Christian experience : or, A guide to the perplexed

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CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE ;

A GUIDE TO THE PERPLEXED.

BY ROBERT PHILIP,

AUTHOR OF MANLY PIETY.

" I should know how to speak a word in season to him that
is "weary."

Isaiah.

NEW YORK :

PUBLISHED BY J'X'I.V WILEY.

LEAVITT, LORD AND CO. aN T) i>r. AKL J WHITE.

18 34.

i

THE l^EW YOl^K
^lihyLlC LIBRARY

ASiOR, LENOX AND

;-.L.DE.N FOUNDATIONS

n 1©21 L

G & C Mcrriani,.. Print.
Springfield^ Mass

TO

THOMAS CIIALLIS, ESQ.,

TREASURER
OF

THE CHRISTIAN INSTRUCTION SOCIETY,
THESE ESSAYS

ARE INSCRIBED,

A3 A TOKEN OF FRIENDSHIP,

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

The following simple, and almost con-
versational Essays, are the substance of
actual conversations with the Perplexed.

In the Preface to the First Edition it
was said, " How far they will meet the
case of that class, at large, the Author does
not venture to conjecture." ' Conjecture is
now needless ; they have proved a "Guide"
to many. It would evince ingratitude to
God, if not insensibility, to conceal this
pleasing fact.

To his Fathers and Brethren, who have
adopted the " Guide," as a manual to the
Perplexed, the Author feels himself under
great obligation. Their sanction is not the
least cause of its success. And, as their
sanction can be gained only to right
principles, he relies on them to give that
countenance to the fourth volume of his
" Guides," which the great principle of
"Pleasing God" deserves.

KiNGSLAND, 1833.
1*

CONTENTS.

Page.
I. THE WORK OP THE LAW UPON THE COX-
SCIENCE 9

II. THE WORK OF THE SPIRIJ ON THE tfEART 28

III. THE WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT - - 47

IV. THE SPECIAL FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT - 63
T. JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH - - - 80

VI. FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD AND THE LAMB - 96
VII. THE HOPE OF SALVATION THE BEST SAFE-
GUARD OF THE UNDERSTANDING AGAINST

ERROR, AND OF THE HEART AGAINST SIN 113

VIII. DEVOTIONAL SELF-EXAMINATION - - 131
IX. THE TEMPTATIONS AND FIERY DARTS OF

SATAN - 148

X. THE FLUCTUATIONS OF RELIGIOUS FEELING

AND ENJOYMENT 164

XI. CAUSES OF BACKSLIDING - - . 182

XII. SANCTIFIED AFFLICTIONS . . - 194

XIII. EXPERIMENTAL MAXIMS - - - - 208

No. I.

THE WORK OF THE LAW UPON THE CON-
SCIENCE.

" Without the Law, sm is dead^ This is
true, both of the Moral Law of Duty and of the
Evangelical Law of Faith : for until their autho-
rity and spirituality are understood and felt, we
do not understand the evil of sin, nor feel the
power of it. Like Paul before his conversion,
we are " alive^ without the law :" not afraid
of perishing, nor at all affected by the plagues
of our hearts : not seriously displeased with our-
selves, nor conscious of the displeasure of God.

It is humihating to look back on this state
of mind. We acted and felt as if there had
been no law at all, or as if there had been no
more law than we ourselves chose to admit.
We obeyed no farther than suited our own
inclinations, and no longer than suited our own

10 THE WORK OF THE LAW

convenience. And yet, awful infatuation ! we
were neither afraid nor ashamed. Indeed, we
never paused to consider seriously the divine
law, or its sanctions ; but judged oi^ right and
wrong by public opinion. The world, not God,
was our lawgiver ; and accordingly, when we
did not incur blame from others, we suspected
none from God ; and when any part of our con-
duct was condemned by others, we even took
for granted that he would judge more charitably
and mercifully than our neighbors did. Thus
we had scarcely one scriptural idea of the nature
or the authority of the Eternal law. Accord-
ingly, whilst thus" without the law," or without
a right sense of its obligations and sanctions,
we were quite " alive ;" — both fearless and gay ;
neither self-condemned in our own minds, nor
aware that God had condemned us. " >Sm,"
also, " was dead,^^ whilst we were thus ignorant
of the spirituality and strictness of the Divine
law. Not, indeed, that sin itself was dead in
our hearts ; far from it ! But such were our
slight views of the evil of sin, that it might have
been dead, for any uneasiness or alarm it occa-
sioned within us. It did not pain our hearts nor

UPON THE CONSCIENCE. 11

awaken our consciences : it left us at " ease"
even " in Zion," and threw no cloud on our
spirits or our prospects. We looked as safe and
smiling as if we had had no sin, or as if sin
involved no punishment. Thus sin was virtually
dead, whilst we were inattentive to the demands
and denunciations of the Divine law.

Nor was this all. Whilst without scriptural
views of the holiness and justness of the law, we
were not aware of the power which sin had over
us, nor of the strength of our love to it. The
evil principles of our hearts did not show all
their evil, because we laid no powerful con-
straint upon them. We had never tried to be
very good, and therefore we did not discover that
our hearts were very bad. Indeed, we thought
better of our hearts than of our lives. The rea-
son is obvious : we let our hearts have their own
way, and allowed them to think and feel as they
were inclined. Whatever religious restraints we
laid upon our lips or our hands, we imposed
none upon our thoughts : they might range and
revel as they chose, if they only kept clear of
painful and spiritual subjects. It was, therefore,
unlikely — indeed impossible — that our hearts

12 THE WORK OF THE LAW

should manifest all their enmity to the laws of
God, whilst these laws were not applied to them.
We did not set them to try to love or fear God :
we did not call on them to consider divine and
eternal things seriously : we gave them no tasks
in devotion, meditation, or self-control. In a
word, we did not at all trouble our hearts to be
religious ; and therefore they did not trouble us
by any great opposition to the few religious
duties we performed ; but let us have our own
way, so long as they had ilieir own way. And
this was one chief reason why our hopes of final
safety kept " alive^''^ whilst we were without the
law : we thought well of our hearts, because they
offered no marked opposition to the morals or
the religion which we attended to. We attended
to no more than was barely sufficient to save us
from being called irreligious ; and the pride of
the heart allowed that degree of duty at all times;
and on solemn occasions, a little more : whereas
if we had tried to set our hearts to the serious
consideration and the spiritual discharge of all
duty, they would have soon shown that they
were '' hearts of stone."

This is, indeed, a humiliating review of our

UPON THE CONSCIENCE. 13

former habits of acting and judging ; but it is
well both to take it, and to declare it, because
the declaration of it may prove useful to others.
To ourselves such a retrospect must be useful,
were it only to enable us to discern the change
which has taken place in our views and feelings
on this subject.

Now we can truly say, that however we were
alive, or sin dead, whilst we did not allow the
Law to speak to our consciences, — " when the
commandment came, sin revived, and we died.^^
Our ill-grounded hopes of heaven, and our good
opinion of our own hearts, fell dead before the
scriptural fact, that the Eternal law demands and
admits nothing short oi" perfect obedience. The
solemn denunciation, " Cursed is he who con-
tinueih not in all things written in the hook of
the law, to do them,^^ awoke us at once to our
guilt and danger ; and the declaration, that " by
the deeds of the law, no flesh living shall be
justified," confounded us. We were thus re-
duced to a complete dilemma : we saw that we
had not kept the law ; we felt that we were
unable to keep it perfectly ; and now we under-
stood that, however well we might keep it in

14 THE WORK OF THE LAW

future, the obedience would not atone for our
past sins.

We knew not what to do, or what to think,
when these solemn facts flashed upon our minds ;
they were so unlike all our former opinions.
We had, indeed, heard and read them, but they
had not struck nor startled us before. How
could they ? We had never seriously weighed
their import, nor suspected their application to
ourselves ; and now that we saw both, it seemed
too late to remedy our mistakes. For what
could we do with a law which condemned us for
past sins, and would not allow present duty to
make up for them ? We were willing to reform,
and to lead a new hfe ; but what was the use of
doing so, if the change could not save our souls?
Thus there seemed no encouragement to do
better, and no benefit to be derived from it.

Ourcase now began to wear a hopeless aspect,
and would have been held desperate, had not our
floating ideas about the mercy of God, and the
merits of Jesus Christ, kept despair in check.
We had never indeed examined, with any care,
the nature of divine mercy, or the design of the
Saviour's death ; but we took for granted that,

UPON THE CONSCIENCE. 15

of course, they wore intended to Jielj^ us in some
way, and no way, that we knew of then, seemed
so likely as their making iq) for our defects, if
we did our best to live well in future. Accord-
ingly, under this hope, we began to reform, and
tried to repent. We determined to confess,
very humbly, all our past sins and shortcomings,
and to be very devout in our religious duties.
But, lo ! to our surprise, our hearts would not
fix nor feel! They wandered in prayer, and
wavered in all their pious resolutions — they in-
vented excuses for the neglect of some duties,
and soon tired of others. This we had not
looked for ; but, indeed, calculated that our
hearts would follow up all the dictates of our
consciences. What was to be done 1 We de-
termined to master this aversion to spiritual
things ; to force them to be penitent and devo-
tional. But all would not do ; they actually
became worse, instead of better, the more we
tried to subject them to the authority of the
Divine law.

Thus it was ; " when the commandment
came" home to our hearts, demanding sincerity
and spirituality, " sin revived."

16 THE WORK OF THE LAW

The principles of the carnal mind flew up in
arms, when ihepoiver of godliness attempted
to sit down on the throne of the heart. Then
our pride objected to the humility, our sloth to
the diligence, our passions to the self-denial,
and our tempers to the strictness, of true holi-
ness : the whole soul shrunk back from the
" yoke" of Christ, or tried to break it ; and the
real, though secret, language of the heart was,
" we will not have this man to reign over its."
Thus we found that our hearts were as un-
willing to obey Christ fully, as they were
unable to keep the law perfectly ; and therefore
the Gospel (as we understood it then, and as
some understand it now) left us as hopeless
as the law had done. And in this way : how
could the Saviour be expected to make up the
defects of a heartless piety 1 We felt that our
religion was all forced work, and likely to
continue to be so ; and as our opinion of the
work of Christ was, that he only helped out
those who did their best : of course, we had
nothing to expect from him, because nothing
to give him, now that our hearts seemed to
grow worse instead of better. In a word,

UPON THE CONSCIENCE. 17

we could make nothing of the law or Gospel,
but despair or discouragement in our own case.
The law had condemned us, and it seemed
inevitable that the Gospel would do so too.

In this condition, — convinced of the im-
portance of personal religion, but feeling it
almost impossible to be religious ; alive to the
value of the soul, but seeing no way of
securing its salvation, — many are kept on the
rack of suspense, and some on the rack of
utter despair. And when such distress of soul
falls in, as it frequently does, with a nervous
frame of body, or a melancholy cast of mind,
the suffering is dreadful — indeed dangerous ;
for the tendency of such minds is to indulge
hopelessness. Accordingly some do nothing
else but " write bitter things" against them-
selves ; setting themselves down as certainly
lost beyond redemption, and interpreting all
their agonizing feelings into marks of repro-
bation. Under this horrid persuasion, they
give up prayer entirely, and feel inclined to
have done with the word of God, and the
house of God, for ever. Indeed, they would
do so, were it not that they cannot abandon
2*

18 THE WORK OF THE LAW

either for any length of time. There is some
fascination about the means of grace, which
draws even the hopeless back to them, in spite
of despair, sooner or later. They may say
that they look for no good from any means,
and that they are sure to find none ; but still
they do " look again" to the temple of God,
and cannot tear themselves finally away from
it, nor utterly forget that salvation which
seems lost to them. The truth is, despair is
not natural to the human mind ; and there-
fore, although Jits of it may be indulged fre-
quently, the intervals of it are often employed
in re-examining the grounds of hope, and
admitting a " may be," or " peradventure,"
of salvation. The question, "Who can
TELL 1" occasionally leads away the thoughts
from the dark side to the bright side of it, and
fixes them there long enough to brighten them
a little. And although it seems, to the soul,
almost sinful to admit the faintest ray of hope
in its own case, and almost a duty to banish it
at once ,* still it is admitted and retained from
time to time, until it gradually leads to the
resolution of inquiring more fully into the
way of salvation.

UPON THL CONSCIENCE. 19

Now, when this is the case, and the mind is
willing to examine the matter calmly and de-
liberately, it is well to begin with the example
of Paul : for God showed mercy to him, that
he might show in him " a pattern of all long-
suffering to them who should afterwards be-
lieve." Besides, as the Law has had the same
effect on you which it had on Paul, it certainly
is not impossible that the Gospel should have
the same effect on you that it had on him. Now,
you can truly say with him in the former case,
" I was alive without the law once ; but when the
commandment came, sin revived, and I died."
Yes ; you are sure that you are dead to all hope
of being saved by the law now, and that your
hearts are far worse than you could have ima-
gined them to be. Well ; how did Paul act and
judge, when by the law he became dead to the
law 1 The shock which thus shook his self-
righteousness to death, must, you are aware,
have been tremendous ! Accordingly, " he icas
three days without sight, and neither did eat
nor drink." But he prayed ! Yes : neither his
guilt nor his misery led him to restrain prayer
before God ; nor did they prevent him from
believing the Gospel, when it was preached unto

20 THE WORK OF THE LAW

him by Annanias. He gave " all acceptation'' to
the " saying," as soon as he knew it to be " a
faithful saying, that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners." Although he felt him-
self to be the " chief" of sinners, he did not hesi-
tate to believe in Christ for his own salvation.
He believed on Christ, that he might be justi-
fied by the faith of Christ: and being justi-
fied by faith, he had peace with God. Now this
was acting wisely ; and thus should all act,
whose hopes of salvation by the works of the
law, have been slain by the curse of the
law.

If, however, Paul's case be thought too pecu-
liar to argue from, — one thing is certain ; we
have the sar.ie Gospel, in the Scriptures, which
relieved his mind, and became the power of God
unto his salvation. Nor is this all : we have
also the command of God to believe it for our
own salvation ; and his express assurance,
that believing it will save us. If, then, all our
old hopes are crushed to death by the law,
why not embrace the new and better hopes
which this glorious Gospel sets before us 1

" Why not T' some are ready to say ; " they
are not intended for me : they belong to the

UPON THE CONSCIENCE. 21

penitent; and my heart is hard ! — they belong-
to the humble ; and my heart is proud ! — they
belong to the believing ; and I cannot believe !"

Cannot believe! Why? What is it that
you cannot believe ? Let us see what it really
is ; and why you cannot believe it : for it may
be that it is something not necessary to be
believed at present ; yea, it may be something
which is not your duly to believe just now.
Do not, therefore, fly ofl* from the Gospel by
a hasty conclusion that you cannot believe it :
you do not seem to understand it yet; and,
therefore, the difficulty of believing it may not
be so great as you imagine — at least, not
of the same kind as you suppose.

W^hat, then, is it that you cannot believe ?
Yes ! lohat is it ] For there is reason to sus-
pect that it is either something which it is not
necessary to begin with ; or something which
ought not to be believed, until " the truth " is
beheved, with which God has graciously con-
nected the promise of salvation.

The answers to these pointed questions will
of course, vary according to the degree in which
those who are interested in them are acquainted

22^ THE WORK OF THE LAW

with the current opinions and perplexities'of
serious people. Hence some will say, " Ah !
but I cannot believe that Christ died for me."
Now, be not startled when I say, " No wonder !
for how could you believe what is not re-
vealed ?" And it is not revealed that he died
for you individually. What is revealed is, that
he died for sinners ; and that you do not dis-
beheve. But you say, " As I cannot regard
myself as one of the sinners for whom Christ
died, my behoving that he died for sinners can
do me no good." Why not ? W^ho told you
that the belief of this truth could do you no
good ? Whoever told you so, the Scriptures
did not. They say (whatever you think), that
whosoever believeth Jesus Christ to be the Son
of God, and the only Saviour, shall never
perish, but have eternal life : yea, they warrant
every one who cordially believes these facts
concerning Christ, to believe also that Christ
loved him^ and gave himself for him.

This meets your case, if you understood it :
but you are prepared to start objections which
will prove that you do not understand it clearly
yet. ** W^hy," you say, " if merely believing

UPON THE CONSCIENCE. 23

that Christ is the Son of God, and the only
Saviour, were enough to warrant me to regard
myself as a heliever, it would follow that I was
one even whilst I was careless ; for even then
I believed all this." Not exactly ; for you
could not have continued careless, if you had
really believed it all. However, if you will call
your former opinion of Christ believing ; it
was certainly not believing because God had
spoken : for it is evident from your own con-
fessions, that, whilst you were careless, you did
not examine the law or the Gospel. If, there-
fore, your opinions of the person and work of
Christ happened to be, upon the whole, scrip-
tural, they were so without your knowledge ;
for if you never sat down to form them by the
word of God, it is not owing to your care that
they were at all correct. Besides, you did not
believe what you did, on the Divine authority ;
but because others believed it. Be honest : you
just believed what you found current in the
world ; and would have believed what others
did, if it had been the very opposite of what
it is. TSow, however this falling in with

24 THE WORK OF THE LAW

public opinion may be called believing, it cer-
tainly is not believing God ; and therefore
ought not to be appealed to in reply to the
scriptural fact, that the cordial belief of the
Divine testimony concerning the person and
work of Christ, is saving faith.

Besides, that testimony is revealed, that it
may be believed for the salvation of the soul ;
and, for that purpose, you did not, you could not,
believe it, whilst you were careless. How could
you? Whilst you were without the law in
your conscience, your hopes were alive without
the Gospel. You felt in no danger of perish-
ing : you took for granted that you were sure
of salvation at last, by some means. Whatever,
therefore, you believed about Christ then, it
was not for salvation. Accordingly, you never
thought so, nor at all imagined that your opin-
ions about the Saviour had any connexion
with your supposed safety. What you relied
on then, was the good you were doing, or in-
tended to do ; and not any thing that Christ
had done. Indeed, even now you do not see
much beneficial connexion between believing

UPON THE CONSCIENCE. 25

and salvation ; — I mean, you are quite at a
loss to comprehend how the belief of the
Gospel can secure an interest in the salvation of
God. On all these accounts, therefore, it is
wrong, and can only increase your perplexity,
to call your former opinions about Christ, belief.
They were like your former opinions about the
law — too vague and superficial to affect your
heart.

But now, your belief of the Divine law will
enable you to understand what it is to believe
the Gospel aright, and to see how faith in Christ
brings both hope and holiness into the mind.
You know and feel that you how believe the law
of God : of that you have no doubt ; and you
are equally convinced that you neither believed
nor understood it, whilst you were careless. And
were any one to tell you now, that he had often
heard you call it a holy and just law, long before
you began to think seriously ; and were he to
argue from this that you believed it then, you
would say at once, " Ah ! these were mere words
of course ; for I never weighed their meaning : I
just called the law what others called it ; and if
3

26 THE WORK OF THE LAW

they understood what they said, I did not. If
ever I thought of its hohness, it did not convince
me that nothing short of perfect obedience could
meet its demands ; and whatever I thought of its
justice, I did not beheve that I was condemned
by it. Now, as this is the truth of God concern-
ing his law, it is self-evident that I did not be-
lieve, at that time. His testimony on the subject.
Indeed, such was my unbelief then, that I was
in reality ' without the law.' "

Thus you would reply, to any one who at-
tempted to confound your former professions
with your present belief of the law. Well ; it is
your present belief of it that creates your present
fear of perishing, and keeps up the conviction in
your mind that you cannot save yourself. Just
because you believe that the eternal law says
that you are " condemned already" for what you
have done against it, you are afraid ; and well
you may ! But now, the everlasting Gospel de-
clares as plainly what Christ has done to satisfy
the law, and to redeem sinners from its curse ;
and it is just as true that he died to redeem
sinners from its curse, as that you are under its

UPON THE CONSCIENCE. 27

curse. Seeing, therefore, you believe the truth
which condemns, why not believe the truth
which can save you 1 You need salvation —
you wish for it ; and would give worlds to
obtain eternal redemption from the curse :
well; it is offered and promised to you, if you
will believe in Christ for it ; for " it is of
faith, that it might be of grace."

No. II.

THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT ON THE HEART.

There is something so very grand and solemn
in the bare idea of being " taught " by the Holy
Spirit — " led " by Him — " quickened " by Him
— " born again " by Him ! — that we can hardly
wonder that we should feel both afraid and
unable, at first, to believe that any change for
the better, which we have experienced under the
Gospel, amounts to the work of the Spirit. For
to believe this, in our own case, would be to
admit that we are really converted to God, and
thus already the children of God, and heirs of
the kingdom of heaven. But some, although no
longer what they ivere in heart or habits, are not
prepared to draw this conclusion in their own
case. Indeed, it is not at once, nor is it often

THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT, &C. 29

soon, that any one admits " the full assurance of
hope " in his own case. It more frequently hap-
pens that those who are most renewed in the
spirit of their mind, are most afraid to regard
themselves as " born again." It is with the
serious, in regard to the regeneration of their
souls, as with parents, in regard to the recovery
of an only child from a dangerous illness : the
physician may pronounce it out of danger, and
the symptoms of convalescence may be self-
evident to every one but them ; and they may not
actually dispute the general opinion ; but having
again and again given up their darling, and felt
sure that it could not recover, they are afraid of
flattering themselves, and ' slow of heart' to be-
lieve that any signs, however good, are proofs
of safety. So it is with those of us who are
feelingly alive to the value of our souls, and in-
tent on their salvation : they may be really " pas-
sing from death to life ;" but we are so afraid of
that " death," and so affected by that " life," that
we can hardly believe it possible that our souls can
escape the former, or obtain the latter. It seems
too good news to be true — too bright a hope to

be admitted in our own case. Even when we
3*

30 THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT

try to admit it, or venture to whisper to our-
selves, that surely a Divine change is taking
place within us, the thought creates such a
flow of feeling, and flutter of spirits, that we
know not what to think : and, being equally
afraid of presuming or despairing, we come to
no final determination ; but wait to see how
the good work will go on.

Now, it is well to be cautious upon such a
question as " the renewing of the Holy Ghost^''^
for all changes of feeling are not Divine changes.
Indeed, there is but too much reason to fear that
many conclude too hastily in their own favor,
and mistake conviction for conversion. But whilst
this melancholy fact should teach us prudence, it
should not be allowed to divert us from the ques-
tion of our own regeneration : that point can be
ascertained and settled upon scriptural grounds ;
and therefore it ought no more to be hushed up,
than to be hurried over. We are " born again,"
or we are not ; and, as uncertainty on the point
can do no good, it is both our duty and interest
to bring the matter to an issue.

Perhaps the best way of doing this is, to re-
consider the necessity of experiencing the work

ON THE HEART. 81

of the Spirit, in order that we may see clearly the
consequences of being without the Spirit. " Now,
if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is
none of his." JVo/ieq/Zii*/ Solemn fact ! None
of His ! Whose, then, is he who has not the
Spirit 1 The law says, " He is my prisoner, and
under the curse, whether he believe it or not."
Satan says, " He is my victim, whether he feel
it or not." The world says, " He is my slave,
whether he own it or not." Dreadful condition !
If I am not Christ's, I am under the curse of the
Eternal law, and in the power of Satan ! And I
am not Christ's, if I am a strange}^ to the work
of the Spirit.

The moment we reflect thus, we feel that the
question, " Have ye received the Holy Ghost ?"
is one which should not be left unsettled from
year to year, nor even from month to month.
Let us, therefore, put it to ourselves, now, and
in connexion with the solemn assurance that we
are not Christ's, if we have not experienced
something of the work of his Spirit. And if, in
this awful connexion, there is some danger of
admitting almost any thing to be " the fruits of
the Spirit," rather than admit that we are in the

32 THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT

power of satan, let us pray earnestly that we may
not be tempted to self-deception : but, at the
same time, let not that danger prevent nor in-
timidate us from going into the question ; for,
although a solemn one, it is also a simple one,
if it be kept close to the word of God, and not
mixed up with the extravagant or extraneous
things, which the fancy of some, and the phi-
losophy of others, have heaped around the
work of the Holy Spirit.

JVow, one thing equally simple and certain is,
that the office of the Holy Spirit is to glorify the
Saviour — to exalt and endear him in our estima-
tion. And whatever be the nature oi; the degree
of the Spirit's operations in the mind, the design
of them is to render Christ " precious" to the
soul. If, therefore, the Saviour is become alto-
gether lovely in our estimation, and his atone-
ment altogether dear to us — dear, because of its
glory, fulness, freeness, and holy influence — we
are not altogether strangers to the work of the
Spirit. Nor, if the Saviour is all and all, in all
the hope we cherish, is it of any real consequence
whether or not the u-aij in which he became so
to our souls, is the same by which others ha^ e

ON THE HEART. 33

been led to love him and rely on him. The
real question is not, Hoio was I brought to the
Saviour ? but, am I brought to him for pardon
and sanctitication ? Some have been brought
suddenly and others gradually, to the Cross for
refuge ; some have been driven to it by the
terrors of the law, and others drawn by the ten-
derness of the Lord ; some were brought very
early in life, and others very late : but as they
are all brought to rely on Christ for a holy sal-
vation, the difference of the time and manner of
bringing them does not affect their safety. Nei-
ther the time nor the manner of bringing sinners
to Christ, but their being broiifiht to Christ, is
the cause of their salvation. Paul's conversion
was sudden and miraculous; Timothy's was gra-
dual, and the effect of an early religious educa-
tion : but Timothy was as safe as Paul, when like
Paul, he laid hold on Christ for eternal life. And
if the heart of the Philippian jailor, instead of
being as it were torn open by terror, had been
" opened" as the heart of Lydia was, gently as a
rose-bud is unfolded by the sun, the jailor would
have found the same welcome at the Cross which
she did. In like manner, had Lydia been plunged

34 THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT

into despair, as he was at first, it would have
availed her nothing, if she had not, like him,
fled to Christ. It was, therefore, not that in
which their experience dijferedy but that in
which it agreed — their reliance on Christ alone,
which secured their welcome and safety. Paul
understood this ; and, accordingly, he did not
reckon Lydia nor Timothy less truly converted
to God, than the jailor or himself; nor did they
themselves doubt their own conversion, because
the manner of it differed from his. In common
with all saints, they were glorying only in the
Cross of Christ ; and as they knew that to be the
only refuge, and a certain refuge to all who fled
to it, they ke pt to it without any reference to
the way in which others were brought to it.

Now, as there was such a marked and im-
mense difference in the manner of their conver-
sion, similar differences may be expected still ;
and, as in their case, without at all invalidating
the reality of the conversion itself. For, in our
case also, the real question of experience on this
point is-Is Christ become all my salvation ? and
not. Have I felt all the alarm and horror of soul
which some have experienced ? For, if I have

ON THE HEART. 35

felt that, whatever it was, which has led me to
commit my soul to Christ for salvation, I could
have done nothing more than this, whatever I
had felt. They have done nothing more, who
have suffered most : and although, of course, the
terrors of conscience led them to commit their
souls into the hands of Christ with more prompt-
ness and solemnity than I did ; still, if I did it
with sincerity, my welcome was equally sure :
for, after all, it is the sincerity of faith in Him,
and not the strength of feeling, which ensures a
welcome ; and what has been done deliberately,
is quite as likely to be sincere as what is done
under alarm. In both cases, it is the sincerity
of the application to Christ, which constitutes
it faith in him.

But some are ready to say, " Alas ! I am not
sure that I was sincere in committing my soul to
Christ for salvation." Now, certainly, if you are
not sure of your own sincerity, no one else can
prove it to you. The utmost that any one can
do to help you on this point, is to show you what
sincerity is : and really that seems unnecessary.
For if you did not intend to be insincere when
you applied to the Saviour, and if you do not

36 THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT

wish to be insincere, nor design to be so, why
should you suspect your sincerity 1 No one can
be a hypocrite, or a pretender, without design-
ing to be so : and therefore, most certainly you
are not so, if you dislike to be so.

Thus far I have confined your attention to the
first saving result of the work of the Holy Spirit
on the mind, — which is to render the Saviour
♦' precious" in our esteem. Lest, however, this
view of his work should be too gen^ralj let us
examine the Saviour's own account of the mat-
ter. Now, when he gave a detailed account of
the work of the Spirit, he said.

First, " He shall convince the world of sin :
of sin, because they believe'not on me." Well,
what do you think of unbelief 1 what is your
opinion of it 1 — I do not mean, of its abstract
nature ; nor do 1 refer to Infidelity, or its twin
" wandering star," Unitarianism ; but to the
practical unbelief which we manifested whilst
we were careless or heartless in religion. Now,
what do you think of the time when you lived as
if there had been no Saviour, or as if you had
been in no want of a Saviour ? That was unbe-
lief! What do you think of the temper which

ON THE HEART. 37

inclined you to care nothing about an interest in
Christ, and kept you from considering your
need of it ? That v/as unbehef ! What do you
think of those habits and pursuits which were
allowed to banish all serious concern about the
salvation of your soul ? What is your present
opinion and feeling, in regard to all this un-
believing treatment of the Saviour ] Should you
hke to renew it, and to return to your old state
of mind 1 No ! you are as much shocked at the
idea of going back to such feelings and habits,
as you are ashamed of having ever felt and acted
such a part. Your long and base neglect of the
Lamb of God pains and humbles you whenever
you think of it ; — it was so unreasonable, un-
wise, and unkind ! You both wonder and weep
that you could have lived as if Emmanuel had
never died ! This sin sits heavier at times, on
your conscience, than any other ; and makes
you feel and confess that the Saviour might
justly reject you.

Well, if this be your experience on the subject
of unbelief, what is all this but conviction of the
"sin" of unbelief; and that, too, by the work
of the Holy Spirit ] For what else could have

38 THE UOUK OF THE SPIRIT

brought you to judge and feel thus ? The seeds
of these proper sentiments and feehngs were not
born with you : they must therefore have been
soim in your hearts ; and, as the hand of nature
never contained them, they must have been sown
by the hand of the Spirit. For, as Satan would
not have led you into this new state of mind,
and as the world could not, and you did not lead
yourself into it, it must be from God. Yes, from
God, — however unable you may be to trace its
connexion with likely means. The means,
whatever they were, were but means ; and have
not produced the same eflect upon all who were
under the same means as yourself. Besides, if
this change in your views and feelings be not, at
least, the beginning of a Divine change, what
would be so? It is self evident, that no change
would be saving, which did not include shame
and sorroiv for having neglected the Saviour.
Not to bo convinced of the sin of unbelief,
would falsify any and all other appearances of
regeneration. If, therefore, you have experi-
enced that, without which all other experience
would be useless, it is certain that you are not
altogether without the Spirit.

ON THE HEART. 39

Nor is this all. You may not have observed
it, but, on examination, you will find that all
your most solid and solemn convictions of the
evil and demerit of sin in general, have been
formed or contirmed by what the Spirit has
shown you of the Saviour. For it is with the
disease of the soul, as with some of the diseases
of the body, — it is the remed^j which discovers
its real nature and extent. A man may feel
rather unwell, and yet not be alarmed by his
symptoms ; but if a judicious physician prescribe
after examining them, a remedy which is known
to be resorted to only in desperate cases, it is the
remedy, not the symptoms, as the patient judged
of them, that opens his eyes to his danger. He
thought himself ill enough to require something;
but when he found that the last resource of me-
dical skill was the only thing which could save
his life, then his disorder appeared to him in a
new light, and awoke all his fears. Now, so it is
with the soul : it is the remedy for the guilt and
defilement of sin, which shows the evil and dan-
ger of sin. We may have a general conviction of
both, by observing how God abhors sin, and

40 THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT

threatens to punish it ; and we may see, with
some clearness and alarm, that we are in some
danger from our sins ; and we may feel per-
suaded thai it is necessary to try something to
prevent sin from being our ruin : but it is not
until we see that " the blood of ChrisV^ is the
only remedy, that we either understand or feel
aright the evil of sin. It is, therefore, chiefly
and emphatically by presenting the Lamb slain
to the mind, that the Holy Spirit effectually con-
vinces of sin. And this is conviction! For,
what a sight it gives us of our case and character!
Yes ; of our case, even if our character stand
high by comparison. For, as there is only one
Saviour, and he the incarnate Son of God ; and
only one way of salvation, and it by faith in the
blood of that Son ; what must sin be, seeing
that none but Emmanuel could atone for it, and
he only by dying for it ! Whatever, therefore,
I may think of my character, my case is this, —
as a sinner, there is nothing between me and
hell but the blood of Christ. I may not have
done so much evil as some ; but as there is no
pardon for any sin but through the Cross, I

ON THE HEART. 41

must be lost, in common with the chief of
sinners, unless I obtain ihe remission of my
sins through his blood.

This solemn consideration sends through
all the soul the solemn conviction, that sin is
an evil which we neither understand clearly
nor feel deeply, until we really beheve the
divine testimony concerning the person and
iPorA: of Christ. Whilst we did not believe on
him, that we might be justified by him, our
views of the evil and danger of sin were slight
and partial ; but now that we feel that we
must look to the Lamb slain for all our salva-
tion, or perish for ever, we cannot think lightly
of sin. Well, what is this conviction of sin,
but the work of the Holy Spirit in the mind ?
Yes ! the first work which he is appointed to
by the constitution of the covenant ! And yet,
even this conviction of sin some are discouraged
by, and actually interpret it into a token of
Divine anger, although it be in itself a token of
Divine love, a first-fruit of the Spirit, and a
mark of saving faith too : for no one could
think thus of sin, who did not believe Christ
to 6e, and to have doney what God testifies.
4*

42 THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT

But I will not hurry on this conclusion too
fast. It is desirable to meet distinctly the case
of those who, by a strange mistake, imagine that
their anguish of soul, on account of sin, is
inflicted upon them in anger, and arises from
God having left them to suffer the consequen-
ces of sin. Some have even regarded this an-
guish as a foretaste of hell on earth. But
consider, — was it in anger that God let loose
upon the Jews, at Pentecost, all the stings of
conscience, until they were *' cut to the heart ;"
literally " sawn asunder V Was it intended
as a forerunner of " the worm that dieth not,"
when the arrows of the Almighty drank up
their spirits ? No ! they, perhaps, thought so
for a time, and during all that part of Peter's
sermon which was like the thunder, the earth-
quake, and the whirlwind at Horeb ; but when
" the small still voice" of mercy, through the
blood of the Saviour whom they had murdered,
broke like the music of heaven on their ears,
— then they saw, that God wounded only that
he might effectually heal them ; and cast them
down that he might lift them up, for ever.
Now, why should it not be so in the case of

ON THE HEART. 43

those who, Hke them, have been, as it were,
" sawn asunder" by self condemnation ? You
are not guiltier than the murderers of the
Lord of glory ; and therefore, although that fact
gives you no claim upon mercy, it proves that
your guilt, Vvhatever it is, is not beyond the
reach of mercy. Indeed, God could have done
nothing better for you, than thus to convict
you of sin : for, is it not an answer to your own
prayers ] You have prayed that he would make
you sensible of your need of a Saviour, and
empty you of self dependence : and, therefore,
whatever you meant by this, your convictions of
sin form the best answer to your supplications.
" The whole " know not " their need of a phy-
sician ;" and, as God has made you to feel your
sickness, the fair interpretation is, that he desires
and designs to heal you. Do not, therefore,
recklessly or rashly conclude that you are given
up, because you are thus given over, for a time,
to the terrors of the law, and the stings of
conscience. God is thus, for any thing you
know to the contrary, bringing you, " through
fire and water, to a wealthy place."

Having thus seen that the first work of the

44 THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT

Spirit is to convince of sin, and that the expe-
rience we have just reviewed is conviction of
sin ; let us now observe the second part of the
work of the Spirit, and examine what you have
felt of it. " He shall convince of righteousness,
because I go to my Father.'''' At the first sight
of these words, you may be ready to say, " I am
sure that I have experienced nothing of this ;
for I do not know even what it means.'''' Per-
haps not ; and yet you may be familiar with
the sentiment itself, although this mode of ex-
pressing it be mysterious to you. In fact, you
must not be startled by words : for, as you
have only begun to acquaint yourself with the
Scriptures, it is only what might be expected,
if you meet with expressions which are not, at
once, plain to you. They are, however, quite
plain to those who have considered them longer ;
and the meaning of this one is not unknown
to you, if you understand any thing of the
Gospel. Accordingly, I am not at all afraid of
really discouraging or perplexing you, when I
affirm, that if you are not convinced of " right-
eousness," you " have not the Spirit of
Christ ;" for, are you not fully convinced that

ON THE HEART. 45

Christ could not have gone back to the Father,
if his obedience and death had not wrought out
and brought in an " everlasting righteousness 1"
You are persuaded and sure that God would not
have raised him from the dead, nor exalted him
to the throne, if he had failed to satisfy law or
justice. You therefore regard the resurrection
and ascension of the Saviour as iwoofs of the
perfection and acceptance of his atonement.
Accordingly, were any one to insinuate that he
had not magnified the law and satisfied the
justice of God, you would appeal with triumph
to the fact, that he is now in the midst of the
throne, as a Lamb that had been slain : and
say, that he could not be there, if he had not
*' finished" his mediatorial work here. Well,
this is the real and full meaning of the ex-
pression, " of righteousness, because I go to
my Father." The Saviour's return to the
bosom of the Father demonstrates that both
his person and works were really what he had
declared them to be, divine and atoning.
Besides, you are persuaded in your inmost
soul that nothing but the righteousness of
Christ can justify you before God ; and that

46 THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT, &C.

it can do so: and accordingly you have
adopted the sentiment of Paul, and "count
all things but loss, that you may be found
not in your own righteousness, but in the
righteousness" of Christ. Well, this was a
proof in Paul's case, that he was convinced
" of righteousness" by the Spirit : why then
should not a similar sentiment prove the same
fact in your case 1 Paul may have understood
it better, and felt it more deeply, than you do
at present ; but if it has withdrawn all your
confidence from your own righteousness, and
convinced you that nothing can save you but
the righteousness of Christ, this is the sub-
stance of Paul's experience on the subject.

No. III.

THE WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT.

It is as true, that if any man have the Spirit
of* Christ, he is Christ's, as that "if any man
have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his :"
"for as many as are led by the Spirit of God,
they are the sons of God ;" — " and if children
then heirs ; heirs of God, and joint heirs with
Christ." It is therefore the duty of all who
have been " led by the Spirit," to believe this
in their oian case, because they are warranted
and welcomed to do so, and cannot until they
believe it in their own case, experience " the
witness," or " the seal" of the Spirit. Indeed
"the fruits of the Spirit" will be both few and
imperfect until it is believed.

Accordingly, many who can hardly doubt that
they have experienced something of the work of
the Spirit on their minds, are afraid to regard it
as that " good work" which he will " carry on;"
because they do not feel the witness of the Spirit,
nor the joy of the Holy Ghost. Hence the ques-
tion wliich they put to themselves so often—-

48 THE WITNESS

" How can I think that what I have experi-
enced is the saving work of the Spirit, seeing
that I feel nothing of the witness, the seal, or the
earnest of the Spirit? The fruit of the Spirit is
joy and peace, as well as * temperance and good-
ness ;^ and as I have no joy, and but little peace,
is it not likely that all the change which 1 have
undergone is merely the effect of the common
operations of the Spirit, instead of being the
effect of his special influences ?' Thus many
of the truly serious argue in their own case.

In order to clear up this matter, the first thing
to be settled is, evidently, whether the change of
views, feelings, and habits, which you have ex-
perienced is a divine change. Now it must be
either divine or human. But if you, as a self-
condemned and perishing sinner, are looking to
Christ alone for a holy salvation ; if you are
willing and desirous to be an entire and eter-
nal debtor to Him, and to be made like Him
in heart and character, this change from your
former state of mind cannot be a human change,
because no human means could produce it. No-
thing human ever brought any soul to feel that
tiicre was nothing between it and perishing, but
the blood of Christ. All the tendencies of nature

OF THE SPIRIT. 49

are against this conviction. Wherever, there-
fore, it is the conviction of the mind, it is the
sj ccial work of the Holy Spirit. Now, if this
be the change of mind which jou have under-
gone, it is, unquestionably, a divine change ;
and, as unquestionably, it is yonv'jiubj to be-
lieve it to be so. You may say, " I am afraid
to conclude that I have been led by the Spirit ;"
but if you are come to the word of God forj
counsel — to the mercy-seat for grace — and to
the Cross for all your salvation from sin and
hell, — none but the Holy Spirit could have led
you there. Those are'the grand points to which
he leads all whom he quickens. This is the
very way in which he glorifies the Saviour.
Settle it, therefore, in your minds, from this
moment, that your reliance on the Lamb slain
for a holy salvation, is absolute p'oo/ of having
been " led" by the Holy Spirit. Or, if you
still hesitate to admit this in your own case,
do ask yourself, and fairly answer the question,
Would any thing be proof icitJiotd these sen-
timents and feelings ? Do you not see that
nothing would amount to a saving change, if
this holy reliance on the Saviour were not in
5

60 THE WITNESS

it ? It is evidently the chief thing in regene-
ration.

Now, if you can neither deny nor doubt that
you have been thus led by the Spirit of God,
from the love of sin to the love of salvation, it
is your immediate duty, as well as privilege, to
believe that you are Christ's, and a child of
God by Jesus Christ. But here again you fty
off from the scriptural conclusion in your own
case, and say, 1 do not feel myself to be Christ's ;
I do not feel myself to be a child of God."
But, consider ; how can you feel yourself to
be so, while you do not believe that you are so 1
It is irrational to expect that you could feel
what you disbelieve. The feeling of sonship
must spring from the belief of your own son-
ship. No man can have the Spirit of adop-
tion, so as to be fully aware of having it, until
he believe that he is adopted. Accordingly,
it is because believers are sons, that God sends
forth the Spirit of his Son into their hearts,
" crying, Abba Father." This seal of the
Spirit, like ihe pentecostal gifts of the Spirit,
may not be given at once : it may be delayed
much longer than the full inspiration of the

OF THE SPIRIT. 61

Apostles was ; but the Spirit of adoption will
be sent forth, and, whenever it is so, it will
be by enabling believers to believe that they
" are all the children of God by faith in Christ
Jesus."

You may not have observed hitherto, that
this is the scriptural way of leading believers
into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.
Indeed, many seem to look for it in another
way, and to expect something like a revelation
of their own adoption and sonship. They do
not see, from the Scriptures, that they are the
children of God by faith ; and, therefore, they
take for granted that their knowledge of their
own sonship must come from another quarter
— even from the direct witness of the Spirit
with their spirits, that they are born of God.
Accordingly, for this direct witness, they are
praying, and waiting, and hoping. Thus many
have been judging and acting for years. They
know that until they are the children of God,
they are not "heirs of God," nor "joint heirs
with Christ ;" and, as might be expected, they
are often cast down because they obtain no
clear sense of their own sonship. The witness
which they look for, and pray for, does not

62 *rHS WITNESS

come ; and therefore they imagine that it is
withheld in sovereignty, or kept back until
they shall acquire more of the marks of adop-
tion. And, as they see in themselves many
causes why God should not answer their
prayers for the witness of the Spirit, they try
to be content without it for a time.

Now it is no mistake, that the Holy Spirit
will not witness to the sonship of any child of
God, who is living in the indulgence of any
known sin ; it is no mistake, that the witness
of the Spirit is only given in answer to frayer :
it is no mistake, that there is a direct witness
of the Spirit. " These are the true sayings
of God!"

But still there is a mistake ; and it lies in
supposing that the direct witness of the Spirit
is something different from the direct witness
of the Word. It is also a mistake to suppose,
that the Holy Spirit either will or can witness
to our sonship, before our cum spirit witness
to our having really believed on Christ for sal-
vation. Neither the Spirit of God, nor the
Word of God, bears any witness to our adop-
tion, until our own spirit is conscious of faith
in Christ.

OF THE SPIRIT. 53

It is by leaving the question of personal faith
unsettled, that so many both miss and mistake
the witness of the Spirit. They allow it to re-
main doubtful to themselves, or are afraid lo
decide, whether their own believing in Christ is
saving [iiith or not. They wish it to be so — pray
that it may be so — and cherish a faint hope that
it may prove to be so in the end ; but at present,
they do not venture to regard their own believing
as real faith. Their own spirit does not bear them
witness that it is so. Now, while this continues
to be the case, they must search their own hearts
in vain for that witness, or for the peculiar fruits
of the Spirit ; for these are peculiar to believers.
Until, therefore, your own spirit witness that
you are a believer, the Spirit of God will not,
cannot, witness that you are a child of God ; you
must not, therefore, shrink from going fully into
the question of your own faith. It is, indeed, a
solemn one, and not easily settled, owing to the
many controversies which exist on the subject
of faith ; but still it may be settled, and there-
fore it should not be left unsettled, especially
as you can make no progress towards joy or
peace, until you know yourself to be a believer
5*

54 THE WITNESS

in the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us, therefore,
go into the question calmly and seriously.

Now your own spirit, although it does not
bear you witness that you are really a believer,
witnesses something on the subject of salvation
by the blood of Christ. It bears you witness that
you are no longer indifferent about this way of
salvation, nor seeking to, be saved in any other
way. It is even the persuasion of your spirit
that there is no other way. You feel also in
your inmost soul, that unless you obtain an in-
terest in Christ, you must perish ; and whatev-
er you may think of his willingness to save you,
your whole spirit is fully persuaded that Jesus
is able to save you. So far your own spirit wit-
nesses without hesitation or reserve. Well ;
so far you are evidently not an unbeliever. All
this is not all the truth concerning either the
person or the work of Christ ; but it is some of
it. It is, at least, the hearty belief of this part
of the Gospel — that there is no other name giv-
en under heaven, whereby we can be saved, but
the name of Jesus. It is also the hearty belief,
that Jesus is able to save unto the uttermost,
all that come unto him. It is also the hearty

OF THE SPIRIT. 65

belief, that by the works of the law, no flesh
living can be justified. All these things are the
living and settled convictions of your mind, as
well as the express words of God ; and, know-
ing that you did not always believe these things
fully, you are almost persuaded that your
strong conviction of their truth is from the work
of the Holy Spirit on the mind.

You do, then, accede to all this, as being the
witness of your own spirit? Well ; that witness
is proo/ that, thus far, you are not an unbeliever.
Let this, then, be a settled point. And now,
carry the inquiry farther into the witness of
your own spirit. Does your mind or con-
science charge you with disbtlieving any part
of the divine testimony concerning the person
or the work of Christ ? The substance of that
testimony is, that Christ is God manifested in
the flesh, as a sacrifice for sin. Now, if you
disbelieve this, it is a matter of no consequence
what else you believe. It is not, however,
disbelief of it, to be unable to comprehend it
fully. It is the great mystery of godliness, and
therefore faith has to do with the fact, not with
the nature of the union of divinity and huma-
nity, in the person of the Saviour. What, then,

66 THE WITNESS

is the witness of your spirit to this fact ; if you
are conscious that you believe it, on the autho-
rity of God, to be the fact, thus far also you are
evidently not an unbeliever ; for what more
could you, or indeed any one, do with it, than
believe it to be the truth of God ? Perhaps you
are ready to say, that you never doubted the
divinity or the atonement of the Saviour ; and
that, as you believe no more now than what you
did while you were careless, you cannot reckon
your present believing real faith. Well ; what
do you reckon it ? Unbelief ? It certainly is
not that, if words have any meaning. It may
be weak faith, but it cannot be unbelief, if it
embrace the truths which you say it does. And
as to your having believed while careless, all
that you do now, it is unreasonable and unwise
to think so for a moment. It was not believing
with the heart, nor for the purpose for which the
Son of Godbecame incarnate, and was crucified ;
and therefore it was the worst kind of unbelief.
Whereas, if you now rest all your hope of sal-
vation upon the atonement, because you believe
that the divinity of Christ rendered his death
a glorious atonement ; this is faith. Words
have no meaning, if this be not faith. You

OF THE SPIRIT. 57

might as well call light darkness, as con-
sider this unbelief. You are not an unbeliever,
if your spirit bear you witness that you embrace
whatever God has testified concerning the
person and work of his Son.

You are now, if you regard this grand point
as settled in your own case, in the direct way
to obtain the witness of the Spirit to your own
adoption. And the first thing you want in
order to this is, to be enabled to see and believe
the connexion there is between faith in Christ,
and your being a child of God. Now, faith
and sonship are inseparably connected in the
word of God. Hence the express declaration
concerning Christ and believers : " Unto as
many as received him, gave he power to become
the sons of God ; even to them that believe on
his name :" that is, they are empowered, or
warranted, to regard themselves as the chil-
dren of God. Accordingly, when Paul found
the Galatian believers doubting, or misunder-
standing this warrant, hs said, " Ye are all
the children of God, by faith in Christ Jesus."

Now, it is to the truth of this gracious con-
nexion between faith and sonship, that the Holy
Spirit witnesses; and the chief part of his wit-

53 THE WITNESS

ness is, to show that it is true in our own case.
Indeed, the tuhole of his witness consists in
fining, affecting and influencing our spirit with
the sweet persuasion, that it is " the truth of
God," that we are warranted to beheve our-
selves the children of God, because all our faith
is in the Son of God. This persuasion may vary,
from time to time, in its fulness, clearness, and
sweetness ; but, even when strongest, its true
glory is, that it is true that we are the children
of God by faith. The witness of the Spirit is
not, therefore, different from what the word of
God witnesses on this point ; but the same. He
shows nothing to our spirit but just what God
has said in the Scriptures, and bears nothing
in on the mind but just what is " written."
His witness comes, indeed, with a power and
glory at times, which makes the written truth
appear newly revealed truth, or something
which the believer had never heard, read, or
thought of before ! The new force given to
the old truth is sometimes such, that even
wise and good men have almost forgotten, at
the moment, the Word of God, and thought
only of the direct witness of the Spirit with
their spirits. And, in such cases, there was

OF THE SPIRIT. 59

a direct witness : all the melting, cheering, and
holy influence of the Word on their minds, was
the effect of divine infljence ; but still it was
divine influence, working by the divine word, or
the Spirit showing clearly and powerfully what
had been overlooked or misunderstood before.
No neiu truth, but the glorij of the old, was
brought home with demonstration and power ;
for even when the witness of the Holy Spirit
goes farthest in sweetness and glory, it does
not go one hair's breadth beyond, or away from,
what is already revealed in the Holy Scriptures.
And it is self-evident that nothing more can
be wanted, either for comfort or establishment.
What more could you wish, than to know
that you are, what you desire to be — a child
of God? If, therefore, that be already re-
vealed in the Scriptures, the first thing you
really need, in this matter, is an increase of
faith to believe the fact. Now, it is express'y
revealed, that " As many as are led by the
Spirit of God, they are the sons of God ;" and
that as many as " receive" Christ, or believe
on him, are empowered to believe also that
they are " become the sons of God." When-
ever, therefore, you understand and believe

60 THE WITNESS

this, in your own case, you will have the wit-
ness of the Spirit ; for this is the truth of
God ; and it is to " the truth," that the Spirit
witnesses. " But" you are ready to say, " if
the sonship or adoption of believers is revealed
already in the Scriptures, what need is there
for another witness to it? If I can learn,
from the Word of God, that I am a child of
God, is not the witness of the Spirit unneces-
sary ?" Now, in your case, it is evidently very
necessary ; for you have not learned, hitherto,
that your "faith hath saved you." You
hardly believe this now. You are, perhaps,
not yet sure that your believing on Christ is
saving faith. There is still a mist around the
whole subject, as regards yourself. It is,
indeed, breaking upon you, and brightening
up here and there ; but you are almost as much
afraid of the light as you are of the darkness.
How can you, then, suspect that the testimony
of the Word should set aside the witness of
the Spirit ? You have often heard and read
the written testimony of God, that believers
are all his children by faith ; but hitherto, you
have not ventured to believe this fact in your
own case, and can hardly venture to do so now.

OF THE SPIRIT. 61

It is therefore self-evident that instead of doing
away with, or lessening the need of the Spirit's
witness, the necessity of it is demonstrated by
the very difficulty which you feel in trying to
believe this part of the Gospel for yourself.
Never, perhaps, did you feel more deeply than
at this moment, your own need of being led
by the Spirit into all truth.

" True," you say, " but surely the witness
of the Spirit is something more spiritual than
all this : I have always thought that it consisted
in a peculiar divine impression, on the mind,
or a peculiar manifestation to the soul." Well,
is it not a divine impression, and manifesta-
tion too, when the mind feels persuaded of the
worth and all sufficiency of the Saviour ; and
of the truth of the great scriptural fact, that
salvation is by faith alone, that it may be of
grace entirely 1 The natural impression is,
that salvation is by works alone, or by the
fruits of faith, rather than by faith itself. If,
therefore, you think lightly of feeling persuaded
that you must be saved by faith, or perish,
you underrate the value of your own con-
victions : for this conviction, if connected
6

62 THE WITNESS, &C.

with love to holiness, is the best part and proof
of the work of the Holy Spirit on your mind ;
and, in fact, is the beginning of his witness
too.

But still you are not satisfied on this point :
but feel almost sure that the witness of the
Spirit must be a more peculiar impression, or
manifestation, than grace to believe all the
truth. Well : an impression of what ? A
manifestation of lohat ? There is nothing to
impress or manifest but revealed truth ; and
as that is revealed which you want to know,
the only thing you require, in order to enjoy
the comfort of it, is grace to understand and
believe it for yourself. For do you not see
that any impression of what is not revealed
could never be rehed on, because it could
never be proved to be a divine impression ?
The manifestation of any thing to the soul,
different from, or additional to, the Word of
God, could, indeed, come only from a wicked
spirit. It is, therefore, evidently ivrong to
look for any divine witness, but what the
Spirit of God bears to the truth of the divine
word, and its correspondent influence on our
heaits and habits.

No. IV.

THE SPECIAL FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT.

" The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness.^^
It does not, however, follow from this, that all
goodness is "the fruit of the Spirit." AW real
goodness of heart and character is so, of
course ; but there is much apparent and com-
parative goodness, which is merely the fruit of
education and self-righteousness. Hence the
importance of distinguishing between the fruits
of the Spirit and the fruits of nature ; for these
like some of the fruits of the earth, are occa-
sionally similar in appearance, whilst, in
reality, they are as different as food and poison.
Comparatively, there are many who are good
neighbors, good parents, and good children :
but their goodness, in these social relations,
flows from no love to God, nor from any regard

64 THE SPECIAL FRUITS

to the Holy Spirit. Accordingly, they do not
pretend to be influenced by the Spirit or Word
of God in the goodness which they cultivate ;
it is merely their icmj — their rule — their family
system of acting. This is both the history and
mystery of all their comparative goodness.

Now, whatever such goodness be, it certainly
is not religion ; for God is not made its author
nor its end. It is not derived from his grace,
nor directed to his glory ; and, therefore, can-
not be satisfactory to him, however beneficial
it may be to society. No wonder : we our-
selves would not be satisfied with any goodness
in our children, if it were unconnected with love
to ourselves as their parents. Did they neglect,
avoid, and forget us, we should regard them as
bad children however good they were to others,
and in other respects. And nothing ought to be
held real goodness in a child, when filial love
and gratitude are wanting. Much more, there-
fore, may God, so far as it regards himself, dis-
own all moral goodness which begins, and goes
on, without either love or gratitude to himself.

Nor is this all. There is also a kind of love
and gratitude to God, which does not mend the

OF THE SPIRIT. 65

matter very much. I mean, when they refer
to Him chiefly as the God o[ providence. Many
mistake for rehgioiis principle, the pleasure
they feel in their worldly lot. They have suc-
ceeded in business beyond their own expecta-
tions, and better than many who had moie to
begin with. Providence has smiled on their
industry, and kept watch and ward over their
interests. Accordingly, they see, and feel, and
confess, that God has been very good to them.
On this ground, they feel it to be their duty
to cultivate some goodness, and to do some
good, in grateful return for the divine goodness
to themselves. Now, perhaps, no natural
goodness approaches so near to " the fruit of
the Spirit," as this. It is amiable, considerate,
and highly consistent with a sense of moral
obligation. But after all, it is often no better
than self-righteousness, and sometimes it is
mere ostentation : and even when it is none
of these, it may not be the fruit of the Spirit.
Accordingly, many who go all this length in
goodness, do not even pretend that they are
in the least influenced by the Holy Spirit in
any good they do. The utmost they say or
6*

66 THE SPECIAL FRUITS

think is, " We bless God that we have a heait
to do what little good we can in the world."
Here the matter begins and ends. They have
no heart for prayer; no deep sense of their
lost condition as sinners ; no clear under-
standing of the way of salvation by the blood
of Christ ; no settled persuasion of their own
need of a "new heart ;" and, therefore, neither
their general goodness nor gratitude is " the
fruit of the Spirit." For the first fruits of the
Spirit are convictions of sin and righteousness ;
or, the drawing away of the soul from sin and
self-dependence, to take up with the Cross and
holiness. Accordingly, where there is no soli-
citude to be saved by the blood of the Lamb,
there is none of that morality which is the fruit
of the Spirit.

The truth of these distinctions is both illus-
trated and confirmed by the order in which
the fruits of the Spirit are classed in the Word
of God. " Love, joy, peace," are placed first
in the catalogue ; and the moral virtues next.
Not that " long-suffering, gentleness, good-
ness, fidelity, meekness, temperance," are less
the fruit of the Spirit than *' love, joy, peace ;"
nor because they are less necessary ; but be-

OF THE SPIRIT. 67

cause the moral virtues may be imitated with-
out the Spirit, whereas the spiritual graces
cannot. Any man may force himself to be
temperate ; but no man can force himself to
love God or the Lamb. A man may be con-
stitutionally meek and gentle ; but no man
loves God, nor rejoices in God, nor has peace
with God, naturally. Accordingly, many of
the truly serious, who are cultivating all the
moral virtues, and who excel in some of them,
regard themselves as almost strangers to both
the work and witness of the Spirit, because
they feel so little love, joy, or peace, in believing.
They see, in the case of the primitive believers,
that faith wrought by love, and produced joy
and peace ; and as their own believing does
not work in this way, they dare not regard it
as that faith which is from the operation of the
Holy Ghost. This, however, is a grand mis-
take if all their reliance is on Christ for a holy
salvation. That is, " the faith of God's elect:"
and the only reason why it does not lead to
"love, joy, peace," is, that such persons do
not understand that their " faith hath saved
them :" for if they understood and believed
that it had saved them, they could not be long

68 THE SPECIAL FRUITS

strangers to love, joy, or peace. And even as
it is with them, they are not utter strangers,
nor so much strangers to these fruits of the
Spirit, as they themselves suspect and say.

I appeal to you who have applied to Christ
for a holy salvation, and are relying on Him
alone for eternal life : you say, that you feel
little or no love to God and the Lamb. Do
you mean by that, that you feel more hatred
than love to them ] No : you are not con-
scious of any hatred to them. The bare idea
of such a thing shocks you. Well, is there no
love in this feeling ? You are ready to say —
"the absence of all hatred does not imply
love ; we hate no one, but we do not love all
alike." True, you have not the same reason
for loving all alike ; and therefore you have
no desire to do so : but you really love all
whom you desire to love. Now, if you really
desire to love God and the Lamb, it is certain
that you are not even indifferent to them, far
less hostile to them. There is not an utter want
of love, where there is a tvish to love. liOve is,
indeed, weak when it consists chiefly in wishes ;
but even then it is not pretence nor fancy. And
iC the weakness of it be the cause of shame and

OF THE SPIRIT. 69

sorrow to you, the love itself, although cer-
tainly feeble, it is not insincere.

Are you then satisfied, in your own mind,
that it is really your desire to love God and the
Saviour supremely? Well, love to them must
have a beginning, as well as every other gracious
feeling. None of the graces of the Spirit, nor,
indeed, of the gifts of nature, spring to matu-
rity at once. The desire to love God should,
therefore, be welcomed and well treated in the
heart : for it is from that seed that all love to
Him springs, and without which none ever will
or can spring up in the heart. Besides, are you
not conscious of loving God and the Saviour,
and their " commandments," more than you
once did ? And would you not think it a very
great change for the worse, were you to relapse-
to your former state of mind ? Would you not
even suffer a good deal, rather than go back to
your old sins and insensibility 1 Weigh these
questions seriously, and answer them fairly.
I would not flatter you, nor teach you to think
too highly of *' the day of small things ;" but
as it is evidently a day of something gracious
in your case, I must guard you against despis-

70 THE SPECIAL FRUITS

ing it. Now, it will never do any good, but
real evil, to go on for ever questioning the sin-
cerity of your love ; for until you admit that it
is not insincere, it cannot increase in strength
nor in warmth. It is well, it is necessary, to
exercise a keen jealousy over our best feelings ;
but if they are treated with nothing but jea-
lousy and suspicion, they certainly will not
grow better. Faith and love must be " water-
ed," as well as watched ; cherished, as well as
tried : — for if you get into the habit of trying
them as hypocritesj or only to find fault with
them, you will never bo able to come to any
satisfactory conclusion, nor to succeed in im-
proving them.

Besides the kind and degree of love which
you want to feel, you never can feel until you
believe that God and the Lamb have loved and
do love you. It is your doubt of their love to
you that keeps down your love to them. This is
the real secret of all the coldness and weakness
you complain of; unless, indeed, some sin has
still the throne of your heart. Then, indeed,
the Holy Ghost will not shed abroad the love
of God in your heart. But if this be not the

i

OF THE SPIRIT. 71

case, what you want, in order to love God more,
is to be enabled to believe that God has loved
you. Now, why not believe this 1 You are
warranted and welcome to believe this for your-
self, if all your faith is in Christ for a holy
salvation. And, whatever you may think, you
never can knoiv that God has loved you, or
that Christ " gave himself" for you, but by
believing it. You may have imagined, hitherto,
that the sense or assurance of this, must be
borne in upon the mind in some mysterious or
supernatural manner ; but if by that, you mean
in some way apart from believing what God
has said, you mistake greatly. You must just
take God's word for it, if ever you would be
sure that he has loved you. Well, you have
his word for it : — " The Father himself loveth
you" saith Christ, " because ye have loved
me ;" and you have loved Him, if you have
committed your souls to him for salvation, and
are willing to obey him.

Now, do you not see, at a glance, that the
moment the soul admits the sweet persuasion
of God's love to itself, it is impossible not to
love him ? Try it in your own case, if it be
merely as an experiment. Suppose that a voice.

72 THE SPECIAL FRUITS

direct from heaven, assured you that God had
" loved you with an everlasting love," and that
therefore, " with loving-kindness he had drawn
you" to the Cross and the mercy-seat ; — could
you hear this assurance without a glowing
heart ? Would not all your atfections warm,
and melt, and flow out to God 1 You feel at
once that such knowledge of his love to you,
would secure and inflame your love to Him
for ever ! Well ; if you are sure that you are
a believer, you have this assurance in your
Bible : and, therefore, it is just as true, as if a
voice, direct from the heaven of heavens, were
to inform yOu. Wliy not believe it, then ?
This was the apostolic way of growing in love.
" We love Him, because he first loved us."
How did they knoiv that God had loved them ?
They knew that they had " believed through
grace," and that God loved all such ; and^
therefore, they said, " we have known and be-
hoved the love wherewith God hath loved us."
Now, as to the second special fruit of the
Spirit — " Joy ;" however you may have com-
plained, hitherto, that you had no joy in be-
lieving ; and however you may have wondered
that your application to the Saviour was not

OF THE SPIRIT. 73

followed by " the joy of salvation ;*' the cause
is obvious. It is not because the Spirit has
been sovereignly withheld from you ; nor that
joy does not follow believing now, " as in the
days of old ;" but, evidently and certainly, be-
cause you have, hitherto, believed only owe-
/ia//of the Gospel. But whilst the belief of
that half is enough for safety, the belief of the
other also is' requisite in order to "joy."

Consider this. The first and chief part of
the Gospel is God's testimony concerning the
person and work of his Son. With the belief
of this testimony, he has graciously and inse-
parably connected the promise of eternal life.
Hence arises a second divine testimony ; and
it is concerning all who have believed the first
with the heart. Now, that second testimony,
which is thus concerning them, is, that they
*' have eternal life ;" that they " are the chil-
dren of God ;" that they " are justified ;" in a
word, that they have obtained the mercy and
favor they were seeking ! Now, the moment
they believe that they are actual heirs of the
salvation they were believing in Christ for, joz/

must come into their hearts ; indeed it cannot
7

74 THE SPECIAL FRUITS

be kept out ; for it is impossible that any man
can be joyless, who believes that all his sins are
pardoned, and his soul redeemed, by the blood
of Christ. This, then, is that half of the gos-
pel which you have either not observed be-
fore, or not ventured to believe in your own
case. The consequence has been, that all the
joy you had from looking to the Saviour, has
been damped and kept down by the chilling
suspicion, that he might not save yoti. Some-
times you have got above this fear for a mo-
ment, and seen so much of his grace and
glory, that you could not doubt his willingness
to save even you. You have, then, clasped the
dear hope to your heart, and resolved that you
would cling to it through life. But how often
have you lost your hold of it ! It has gone,
you know not how. "Why ? If the neglect of
known duty, or the indulgence of known sin,
has not been the cause of its withdrawment, the
cause is obvious : — you did not see that this
fond hope of salvation was fully warranted, and
chartered to you, by the express ivord of God.
You took up the hope at first, not so much
because you felt warranted and ivelcome, by

OF THE SPIRIT. 76

that, to do so ; but because you were willing to
do so, and could not be happy without it. Ac-
cordingly, whenever you asked yourself the
question, " what rigid have I to hope for so
great a salvation V — you could not answer it to
your own satisfaction. You looked at yourself
— and felt that you had no claim ! You looked
at others — and felt afraid to hope. But you did
not look to the things that are " written" unto
them " that believe on the name of the Son of
God," that they " might know" that they
" have eternal life." Had you looked at them,
your joy might have been '' full." Let it be so
now : for " it is written," that whosoever be-
lieveth shall never perish, but have everlasting
life ; and you do believe, if you love the Gospel.
All this, I am aware, is easily said. 1 feel,
with you, that it is easier to advise than to act
here. Paul evidently felt this, when he said to
believers, " Rejoice in the Lord ; and again I say,
rejoice." This repetition of the injunction, im-
plies that, like ourselves, they did not understand
at first, or they forgot at times, the warrant
which faith has, in the divine Word, to " re-
joice always." It was, however, amislake^ when

70 THE SPECIAL FRUITS

believers were afraid to rejoice in the Lord :
for except when they become remiss, or irregu-
lar, they are always warranted to cherish the
joy of salvation, as the strength of their heart.
In like manner " Peace," whilst it is the
fruit of the Spirit, is also the effect of faith. It
is not a feeling of tranquillity infused into the
mind or the conscience, apart from " the truth ;"
but by the truth. The Word of God is " the
seed" of that peace which is the fruit of the
Spirit. By overlooking this fact, and by mis-
taking the real nature of spiritual peace, many
perplex and sadly hinder themselves in the divine
life. Indeed, they often look for a kind of peace
which is not promised^ and expect it in a way
which is not revealed. What do you mean
when you pray for peace 1 What would you
consider as an answer to this prayer ? If you
mean by peace, that sweet serenity of soul
which you have felt when you have obtained
great enlargement of heart in secret devotion,
or when you have been, as it were, carried " out
of the body" by some glorious sermon, full of
the glory of the Saviour ; you mistake the mat-
ter. This is, indeed, peace ; even " the peace

OF THE SPIRIT. 77

of God, which passeth understanding ;" but it
is that degree of it, which is more the reward
of extraordinary devotional habits, than the
effect of ordinary faith. Tastes of such holy
tranquillity are vouchsafed, at times, to some,
when they begin to follow the Lamb, that they
may be encouraged to follow him fully, and con-
vinced that his ways are peace ; but still, it is
his oivn peace which he has left to his follow-
ers, as their ordinary portion. " Peace I leave
unto you : My peace give I unto you."

This was a distinction peculiarly wanted by
the first disciples. They were naturally san-
guine in their expectations, and prone to pic-
ture to themselves bright days and great
things. Had, therefore, the Saviour said no-
thing but "Peace I leave unto you," — the
probability, is, that they would have flattered
themselves with a sunny prospect of ease and
tranquillity. How great, then, must have been
their disappointment when they had to endure
" fears without, and fightings within !" In
that case, they might have said, " We looked
for peace, and, behold, war." All this was,

however, prevented by the qualifying clause,

7*

78 THE SPECIAL FRUITS

" My peace give I unto you." This defined
the legacy, without lessening its real value :
for the Saviour's own peace, although it did not
exempt him from trials, nor from the tempta-
tions of Satan, nor even from the occasional
hidings of the Divine presence from his soul ;
yet it secured both his safety and triumph un-
der them all. Accordingly, that kind and
degree of peace his Apostles found during their
work and warfare.

Now this distinction we have need to notice
and remember ; for we too are prone to expect
what is not promised. It would quite suit our
taste and wishes to have no cares, trials, or
temptations. We should be delighted if we
were never to have an uneasy nor an unholy
thought in our minds again. To have our
hearts, like Gabriel's harp, always in tune,
would be, indeed, heaven on earth, and the
very thing we desire ! But all this is the jjoetnj,
not the sober reality, of religion. It is not
to be angels, but to be " saints" on the earth,
that we are called by God. " A life of faith
on the Son of God," is a life of warfare against
the lusts of the flesh and of the mind ; a life of

OF THE SPIRIT. 79

watching against unbelief and temptation ; a life
of obedience aud submission to the will of God :
and the peace which is the fruit of the Spirit, is
the persuasion that God is on our side, and will
not suffer us to be overcome. This was the
Saviour's own peace, when his heart was broken
with reproach, and his body agonized with pain,
and his soul torn with anguish : and we deceive
ourselves, if lye mean by peace, exemption from
trouble of mind or body. Such peace is not
promised. The substance of what is promised
is, " JV/i/ g7'ace is sufficient for thee,"

Now many who, in their own vague or
visionary sense of the word, say that they have
no peace in believing, are certainly not stran-
gers to this kind and degree of peace : for they
evidently bear their trials well, and resist
temptation manfully, because they believe that
God has some gracious design in all that he
calls them to do or suffer.

No. Y.

JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH.

Until this subject is understood, it is
impossible for any one, however serious or
devotional, to enjoy the witness, or to abound
in the fruit, of the Holy Spirit. Now, it is
either not clearly understood, or not fully be-
lieved, in every case of fear which is not relieved
by it. The fear of perishing is utterly incom-
patible with an intelligent belief of the scrip-
tural fact, that " he who believeth" on Christ
" is justified ;^^ unless, indeed, the person who
is in fear, is also conscious that he has not
faith in the Saviour. In that case, the doc-
trine of justification by faith cannot, of course,
remove his fears ; but must, if he understand
it, increase, instead of lessen them. Those,
however, who are persuaded that they have

JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 81

faith in the Saviour and some love to him,
but who are still afraid that they are not jus-
tified by his righteousness, are certainly
laboring under some mistake ; for his righte-
ousness is " tcpon all them that believe." It
is, therefore, " upon" themselves, as a robe of
salvation, if they are believers ; and they are
believers who rely upon and love Jesus Christ
for his holy salvation. Those who do so,
because they are persuaded of the truth of his
divinity and atonement, cannot be unbelievers,
whatever they may suspect or think. This
state of mind is utterly unlike unbelief. It is
the very reverse of it in fact. It is faith, if it
be any thing ; for faith is the cordial belief of
" the truth " concerning the person and work
of Christ. Indeed, if it were not, then it
would follow that faith is the belief of conjec-
tures; for unless conjecture.*, there is nothing
but " the truth " to believe ; and surely guesses,
however plausible, should never be preferred
to the Word of God, nor even connected with
it. Besides, there is no need for any, se( ing
God has graciously and inseparably connected
with the belief of '' the truth as it is in Jesus,"

82 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH.

the promise of justification and eternal life.
All things necessary for life and godliness are
promised to all who embrace the divine testi-
mony with an honest heart. Whoever, there-
fore, does so, has no need to perplex himself
with conjectures about his own adoption, re-
demption, or election. He has been elected,
redeemed, and adopted, if he has " believed
through grace," and for holy purposes, " the
glorious Gospel of the blessed God." All who
" hold the truth " (except, indeed, those who
"hold it in unrighteousness") have no occa-
sion at all to doubt whether the Saviour died
for them. He both loved them, and gave him-
self for them, who receive the truth in the
love of it. These are " true sayings " of the
true God ;• and therefore, the only thing
wanted in order to enjoy the comfort of them,
is to be enabled to believe them for ourselves.
This, indeed, the Holy Spirit will not enable
us to do, if we are either indulging sin, or
neglecting duty, or seeking a sanction for
inconsistencies ; but where this is not the
case, the Spirit will not refuse nor delay to
increase our faith, if we try to grow in know-

JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 83

ledge, that we may grow in grace. For reluc-
tance to " lead into all truth " is no part of his
character. He is a " free Spirit," and there-
fore, although he teach gradually, he will teach
certainly, and " to profit."

When there is, however, perplexity on the
subject of Justification by Faith, the best thing
that can be done is, to examine the subject as
if we had never heard of it before. And we
ought to feel no reluctance to do so. Let us
examine it now.

" Hoio can man be jusiified with God ?" —
This solemn question was put by Bildad to Job ;
and although Job's answer was not explicit at
the moment, his opinion on the subject may be
inferred from the fact, that he had said before,
" If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall
condemn me." Paul, however, has given a
direct and full answer to this momentous
question, by stating explicitly how he himself,
and his fellow converts, sought to be justi-
fied.— " We have believed in Jesus Christ,
that ice might be justified by the faith of
Christ, and not by the works of the law."
Gal. ii. 16. In this way, whatever it mean,

84 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH.

Paul and his associates sought for justification
before God. And whatever justification is,
they found it by this means. Accordingly he
said, '* Being now justified by his blood, we
shall be saved from wrath through him."
And again, " being justified by faith, we have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ." Thus clearly does the Apostle de-
clare both the means which he employed, and
his success in using them. He took God's
way, and God gave him his own wish. Al-
though the chief of sinners, God justified
Paul, when he believed on Christ for righte-
ousness. Not, indeed, that God justified
Paul's conduct or principles as a sinner. No !
for if "he that justifieth the wicked is an
abomination to the Lord," it is self-evident
that, in the sense of thinking or declaring Paul
innocentf the Lord himself did not, and could
not, justify him. God forgiveth " iniquity,
transgression, and sin ;" but, in doing so, he
" will by no means clear the guilty " from the
charge of having been guilty. He treats sin-
ners as kindly as if they were innocent^ or as
if they had never been sinners, when they

JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 85

return from sin the to Saviour ; but he neither
considers them innocent, nor paUiates their
guilt. He forgives, and even forgets, all the
sins of all who believe ; but he allows no
believer to forget that he was a sinner, nor to
suppose that his sins were not hateful and
hated by Him. It is, therefore, because be-
lieving sinners are accepted for the sake of
Christy as if they were not sinners, that they
are said to be justified by God.

The scriptural doctrine of Justification by
Faith, is, — that the Saviour was treated as if
he had been guilty^ in order that the guilty, who
beUeve in Him, might be accepted as if they
were innocent. This is what Paul means when
he says of Christ, " He was made sin for us,
that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him." The Saviour had no sin, he
" knew no sin," yet it pleased the Lord to
bruise him. Why? Emmanuel had volun-
tarily, cheerfully, and fully, put himself in the
room of sinners ; and therefore he was treated
as if their sins had been his own, so far as the
punishment of them went. He had to bear
the curse as fully as if he had personally
8

86 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH.

incurred it. And just because he did so, the
blessing is as freely given to them who believe,
as if they personally deserved it ; for what the
Saviour deserves for his obedience and death,
that the sinner obtains by relying on him for
a holy salvation.

This is the justification revealed and pro-
mised in the Gospel. This is the justification
which Paul sought and found by believing;
be was welcomed, accepted, and blessed, by
God at the cross, as if he had never sinned ;
because on that cross the Lamb of God made
his soul an ofTering for sin. And what more
could a sinner wish, than to be received with
as much tenderness as if he were innocent ?
Innocence secures the fulness of the Divine
love and favor. The angels are innocent,
and therefore are the sons of God, radiant with
his glory, and replenished with his own bles-
sedness for ever. And yet — Gabriel when he
tunes his harp, and prostrates his crown be-
fore the eternal throne ; and seraphim, when
they cover their faces with their wings, in
adoration of God and the Lamb, are not more
welcome than a sinner returning to God by the

JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 87

blood of the Lamb is ! He, indeed, is not in-
nocent; but, tor tiie sake of that blood on
which he rehes, he is received as graciously
and loved as freely, as admiring cherubim or
adoring seraphim are. Accordingly, Paul, when
speaking of " the principalities and powers in
heavenly places," as studying the manifold wis-
dom of God, adds, " In Christ, we (ice in
common with ihem) have boldness and access
with confidence, by the faith of Him."

It is no valid objection against this simple
view of justification, that God visits the trans-
gressions of believers " with the rod," and their
iniquity " with stripes." In this respect, in-
deed, they are not treated as innocent ; but,
what is far better for them, " God dealeth"
with them " as with sons." " For what son is
he whom the Father chasteneth not ? Whom
the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth
every son whom he receiveth." Only the
really innocent can be exempted from all suf-
fering. Believers are, however, treated as
righteous, so far as it is good for them to be so.

They are adopted into the family of God,
and made heirs of eternal life, as freely and
fully as if they were personally righteous or

88 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH.

wholly innocent : and if they are inade to feel
their sinfulness by their pardon, and are only
acquitted as those who were justly condemned ;
this method of showing mercy does not lessen
the value of the boon, but, indeed, enhances
it, and sustains the honor of the Law and the
Gospel at the same time. For it would not
be good for us to be pardoned so, that our
guilt should seem palliated ; nor to escape
from the curse so, that we should not feel that
we had been under it. Such a way of saving
sinners would be as injurious to their own
spiritual interests, as it would be dishonorable
to God. Accordingly, it is not God's way in
justifying the ungodly who believe in Jesus :
he welcomes them as if they were godly, but
makes them to feel and confess that they are
ungodly. Thus, even the ahoundings of divine
grace towards sinners are " in all wisdom and
prudence ;" for whilst they remove the sting
and stain of guilt from the conscience, they
increase, rather than lessen, the sense of the
evil of sin, in every conscience which is purged
by the blood of Christ from " dead works," —
i. e, from works which deserve death.
Here, then, is the justification which all sin-

JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. S9

ners need, and which awaits every sinner who,
like Paul, will believe in Christ, that he may
be justified by the faith of Christ : God will
accept him as righteous, for the sake of the
righteousness of Christ, and treat him for ever
as one reconciled by the blood of the cross.
Like the Father of the returned prodigal, God
will rejoice over him, and receive him into
complete sonship. Having thus seen what
justification really is, you now see,

First, Hoiv the Gospel suits your case as
a sinner. It assures you that, by believing on
Christ, God will welcome and accept you as
fully as if you had never sinned. Now this is
exactly what you want and wish. You do not
wish to be treated as He treats the innocent
angels, except so far as that is necessary to
the safety of your soul. Accordingly, you do
not object to those fatherly chastisements
which the children of God have to endure.
What you desire is, to be a child of God.
Well ; there is ample provision in the Gospel
for making you what you thus wish to be ; for
in coming to God by Christ he will treat you
for Christ's sake, as if you were righteous.
8*

90 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH.

Now it is because you are not righteous, but
sinful and unholy, that you are afraid. All
your fear arises from your aggravated guilt
and utter un worthiness. You cannot forget
what you have been, nor overlook what you are,
as a sinner before God. Well ; you ought not to
forget nor overlook it. It is, however, a mercy
to feel sensible of it, and humbled for it ! But
now tell me, how would you feel if you were
as innocent as a holy angel 1 Suppose that you
had never sinned in thought, word, or deed,
would you be afraid then 1 Would you, in that
case, doubt whether God would admit you into
his favor and kingdom 1 No ; " the righteous
Lord loveth righteousness," and therefore you
would feel confident, if you were perfectly
righteous, that you would meet with no refusal
from God. You could calculate to a certainty
then, upon eternal happiness ! So you might ;
for God can as soon cease to live, as refuse to
love the innocent. " But what is all this to the
point," you say, " seeing I am not only not
innocent, but very guilty and depraved too ?"
True ; but if there is a righteousness so meri-
torious, that, for the sake of it, God can and

JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 91

will treat you as if you were not guilty, this
would answer the same purpose as perfect in-
nocence on your own part. Do you not see that ?
You are, indeed, utterly unworthy ; but the
Saviour is infinitely worthy : if, therefore, you
can have all the benefit of his worthiness placed
to your own account, you will be as safe as if
you had never sinned. Now this is just what
God does for sinners, when they apply to Christ
for all their salvation : he places to their account
the righteousness of Christ, so that he wel-
comes them as if it were all their own.

Now this is the provision made for the jus-
tification of the ungodly who will believe in
Christ ; and, most certainly, it fully meets your
case as a sinner, however guilty you may be ;
for your unworthiness cannot exceed the wor-
thiness of the Lamb slain. " True," you say,
" the righteousness of Christ is enough to
justify me, or any sinner ; but the question is,
ivill God impute that righteousness to me]
will he give me the benefit of it ?" This ques-
tion implies a doubt, if not a fear, that he may
refuse to do so in your case. I therefore ask
at once, — WJiy do you fear that God will re-

92 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH.

fuse to justify you for the sake of Christ ?
Has he anywhere sakZ that he will not? Is it
his custom to refuse those who are willing to
submit to the righteousness of Christ? Has
he ever sent away any one soul unclothed with
that robe, who sought it in good earnest 1 No !
All history, all heaven, says No ! And were
all hell compelled to answer these questions,
it would say. No. Why, then, are you afraid
of a refusal 1 There is nothing in the whole,
or in any part, of the character of God, which
renders it necessary that he should reject you ;
for, by the ^righteousness of Christ, he can be
perfectly just in justifying any one who believes :
and, as his justice is thus on your side, it is
self-evident that none of his other perfections
can be against you. In like manner, there is
nothing in the character of the Saviour which
renders your rejection necessary or likely. The
robe of his righteousness is wide enough to
embrace, and large enough to cover, your soul ;
and he is not less willing now to enfold sinners
in it, than when he threw it around the chief
of sinners. For as his righteousness is " upon"
all them who do believe, so it is free unto all

JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 93

who tvill believe, on him for justification.
Now, really, if these facts do not fully meet
your case, as a sinner, it must be a very pecw-
liar case, and its peculiarity must be imaginary^
not actual ; unless, indeed, you are still uncer-
tain whether you are a believer or not.

But now, even if you have not yet, like Paul,
beheved in Christ," that" you "might be jiisii'
Jied ;" still, something is gained by this en-
quiry, if you now understand what justification
is, and see the possibiliiij of your own justifi-
cation. Are you then convinced that God
could be just even in justifying you by faith?
Is the way of acceptance through the merits of
Christ plain to you, in all things but upon the
point of believing ? Could you now venture to
hope freely, if you were sure that your believing
is faith 1 Well ; we are, then, in a fair way to
bring this matter to a favorable issue. And
it will facilitate this, to mark distinctly what
Paul believed in Christ for.

Now he says, that he believed that he might
he justified. His own justification was, there-
fore, his first object when he applied to Christ.
And it ought to have been the first blessing

94 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH.

which he sought by faith ; for, until a con-
demned sinner is acquitted from the curse of the
law, no other blessing, nor all the other bles-
sings of grace, could save him. The sentence
of condemnation must be repealed, or he must
perish, whatever else were done for him. This
solemn fact is, however, not sufficiently attended
to even by the serious : and hence it is, that
many of them begin their believing in Christ
— not in order that they may be justified at
once, or first, but that they may be made 6e//er,
and be " born again." I do not, of course,
find fault with this object in believing. Far
from it. The man who does not apply to Christ
to be made a " new creature," does not apply
to him for the grand purpose for which Christ
died and rose again. But still, salvation from
sin, although the chief practical object of the
Atonement, is not its only object. Christ died
to redeem us from the curse of the law ; and
as nothing can place the soul in safety while
it is under that curse, those who know this
should begin their believing on Christ, for the
express purpose of being justified, or freed from
the curse. This plan of })roceeding would not

- JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 9&

displace their moral designs, nor lessen their
solicitude about holiness ; and it would bring
their faith in Christ to the test, far more effec-
tually than the other plan does. The man
who is trying to rely on the Saviour, merely
that he may be enabled to become a better man,
finds this kind of believing so easy, that it is no
wonder if he doubt whether his believing is that
faith which is produced by the operation of the
Spirit ; — whereas, were he to go to the mercy-
seat for the distinct purpose of believing in
Christ, in order that the curse of the eternal
law might be taken off from his soul ; this so-
lemn errand would show him how much faith
he needed, and how necessary it is to pray,
" Lord, help my unbelief, and increase my
faith."

No. VI.

FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD AND THE LAMB.

In nothing, perhaps, is the work of the Holy
Spirit upon the heart more sensible or self-
evident, that in the new views and feeelings
which it produces in regard to prayer. Even
where prayer is not altogether neglected, nor
hurried over heedlessly, there is a wonderful
change of sentiment takes place, whenever the
Gospel takes effect upon the mind. We see and
feel then, that except for temporal mercies, we
never prayed in thorough good earnest, nor had
any real love or relish for devotion. It was
often performed as a task, and always as a
mere duty. We attended to it rather to pre-
vent temporal evil, than to obtain spiritual
good ; and more from a dread of the conse-
quences of being prayerless, than from any
pleasure we had in praying. Indeed, as to
2)leasure in devotion, it seemed to us a contra-
diction in terms, or an impossible thing. Ac-

FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD, &C. 97

cordingly, if we knew any one who was in the
habit of spending much time in his closet, we
were ready, if not to rank him with the Phari-
sees, who loved " long prayers," to wonder what
he found to say during the time. And when we
heard ministers appeal to such men, affirming
that they sometimes left their closets with more
reluctance than they ever felt on entering them,
and that they could almost have chosen to die
on their knees, or to have spent an eternity in
that happy frame of mind, we either knew not
what to think, or thought that they had a very
strange taste indeed. In a word, there was
nothing seemed so unlikely to us, as that we
should ever take pleasure in praying. But lo !
when we awoke to the worth of our immortal
souls, and were made alive to the infinite value
of an everlasting salvation, we were glad of
any opportunity of pouring out our hearts unto
God. Our difficulty then was, not how to find
time or heart for prayer, but how to obtain
answers to prayer : and we were never so happy
as when hope and peace were stealing upon
our minds, whilst thus wrestling with God
for mercy. Then we began to understand
9

98 FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD

what we had heard about the pleasures of de-
votion, and no longer wondered that com-
munion with God should be magnetic to the
soul. And it is no wonder ! For what can be
so delightful as that holy calm of the mind
which enables us to unbosom unto God, as unto
a father, all our feelings and desires ; to dwell
on all his perfections, not only without dismay
or dislike, but with complacency and confidence;
to repeat and plead all his great and precious
promises with faith and hope ; and to antici-
pate his guidance until death, and his presence
through eternity? This is a joy which the
world cannot give. Even when it does not
rise so high as all this, it is more satisfying
than any human pleasure ; for the heart is re-
lieved and soothed, if it can only pour out its
fears and anxieties into the bosom of God.
The bare consciousness of having felt as in
his presence, wept as in his presence, and
spoken as in his presence, leaves a sweet
solemnity upon the spirits, which is healing,
if not exhilarating. And when the soul can
realize God as noticing, listening, and pitying,
and feels itself getting nearer and nearer to his

ANI^ THE LAMB. 99

presence and heart, and finds itself melted and
impressed, as if he were visibly present or
audibly speaking, then its joy is " unspeak-
able," even if it is not "full of glory."
These hints will remind you of the
" Moments rich in blessing;,"
which you have spent upon your knees before
the Cross and the mercy-seat. You can, in-
deed, never forget those closet interviews with
God and the Lamb ; for they were the chief
means of determining your choice, of fixing
your principles, and of forming your charac-
ter. You may, indeed, have lost so much of
your first devotional spirit, that you no lon-
ger obtain such happy interviews with God in
your closet ; and if so, you cannot remember
the past without pain. You cannot, however,
forget the days of old, nor the morning of
your first love. They are imperishable recol-
lections in every renewed soul ; for when com-
munion with God sets as a day-star in the
heart, the memory of it rises as a dog-star in
the conscience. Your shadow is not more in-
separable from you than the consciousness of
your loss and declension; and hence your

131^

100 FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD

secret, if not your public, language is, ** 0 that
it were with me as m months past, when the
candle of the Lord shone in my tabernacle !'*

Now, when those who have enjoyed com-
munion with God lose it thus, therecan be no
doubt that there has been, on their own part,
some sin, imprudence, or remissness, which
occasioned the loss ; for God is not the first
to hide his face, nor does he ever withhold his
presence arbitrarily. He may not always
manifest himself to the soul so sensibly and
sweetly as at first ; but he does not withdraw
his presence entirely, except when he is pro-
voked : but as it is the exhalations from the
earth, and not from the heavens, which form
the clouds and mist that hide the natural sun,
so it is something from ourselves, not from
God, which conceals the Sun of Righteousness
from those who, having once walked in his light,
now walk in darkness. Such being the fact of
the case, it is self-evident that the darkness
cannot be removed, but by the removal of that
which brought it on, whatever it was. Whether
sin or sloth, negligence or irregularity, wrong
tempers or bad habits, they must be abandoned,

AND THE LAMB. 101

if we would have the light of the Divine coun-
tenance, or the joy of salvation, restored. For
" if we say that loe have fellowship with
Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do
not the truth," We never can combine a
worldly spirit with a devotional spirit, nor
keep up a good hope in a bad conscience. In
like manner, if less time than usual is allowed
for secret prayer, or less pains taken to enter
into and keep up the spirit of it, communion
with God is not to be obtained, and need not
be expected. God does not, indeed, exact a
long time for prayer ; but, until we seek him
with our " whole heart," he will not cheer our
hearts with a sense of his presence. He will
be " inquired of,' ' before he will shine forth
from between the cherubim. Now, hasty and
heartless prayer does not amount to inquiring ;
and it hinders the manifestations of the Divine
presence. Indeed haste, like the unbelief of
the Jews, which prevented Christ from doing
many mighty works among them, prevents
God from communing with the soul from the
mercy-seat. There is not time for it, when we

are in haste to get away from our closets. We
9*

102 FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD

ourselves are not prepared to enjoy or improve
it, when we are up from our knees in a few
minutes. We could not commune with a
friend in that space of time, nor in that state
of mind : so that when prayer comes to this
low ebb, it is no wonder if Bethel is turned
into Imz again, and the soul sent empty away
from the throne of grace.

But, whilst all this is only too true, it is
equally true that mistakes, on the subject of
communion with God, prevail so as to prevent
it in a great measure, even when there is much
prayer and watchfulness maintained. Some
do not venture to expect much of the Divine
presence, but actually lay their account with
walking often in darkness, because they see
how often Job, and David, and Asaph, and
Jeremiah, and the Old Testament saints, were
under the hidings of the Divine countenance.
Observing this fact, some believers take for
granted, and as a matter of course, that they
must experience similar trials of their faith
and patience, however they act.

Now, it is certainly true, that the complaints
of the Old Testament saints are only too ap-

AND THE LAMB. 103

propriate to the generality of Christians. There
is ahnost all the darkness and distress of
mind, which the Psalms are employed to ex-
press, and which they do express so fully and
emphatically. But this should not be the
case — it is not necessarily the case — in the
church of Christ. We live under " a better
Covenant," and brighter promises ; and there-
fore it is our own fault, by misconduct or mis-
take, if we have no more light than those who
lived under the old Covenant. If, however,
we are willing and trying to walk closely with
God, and to enjoy an habitual sense of his
presence, why form our ideas or expectations
from the state of things under the old Cove-
nant 1 It certainly does not follow, as a matter
of course, that, because David was often in
darkness, a real Christian must be so too. It
is not a matter of necessity that, because Job
could not find the Divine presence, we should
be unable to find it. These good men had,
indeed, some greater excellencies of character
than we can pretend to ; and, on that ground,
were more likely to be honored with more of
the Divine presence ; but the dispensation

104 FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD

which they lived under did not provide for so
much of it as the Gospel does. Christ says to
us " He that believeth on me shall not walk
in darkness, but have the light of life." Ac-
cordingly, we do not find the Apostles com-
plaimng, as the Prophets did, that they were
under the hidings of God's face. They com-
plain bitterly of the presence and pressure of
a body of sin and death, and of a law in their
members which warred against the law of their
minds ; but never of an absent God.

This matter requires to be looked into mi-
nutely, seeing so many form their opinions and
expectations of communion with God, from
the old, instead of the new, Covenant. Now,
we do not take the old Covenant for our prin-
cipal guide in any thing else. We even bo^st
of our superior light and liberty under the
Gospel, and of our nearer and freer access to
God, and of our greater privileges. But, where
is the reality of these blessings, if we must be
as often in darkness and distress of soul as
David was ? I say " must," because it is
certain that we may and shall go without
the sun, if we do not walk circumspectly.

AND THE LAMB. 105

The Holy Spirit will frown upon sin and
sloth as fully under the Gospel as he did
under the law, and certainly withhold and with-
draw the joy of salvation from backsliders.
All this is inevitable from the eternal princi-
ples of the Divine character and government,
because it is the only way of preventing or
curing sin and backsliding among believers.
But still, the real question is, what have they
to expect under the Gospel, whose life and
conversation " becometh the Gospel 1" Now,
as they are not warranted to expect exemption
from trials or temptations, it must be more of
the Divine presence than was usually enjoyed
by the saints under the law. Accordingly,
except in those churches which had fallen from
their first love and purity, we find, amongst
the primitive Christians, no indications of those
complaints which were so frequent in the
Jewish church. The sad and piercing cry,
" Why hast thou forsaken me ?" — and " Why
art thou silent at the voice of my roaring ?" —
is never heard from any believer, in any of the
New Testament Churches ; a plain proof that,
after the veil of the temple was rent from top
to bottom, believers had boldness of access

106 FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD

into the holy of holies by the blood of Christ,
and were thus sure to find God whenever they
sought him. Now, from this fact, and not
from the case of David, we ought to form our
opinions and expectations of communion with
God.

Besides, it is by far too little remembered
that David was a prophetic type of the Saviour,
and thus gave utterance to his mediatorial
sorrows, as well as to his own personal sor-
rows,— a fact which lessens very much the
number of those hidings of the Divine pre-
sence which he seems to have experienced. In
like manner, their number is still further re-
duced by the fact, that, under the Jewish dis-
pensation, temporal calamities were considered
as hidings of God's countenance ; and delay
in removing affliction was spoken of as the
shutting out of prayer. It is, therefore, both
unnecessary and unwise to make the apparent
experience of David, the standard of what may
be expected from a close walk with God in
Christ. By doing so, many have deprived
themselves of much comfort, and God of
much honor.

The truth of these remarks is not aflected by

AND THE LAMB. 107

the melancholy fact, that the enjoyment o^ the
Divine presence, or intimate communion with
God, is a rare thing in the present day. It
certainly is so : but not because God is un-
willing to commune with us at the mercy-seat
— not because there is not ample provision made
for nearness and freeness of access to him, —
but because so few seek him with their " whole
heart," or allow him time to manifest his pre-
sence to their souls. Settle it, therefore, in
your own mind, for it is settled already and
unalterably in his Word, that you are "not
straitened" in God or in the Lamb. Your
fellowship may be truly and habitually with
them, if you are willing to " walk in the
light," as they are in the hght. If you are
ready, '^ all things" in heaven " are ready,"
for sweet communion with God. The Lamb
is in the midst of the throne with a censer of
meritorious incense, in the shadow of which
you may always kneel with safety, and from
the fragrance of which your prayers may always
find acceptance, when they are according to the
will of God. And the infirmity-helping Spirit
is ever at hand to teach you how to pray and

108 FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD

what to pray for. " Enter,^^ therefore, " into
thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door,
pray to thy Father ivhich is in secret, and thy
Father ivhich seeth in secret, shall reward thee
openly. ^^

In order, however, to understand the subject
of communion with God aright, more mistakes
require to be removed. Now, it is a mistake to
imagine that nothing amounts to the Divine
presence in prayer, but what produces a holy
calm of mind, or a high excitement of feeling.
We naturally make our first sensible enjoy-
ments in prayer, the standard by which we
judge of our future success. Accordingly,
when we do not find that delight nor liberty
which we experienced formerly, we are apt to
conclude that God has hid his face from us,
or that we have lost the spirit of devotion.
Under this impression, we go heartless and
hopeless to our closets, and feel, at times,
almost inclined to give up prayer, because we
have no longer our usual enjoyment in it.
Sometimes, indeed, our hearts are so cold and
dead, that it seems an insult to God to attempt
prayer in such a frame. We cannot, however.

AND THE LAMB. 109

live long without it ; and therefore we are com-
pelled to pray, as we can, soon. Our memory,
however, clings to the sweet and soothing mo-
ments of the days of old, and our souls continue
to long for the return of these " times of refresh-
ing from the presence of the Lord." Now this is
right : but it is wrong to make them the stand-
ard of the divine presence. Such ecstatic en«
joyment in devotion, as that which is sometimes
vouchsafed to the soul at the outset, is not ne-
cessary in order to our going on in the walk of
faith. For, when we began to follow Christ, there
was reluctance, yea, aversion of heart, to prayer,
to be overcome. It was, therefore, necessa-
ry, in order to reconcile Eind attach us to
prayer, to grant such enjoyment in it, as should
prove to us that it was no vain nor wearisome
thing to wait on God. But now we are
convinced of this, and ashamed of our former
prejudices against devotion. We know by ex-
perience that it is " good to draw nigh unto
God," nor could any one persuade us that it is
insipid or useless work. We are not ashamed
to avow that our happiest moments have been
spent at his throne. So far, therefore, our first
10

110 lELLOWSIiir WITH GOD

communion with God has answered the pur-
pose of establisliing the claims and the habit of
prayer : and this being accomphshed, raptures
should not be necessary to maintain them, but
the steady oar of duty, without the full sail of
excitement, enough to carry us on.

This is, however, only the lowest view of the
matter, and but introductory to more scriptural
views of it. The real fact of the case is — that
our first enjoyments in prayer are not always
connected with clear views of the whole scheme
of salvation. What we knew of it at first, wo
felt deeply, and prized highly ; but, then, we
attached (juite as much importance to our own
feelings, as to the fads which gave rise to
them ; atid drew, perhaps, more of our comfort
from them, than from the Gospel itself. We
might not, indeed, be aware of this at the time,
and may never have intended to do so ; but that
we really did so, is evident, from the single fact,
that when our feelings began to decline, our
comfurt decayed with them, although our belief
of the Gospel continued almost unaltered ; — a
plain proof that wc attached, though perhaps
unintentionally, more importance to the work of

AND THE LAMB. Ill

the Spirit in ns, than to the work of Christyor
us. God, I am fully awaro, does not make the
nice distinctions which theorists do on this
subject, nor does he scorn the confusion of
ideas which mark our first applications to the
Saviour. He can listen with pleasure to the
broken music of a " bruised reed " however
Sandemanianisin may despise it. But, whilst
all this is true, it is equally true that he will
gradually bring off converts from relying on
their feelings, just as he brought them off
from relying on their works. In a word he
will make Christ himself, and his finished
work, more precious to our souls, than any
feehngs which they gave rise to.

Here, then, except the Holy Spirit has been
grieved by an untender walk, is the grand rea-
son why God does not continue our sensible
and rapturous enjoyments in prayer : we were,
unawares, it may be, but certainly, putting it in
the place of the Saviour himself; and therefore
God wisely and kindly withheld it as a direct
communication from his Spirit, that we might
draw all our hope and comfort from the Gospel
itesif, and learn to live by faith upon Christ as

112 FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD, &C.

he is revealed to us in the Scriptures. God has
not, therefore, been hiding his face from you,
nor yet shutting out your prayer, because he
has not shone upon your soul in prayer as for-
merly ; but because you required to be more
completely " shut up unto the faith." You
were living more by sense than by faith, and
thus it became necessary to draw and drive you
off from changeable feelings to an unchangeable
Saviour. Accordingly, the want of sensible
enjoyment has compelled you to re-examine
the plan of salvation, and to re-consider whether
you were seeking to be justified by faith, or,
" as it were, by the works of the law.'* *

♦ See this subject fully treated in the companion to
this work, " Communion with Godj or a Guide to the
Devotional,^^ by the Author.

No. VII.

THE HOPE OF SALVATION THE BEST SAFE-
GUARD OF THE UNDERSTANDING AGAINST
ERROR, AND OF THE HEART AGAINST SIN.

Alexander the Great having, on one occa-
sion, distributed the whole of his private fortune
amongst his friends and generals, was asked,
why he left nothing for himself: "Hope is
still left for me," said the ardent monarch.
And, in the affairs of this life, hope is still the
last thing which we relinquish. It seats itself
upon the throne of the heart in the morning of
life, and leaves it only when the heart is break-
ing under the cold hand of death. It hovers
around the cradle of our infancy, when " it
doth not appear what we shall be ;" and over
the coffin of our old age, when it doth not
appear what we are. Hope is the sun that
I 10*

114 THE HOPE OF SALVATION.

rules the " day»" and the moon that rules the
"night" of life. It is the rainbow which gilds
the clouds of our calamity, and the morning
star which leads on our brighter prospects. In
a word, hope is to the soul, what the soul is to
the body — the mainspring of life and action.
Take it away, and soon the energies of the
body and the mind wither and perish. Hope-
less labor is all fatigue ; hopeless enterprise is
unsteady ; hopeless suffering is overwhelming.

Whatever, therefore, may be said in theory,
against hoping too much, and whatever may be
proved from experience, against the indulgence
of sanguine hopes, the sober fact is, that hope
is essential to success in all the business of life ;
because, without it, dihgence is weak and reso-
lution wavering. The business of life could not
go on, nor the trials of life be sustained, if
mankind did not wear the helmet of hope. It is
their strength and safeguard amidst the duties
and sufferings of the present state of being.

All this is equally true of the hope of salva-
tion : it is the helmet of the Christian, which, by
protecting his head from mental error, fortifies
his heart against temptation, distraction and des-

THE HOPE or SALVATION. 115

pondency. His very character is both formed
and confirmed chiefly by the hope of salvation,
and rises or falls as that hope is high or low.
When his hopes are dim or languid, duty, and
especially devotion, languishes with them ;
when they are bright and firm, all duties are
pleasant and all trials tolerable. He has then
heart and hand to do and endure the will of
God. But when the hopes of a Christian decline
and fade away, until he hardly knows what to
think of his case, the effect is, that although
he will not throw up his profession, nor risk
his character, he will not maintain either so
well as he did whilst he was sustained by a hope
full of immortality. He may still pray in his
family and in his closet ; but not with a truly
devotional spirit. He may still continue regu-
lar in his attendance upon all divine ordinan-
ces ; but he will not come to them with
his former relish or expectation : for hope is
the very soul of devotion and holiness, and
therefore they abound or subside together.
Hence the importance and necessity of mam-
taining the hope of salvation.

Now, it is a curious fact, that the truly

116 THE HOPE OF SALVATION.

serious arc the most " slow of heart" to take
up, or to keep up, the hope of salvation. They
are the last to lay hold of it, and the first to let
it go, in their own case. Indeed, real converts
are almost the only class who require to be
urged to cherish hope. The generality, even
of the careless and undecided, hope for salva-
tion, just as they hope for any thing else, as a
matter of course. " As 1 hope to be saved,"
is the usual mode of expression, when any
doubtful assertion is confirmed. Thus it is, —
we seldom see a careless man who is afraid to
hope for salvation ; and we never see a godly
man, who has not been afraid to hope for it in
his own case. Indeed, it is with a timid heart
and a trembling hand, that all true penitents
lay hold of the hope of eternal life. Even
when they see both their way and their welcome
to " the hope set before them" in the Gospel,
their sense of utter unworthiness almost unfits
them for hoping freely or fully. And even
when they venture to cherish " a good hope
through grace," they are almost ashamed and
afraid to acknowledge it to others, or, indeed,
to themselves. Now, if such timidity and

THB HOPE OF SALVATION. 117

hesitation were as wise as they are amiable,
it would be wise to let them alone : for any
thing that would change them into rashness or
flippant boldness would be highly unwise and
wicked. They may, however, be removed,
without being replaced by presumption or
boasting. Paul's humility was not destroyed
nor lessened, when he ventured to say of Christ,
" He loved me, and gave himself for me." In
fact, the belief of this deepened his humility,
by increasing his happiness. The joy of salva-
tion was "the strength" of his heart, in all
the holy principles, in which it was strongest.
How did he pass so uncontaminated through
a world lying in wickedness ; and so unshaken
through all the clamor and sophistry of con-
troversy; and so triumphant through all his
trials and persecutions 1 He wore the hope of
salvation, as a helmet upon his head ; and his
understanding being thus protected against
mental error, his heart and conscience were
fortified against temptation. And thus alone
can you keep "the faith," or continue the
" good fight ;" for, without the hope of sd-
vation to guard your judgment, your prin-
ciples may be so upset or unsettled, by false

118 THE HOPE OP SALVATION.

doctrine, as to yield no enjoyment under
trouble, and no strength in the hour of temp-
tation.

It is, I am aware, more common to encou-
rage believers in their work and warfare, by
persuad ng them to heep up heart, than by
urging them to guard well their understanding
and judgment. But the heart cannot be kept
up, if the head is not kept safe from the assaults
of error. Our intellectual powers must be
protected, if we would keep our moral powers
pure or vigorous ; for we cannot feel aright,
i{ we judge wrong; nor act aright, if we choose
wrong ; nor maintain a good conscience, if we
give way to a distorted imagination. Now,
the grand security for a »' sound mind," and
through that, for a " pure heart," is to ^^put
on for a helmet the hope of salvation." That
hope, by entrenching the understanding in the
Irulh of the Gospel, will best lay and keep
open the heart to all the holy and consoling
influence of the Gospel.

The point on which these general remarks
bear is this ; we may be so tempted by infidel-
ity and false doctrines, and get so entangled
with doubts or disputes as to be unable to

THE HOPE OF SALVATION. 119

maintain our ground. Now, as every one
cannot pursue that course of reading, nor follow
out that train of reasoning, which would clear
up all speculative difficulties, it is of the utmost
importance to be familiar with some single
and simple fact of revelation, which shall be
an " anchor to the soul, sure and steadfast,"
amidst the winds of doctrine, and the fluctua-
tions of opinion ; and which shall regulate the
mind, as the magnetism of the pole does the
motions of the needle. Now, the security is
to be found in " the hope of salvation." The
man who understands the salvation of God,
and cherishes the hope of it, has, within him-
self, a retreat from which no sophistry nor
error can drive or draw him away.

Is he tempted to Infidelity ? Its objections
may be plausible, and its sarcasms perplexing,
to him. He may be unable to answer or to
analyze them in detail. They may throw a
momentary spell upon his spirit, and a mist on
his vision : but he will see, at a glance, and
feel with all the keenness of a sensation, that
infidelity has nothing to offer, which can be
compared with the " great salvation" it would
rob him of. For, if present hope and eternal

120 THE HOPE OP SALVATION.

happiness are his objects, he has securities for
them in the Bible, infinitely stronger than
natural religion can give to her votaries, for
the vague prospects which they cherish. Thus,
the moment he looks to the hope of salvation,
he perceives that the light of nature reveals
no such heaven beyond the grave, nor ratifies
any one hope which it is said to inspire. So
long, therefore, as eternal happiness is dear
to him, his failh in the Gospel is impregnable
to all the assaults of scepticism, because he
must be a losei^ by that system. Thus, the
single and simple reflection, — I could gain
nothing, and I might lose all, by relinquishing
the Bible, — enables him to possess his soul in
patience, amidst all the mysteries of revelation,
and all the wiles of its enemies.

Nor is this all : the man who is familiar with,
and confirmed in, the hope of the "great salva-
tion," soon perceives that its character is pe-
culiar ; so peculiar, that it has no parallel nor
semblance in any rival system. He may not
know, in detail, the moral character of ancient
heathenism, nor the precise nature of that heaven
which philosophy dreamt of; but from all that
he hears, even from the eulogists of the philoso-

THE HOPE OF SALVATION. 121

phers, it is self-evident to him that they never
ill OK ghtof^ such a salvation as the Gospel reveals.
Indeed, the more he is plied with their boasted
discoveries, the more will he feel persuaded,
that it never " entered the heart of man to
conceive what God hath laid up for them that
love hiip." Thus, the humblest believer is
hall-pr oof against all the array of infidel phi-
losophy ; because he has only to observe, that
its best morals do not amount, even in theory,
to conformity to the Divine image ; nor its
highest purity to true holiness ; nor its brightest
prospects to any thing like the heaven of the
Bible. Its very Platos are vile, when com-
pared with the Apostles of the Lamb, and its
Socrateses are but children in their company.
In a word, he can find nothing, true or false,
in any system of natural religion, which even
borders upon the sublime idea of a salvation
which embraces the sanctification of " soul,
body, and spirit," for eternity ! All human
schemes propose nothing beyond the amend'
meut of human nature ; for the Gospel alone
proposes to make us " holy as God is hohjy
We have, therefore, in order to bo unmoved
11

122 THE HOPE OF SALVATION.

by all the parade of learned scepticism, only
to keep before us the holy character of the
great salvation ; that, like the spear of Ithu-
riel, will always detect Satan, even when he
transforms himself into an angel of the Light
of Nature.

In like manner, is the believer tej;npted to
Unilariamsm ? He is perfectly safe, so long
as he wears, as a helmet, the hope of that sal-
vation which IS revealed in the Gospel. His
knowledge of criticism, or of logic, or of eccle-
siastical history, may be too slight to assist
his faith. But, even if he is unable to draw
upon any other source than his English
Bible, the very Ji^ctven which it reveals will
render his faith 'ifnpregnable to the whole
artillery of Socinian learning and sophistry.
They may puzzle him with the ambiguities of
a figurative text, or set him fast by some
sweeping assertion, or perplex him by an ap-
peal to his common sense, which the uncom-
mon sense of an angel could not answer by
dint of mere reasoning ; but still he is safe
and may be triumphant, if he wield the cha-
racter of the heaven of the Bible manfully.

THE HOPE OF SALVATION. 123

Neither the blustering assertions, nor the sleek
insinuations of Unitarianism, can move him,
while he takes his stand on " the sea of glass
before the throne ;" because there, he hears
songs and sentiments, which give the lie direct
to both the letter and spirit of Unitarian
worship. There, all the armies of heaven, at
the same time and in the same terms, adore
both God and the liamb. Their posture is as
lowly, and their song as lofty, when they wor-
ship the Son, as when they worship the Father.
And, in regard to salvation, all " the spirits of
just men made perfect" ascribe it entirely and
exclusively to the blood of Christ. Thus,
there rushes down from all the hearts and
harps of heaven, one uniform and everlasting
stream of equal glory to God and the Lamb
and of adoring gratitude for the Atonement.
And, then, all this goes forward in the presence,
and with the permission, and therefore by the
appointment, of God : for neither angels nor
saints would dare to worship as they do, in
heaven, if it were not " the vnll of GofV^ that
they should honor the Son even as they
honor the Father ; and that the Atonement
should have all the glory of salvation. Nothing

124 THE HO?E OF SALVATION.

but the Divine will could establish such wor-
ship amongst perfect spirits ; and it is self-
evident that God would not have willed it, if it
were not agreeable to the eternal facts of his
nature, and the moral principles of his govern-
ment.

Thus the believer has all heavcQ on his side,
in defence of his hope of salvation through
the merits of a divine and atoning Saviour If
therefore, he cannot quote scholar against
scholar, nor antiquity against modern upstarts,
nor the canons of criticism against sciolists,
he can quote the " New Song" against all the
reasonings and railings of his opponents, and
appeal to " the general assembly" of saints and
angels, for the truth of his sentiments. That
army of the living God, cannot, he is sure,
mislead nor deceive him ; and as he knows,
from their example, ivhat is the " will " of
God in heaven, and hoio it is " done" there,
he is equally sure that, whilst adoring God
and the Lamb, and glorying only in the Cross,
he is doing the will of God " on earth" exactly
*' as it is done in heaven." Thus the great
principles of a Christian's faith are as infallible
as the worship of heaven. We have only to

THE HOPE OF SALVATION. 125

keep clearly before our minds the character of
the great salvation, which is — that it is hlood-
boughl, in order to see at a glance that Unita*
nanism is as unlike it as Mahometanism is.

In like manner, Is the Believer tempted to
Jlntinomianism? He is perfectly safe against
all its insinuating snares, while he maintains
the hope of that salvation which is revealed
in the Gospel. Il is a liohj salvation, if it is
any thing. A salvation from sin, not in sin.
How any one can overlook this self-evident
fact, is most amazing ; for it is written, as
with sun-beams, on every principle and pro-
mise of the Gospel. It is, however, both over-
looked and practically denied by some who
profess the firmest attachment to the doc-
trines of grace. They even boast that the
divine law is not binding upon them as a rule
of life ; that they are free to live as they like ;
that sin can do them no real injury, and that
God does not see any iniquity in them ! I
once heard one of this school declare from the
pulpit, that if he were to go out and commit a
murder, the sin, although it might bring him
to the gallows, would not only not risk his
11*

126 THE HOPE OF SALVATION.

salvation, but it could not for a moment bring-
even the shadow of a doubt upon his mind
as to the certainty of his salvation. In this
form, Antinomianism is its own antidote, and
any thing but a temptation to believers. This,
however, is not the form which it usually
assumes : it comes before us speaking great
things of Christ and grace, and ascribing all
the glory of salvation to them alone. It almost
professes to open the Lamb's Book of Life, and
to read therein the very names of its adherents.
It takes up the case of the weary and heavy-
laden sinner, and interprets all his feelings into
proofs of his election and eternal justification.
It goes into all the worst workings of the heart,
and teaches those who are conscious of them,
that they must be the children of God, because
they notice these things. Now, as all the
truly serious are conscious of much indwelling
sin, and of many imperfections ; and as these
things often destroy or damp their hope of
salvation ; and as they naturally wish to feel
assured of their safety ; it is a strong tempta-
tion to them, when any one offers to prove
their election from the very facts which lead
them to doubt it. And the proposal to do so

THE HOPE OF SALVATION. 127

is the more plausible, because the pretence is,
that the sole design is to exalt the Saviour and
to humble the sinner — to glorify God and
give peace through the blood of the Cross — to
endear the evelasting Covenant, and honor
the Eternal Spirit. All this is so like the glori-
ous Gospel, and embraces so much of its
grand design, that one can hardly think of
suspecting its truth or its tendency. And as
the truly serious do not intend to apply this
offered relief to any bad purpose, but merely
to get over their doubts and fears by it ; and
as they wish for no liberty to sin, — this easy
and speedy way of reaching assurance becomes
very tempting to them, especially if they are
under a ministry which does not clearly show
them " a better way." For the fact is an
awakened conscience and a wounded spirit will
seek relief somewhere ; and, if they do not
find it in low doctrinal sentiments, they will
grasp at it in high, and take it from any
thing rather than sink into despair. If, there-
fore, they find that the ministry which has
wounded, does not heal them, or that it makes
salvation by faith appear quite as difficult to
obtain as salvation by works would be, and

128 THE HOPE of salvation.

thus brings thein no nearer to their object ; it
is no wonder if they try another ministry, and
even welcome one which turns their doubts
and perplexities, as well as their desires, into
proofs of faith and tokens of safety.

It is in this way that many are drawn into
Antinomian principles. Their object, at first,
was chiefly to get hold of something which
would give rest to their souls ; and, as that
kind of preaching v^hich makes saving faith
appear quite as impossible as perfect obedience,
did not relieve them, but rather tantalized
them by a remedy which, whilst it was called
/ree, was kept back until their works should
demonstrate their faith, they were glad to grasp
at any thing which promised speedier relief.
Accordingly, when they were assured that their
fears and desires, and even their very doubts,
were the work of the Spirit in them ; and that
his work in the soul is the warrant to believe
that the death of Christ and the decree of
God were for the soul ; — this nostrum met all
their difficulties. For as they could say, with
perfect truth, that they felt and desired, under
the Gospel, as they had never done before ;
and as this state of mind was declared to be

THE HOPE OF SALVATION. 129

the effect of Divine influence, and thus a proof
of their election and redemption ; — such doc-
trine might well please them. But, at this
stage of their experience, the Gospel itself
would have pleased them better, if it had beeii
as plainly brought before them ; because, then,
they were in search of nothing but the hope
of salvation, and wanted no relief from the
rules, but only from the curses of the law.
Had they, therefore, been directed, at that
moment, to the Divine Testimony concerning
the person and work of Christ ; and had they
been shown clearly, from the Scriptures, that
the cordial belief of that testimony is saving
faith ; and that faith itself warrants immediate
hope ; this would have met all their difficulties,
without laying asleep their watchfulness, or
their fear of sin.

Well : you see all this, if you have taken
up the hope of salvation at the Cross, simply
by relying on Christ for it. You have, there-
fore, no occasion to meddle with the unscrip-
tural nostrums of those who put the work of
the Spirit in the room of the work of Christ,
and give that place to election which the Cross
alone occupies in the Gospel. You have no

130 THE HOPE OF SALVATION.

occasion to shift the position of things in the
*' well ordered " Covenant, before you can
enter into the ark of it. "Ye have not so
learned Christ," from these pages, as to feel it
necessary to have another warrant than the
Word of God, for believing on Christ for your
own justification. Whatever comfort you want,
you can find it more readily and more abun-
dantly in the single fact, " that he who beheveth
hath eternal life," that in all the boasted con-
solations of Antinomianism, — the very first
principle of which is wrong, inasmuch as it
substitutes feelings for faith. And whenever
you want to see the grand fallacy and infamy
of this system, you have only to observe that
the very frst promise of that new Covenant,
which it pretends to venerate so much, is at
utter and eternal variance with the rejection of
the law as a rule of life. That first promise is,
" / will put my laws in their hearts^ and write
them in their minds, saith the Lord ;" a fact
which is fatal to all unholy applications of the
doctrines of grace. In a word, real Antino-
mianism is the hope of a salvation from that
holy salvation, which is " the end " of election,
redemption, and regeneration.

JVo. VIII.

DEVOTIONAL SELF-EXAMINATION.

No man A^/iozys himself, who is not in the
habit of examining himself; and no man ex-
amines himself impartially, who does not place
himself under the omniscient eye of God, and
thus invite and submit to divine scrutiny. Our
hearts are too deep to be ^fathomed by our
conscience, and too deceitful to be unmasked
by our judgment. Indeed, the heart can blind
and pervert both the judgment and the con-
science. Hence the necessity of carrying the
whole soul to be searched and tried by God,
even after all our efforts to examine ourselves :
for, until we are alone and upon our knees
before the Searcher of hearts, we are both
liable and si^re to impose on ourselves. We
may, indeed, know, from observation and ex-

132 DEVOTIONAL SELF-EXAMINATION.

perience, what is our weak side, or our be-
setting sin, and thus have a general idea of
our real character ; but how weak that side is,
or how strong that sin is, we are not fully
aware, until we look at them in the light of
God. Accordingly, we have found them to be
greater, and have been betrayed by them
oftener, than we suspected at first. They have
carried us further than we calculated upon, and
led us into more wrong steps than we antici-
pated, at first. Yes ; and both our weak side
and our besetting sin, if left to themselves, are
quite capable of hurrying us as much beyond
any evil which we now fear, as they were of
drawing us into those evils which we now de-
plore. For, what our hearts are thus led to by
their own propensities, is only a specimen of
the direction, rather than of the lengths, they
are inclined to go, when allowed to take their
own way. Now, if we must say already, that
our hearts have gone too fiir astray; and if we
believe that they are naturally " deceitful above
all things, and desperately wicked ;" — it is
high time to take measures for the prevention
and cure of their evil tendencies. And, for

DEVOTIONAL SELF-EXAMINATION. 133

these purposes, the habit of self-examination
in the sight of the omniscient God, is equally
necessary and useful.

David furnishes an example of this devo-
tional habit, which will illustrate at once these
introductory hints. He was an attentive ob-
server and scrutinizer of himself, especially after
his restoration to the Divine favor. From
that time, his " soul" was, as it were, " conti-
nually in his hand ;" his " spirit made dili-
gent search ;" he " communed" with his own
heart even " upon his bed," and considered his
ways. Now, this w^as self-examination, in the
ordinary sense of the duty ; but he did not
stop there. He knew and believed the deceit-
fulness of his heart too well, to trust its verdict
in his own cause ; and, therefore, followed up
his own scrutiny by praying, " Search me, 0
God, and know my heart ; try me and know
my thoughts ; and see if there be any wicked
way in me, and lead me in the way everlast-
ing." Thus, that there might be no deception,
he solemnly put his case into the hands, and
under the eye, of God. This was impartial,
because devotional, self-examination.
12

134 DEVOTIONAL SELF-EXAMINATION.

Having referred to this example, as an illus-
tration of the subject, it may be well to glance
at the principles of it. Now, the prayer,
" Search me and try me," recognizes, as an un-
questionable truth, the omniscience of Jeho-
vah, and proceeds upon the solemn fact, that
" all things are naked and open to the eyes of
Him with whom they have to do." It was,
however, by realizing the scrutiny of this om-
niscience in his oiDncu.se, that David understood
how it extended to all creatures, times, and
places. " Thou hast searched and known «ie,"
— is the point from which he started, in his way
to the sublime and awful conclusion, " The
darkness and the light are both alike to Thee."
And the conclusion is just ; for if David's heart
in all its recesses, was naked and open unto
God, all hearts and all things must be equally
visible to Him ; because the power which can
search one, can search all ; and the reason for
searching any heart, holds good in the case of
all hearts. God is the Judge of all ; and, as the
secrets of every heart will be brought into judg-
ment, none can escape his notice. Each may,
therefore, say to himself, ''''Lord Ihou hast

bEVOTIONAL SELF-EXAMINATION. 135

searched and known me ;" others may guess
what I am, from what I seem ; and argue from
what my hfe is, what my heart must be : " hut lo,
O Lord, tliou Lnou'est it allogetlier ;''^ thou art
not deceivccl,nor at any loss, whoever may be so !
Now with this solemn conviction clinging
to him like his shadow — why did David pray
thus, " Search me, O God, and know my
heart ; try me, and know my thoughts 1" He
had just acknowledged that God had done so
already, and fully ; for he does not say. Search
me mot^e than thou hast ever done. The rea-
son is obvious : God searches all ; but he does
not lead all " in the way everlasting." Some
are given up to their own hearts' lusts, and
thus led captive by the devil, at his will, when
they refuse to be led by the Spirit. David
knew this : and, as his object was to walk in
the way of salvation, his prayer was, that he
might be so searched as to escape every *' wick-
ed way." And there is a special and gracious
searching of the heart, the restdts of which
God shows to them who fear Him ; thus dis-
covering to them, what he discovers in them.
Not indeed, that He shows them at once all

136 DEVOTIONAL SELF-EXAMINATION.

that He sees in them : the most holy could not
sustain the full sight of all the plagues of their
own hearts. God, therefore, reveals them
gradually to his i)cople, that the appalling sight
may not overwhelm their hopes of sanctifica-
tion. Ke does, however, show so much, from
time to time, as to convince believers that
their own hearts are not to be trusted, even to
their own examination ; but require, in order
to be upright in all things, to be searched by
the eye of Omniscience.

Now, it is a good sign, when we are afraid of
self-deception, and court the scrutiny of God ;
when we are willing to know the worst of our
own case, and desirous to judge impartially ;
and when, for this purpose, we call in the eye
of God to search us. For, by thus examining
ourselves, and submitting to Divine examina-
tion. Believers are distinguished.

First, From the Formalist, who takes no
notice of the state of his heart in religion. It
is indeed, strange, tliat any can be so infatuated,
as to forget the necessity of worshipping a Spirit,
" in spirit and in truth :" but, alas ! it is for-
gotten and overlooked. Many, like the Jews

DEVOTIONAL SELF-EXAMINATION. 137

of old, go to the sanctuary of God, and " sit as
his people sit, and hear as they hear ; but their
hearts are far from him." This is no sweeping
charge : for, if their hearts were " right with
God," they would worship him at home as well
as in the sanctuary ; and in the sanctuary by
sacraments, as well as by prayer or praise.
But how few compass the family or the sacra-
mental altar, or retire to pray in secret to Him
who seeth in secret ! All this may, indeed, be
done, by mere formalists ; but, when all this
is neglected, there certainly is none of the
" power" of godliness, nor any habit of self-
examination. It is therefore, a good sign, when
the claims of all duties are seriously weighed,
and the state of the heart towards and in them is
chiefly regarded. This distinguishes Believers
Secondly, From the Reckless Professor,
who dare not search his own heart. Some have
the hardihood to continue at the sacrament,
even after they have discovered that their con-
victions were not conversion, nor their first
resolutions, principles. They depart from their
closets and give up the power of godliness ; but
there is no departure from the Lord's table.
12*

138 DEVOTIONAL SELF-EXAMINATION.

Conscience says to them, " Keep back, or
begin on new principles ;" and thus, like Ba-
laam's angel, waves a drawn sword between
them and a sacrament for which they have no
relish. But Pride says, " Keep your place
and your name ; defeat suspicion, by defying
it ; keep up appearances, whatever it cost, for
it is too mortifying to expose yourself by your
own act of withdrawing !" Now, in such a case,
the heart dare not examine itself before God,
but is afraid of its own whispers, and conscious
that a full disclosure of its secrets, even to
itself, would be almost as humiliating as the
exposure of them to others. Thus, the matter
will not bear thinking of, and therefore ap-
pearances are kept up at all hazards, by shut-
ting the eyes upon the hazards.

This fearful state of mind must not, however,
be confounded with those occasional misgivings
of heart, which the serious feel in regard to the
reality of their own conversion, and their right
to the sacrament. There is an immense differ-
ence between habitual recklessness, and occa-
sional disrelish ; especially when the want of re-
lish is deeply deplored, and the causes of it are

DEVOTIONAL SELF-EXAMINATION. 139

searched out. All is not wrong, while self-
examination is kept up, and while what is
wrong is dreaded and hated. Like an erring,
but affectionate child, a believer may feel him-
self in disgrace ; but, while he feels out of his
element, and is trying to return into his rest,
his case is not hopeless, because it is not
heartless nor heedless. In like manner, the
habit of self-examination in the presence of
God distinguishes its adherents.

Thirdly, From the Inconsistent Professor,
who is unwilling to be led out of every
" wicked way." David prayed thus — " See
if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me
in the way everlasting.'' Thus he was so
jealous of his heart, that he suspected that
some wicked way would be over-looked, unless
God prevented it. Now, this is the grand
characteristic of " faith unfeigned :" it is im-
partial, and willing to be kept back from all
sin. A real Christian may, indeed, feel a
strong bias to some of his old sins, and a
shrinking from some duties ; and, alas ! for a
time he may even risk the experiment of
serving " two masters" by turns ; but when

140 DEVOTIONAL SELF-EXAMINATION.

he finds, — which he soon does by bitter expe-
rience,— that half measures will not do, and
that a divided heart misses enjoyment in re-
Hgion, and that yielding to temptation or sloth
is destruction to hope and peace, — he is glad
to retrace his steps to the narrow way again,
and to yield himself unreservedly to God and
duty. Now, although this is not done without
a struggle, nor always soon, — it is done,
eventually, by all who are attentive to their
own hearts, and to the baneful influence of
inconsistencies upon them. The self-exam-
ining believer determines to be consistent,
whatever it cost in effort or sacrifice. He
would rather svjfcr^ than sin against God and
a good conscience. Now, this high and holy
tone of gracious principle and godly practice,
is acquired chiefly by scrutinizing the heart
in the presence of God. It is not acquired
from the social intercourse of Christian friends,
nor even from heart-searching sermons: these,
indeed, suggest the necessity of self-examina-
tion, and are the chief means of leading to it ;
but it is in the act of devotional examination,
that God shows with " power" what is wroig,

DEVOTIONAL SELF-EXAMINATION. 141

and with "glory" what is right. Accordingly,
it was in the closet, and whilst retired within
ourselves, and whilst realizing the presence of
God, and whilst looking at all sin in the light of
eternity, — it was whilst thus engaged, that every
sin, fault, and wrong habit, rose before us in
hideous and horrid deformity ! Then we wept,
and wondered that we ever thought lightly of
*' any wicked way ;" and felt our souls swelling
up in holy indignation against all vice and vanity.
And, by the same process, we acquired those
clear and affecting views of the way of holiness,
which won us into it. Whilst we looked at '' the
narrow way," in the company.of those who shun
it, or in the light of worldly maxims, we thought
it too narrow, and saw many lions in the way,
and felt as if it were impossible to walk in it :
but when we retired to our closets, and betook
ourselves to prayer, that we might examine and
weigh these mingled feelings and objections,
which looked so formidable in company, — the
path of holiness expanded before us as it really
is, — guarded by eternal Providence, gilded with
great and precious promises, graced by the pre-
sence of many illustrious pilgrims, glorious with

142 DEVOTIONAL SELF-EXAMINATION.

the footsteps of the Saviour himseh"*, and termi-
nating directly in the heaven of heavens. We
saw, also, that none sank on " the way ever-
lasting," nor perished at the end of it, who kept
in it ; and that those were happie.'^t who ad-
hered to it most strictly; and that all were
ruined who forsook it ; and, between this two-
fold " cloud of witnesses," avc resolved to
follow holiness. Thus, we have often come
from our closets, saying to ourselves, " Let
whoever will, try dangerous experiments, the
example of the Saviour shall be our guiding
pillar of cloud by day, and of fire by night : —
our hearts are " fixed" by searching, and we
will " follow the Lamb in the path of regene-
ration."

It is thus that the habit of devotional self-
examination sets and keeps both sin and duty
in their true light. It is, however, wanted for
other purposes. Accordingly, God says, " Ex-
amine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith ;
prove your ownselves ; know ye not your own-
selves, how that Christ is in you, except ye bo
reprobates :" that is, without proof of the
Saviour's presence. The word " Reprobates"

DEVOTIONAL SELF-EXAMINATION. 143

is not used here in the modern sense. It means
now, in common language, " reckless profli-
gates," or " abandoned sinners ;" and is sus-
pected by some, who judge the sense from the
sound of it, to countenance the doctrine of Re-
probation, as they call it. They mean by (hat,
the ruin and loss of the soul by the sovereign
decree of God ; — a doctrine not even breathed
in the Bible. What it teaches, is, the judicial
reprobation of those who weary out the patience
of God by impenitence and rebellion. Such
he abandons eventually to a reprobate mind,
and to a seared conscience, and to their ov»n
heart's lusts ; and thus to ruin. But the ruin
comes not from a sovereign decree, but from
the sentence of the law and the sanctions of
the Gospel. This is the real state of the case ;
and therefore a man is not a reprobate in this
sense, even if he is not in the faith, yet, and
although Christ is not in him. I mean, that
he is not, on that account decreed to ruin, nor
given up by God. All unbelievers are, indeed,
condemned already ; but it is because of un-
belief, and not beyond redemption.

This being understood, the most timid have

144 DEVOTIONAL SELF-EXAMINATION.

no occasion to shrink from examining them-
selves by the test applied to the Corinthians ;
for even if you should not be able to prove, to
your own satisfaction, that you are in the faith,
nor that Christ is in you — still, whilst Christ
is upon the throne of grace, and whilst faith is
the gift of God, your case is not hopeless.
This, however, is but the lowest view of the
case. Those who are in real earnest to be
found in Christ, are not utter strangers either
to the exercise of faith or to the indwelling of
Christ in the heart. They may be afraid to
call their own believing faith ; and may not
understand the precise meaning of Christ's
indwelling 'presence : but it does not follow,
from these mistakes, that they are without
j)roofs of faith or love. They have often more
proofs of both than they imagine, or are aware
of, until they examine themselves. — Now, so
may you. The first sight of the question, " Am
I in the faith ?" may startle you ; because, know-
ing faith to be the point on which salvation turns,
and feeling your own unworthiness of so great
a salvation, you are afraid to say " Yes." But,
observe: — you arc equally afraid to say " JVo."

DEVOTIONAL SELF-EXAMINATION. 145

You leave the question unanswered in words ;
but you continue to act as if you were " in the
faith." You do not eease to hope, even when
you hesitate to say that you believe. You even
strive to live as a behever, although you do not
venture to assume the name. Yea, more : no
one could persuade you to give up your habits of
looking to, and leaning upon, the Saviour.
You shrink with horror from the bare idea of
disowning or deserting him. Y©u have no
wish to forsake him ; and when you feel
tempted to do so, your unfeigned answer is,
** Lord to whom shall I go ? Thou only hast
the words of eternal life." Accordingly, since
you saw your need of an interest in his blood,
and felt the value of salvation, youhave been un-
willing and unable to forget Christ. Thoughts
of him, and desires after him, have followed
you like your shadow, more or less, every
day ; and nothing would please you more than
to be able to think and feel in regard to him,
as you wish.

Well; this being the case, you cannot
begin too soon to "examine" whether you
" be in the faith ;" for the result is sure to be
13

146 DEVOTIONAL SELF-EXAMINATION.

favorable. Yes ; examination in the sight
of God will discover to you, that it has been
given to you, on behalf of Christ, to believe
on him with the heart unto salvation. But
nothing else will discover this, to your joer-
maiient satisfaction. You may gather, from
these marks of faith, a general idea that you
are in the faith ; but the conclusion, even if
just, will not last long. It must be drawn
upon your knees, and with your heart bared
to the inspection of God, if you would have it
lasting. And, in his presence, as in the pros-
pect of death, the question, " ^m I in the
faith ?" is fairly met. The soul dare not
trifle nor equivocate, when placed under the
eye of Omniscience ; but must go fully into
the inquiry. It spreads and pours itself out,
all over the question. And when, in this
light, it is seen that the cordial behef of the
Gospel, for holy purposes, is saving faith ;
and when it is felt, through all the soul, that
we do believe its truth, and love its holiness ;
— our satisfaction is unspeakable ! For then,
we know and feel persuaded that we are not
flattering ourselves, nor judging rashly. The

DEVOTIONAL SELF-EXAMINATION. 147

whole matter is so fully laid before God, and
God is so fully before our minds, that self-
deception seems impossible. We have " the
witness" in ourselves, that, like the first be-
lievers, we " gladly receive" the Gospel. We
are, indeed, amazed, and thrown into almost
breathless silence, during these hallowed mo-
ments, to find that believing is faith, and that
faith itself warrants the hope of salvation
there and then. But we do find all this to be
true ! All our recollections, both of the letter
and spirit of the Scriptures, rush in to confirm
it. The whole Bible rises before us as one
brilliant and unbroken illustration of the grand
fact — that salvation " is of faith, that it might
be by grace." And, having seen all this in
the light of the Divine presence, we retire
from our closets with the old apostolic melody
in our hearts and lips, " Therefore, being
justified by faith, We have peace with God.^^

No. IX.

THE TEMPTATIONS AND FIERY DARTS OF SATAN.

Amongst those words with which the truly
serious associate the most awful and alarming
ideas, the word Temptation is one of the
chief. And well it may make every ear tingle,
and every heart tremble ! Temptation is, in-
deed, thought of, and spoken of, lightly, by
the bulk of mankind : but this is no proof
that they who do so are superior to it, or that
they resist it. Many strong men, — yea, many
mighty men — have fallen by it. Mea ! yea,
ANGELS, have been overthrown by it in the
very heaven of heavens. Even their immortal
powers and celestial advantages were not a
sufficient balance to the weight of temptation.
Like a serpent, it wound itself around the
pillars of their thrones of light, coiled its
folds upon their harps of gold, crept into their
bosom ; and having thus drawn aside a third

FIERY DARTS OF SATAN. 149

part cf the stars of heaven, it hurled them, at
one sweep, into " the blackness of darkness
for ever." Ihe man, therefore, who thinks so
lightly of temptation as not to be afraid of it,
ought to place himself, in idea, amongst those
once " morning stars," whilst they shone
around the eternal throne as emanations of the
Father of lights, and served him day and
night without weariness : and whilst witnessing
them singing and shining in their bright
orbits, and all linked unto God as if they had
been rays of his glory ; he would then see and
feel what strength, what motives, what inno-
cence, temptation could overmatch and over-
whelm. x\nd then, let him look to the dark
and desolate orbits of those fallen morning
stars ; to their present chains of darkness, and
to their future prospects ; — and if, after this
survey of heaven and hell, he is still not
afraid of temptation, he must surely suspect
that he is less than a man, or fancy himself to
be more than an angel.

All this, however, although the strongest, is
not the most affecting, light in which to view
our own danger from temptation. Which of
13*

ISO THE TEMPTATIONS AND

the mightiest human names has not temptation
left a stain and a stigma uj)on ? Noah ? — Ah,
you recollect his wine. Abraham 1 — His
equivocation. Moses ? — His impatience.
Aaron? — His unbelief. Jacob? — His strata-
gem. The Patriarchs? — Their treatment of
Joseph. Ehjah ? — His murmuring. David?
— His fall. Hezekiah ? — His ostentation.
Jonah? — His rebellion. Peter? — His denial
of Christ. And if these mighty men fell, let
him that standeth take heed lest he fall also.
Let not him that putteth on the harness, boast
himself as he who putteth it off. We shall
not be fully beyond the reach of all danger,
until we are fairly through the valley of the
shadow of death ; for even in it, the fiery
darts of Satan sometimes fly thick, and flash
dreadfully. Only when we are ''clean over"
the swellings of Jordan, will there be "no-
thing" in us for Satan to work upon.

Were, indeed, simplicity of heart, and gra-
cious principles, preventatives, or absolute safe-
guards, against all temptations, some might es-
cape ; but even innocence^ in Eden, was not an
effectual shield against the fiery darts of Satan.

FIERY DARTS OF SATAN. 151

Innocence! even incarnate divinitij, was not
exempt from assault, though superior to se-
duction ; for the Saviour was assailed and
harassed by Satan, until his human nature
required angels to minister unto its exhausted
strength.

Some who readily subscribe to the truth of
all this, do it for a bad purpose, and argue
thus : — " If such men fell, we cannot be ex-
pected to stand always, nor to exceed them in
resisting the devil." But this is mere sophis-
try and self-deception ; for those who fell, fell
by no necessity but what they themselves
created. Satan has power to say, " Cast thy-
self down!" but he has not power to throio
down any one who is doing " all to stand."
Had Noah been as watchful after planting a
vineyard, as before, he would not have fallen
by wine. Had David made and kept such " a
covenant with his eyes" as Job did, he vs^ould
not have coveted his " neighbor's wife." Had
Peter confined himself to the company of his
fellow-disciples, he would not have been in
the same danger of denying his Master with
oaths^ as when he mingled with the enemies

152 THE TEMPTATIONS AND

of Christ. Besides, one chief cause of the fall
of these, otherwise, good men, was, that they
evidently never allowed themselves to suspect
that they were in danger of falling by such
temptations. It is highly probable, that had
any one warned them against the sins which
overcame them, each of them would have
said, " Is thy servant a dog, that he should
do this thing?" Thus, there are two things
necessary, in order to resist temptation suc-
cessfully ; — doing all to stand, and being
afraid of falling ; for if we are not afraid of
falling, we shall not take unto ourselves "the
lohole armor of God," that we may be " able
to stand."

Amongst those temptations of Satan to which
we are chiefly exposed, and which are emphati-
cally his " fiery darts," one is, the temptation
to Atheism or Infidelity. Now, whenever
the horrid suspicion that there is " no God,"
or that the Bible is not to be depended on,
comes in like a flood upon the mind, it is a
fiery dart of Satan ; and he alone has the guilt
of it, whilst the mind hates or deplores it.
Unless, indeed, we have been exposing our-

FIERY DARTS OF SATAN. 153

selves by reading sceptical books, and listening
to scorners ; then, the guilt of infidel thoughts
is chiefly our own. But when they arc thrown
into the soul unsought and unawares, and
thrown after the soul when it is retreating from
them, — the archer^ and not the " wounded
spirit," is the criminal, in that case. We are
personally accountable only for those tempta-
tions which we court, connive at, or yield to.
The Saviour was tempted of the devil to im-
patience, presumption, and idolatry ; but as
he had not exposed himself to these fiery darts,
and did not yield to them, but repelled them,
he was nowise accountable for them.

This distinction is strongly stated ; but it is
wanted, in all its strength, when the mind is
overwhelmed by distracting doubts of the be-
ing of God or the truth of Revelation. In
that case, it seems to ourselves improbable, if
not impossible, that we had ever believed
" with the heart ;" seeing, that now, we are
almost ready to give up faith in God, and to
regard all things as a chaos of mere chance !
We argue thus : " Surely, if I had been taught
by the Spirit of God, and at all renewed in

164 THE TEMPTATIONS AND

the spirit of my own mind, I should be inca-
pable of harboring or starting such atheistical
thoughts. They would not surely come into
' a new heart.' Are they not symptoms of a
reprobate mind ?" This, however, is a mis-
take ; they are " the fiery darts" of Satan, and
not the real sentiments of our own minds.
Accordingly, we do not think these doubts well-
founded. We do not wish them to be true.
Nothing would pain us so much as finding
that there was no God, or no Bible, or no
Hereafter ! However much, therefore, we may
be harassed by these dark suspicions, they are
not our sin, but our misfortune, so long as we
shrink from them, and try to shake them off.
At the same time, we are not altogether blame-
less in this matter ; for, had we acquainted and
familiarized ourselves more fully with the
Evidences of natural and revealed religion,
Satan would not have found it so easy to
unsettle our thoughts. Hence the importance
of preventing the return of this temptation, by
acquiring a more full and connected view of
the grounds of faith.

Another " fiery dart" of Satan's is, the temp-

FIERY DARTS OF SATAN. 155

tation to Blasphemy. Now, although every
thing is not blasphemy, which is called so by
custom, we are not wrong in regarding, as
blasphemous, all those thoughts which m-
peacJi the character or the government of God.
There are things in both which clash with our
natural ideas of propriety ; and, when they
clash with our inclinations too, Satan can so
magnify what we dislike in the Divine charac-
ter and government, that we are in great dan-
ger of thinking and speaking against God.
" I do well to be angry," said Jonah, when God
caused his gourd to wither. " Verily I have
cleansed my heart in vain," said Asaph, when
he saw that the " ungodly" prospered in the
world, and that he himself was " chastened
every morning." Now all these things hap-
pen still, and Satan turns them into strong
temptations when they happen to ourselves.
The gourds of our shelter and solace wither
sometimes in the night, and ive are left expos-
ed and lonely, whilst the gourds of the ungod-
ly are almost evergreens : or our plans and
undertakings are unsuccessful, whilst those
who have no fear of God before their eyes,

156 THE TEMPTATIONS AND

seem to have every thing their own way,
and sometimes more than heart could wish.
Thus, between the apparent inequaUties of
Providence and our own actual sufferings,
we are tempted to murmur, and, at times,
almost to arraign the justice of God. Indeed,
there are moments of such agitation, when
Satan aggravates these calamities, that tho
heart seems to harden under them, and the
soul to become reckless of consecjuences.
Who has not felt that fiery dart flash across a
wounded spirit — " Let God do his worst, for
I cannot be more miserable than I am already ?"
These are awful moments, when the soul is
almost ready to take its swing amongst all the
risks of time and eternity, and, like the " un-
just judge," to give up both the fear of God
and regard for man ! Oh ! it is well that,
when Satan comes in such " great M'rath," his
time is short : and it is better, that the good
Shepherd holds his tempted and terrified
sheep so, that the roaring lion cannot devour
them, nor pluck them out of their Shepherd's
hand.
At such moments, indeed, we hardly venture

FIERY DARTS OF SATAN. 157

to regard ourselves as the sheep of Christ : we
seem to ourselves goats, going to his " left
hand," of our own accord, and " before our
time." Accordingly, it is not until we come
to our " right mind" again, that we can even
join his flock in the green pastures of Zion.
" But," it may be said, " can any sheep or
lamb of the Saviour's flock sink into such
reckless desperation even for a moment V^
Perhaps, not sink into it ; but they may
be goaded into it by the fiery darts of Satan.
Indeed, when the character of God comes to
be judged of by his trying dispensations, in-
stead of his dispensations being judged of by
his character, Satan finds that in the heart
to work upon, which can soon wind it up to
desperation. Those who have never seen much
of real life, or never looked at it closely, may
be astonished at this. It is, however, only too
true : and hence the necessity of a settled con-
viction in our minds, that God must not be
judged of by our trials. Job saw and felt
this, when he said, " Though he slay me, yet
will I trust in him." And we have always
reason to do so, whatever be our calamities ;
14

168 THE TEMPTATIONS AND

for, even when he chastises in anger, the anger
is not mixed with hatred, but with love.
Whenever, therefore, Satan suggests, from our
afflictions, any reflection or charge against the
Divine character, we ought immediately to
shut our hearts against it ; and, as those who
are conscious of loving God, to answer, " Get
thee behind me, Satan ; for all things work
together for good to them that love God !"

It is not, however, in times of calamity only,
that Satan hurls his fiery darts against the soul.
The temptation to find fault with the Sove-
reignty of Grace, is often greatest when Pro-
vidence is most smiling ; at least, when it is
not adverse. Satan seems, then, to envy the
pleasure which the fearers of God find in the
ways of God ; and, as he cannot forge fiery
darts out of their lot then, he often draws them
from the decrees of God. How far we our-
selves are naturally prone to pry into " secret
things," and to tamper with the abstract
question of personal election, I do not stop to
inquire now. One thing is certain, that,
whether prone or averse, almost all serious
minds get entangled more or less with the

FIERY DARTS OF SATAN. 169

question at times. Who has not felt his
thoughts drawn into some such track as the
following : — " True ; I am now more recon-
ciled to the salvation and service of God than
I once was ; I am even wilHng to walk in the
narrow way which leadeth unto life ; — but
eternal life ' is not of him that ivilleth, nor of
him that runneth^ but of God that showeth
mercy ; and He will have mercy only upon
whom he ^vill have mercy.' If therefore, I
am not elected — neither my willing nor my
running can avail me. I may be lost at last,
whatever I do ! Oh ! why is sovereignty the
rule of mercy ?"

Whenever Satan can get the soul this length
in questioning or suspecting the good will of
God, he soon entangles it in a labyrinth of
rash or dark speculations which harden or
horrify the mind. I state this in general terms,
because it would be improper to embody, in
express words, all the dreadful surmises and
charges against God, which rise up in the mind
at such times. Those who have felt them
need no remembrancer, and those who are
strangers to them cannot be too long ignorant

160 THE TEMPTATIONS AND

of them. When, however, the question of
personal election is borne in, and bound upon,
the soul, like a heavy chain, which checks and
weighs down hope ; and when " the iron enters
into the soul," so that it knows not what to do
or what to think ; — the best thing which can
be done in such a case is, to ask the simple
question, " Has ever any one found out his
own election by brooding over the matter as I
am doing 1 Many have acquired a cheering
persuasion that their names were * written in
the Lamb's book of life :' did they obtain the
hope of this by such a process as I am pursuing ?
I am afraid to pray, and have no heart to use
the ordinary means of grace ; because I am
not sure what will be the issue. Was this
Paul's plan, was this the line of conduct which
the apostles pointed out to inquirers 1 No ! —
It cannot, therefore, lead me to the point I
wish to reach. I have, indeed, instead of try-
ing to enter into * the secret of the Lord' by
the ' door,,^ been trying to * climb up some
other way.' This is wrong !"

Are you, then, persuaded that it is wrong ?
Well ; consider again, that none of all whom

FIERY DARTS OF SATAN. 161

you have known to die in the Lord, or know
to be the Lord's, had any knowledge of their
election when they first fled to Christ, and
began to follow him. Whatever they know
now, they were, for a time, as ignorant on this
point as you can be ; and whatever they have
found out, was discovered in the path of duty,
and nowise apart from the use of the Scriptures.
Ask them — and they will tell you so. Do
you, then, really imagine that it is necessary,
or that it would be wise, to reveal to you a
matter which, for a time, is kept hid from all
the heirs of salvation ? Must God, to humour
your curiosity, alter his plan of acting under
the gospel ? The old and usual plan has done
well enough for millions and myriads, who had
both more to do and to suffer than you have.
I do not underrate your trials nor your per-
plexities ; but I must remind you that better
soldiers have had to fight and die upon the
bare ground of hope ; so that, if you will not
begin the spiritual warfare without assurance,
you will never begin it at all.

Besides ; do consider that, if you had the
assurance of your own personal election, it
14*

162 THE TEMPTATIONS AND

would not alter the path of duty in the least.
It would unbind nothing that is binding on
Christians. It would not prevent trials, nor
exempt you from temptations. It would, in-
deed, I grant, cheer you in the path of duty
and suffering, to know that you were chosen
and called to eternal life ; and thus, although
not absolutely necessary to your success, it is
certainly desirable for your comfort. I will even
go farther, and affirm, (for the Word of God
bears me out in doing so) that you will do and
suffer the will of God better when you know
your election of God. But, if you really want
to know it for holy purposes, it is not such a
secret as you have hitherto imagined, nor as
you were sure to find it, from the ivay you
took to discover it.

In fact, it is not a secret at all, so far as
it regards those who have fled to Christ for a
holy salvation : they are the elect of God. All
that " love God " are " the called according to
his purpose." This is expressly revealed, for
their satisfaction on the point. If, therefore,
it be a secret to you, it is so, either because
you have not observed this simp'e fact, or be-

FIERY DARTS OF SATAN. 163

cause you still doubt the sincerity of your own
faith and love. The scriptural fact, however,
is now before you ; — all true believers are the
elect of God ; and, therefore, whatever reason
you have to regard yourself as a believer, is
proof of your personal election. You have no
occasion to perplex yourself with the abstract
question, if you are conscious of loving God
and the Lamb ; for love to them settles the
whole question in your case, and in all cases
where love is genuine. What you have to do,
therefore, is simply to ascertain the sincerity
of your faith and love ; and that may be soon
done, if you take care to distinguish between
iveakness and insinceriiy^ and between imper-
fection and pretence. Now, you know that
your avowals of faith and love at the mercy-
seat, and your desires for their increase, are
not pretences, but the unfeigned language of
your heart, addressed to the Searcher of hearts.
Well ; his language to you is express, —
"I have loved thee with an everlasting love,
therefore with loving-kindness have J drawn
theej'^ And let this be your answer to all the
counter-suggestions of Satan.

No. X.

THE FLUCTUATIONS OF RELIGIOUS FEELING
AND ENJOYMENT.

There are few things more distressing or
discouraging to a serious mind, than the un-
steadiness of its own feelings. These change
so often and so much, that we hardly know
what to think of ourselves at times. We wish
to be feelingly alive to the glories of the
Saviour and salvation — to the solemnities of
death and eternity — and to the claims of duty
and devotion; but, somehow, the impression
of these great realities is not abiding. — It
seems often ** ready to vanish away " from
our minds. And yet, at times, the impression
of eternal things is very deep. Occasionally, it
seizes upon, and sinks into, the heart so fully,
that we could not throio it off if we would ; and
yet it soon passes off, even against our will.
We do not intend to forget divine things, nor

THE FLUCTUATIONS OF, &C. 165

to become formal in religious duties ; but,
alas! we often do both, and find ourselves
almost estranged from God and godliness : so
treacherous and changeable is the human mind,
even after it has felt much of the power of
truth and eternity !

This melancholy fact naturally gives rise to
a suspicion in our own breasts, that, whatever
we have experienced, we are not yet truly con-
verted to God ; for it seems impossible to
reconcile these sad changes of feeling with the
possession of " the root of the matter." All
our ordinary ideas of'* a new heart and a right
spirit," include the necessity of more habitual
steadiness of purpose and strength of spiritual
feeling. Accordingly, our relapses into dead-
ness and formality induce a doubt, if not of
our sincerity, of our conversion ; and thus all
our pleasing hopes, which were drawn from
the consciousness of relying on Christ for a
holy salvation, are almost upset, at times.
They seem unwarranted in our case, because
our feelings are inconsistent with them, and
with all our ideas of the saving work of the
Holy Spirit upon the heart. The consequence

166 THE FLUCTUATIONS OF

is, — we are often ready to conclude that we
are too hasty in taking up the hope of salva-
tion, and in giving ourselves credit for being
converted characters. We are almost per-
suaded, at times, that it would have been better
to have waited longer, before venturing to
avow our religious feelings to the world or to
the church. We may not exactly repent of
having said that we were in good earnest about
the salvation of our souls ; but we have wished
that we had said less, and thought more, on
the subject.

In this painful dilemma many find them-
selves, and hardly know what to do or think
in their own case. The sad unsteadiness of
their religious feelings and resolutions keeps
some back from the sacrauient, and almost
forces others away from it. One class are
afraid to come, and another equally afraid to
continue. The former are not easy in their
absence from it, nor the latter easy in their
attendance on it ; and both, whilst in this un-
happy state of mind, derive but little benefit
from the other ordinances of grace.

Such being the fact of this case, it is of im-

RELIGIOUS FEELING AND ENJOYMENT. 167

mense importance to both classes, that the
subject of Fluctuating Religious Feelings
should be cleared up to them without reserve
or delay. It is, however, a subject equally
delicate and difficult ; for any view of it which
would lead the serious to think lightly of the
evil of dead or cold frames of mind, would do
far more injury than these frames themselves.
For, bad as they are in themselves, and in
their influence upon Christian character, they
are not so baneful as a heedless disregard to
the state of the heart. He who trembles at the
treachery of his own heart, is humbled, as well
as hindered, by it ; whereas he who is recon-
ciled to a vacant mind and a worldly spirit,
and thus reckless how he feels, is sure to make
shipwreck of faith and of a good conscience.
The mourner over the plagues of his own heart
will, at least, not increase them ; but the man
who regards them as mere matters of course,
and thus allows them to take their swing, will
soon bring them out from the centre of his
heart to the surface of his life.

Such being my own personal convictions,
and, as far as I can ascertain it, the actual

169 THE FLUCTUATIONS OP

result of general experience on this subject, I
am not likely to lessen either your fear or
hatred of those melancholy changes of feeling
which now pain and perplex you. I cannot,
indeed, join with you in regarding them as
utterly incompatible or inconsistent with the
existence of saving faith in the heart ; but I
am fully prepared to regard them, in reference
to the spiritual health of the sow/, as indicating,
what similar bodily symptoms imply, the pre-
sence o^ disease. Now, all is not right, but
much wrong, with the body, when there is a
frequent loss of appetite, or a loathing of natu-
ral food, or a disposition to lethargy. In each
of these cases there is abundant reason for fear
and care. Accordingly, we are both fearful
and careful, when such symptoms show them-
selves. But, even when they are most alarm-
ing, we never imagine that they disprove the
former existence of life or health. Such an
idea is too absurd to be admitted for a moment.
Well; in like manner, the loss of spiritual
appetite and relish does not prove that we
never had any. In fact, it just proves the
contrary : for as we know, from having enjoyed

RELIGIOUS FEELING AND ENJOYMENT. 169

bodily health, that there is a change for the
worse when appetite fails ; so the felt and de-
plored loss of relish for divine things, proves
that they were once enjoyed by the soul.
Hence Job's piercing lamentation, " Oh, that
it ivere with me as in months past!" is as
much proof that " the candle of the Lord"
had shone upon him, as that it was then eclipsed.
Parallels between natural and spiritual hfe
and health are, I am fully aware, hazardous
grounds of argument, when the object is to
ascertain a point so solemn as the conversion
of the soul to God ; for almost any bodily
action or emotion proves the existence of
natural life to a certainty ; whereas there may
be many moral feelings, which, although they
resemble spiritual feelings in some things, do
not amount to spiritual life. There are, per-
haps, very few persons amongst those who have
sat under a faithful ministry of the Gospel,
who have not felt both alarmed and allured, at
times, by the appeals of the pulpit. It is not
even uncommon to find persons completely en-
ra[»tured, for some months or weeks, with a
ministry which is full of Christ and grace, and so
15

170 THE FLUCTUATIONS OF

spiritual withal, that it seems impossible to love
it, without loving the Saviour at the same time.
But all this, we know, may be done without even
quite possible to take a very lively interest in re-
leading to secret prayer. In like manner, it is
ligious duties, and to be much pleased, for a con-
siderable time, with prayer-meetings and spiri-
tual conversation : and yet to remain unrege-
n€rate all the time. This is often proved, by the
return of such persons to their old habits of
indifference and neglect. But here is the differ-
ence between them and the truly serious : — the
former are not sorry to give up their new habits,
nor unwilling to return to their old ways ; but
rather glad, than otherwise, to rid themselves
of religious restraints : whereas the latter can-
not bear the idea of going back to the world,
nor feel easy when their hearts are becoming
worldly. There may be sad changes for the
worse, in the state of their feelings ; but these
make their heart sad, and humble them before
God. They count it no gain, but a heavy,
heavy loss, to get free from the holy influence
of any religious principle or motive. It is no
pleasure to them, but an acute pain, to feel

RELIGIOUS FtELliNG AND ENJOYMENT. 171

that either the Gospel or the Law is losing any
of its authority over them. In a word, it is
their chief burden and terror to feel less
affected by divine things than at first.

Now when this is the real state of the case,
and when, in connexion with this sense of loss
and sin, there is a deep desire to return to the
love and liveliness of former days, the changes
do not disprove the reality of the faith or con-
version of such mourners in Zion. Lukewarm-
ness and the loss of relish in the service of God
and the Lamb, prove, indeed, much against
such mourners ; but they do not prove them to
be unbelievers, far less hypocrites. Bad frames
of mind demonstrate that there has been some
bad habit or temper indulged, or not suffi-
ciently watched against ; and that there has been
some want of prayer or prudence, and some
yielding to sloth, or tampering with temptation ;
and any of these causes of heartlessness are rea-
sons for deep shame and humiliation, but not for
despair. Despair can only make all that is bad
worse, and all that is discouraging desperate ;
because its direct tendency is to harden the heart.

But whilst it is true that bad frames of spirit

172 THE FLUCTUATIONS OF

are never wholly unconnected with remissness of
some kind, it is equally true that both they and
their practical causes are connected with some
misapprehension of the Gospel itself. There has
been something doctrinal forgotten, or mista-
ken, or overlooked, as well as something jJrac-
tical neglected, whenever lukewarmness or dis-
relish takes possession of the heart. Either the
object of faith, or the law of faith, is in some
degree lost sight of or misunderstood, when the
followers of the Lamb are heartless and formal.
This is self-evident ; because it is impossible
for any man to believe that he himself is re-
deemed by the blood of Christ, and thus made
a child of God, and yet remain unfeeling to-
wards God and the Lamb. Accordingly, so
long as we venture to cherish the fond hope
that we are " accepted in the Beloved," we are
not unfeeling in heart, nor formal in obedience.
It is when we forget or doubt that we are
"justified by faith," that we cease to have
" peace with God," and sink into heartlessness
in his service ; and, therefore, the grand evan-
gelical fact, that his " righteousness is upon all
that believe," should never be forgotten or

RELIGIOUS FEELING AND ENJOYMENT. 173

doubted by any one who is relying on Christ
for a holy salvation. It is the duty as well as
the privilege, of all who have committed their
souls to Christ, to believe that they m^e justi-
fied by believing on Him ; because, in no other
way can they ever obtain the joy of salvation.
In fact, there is no other way ; for, whatever
the Holy Spirit does in producing that joy, he
does it by opening up this revealed truth to the
mind, and enabling the soul to believe it on its
own behalf. And this belief, although not
essential to acceptance with God, is essential
to " peace with God," and to the maintenance
of a feeling heart in his service ; for no one can
feel aright in all things, who does not believe
aright in all those things which " belong to our
peace."

If, therefore, you never understood clearly
this part of the Gospel, nor saw, in the hand-
writing of God, your own warrant to regard
yourself as a child of God, it is no wonder that
your best frames and feelings have not been
lasting. How could they last under the weak-
ening and wasting influence of suspense 1 What
was there to maintain them in lively exercise,
15*

174 THE FLUCTUATIONS OP

whilst you could not lay your hand upon the
written promise of your own salvation? Seeing
the j^ossibilitij of being saved, is, indeed, " a
great sight," which may well awaken whole
trains of sweet and solemn feelings in the bosom
of a trembling sinner ; but these cannot last
long in their sweetness, unless he see too the
probabilily of being saved. Even the desire of
salvation, which is perhaps, the most powerful
feeling of a serious mind, must lose much of
its power, if it can lay hold on nothing stronger
than a " peradventure^' to gratify it. The soul
craves for more — the conscience needs more,
than a may-be to satisfy them. Accordingly,
if they are not satisfied, they soon fall asleep
again, or return to their old portion.

Here, then, is one great cause of the decline
of spiritual relish ; — the spiritual appetite, when
hungering and thirsting for salvation, is not
taken direct to the Gospel for satisfaction, but
tantalized by mere peradventures. Indeed,
ewen prayer itself fails to keep up a happy
frame of mind, when the mind has nothing else
to look to but the bare probability of an even-
tual answer. Accordingly, if you have been

RELIGIOUS FEELING AND ENJOYMENT. 175

doing nothing more than praying for salvation,
it is really no wonder that your enjoyment has
been both small and unsteady. Not, indeed,
that you have prayed too much ; that is im-
possible ; but because you have believed too
little. God answers prayer by blessing his
own Word to the soul ; and therefore it is as
necessary to " search the Scriptures," as it is to
cry for mercy. But if, instead of combining
with prayer the study of the Gospel, that you
might thus understand the salvation you have
been seeking, you have gone on expecting that
the pardon, and peace, and joy which you want-
ed, would be infused, in some mysterious way,
into your heart, — your disappointment is a
matter of course ; for you did not take God's
plan of succeeding ; and the consequence is —
the darkness and deadness which you complain
of. In fact, confining the pursuit of salvation
to prayer alone, is almost enough to bring
prayer itself to a speedy and final end ; for no
man will persist long in fervent prayer, if, after
many strong cries and tears, he finds himself as
far off as ever from hope and peace. He may
not throw off the habit of it ; but it will gra-
dually fall off, if he gain nothing by it. Nor is

176 THE FLUCTUATIONS OF

this all the bad effect of disuniting faith from
prayer ; the man who, after much prayer for
pardon and peace, finds no sense, nor symptom,
of either in his mind, is strongly tempted to
abandon the pursuit as hopeless, and to suspect
that God has singled him out as an exception
to the rule, that " whosoever shall call on the
name of the Lord shall be saved." And when
this dark suspicion sets in upon his mind, it soon
gives birth to still darker thoughts and feelings.
And even when disappointment does not occasion
such horrid suspicions, it wears out the spirit of
prayer, and weighs down all the best feelings
of the heart. The sad reflection, " I obtain
no answers to my prayers, and find no enjoy-
ment in them now !" almost cuts the cords
which first bound *^the soul to " the horns of
the altar." And when such, or indeed any
considerations alienate the soul from secret
devotion, they soon alter its gracious feelings
and habits.

Now, it is thus, chiefly, that matters go
wrong in the heart of the serious ; they miss
enjoyment by overlooking part of the Gospel,
and thus lose much of their first love and live-

RELIGIOUS FEELING AND ENJOYMENT. 177

liness. Other oversights concur, indeed, with
this one, in producing and prolonging a low
state of the piety in the soul ; and nothing can
restore the soul to spiritual health, which
does not correct these practical oversights,
and lead to watchfulness and diligence.
Nothing, however, can restore the soul to the
joy of salvation, or to the power of godliness,
but the Holy Spirit, by leading you " into all
truth;" for, until you have a personal hold
upon the great salvation, it cannot have a per-
manent influence upon your heart. Now,
such a hold of it you have either not obtained,
or you have lost it ; and, whichever be the
case, there is only one way of obtaining it, —
namely, by the belief o£ all the truth. Watch-
fulness, without believing, will not make the
heart happy, nor " right with God :" prayer,
without believing, will not restore the joy of
salvation. They may produce a state of mind
and character, so devout and numble, and up-
right, t*^ at, by reasoning from effects to causes,
you may venture to conclude that your salva-
tion is begun, and thus get hold of it by infer-
ence. It was thus, most likely, that you acquir-

178 THE FLUCTUATIONS Of

ed your first hope and joy of salvation ; the loss
of which you now deplore. You then felt as
you had never done before, and found such a
change of heart and habits taking place in
you, and were conscious of such a willingness
to be indebted and devoted to the Saviour, —
that you could hardly doubt the reality of
your conversion. Accordingly from thus see-
ing and feeling the work of the Spirit within
you, you ventured to conclude that the work
of Christ was for you. Because you thought
that the Holy Spirit had " quickened" you,
you hoped that the Saviour had " died for"
you ; and because certain marks of effectual
calling were showing themselves in your heart
and life, you ventured to regard them as some
evidence of being "called according to the
purpose" of God.

It was, perhaps, somewhat in this way, that
you obtained whatever hold of salvation you
got for yourself at first ; and, could you see
all those marks of grace about yourself again,
you would feel warranted and encouraged to
take down your harp from the willows, and
sing again the New Song : but as some of

RELIGIOUS FEELING AND ENJOYMENT. 179

these marks are almost gone, and all of them
more or less decayed, you dare not sing as in
the days of old, nor even hope as formerly.
But now, if this really be a true copy of your
past and present views and feelings, does it
not occur to you, on looking at the copy, that
you have, all along, had but confused ideas
of the Gospel ? You seem, indeed, to have be-
lieved it cordially as far as you understood it ;
but it does not seem that you ever studied it
half so much as you did the frames of your
own mind. You must have looked chiefly
into and at yourself for a warrant to hope in
Christ. Do consider this fact. According to
your own account of the matter, you have,
since yoii began to think seriously, been much
in the habit of marking the workings of your
own mind, and the meltings of your own heart;
and when you found them of a holy and
humble character, you began to think that
you were then warranted, and almost welcome,
to hope in Christ for your own salvation ; but
now that you feel less spiritual and contrite,
you are afraid to hope.

Now really, if this be the real state of the

180 THE FLUCTUATIONS OF

case with you, you have misunderstood the
Gospel more than I have hitherto supposed
you to have done. For do you not see, that,
in all your reasonings from effects to causes,
your own feelings, and not God's invitations,
have been made your chief warrant for hoping
in Christ. This is self-evident, seeing that,
now your tenderness of feeling is gone, you are
afraid to hope ; — a plain proof that you have
studied your own heart far more than the word
of God. What He says concerning the ground
and warrant of hope, has had less of your at-
tention than wliat you felt towards religion in
general. Now, although you did not, and, in-
deed, could not, feel too much, you have made
a wrong use of your best feelings,- in thus
making them your chief encouragement in
hoping for salvation ; for they are no part of
the ground of hope, nor, in themselves, of
its warrant. " Behold the Lamb of God,
which tciketh ciicaij the sin of the ivorldy^ is
both the only ground and warrant of hope
which the Scriptures contain. Nor is any
thing more necessary ; for as the blood of th^
Lamb answers all the demands of the law, so

THE FLUCTUATIONS OF, &C. 181

the work of the Lamb answers all the demards
of the law, so the word of the Lamb warrants
all who are looking to Him alone for accept-
ance with God, to believe that they are
accepted. This is the Gospel !" " He that
believeth, is justified from all things." "He
that belie veth hath eternal life." If, there-
fore, you are conscious that, notwithstanding
all your mistakes and relapses, your real
design was and is to rely upon Christ alone,
that you might become like Christ ; you too
are warranted, by the direct authority of God,
to believe that you are a partaker of that sal-
vation which you were, just now, afraid to
hope for. And if you are astonished to find
the matter brought to this much desired,
but unexpected issue, do remember that it is
only saying, in other words, that eternal life
is " the free gift of God'' to them who believe
in Christ. Consider these things, and they
will soon restore all your best feelings, and
place them upon a firmer basis than ever they
stood on before.
16

No. XL

THE CAUSES OF BACKSLIDING.

One great cause of backsliding is the uncer-
taintij which many of the serious allow to
rest upon the question of their own faith in
Christ. They never were sure that they were
believers. They wished to be so — tried to be
so, and hoped that, eventually, they should
prove to be so. This may be your case. You
were quite sure, when you began to follow
Christ, that a great change had taken place in
your heart and habits, and in your views and
feelings; — so great, that you could not but
regard it, then, as the beginning of that " good
work" which God has promised to carry on.
Accordingly, under this sweet persuasion, you
began to act as a believer, and to apply to
yourself all the commands which are enjoined
upon believers. Thus, in reference to duty,
you cast in } our lot with the people of God,
and willingly came under all their peculiar

CAUSES OF BACKSLIDING. 183

obligations ; aud the readiness with which you
did so, at that time, was no small proof to
yourself, and others, that you were the subject
of a divine charge. You were even glad to
find that you were no longer unwilling to follow
holiness, ixpr averse to devotion. You won-
dered and wept that you had ever neglected
Ihem — and adored the grace which had put an
end to that criminal negligence. Accordingly
you often felt sure that you could never relapse
into your old state of mind ; the bare idea of
going back from the " narrow way" into the
*' broad way" again, was abhorrent to you.
You could not believe that it was possible after
all that you had seen and felt, to forsake the
fountain of living waters, and return to the
broken cisterns of sin or folly. But you have
done so, and left both your " first love," and
your " first work." You are now a back-
slider, and feel and confess that you are so.

Many causes, of course, concurred in pro-
ducing this backsliding ; and all the moral
causes of it are well known to yourself. You
can see, at a glance, how it began in the neg-
lect of secret prayer ; and how it went on by
the neglect of self-examination ; and how it

184 CAUSES OF BACKSLIDING.

settled into a kind of apostacy of heart from
God and godliness, by an undue attention to the
world, or by tampering with forbidden things.
Your heart condems you — and " God is
greater than your heart, and knoneih all
things !" The case, however, although both
lamentable and criminal, is not hopeless. You
have, indeed, almost given up God ; but God
has not given up you ; so that there is still
hope in Israel concerning this thing ! For it is
just as true that God " heals backslidings," as
that he pardons sins ; — just as true that the
backslider is welcome to return to Christ, as
that any sinner is welcome to come to him. He
who restored Peter will not reject you, when
you seek him with all your heart. The Saviour
is, in fact, more unwilling to give you up finally
than you are to be given up by him.

Such being the real state of the case, the first
question is, of course. How must you return ?
Now there is not one way for unbelievers
to come to God, and another for backsliders
to return to God ; but the way in which you
came, is the only way in which you can return.
Both unbelievers and backsliders have " access
to God," only " by the blood of Christ ;" but in

CAUSES OF BACKSLIDING. 185

that way, whosoever cometh, or returneth, he
will in no wise cast out. In a word, backsliders
can only be restored in the same way that sin-
ners are justified, — by believing in Christ for
salvation.

Now, if you intend to try again this way of
access to God, see to it, I beseech you, that the
question of your beheving is not left in the
doubtful state in which you allowed it to re-
main, when you first attempted to believe with
the heart ; for if you leave it unsettled or uncer-
tain, you will soon backslide again. You can-
not go on well in the ways of God, until you
knoiv that you are a believer. All your former
backslidings arose, more or less, out of your
former uncertainty on this point. They had,
indeed, other and u'orse causes ; but this, too,
was a cause. And in this way ; — not being
sure that you were a believer, you were not,
and could not be, sure that you had any rfg/i/
to the comfort of the great and precious pro-
mises. Accordingly you were afraid, even
in your best days, to apply them freely to
yourself. I mean, you did not, and durst not,
even then, apply the promises to your own
16*

186 CAUSES OF BACKSLIDING.

J, as you applied the laivs of the Gospel.
You were quite sure that it was your bounden
duty to regard all the commandments of God
as the rule of your life ; but you were not
sure that it was your privilege to regard all the
promises of God as the portion of your soul.
You pleaded, indeed, the promises in the name
of Christ, and hoped that God would fuHil
them in your experience ; but you often doubt-
ed whether he would do so, and felt that you
had no certain hold on Him or them. The
consequence of all this was, that the Gospel
had not a firm hold upon you ; and therefore,
when temptation came, you were not fully
prepared to resist it. You could not say, " I
am a child of God, and must not give way to
it — an heir of salvation, and need not be van-
quished by it." Temptation, therefore, had
nothing to contend with, but a sense of duty
and interest ; and this it overcame.

It is of immense importance to understand
this point clearly. You were quite sincere, and
not unhappy, when you began to follow Christ :
salvation was your supreme object ; and the
hope of obtaining it, sooner or later, was (he
joy of your heart.

CAUSES OF BACKSLIDING. 187

You did not, however, expect to obtain it
soon ; but laid your account with years,
perhaps, of diligence, before you could make
your calling and election sure. And, at first,
you were not unwilling to pursue the assu-
rance of salvation at this expense of diligence.
You thought, and rightly too, that the witness
and seal of the Spirit would amply repay all
the pains taken to obtain them. However,
before they coidd come, you had begun to go
astray. Neither your diligence nor delight
lasted long. They did not, indeed, pass away
so rapidly as the early cloud, or the morning
dew ; but they did pass away sooner than you
could have imagined it possible for them.
Now remember, and mark, — ^just in propor-
tion as your delight in the ways of God de-
clined, your diligence abated ; and, exactly as
both declined, your doubts of the reahty of
your conversion multiplied. Accordingly it
was not as a child of God — not as a believer —
not even in the character of a convert, — that
you departed from God ; but, in leaving Him,
you suspected that you had never belonged to
Him. You, most likely, even paHiated your
backslidings to yourself, by the consideration

188 CAUSES OF BACKSLIDING.

that you had either never avowed yourself to
be a true convert, or had not been sure of it
in your own mind. Your backsHding did
not, therefore, appear to you as the departure
of a. child from a father, but of a. servant from
a master. You feh, indeed, that you were
risking your soul more than ever; but you
felt, too, that it had never been safe. Thus,
you had not all, nor the best, motives of a
conscious believer, to restrain you. You had,
indeed, motives which ought to have restrained
you, and which ivould have done so, if they
had been kept steadfastly in view ; and it is
but your sin and shame, that you lost sight
of them : but still, you had not that magnetic
motive which confirmed the souls of the first
disciples, — " We love him because he first loved
us.^^ Any love you had to the Saviour
arose either from the consideration of his
general love to the world, or from the hope
that he might, one day, manifest his love to
you ; and, as the manifestation which you
looked for did not come, the diligence which
you began with did not go on.

Now, if this was the real state of the matter
in your case, thus, it is evident, it will be aga'*-,

I

CAUSES OF BACKSLIDING. 189

unless you get under the influence of the pecu-
liar, as well as the common, motives which
bind the soul to Christ and holiness. In re-
turning to God, therefore, see to it — that it is
by believing in Christ that you may " he justi-
fied by the failh of Christ^ Your first ap-
proaches to the Saviour came short of this.
" The end" of whatever faith you exercised
then, was the remote, not the immediate, sal-
vation of your soul ; whereas you are war-
ranted, and welcome, immediately upon com-
mitting your soul to Christ for a holy salvation,
to believe that you " shall be saved ;" for God
accepts at once, and Christ keeps for ever, all
who beheve with the heart unto righteousness.
Credit this, therefore in your own case ; and thus,
although future backsliding will not be render-
ed impossible, it will be far less likely to occur.
There is, however, a class of backsliders
who never went so far, either in believing or
obeying the Gospel, as in the case just stated.
They knew something of the way of salvation,
and, for a time, felt so much of its value, that
they could not neglect secret prayer, nor pray
without tears. They were often quite overcome,
both in their closets and in the sanctuary, with

190 CAUSES OF BACKSLIDING.

sweet or solemn impressions of divine and eter-
nal things. Their hearts melted or warmed
whenever they pondered on the great salvation.
But now, all this holy susceptibility and deep
feeling is lost, and with it, all the hope which
it gave rise to. Accordingly, such persons,
on looking back to their former state of mind,
and contrasting it with the present, feel that
they are backsliders in heart and in life. The
consciousness of this melancholy fact over-
whelms them at times ; but when they think
of returning to the Fountain of hving waters,
the want of their old feelings of love and relish
discourages them. Hence the language of some
is, " O that it were with me as in months past !
but I can neither feel nor pray now as I did
then, and, therefore, I dare not hope. My soul
no longer prospers, and therefore I can take no
comfort from the promises. I have lost my first
love, and now I can get no hold upon Christ
for myself. I have departed from God, and
God has, in anger, hid his face from me !"

Now this is certainly a deplorable case ; and
whoever would treat it harshly has not the spirit
of Christ. The sincerity and humility of the
confession demand both respect and tenderness.

CAUSES OF BACKSLIDING. 191

There are, however, mistakes mixed up with it,
which require to be corrected, even if some
pain be incurred by the correction of them.

Now, when you say that " God has hid his
face from you in anger," this implies that you
once saw it in love, and enjoyed the hght of
his countenance. But is this really true ? Is
it certain that what you once enjoyed, was
the divine presence shining on your soul ? It
is quite certain that you enjoyed something
which was both pleasing and profitable to you
at the time : of that there can be no doubt,
seeing the memory of those happy moments is
so dear to you, and the loss of them so deeply
deplored by you. It is not, therefore, with any
view of throwing discredit on your word, that
I ask. Is it the fact, that God ever manifested
himself to your soul as your Father and por-
tion ? Every thing is not the divine presence
which is called so. What you felt then, may
appear, when compared with your present
darkness, the light of God's countenance ; but
you did not, perhaps, think it so then. Re-
member what was your opinion of that joy,
when it was full, and whilst it lasted ! Were
you, then, sure that you had obtained salva-

192 CAUSES OF BACKSLIDING.

tlon — sure that you were accepted in the Be-
loved— sure that you were passed from death
to hfe 1 Did not your joy arise rather from a
persuasion that you were in a fair ximy for
finding mercy at last ? Were you not quite as
much pleased with your own good feelings and
intentions, as with the Gospel ] Was it not,
chiefly, because you /e// as you did, that you
hoped as you did then 1 Remember, as mi-
nutely as you can, the precise character of
your first love ! I am not attempting to dis-
credit its sincerity, but to ascertain how far it
was influenced by faith in the atonement.
What I want to get at in your case, is, the
degree in which your hopes and happiness
arose from believing views of the blood of
Christ. Now, you did not overlook that great
atonement, nor presume to hope apart from
its merits. In one sense, it was your only
and final plea at the mercy-seat : but did you,
even in your best days, think it a sufficient
, plea 1 W^hen you pleaded it most fervently,
did you feel it to be enough, in itself and by
itself, to obtain for you acceptance with God ?
Did you see nothing between you and hell,
but the cross ? — and see that to be quite

CAUSES OF BACKSLIDING. 193

enough to save you from the wrath to come ?
Did you really believe or perceive, that nothing
but faith was necessary in order to warrant
hope 1 Did it ever occur to you, even when
your faith was strongest, that your faith had
saved you 1 Or, is it not the fact, that you
attached far more importance to your feelings
than to your faith ? Be honest ! — your be-
lieving went for little in your own estimation.
You thought it the least part of your piety ;
and that, not because it was weak, but because
you had very little faith in the use of faith
itself, or did not regard your own believing as
faith. What you believed, was the last thing
you thought of, when examining the reality
of your religion ; you laid the chief stress
upon your tears, prayers, and holy desires, and
hardly allowed any weight to your believing.
This is self-evident ; for you still believe all
that you did then, and still think your behef
of the Gospel of no consequence or real use.
It gives you no comfort now, and therefore
it was not it which comforted you then.

Surely all this forces upon you the suspi-
cion, if not the conviction, that whatever you
17

194 CAUSES OF BACKSLIDING.

felt, even in your best days, you did not
understand the way of salvation by faith well.
For, do you not see, that if the atonement had
really been the sole ground of your hope then,
and if faith in it had been your hold on it,
you could hope still, because you believe still
all that you did then 1 You are changed for the
worse in many respects, but your believing
goes on as formerly. I mean — you disbelieve
none of the truths which you beheved then.
You have as much faith in the truth of the
Gospel as ever ; but having less feehng, you
attach no importance to it. You never laid
much stress upon your believing, and now you
think it of no use whatever.

The object of these remarks is, to convince
you, that however sincere, warm, or pleasing,
yojr former religious feelings were, you were,
all along, very imperfectly acquainted with the
way of salvation ; indeed, so ignorant of it,
that if all these feelings were restored in
your heart, they would not prove you to be a
believer. The loss of them proves that you
are a backslider from much that was good
and promising; but the revival of them, in
all their original tenderness, would not con-

CAUSES OF BACKSLIDING. 195

stitute a child of God : for sinners are made
" the sons of God, by faith in Christ Jesus ;"
■whereas, in your creed, this grand principle
of the Gospel has been overlooked or misunder-
stood. Or, if you have talked of salvation
by faith, you must have meant, by faith, some-
thing more than the hearty belief of the truth
concerning the person and work of Christ.
Depend on it, therefore, that you are not, and
never have been, so humble as you imagine ;
for had you seen or believed that there was no-
thing but the blood of the Lamb between you
and perishing, you must have seen too, that the
only way of escape is by trusting to that blood.
Well — it is open to your confidence still ; and,
if you are persuaded of the truth of its freeness
and efficacy, why not trust in it at once !

Many other causes of backsliding might be
(perhaps ought to have been) enumerated ; but
the moral causes of it are so abundantly ex-
plained in other works, that it seemed better to
confine this chapter to those mistakes, and to
that uncertainty, upon the subject of a personal
interest in Christ, which give such power to
temptation, by leaving the mind unsatisfied,
and unfortified with the hope of salvation.

No. XII.

SANCTIFIED AFFLICTIONS.

The perplexity of the serious is often in-
creased, for a time, by their trials or calamities.
And in this way : it seems hard, when we are
willing and trying to do well in the service of
God, to be hindered by an unusual weight of
affliction. Such a hindrance we did not look
for ; but almost calculated that providence^
as well as grace, would smile upon us when
we became the decided followers of the I^amb.
We may not, indeed, have ventured to say so,
in words, to ourselves ; but it was almost an
understood thing, and taken for granted by us,
that we should be in less danger than formerly.
We intended to do so well, and to be so devoted
to God, that it seemed unlikely that he would
allow any thing to befal us, which was likely
to hinder or unhinge us : but God's thoughts
are not as our thoughts on this point. He has

SANCTIFIED AFFLICTIONS. 197

allowed both trials and calamities to come upon
us ; and these may be only " the beginnings
of sorrows."

But this, although painful, should not sur-
prise us ; we had no warrant to calculate upon
exemption from tribulation. In fact, we ought
to have laid our account with passing through
" many tribulations," from the time we began
to walk in "the narrow way" to heaven. It
was " U'riZ/ett," that we should have to do so :
it was obvious that all who had preceded us in
the way to Zion, had done so. If, therefore,
we flattered ourselves, in the face of all divine
testimony and of all human experience, the
flattery must have been almost wilful, and alto-
gether inexcusable. " But no strange thing
has befallen" us, however much we may be
startled or staggered by our afflictions. We
may see the same crosses on the shoulders of
many of our brethren ; yea, and upon many
who are strangers to God and godliness, and
who have thus no resource in the day of
calamity. Now if it be so hard to bear up
under heavy trials, notwithstanding all that we
know of the wisdom of God, and of the tender
17*

198 SANCTIFIED AFFLICTIONS.

ness of the Saviour, how intolerable it must
be to suffer without hope !

This is a view of our trials, which we ought
never to lose sight of. They might have been
sent whilst we were strangers to prayer and
faith ; and, had they come before we fled to
Christ, they might have hurried us on to des-
peration, or hardened our hearts against the
Gospel. Weigh this solemn fact ! We should
not have escaped from all affliction, nor have
had any security against our present sufferings,
by continuing in " the broad way :" they might
have overtaken us there ; or what is worse,
God might have cursed us, by giving us our
good things in this life. Now, if the mighty
hand of God had struck us down whilst we
were afar off from him, and unwilling to draw
nigh to him, the consequences might have
been fatal ; for, if we almost sink now, although
we can cast our burden on the Lord, we must
have been overwhelmed, if that burden had
been laid upon us before we knew the Lord.
And if, at times, it almost alienate some of our
feelings from him, by its weight ; how easily
might it have set all at the heart against him,

SANCTIFIED AFFLICTIONS. 199

whilst our hearts were unregenerate ! This is
not such an unusual effect of severe troubles
as you may imagine. We, indeed, see many
brought to their " right mind" by affliction ;
and therefore we are apt to suppose that the
natural tendency of it is to awaken the careless,
and soften the obdurate ; but whenever afflic-
tion does so it is not by its natural influence,
but because it is overruled for good, by grace.
Accordingly in those circles of life where the
means of grace are neglected, and the Gospel
unknown, the usual effect of trouble is to
harden the heart against God, or to produce
utter recklessness. There are, indeed, some
pleasing exceptions to this melancholy fact,
which occur ; but they are very few ; and no
wonder. How could it, in the nature of things,
be otherwise ? Affliction is well calculated to
enforce whatever a man hiou-s of God and
salvation ; but, if he have grown up in igno-
rance of the things which belong to his " peace,"
it cannot inform him of these things. Accord-
ingly, where they are not known beforehand,
there is nothing in the mind to work upon, but
its own powers and passions, and these are ra-
ther irritated than subdued by the rod. Had,

200 SANCTIFIED AFFLICTION?.

therefore, our severest trials come upon us
whilst we were ignorant and out of the way,
the probability is, that they would have seared
our conscience, and thus sealed our ruin.

Another reconciling consideration is — that
our former trials have been positively useful
tons. Our present affliction is not the first;
we have had the cup at our lips before ; and
if it be bitterer than before, there is still no
'poison in it. Hitherto it has proved salutary
in every instance. Accordingly we can trace
an intimate connexion between certain trials
and the formation of our religious character :
they gave power and glory to our views of
salvation and eternity, and brought our prin-
ciples to the test ; and assisted in breaking up
bad habits, and in bringing down bad tempers ;
for before we were afflicted we " went astray."
Upon our devotional character, especially,
they have had a mighty influence. The s^nrit
of prayer might almost be said to have begun
with the beginning of our sorrows ; we came
so near to God, and unbosomed and un-
burdened our souls so fully to him, when his
hand was first lifted up against us. We saw
the '* needs be" for the rod then, and acknoM-

SANCTIFIED AFFLICTIONS. 201

ledged that in faithfulness he had afflicted us.
Accordingly, on looking back to the devotional
exercises of that time, and the devotional
habits which grew out of them, we can truly
say with David, " It was good for me that I
was afflicted." Wow, with all this experience,
why not expect similar good from your present
afflictions ? They are heavier — but they are
from the same hand, and from the same heart
too ; and therefore for the same gracious pur-
pose.

" But they have not the same influence,"
some may say ; " this stroke of the rod has
quite stunned me. My spirit is so over-
whelmed within me, and my mind so unhinged,
that I cannot pray, nor meditate, nor do any
thing aright. My former troubles endeared
the mercy-seat and the means of grace, and
seemed to bring with them the strength and
the consolation required for bearing them well ;
but this calamity has swept, like a whirlwind,
all my best principles and feelings before it.
Nothing rises in my heart but dark and horrid
thoughts ; and when I try to pray them down,
they rise more fiercely !" This is, indeed, a

202 SANCTIFIED AFFLICTIONS.

deplorable case ; but still, it is only the natu-
ral effect of the first pressure of heavy woes ;
they unsettle and upset the mind for a time,
and we ourselves ag<^ravate their pressure by
rash conclusions. One rash conclusion, which
we are prone to draw, is, — that we never can
get over such a trial, nor be ourselves again.
We feel sure of this, and say that it is impos-
sible ever to surmount it, or to be happy again.
Perhaps this is your opinion of your own
case. It is, however, a conclusion utterly un-
warranted by Scripture or experience. Others
have recovered from strokes of providence
equally stunning. Asaph was quite as much
overwhelmed as you are. Besides, you are
not prepared, whatever you may think at pre-
sent, to abide by your own conclusion. It is
not drawn from all the facts of the case. You
are looking only to " the things which are seen,
and temporal," and overlooking " the things
which are unseen, and eternal," when you say
that all is over in your case. For surely you
have not made up your mind to brave and
bear eternal separation from God and the
Lamb ! Surely you are not willing to aban-

SANCTIFIED AFFLICTIONS. 203

don your soul to perdition, because your tem-
poral interests are gone to wreck ! You cannot
look a ruined eternity in the face, and reck-
lessly await its coming ! Such horrid thoughts
may, indeed, flash across your agitated spirit
for a moment ; but you dare not, cannot dwell
upon them. Even if you indulge them for a
moment, there is a lurking hope that it will
not come to this : and even when you are
most desperate, you are not prepared to affirm
that God cannot bring you out of these deep
waters.

Consider this ; you are not prepared to throw
your precious and immortal soul into the
general wreck of your happiness. There is
enough lost, without losing that too ! Besides,
you do not believe yourself, when you try to
say to yourself, that all hope is for ever gone.
Oh no ! you may not see how you can be
restored, but you know that restoration is not
impossible. You dare not go the length of
maintaining that God is your implacable and
eternal enemy. You may say, " What can I
think, seeing God has allowed all this to come
upon mel Is not my calamity a token, not
only of his anger and wrath, but of his hatred .<"*

204 SANCTIFIED AFFLICTIONS.

No I for grievous as it is, it is less than Job's ;
and in his there was no hatred at all. Besides,
you once thought, and believed, that God was
your friend. " Ah," you say, " it is the
recollection of that hope which aggravates all
my misery. I had begun to feel as a child, and
to act as a child, towards the God of salvation ;
and I seemed, to myself, likely to do well in his
service, until this came upon me." Indeed !
upon what grounds did you then rest the hope
of your sonship 1 Perhaps these grounds re-
main as open and firm as ever ; — if they were
scriptural grounds, they actually do. If, how-
ever, you took up the hope of salvation from
the consideration that providence was smiling
on you ; and thought God your Father, because
your temporal lot pleased you, you were risk-
ing your soul in a refuge of lies ; and if so,
your calamity is sent in mercy, to drive
you for refuge to the hope set before you
in the Gospel. But if you say, " It was not
wanted for that ; all my hope of salvation and
sonship was built, not on any thing in my
temporal lot, or in my moral character, but
wholly on the Rock of Ages ; Christ was all
and all as the ground of my hopes : if so, have

SANCTIFIED AFFLICTIONS. 205

you not known — have you not heard, that
Jesus Christ is " the same yesterday, to-day,
and forever?'''' Then all the grounds of your
hope do remain the same as ever. The foun-
dation standeth sure, whatever else is fallen.

Now the matter comes to a point ; for if it
be the fact that your hopes were not founded
on, nor influenced by, the providential to-
kens of divine favor in your lot, but were
derived solely from the person and work of
Christ, — the changes in your lot ought not to
change hope into despair, seeing the founda-
tion of hope is unchanged. But you say, " I
am sadly changed to the worse." In what X
You wonder at this question, and are ready to
say, " In every thing." Now you should, of
course, know best ; but, at present, you are
neither calm nor collected, and therefore it
may be that you judge too rashly. There
is, however, no doubt, a melancholy change
in the frame of your mind, and in your devo-
tional habits; but still, these are not every
thing in rehgion : they are important and
necessary things ; but they are not the whole
of piety, nor yet the vital principle of it. Faith
18

206 SANCTIFIED AFFLICTIONS.

in Christ is the grand bond of union between
the soul and God : and if that bond be not
broken, your soul may soon return to its quiet
rest; — "cast down," indeed, "but not de-
stroyed ; perplexed, but not in despair." But
you say, " My faith is gone, as well as my
hope ; they perished together, in the day of
my calamity." Indeed ! how could that be ?
Your calamity made a sad alteration in you ;
but it did not alter the Saviour, nor the Gos-
pel, nor the promises of God to believers.
Perhaps it did not alter your leading views or
convictions in regard to the persorv and work
of Christ. If not, your faith is not clean gone
yet. Examine the matter calmly : you were
once fully persuaded of the truth, and suitable-
ness, and value of the Gospel. Is this per-
suasion changed 1 Is there any part of the
divine testimony concerning Christ, which
you now disbelieve ? Do you think less of the
Saviour than formerly? He is not, of course,
so precious in your estimation as he was, when
you could look up to him as your oivn Sa-
viour : but you still believe him to be the
only Saviour. In regard to all but yourself,

SANCTIFIED AFFLICTIONS. 207

you are fully persuaded that he is able to save
to the very uttermost. How then can you
say, that your faith is utterly perished ? Is
there no faith in a firm belief of all the truth
concerning the Saviour? If not, what do you
mea7i by faith?

Perhaps you never attached much impor-
tance to the cordial behef of the truth itself;
but have, hitherto, regarded nothing as faith,
but the reliance which you placed on Christ
for your own salvation ; and therefore, as that
reliance is shaken to its very centre at present,
you, of course, conclude that you have no
faith. Now it is certainly very useless to be-
lieve the truth ■ concerning the Saviour, without
trusting in him for salvation. It is, however,
the belief of the truth concerning Him, which
is the warrant for trusting in Him. You
may say, " I cannot trust — cannot rely, now :
God seems to debar me, by visible tokens of
his anger." Now really, this is a rash inter-
pretation of his dealings. You cannot lay
your hand upon one text of Scripture, which
says that such judgments as yours are fatal,
or final. The whole tenor of Scripture^stamps
them as being fatherly chastisements, inflicted

208 SANCTIFIED AFFLICTIONS.

in love, not in hatred. And as to the asser-
tion, that you can no longer venture to rely
on Christ for yourself, it is equally unfounded.
You, of course, believe and feel it to be true ;
but it is not the less false, in itself, on that ac-
count. The Spirit of God is just as able to
enable you to trust in Christ now, as when he
first won your confidence to Him ; and, for
any thing that appears to the contrary, just as
willing as ever. He is, however, the Spirit
of truth, and therefore works by the truth ;
and that truth which you require to see, in
order to the renewal of your trust in Christ,
is — that you are warranted and welcome to
rely on Him for your own salvation, upon the
single ground of still believing what God has
testified concerning him. Now, that testi-
mony you do believe with the heart sfiil ;
unhinged and overwhelmed as your heart is !
You have lost your hold upon hope and peace,
during this stormy and dark day: but you
have not lost hold of the truth of the Gospel.
Well, on this ground it is both your privilege
and your duty to take up hope again. Now,
if you see this clearly, the lesson is worth all
that you have suffered in order to learn it.

SANCTIFIED AFFLICTIONS. 209

Assuming, therefore, that you now see how
your faith in Christ has secured your interest
in Christ, and maintained it throughout all the
vicissitudes of your case, what do you think of
your trials, when you view them in this light?
Your soul is still safe ; God is still your friend ;
the Saviour has not forgotten you ; the Spirit
has not forsaken you ; — whatever you have lost
or suffered. Is not this an up-making portion ?
Does not all this balance the weight of affliction,
and even lighten it 1 You may now calculate
upon grace to help, and on strength to sustain
you. " Humble" yourself under the mighty
hand of God, and he will exalt you in due sea-
son. This hot furnance was the fiery trial of
your faithf as well as your patience ; and,
accordingly, it has purified your faith from
much of its dross, and increased its value
in your own estimation. And, is it not amaz-
ing to you to see the glorious principle of sal-
vation by fahh, like a rainbow, spanning and
spangling the dark clouds of your calamity !
Can you ever cease to wonder at this wonder ?
Saved by faith! Now you can do and endure,
as seeing Him who is Invisible.
18*

No. XIII.

EXPERIMENTAL MAXIMS.

" Hold the JVTystery of Faith in a pure con-
science.''^ In nothing else can it be held with
comfort or effect. When a bad conscience gets
between the mind and the Gospel, it soon brings
on an almost total eclipse upon both, until the
Gospel no longer appears what it really is, and
the mind can no longer apply it as formerly.
How naturally and inevitably this should be the
effect of a bad conscience, you may judge from
the fact — that you have found it difficult to get
hold, and to keep hold, of the principle of sal-
vation by faith, notwithstanding all your efforts
to maintain a good conscience towards God and
man. Your conscience was, perhaps, never
more tender or watchful than during your in-
quiries into this principle ; and if, in this state

EXPERIMENTAL MAXIMS. 211

of mind, you have at one time been afraid to
call your believing, faith ; and at another time
afraid to conclude that you were justified ; — it
is obvious that a bad conscience must render
such conclusions impossible, upon scriptural
or rational grounds. The sober and solemn
fact is, that the comforts of the Gospel are in
the hands of the Holy Spirit ; and, therefore,
when they are not employed for holy purposes,
he withholds them, or, what is worse, leaves
the mind to the infatuation of crying " Peace,'*
when there is no peace. However clearly,
therefore, you may now see the way of your
own salvation by faith, be sure of this, — that
as soon as you cease to strive to maintain a
good conscience towards God and man, your
hold upon the Gospel will begin to relax, and
continue to lessen, until you sink into greater
perplexity than ever. A good hope cannot be
held in a bad conscience.

" Let the peace of God reign in your hearts.^^
Yes, let it ! Some do not allow it to rule or rest
in their hearts. " We have peace with God,"
when the Holy Spirit enables us to see and be-
lieve that we are justified by faith :" but this

212 EXPERIMENTAL MAXIMS.

way of arriving at, and retaining, peace of con-
science, is so different from all our natural,
and from the spirit of many of our acquired,
ideas, that we are prone to flinch from it, or to
be afraid of it ; and thus we unsettle that peace
which springs from believing. We talk, in-
deed, of " living a life of faith ;" but, in gene-
ral, this is made to include almost every thing
but faith itself. Nor is this the only way in
which peace with God is disturbed and lost :
in comes into the heart by believing ; but it
comes to " nt/e" in the heart ; and, therefore, if
it be not allowed to sway its sceptre over our
habits and tempers, it will not shed its sweet
influences over our hopes. Oh, charge all
that is within you, to let it rule over you !

*' Pray always with all praijcr and suppli-
cation.''^ If you know yourself to be a believer,
you have not, of course, to pray for faith itself,
but for the increase and the continuance of it ;
nor for justification itself, but for the habitual
sense of it, and for the pardon of daily sins ; nor
for sonship itself, but for the spirit of adoption ;
nor for the new birth itself, but for the progress
and perfection of regeneration : but what a field

EXPERIMENTAL MAXIMS. 213

— what occasion — for frequent and fervent
prayer is thus before you ! And you will re-
quire to pray, until your spirit be disembodied
for praise. Without prayer, you cannot main-
tain a good conscience : without prayer, you
cannot keep before your mind the principles or
the facts of the Gospel, which have relieved
you : without prayer, the spirit of adoption
will evaporate as morning dew : without prayer,
the joints and sinews of your moral and religious
character will relax and fail. You never can
realize as your Father,, the God you are re-
luctant to commune with. You may call
him so before others ; but you will be unable
to tliinJc him so in your own mind.

" When thou art converted, strengthen thy
brethren^ Some, when they discover the
perfect simplicity of the Gospel, and see clearly
that the cordial belief of it is faith, and that
faith itself settles the question of acceptance
with God, — have no patience with those who
are groping their way to these great principles,
and no respect for those who happen to state
them less clearly. Penitents are thus treated
Avith harshness ; and preachers, who are as

214 EXPERIMENTAL MAXIMS.

intent as any on making Christ all and all in
salvation, are branded as legalists and enemies
of the Cross. Now, to say the least of such
conduct, it is realiy despicable ! How can
such persons forget the slowness of their own
hearts to apprehend and believe the whole of
the Gospel ] Guard against this censorious
spirit! You did not see your own way or
welcome at once, nor soon, nor easily. And
it is more than probable, that one half of the
patience, w hich you have required in your own
case, will be quite sufficient to bring these
humble inquirers into the glorious liberty of
the children of God. For they are not unbe-
lievers^ because unable yet to see how ^aith
itself unites the soul to Christ. In general,
they believe with the heart all the truth with
which God has connected the promise of sal-
vation ; so that, on your own principles, they
are safe, without knowing that they are so.
" Strengthen,''^ therefore, instead of staggering,
them.

" Be ye followers of God as dear children.''^
Much, both of your personal comfort and re-
lative usefulness, depends on acting upon this

EXPERI3IENTAL MAXIMS. 215

principle. The theoretic or logical conclusion
that you are a child of God, because you be-
heve in Christ, will not last long, if you cease
to follow the Lord fully. It is, however,
equally true that you will not long follow him
fully, if you lose sight of this conclusion. — He
who would follow as a child of God, must
believe that he is a child of God. Now, if you
believe this in your own case, do speak and
act agreeably to your relationship. I do not
mean, of course, that you should boast of, or
obtrude on othej-s, the hope of your sonship ;
but you may, you ought, to appear in your real
character. By doing so habitually, you will
feel more and more bound to cultivate the
image and spirit of a child ; and others, seeing
not only your good works, but your good hopes
also, wi!l feel that religion gives the happiness
it promises. Whereas when the careless, or
the undecided, see nothing more than practical
godliness in the pious, and hear nothing from
them but details of fears, and doubts, and
strivings ; they are led to argue that religion,
however good, is joyless ; and that the pious
are as uncertain as themselves of salvation,

216 EXPERIMENTAL MAXIMS.

And what else can they think, if you say no-
thing of your enjoyments ? Casting " pearls
before swine" is wrong ; but, in general,
wherever you can speak of your sense of duty
with propriety, you may say something of
your privileges and prospects too.

" Follow peace with all men, and holiness, ^
without which no man shall see the Lord."

POSTSCRIPT.

It may be both pleasing and useful to you
to know, that this little work, now so widely
circulated, has been blessed by God, in a de-
gree which ouf^hi to be publicly acknowledged.
The history of its uselulness would form a
valuable record: but, of course, I dare not
publish it.

THE END.