have been variously and immensely dis- played, 350, 351.
to God, filial, grateful, and imitative, — the true Christian
motive, 83, 84 ; — may exist as a principle without conscious emo- tion, 84; — to be prayed for, 93, and 317, 318 ; — will not in hea- ven exclude subordinate love to creatures, 178 — l&HJ, 184; — that love a modification of love to God, 185, 186.
Jyowth, Bishop, (on the mystic allegory,) cited, 363.
Man, probably the lowest of rational beings, 99, 103 ; — limitation of his progress, 299 ; — yet greatness and acceleration of it, 300.
380 INDEX.
Meditation on eternal life, recommended, 329, 338, 339.
Mercenary, the idea of a, 30 — 32.
Mercy, God's triumphant attribute, 153; — original in Deity, 156 —159.
Merit, in the sight of God, no pretension to, 13, 14, 340.
Millions, five hundred, a number not apprehended, 100.
Milton (on our mortal life) cited, 322 (note).
Mind, human, some of its diversities, 117 — 119; — its great frailty, 273, 274 ; — instanced in Conde, Romilly, etc., ibid.
Miracles of Christ, (on the blind,) illustrative of diverse methods of conversion, 42 — 46.
Missions, Christian, their extent great and increasing, 287.
Mohammedanism, prophecies of it fulfilled, 284, 285, and 356 — 359 ; its growth and duration no proof of a Divine origin, 304, 305.
Monica, her prayers for her son, 212 ; — promise to her, 215, 216.
Monotheism, its progress in the world, 286.
More, Mrs. Hamiah, letter of, cited, 267.
Mother, widowed, her anxieties, 209 ; — and anticipations, 210.
Munificence, Divine, properly so called, not to be conceived of ex- cept in Redemption, 67 — 69.
Mysteries inseparable from religion, 19.
— moral, abound m nature and society, 95, 96 ; — tempt to
unbelief, 96 ; but ought not, 110, 111 ; even were they more and greater, 111, 112; — Mysteries must be endless, 113; — but not always painful, ibid.
of Christ's life and death awful and startling, 109, 110.
Newton, Sir I., his life in the first hours despaired of, 53 ; — his mental illness and recovery, 254 ; — his rise and discoveries, (as those of others,) an ordination of God, 302, 303, and 369.
Norris, his view of the love of God erroneous, 179.
Obedience not properly " good," when in any sense mercenary, 30, 31.
Ocean, employed to illustrate God's infinite mercies, 162, 165.
Oculist, the character of his operation illustrative of Christian con- version, 38 — 40 ; and its imperfections, 41.
Omnipotence, Divine, how referred to by Christ, 109 — 113.
Ores, their alloy and cleansing illustrate the spiritual purification, 78—80.
Origin of sympathetic disease obscure, 238, 239.
Orphans, anxieties of a mother for them, 210, 211.
Owen, Dr. J., (on God's infinite mercies,) cited, 155, 156, 164 ; — (on the refuge of the "sin-entangled,") cited, 261.
Pain, often mysteriously prolonged, 231 ; — the extreme test for us,
235. mental, more tolerable by considering how it might be aggra-
INDEX. 381
vated, 240, 241 ; — ^remembrance of it very imperfect, 243 ; — ag- gravated by sinful indulgence, 265, 266 ; — probable benefits of, 268, 269 ; — hope in God for its removal enjoined, 275 — 277.
Papacy, the, its power and fall predicted, 284 — 2S6, 289.
Parhelion, illustrates a delusive substitution of imagination for faith, 64.
Patrick, Bp., (on Christ's Advent,) cited, 318, 319.
Payson, Dr., (on heavenly happiness,) cited, 312, 313 (note) ; — (on the delay of grace,) cited, 371, 372.
Perfection, moral, of the Deity, exhibited by the Gospel, 108, 109.
Persecution not the sole test of Christian constancy, 203, 204.
Peter, (St.) his allusion to his o^vn fall, 47.
Planet, nearer vision of a, — its effects, 98.
Playfair's MS. lectures cited, 66.
Pleasures to end with this life, of small worth, 176.
Porteus, Bp., (on the prophecy concerning Jerusalem,) cited, 363, 364.
Prayer for spiritual blessings urged, 55, 56 ; and for a right view of things eternal, 324, 340, 341 ; — concerning temporal things, its spirit, 207, 215 ; — well-ordered thoughts and words not essential to it, 262 ; — silent, preferred by Scougal, 263 ; — aids to oral, 264 ; — delay of answers should not discourage, 37 1 .
Predictions fulfilled and fulfilling, of the spread of true religion, 281, 282 ;— of the state of the Jews, 283, 284 ;— of the papal and Mohammedan antichrist, 284, 285, and 355 — 359.
Prichard, Dr., on the Divine Agency, 20, 21 (note).
Pride may exist under the form of humility, 145, 146.
Princes often reduced in our days, 192, 193.
Privations, eartlily, their tendency to endear the chief good, 178.
Prophecy, its wonderful and growing fulfilments, 281 — 293 ; — its twofold sense, 359 — 365 ; — of the desti'uction of Jerusalem, con- sidered, ihid.
Prosperity, worldly, sure means of, not possible to foresee or se- lect, 213.
Providence of God directs tlae progress of man and of science, 301—304.
Purposes, philanthropic, mysteriously interrupted by illness, 227, 228 ; — by opposition, 229.
QuiNTiLiAN, on vice, quoted, 4.
Redemption by Christ both a motive and a rule, 28 ; — its wonders
exceed all fictions of the heroic, 65 — 69. if fictitious, would be a conception of virtue
excelling any (knov.'n or) conceivable act of Deity, 67 — 70 ; — its
truth argued from the promise of life eternal, 333, 334 ; — some
suppositions concerning it presumptuous, 350. Regeneration, or spiritual birth, not in general consciously com-
382 INDEX.
menced, nor suddenly complete, 51 ; analogous to natural birth,
51—54. Relapses of the convert necessitate a sort of renewed conversion,
46 — 48 ; — pain and dread attendant on them, 1 41 — 143. llemedies, both for bodily and spiritual disease, imperfectly judged
of, 268. Reverses of condition prevalent in our ovm age, 191 — 196 ; — many
sudden and great, 191 — 193 ; — many slighter yet painfiil, 193 —
196 ; — not always acquiesced in aright, 198, 199. Review, the Presbyterian, remarks on a stricture of, 352. Rutherford, his dying expressions, 307.
Safety, spiritual, sure to persevering prayer, 260.
Sampson, Dr. H., his character, 308.
Scougal, on mental prayer, cited, 263, 264.
Scripture, its difficulties, painful to some, 115 ; — and the insensitive- ness of others to them, 116 — 118; — some minds overcome them by an ardent hold of the great truths, 119, 120; — this the right expedient, 121 — 136 ; — experience of them allegorically illustrated, 122 — 129 ; — its promises sealed by vast events, 281 — 293.
Seals of the truth of Scripture prophecy enlarge tJiemselves, 286 — 289 ;— indestructible, 289, 290.
Selection not to be neglected in Scripture reading, 133 — 135.
Shaw (on the love of God) cited, 179, 180.
Ship, different impulses of, illustrate plurality of concurrent motives, 86, 87.
Sibbes (on the work of grace) cited, 147.
Simplicity (of a principle) often viewed with prejudice, 37.
Sin, rebuked by a believing view of redemption, 28, 29.
Sins, multiplied after a profession of faith, induce the greatest de- spondency, 138, 139 ; — the number and greatness of, need infinite pardon, 153 ; — (contrite prayer its remedy, 267.)
Society, none in the mere presence of human beings, nor of the un* congenial, 169, 170.
Socrates, on Divine omniscience, cited, 107.
Solicitude, for spiritual good of others, just, 211, 212; — maybe ex- cessive, 212.
Solitude, comparative, 168 ; — alleviated by the lower animals, 169 ; — optional probably in heaven, 182, 183 ; — not the highest state, 183.
South (on God's mercy) cited, 153.
Spirit, the uncreated, differs in kind from all the created, 104.
Stewart, Dugald, on the Divine agency, 20 (note).
Strength, bodily, mysteriously broken, 227, 228.
Sufferers addressed, 4 — 7.
Suffering, perfective uses of, 224 — 231 ; — as well as corrective, 233.
— : human, of three kinds, 237 ; — sometimes distinct, but
usually mingled, 238, 239.
INDEX. 383
Sun, view of it and its reflections, illustrates love to God and creatures, 184, 185.
Sunrise, difficult usually to mark it ; so the moment of conversion, 50,51.
Supposition that lower creatures were latent to us, 22 ; — of an an- gel proclaiming the gospei to each human being, 100, 101.
Sympathy, not given to some degi-ees of adversity, 195, 196.
with mental pain incomplete, and often none, 244, 245 ; —
reasons for this, 245, 246 ; — often wanting to spiritual grief, 248.
Taylor, (Bp. J.,) on "infinite mercies," cited, 163, 164. Telescope, different uses of, illustrate different uses of imagination,
72, 73. Terms, comprehensive, or totals, little more than algebraic names, 100. Theory, scenic, of gospel truth, an illusive substitute for faith, 60,
74. Thinkers, some prompt and powerful, on great subjects, 105 ; — ^but
developement needed by others, 105, 106. Time, its regulated progress a daily new and growing proof of God's
government, 294—296.
its measures, cannot give a conception of eternity, 325, 326.
celestial, not to be measured by an earthly scale, 368.
Tolerance of others' faults, taught by mental illness, 269 — 271. Tragedy and romance, their practical moral effect slight, 66. Trials intended for our good, 199.
Unbelievers, derisive and destructive spirit of, 278, 279 ; — their
"scoffs" predicted, 289. Universe, its order responds to the Scripture promises, 293 — 295. its centre by some considered " the heaven of heavens,"
365.
Velocities, of planets, — of sunbeams, 296 — 298. Vice, a source of pain, admitted by heathens, 3.
War, its evils mitigated, 190, 191 ; — and hopes concerning, 190
(note). Worlds, their motion and order, yield a growing proof of God's
faithfulness, 294—299.
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY : INSTITUTED 1799.