"Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear,
but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father."
Rom. viii. 15.
WHEN Adam fell, his soul lost its true strength; he forfeited the inward
light of God's presence, and became the wayward, fretful, excitable, and
miserable being which his history has shown him to be ever since; with
alternate strength and feebleness, nobleness and meanness, energy in the
beginning and failure in the end. Such was the state of his soul in itself,
not to speak of the Divine wrath upon it, which followed, or was involved
in the Divine withdrawal. It lost its spiritual life and health, which
was necessary to complete its nature, and to enable it to fulfil the ends
for which it was created,—which was necessary both for its moral integrity
and its happiness; and as if faint, hungry, or sick, it could no longer
stand upright, but sank on the ground. Such is the state in which every
one of us lies as born into the world; and Christ has come to reverse this
state, and restore us the great gift which Adam lost in the beginning.
Adam fell from his Creator's favour to be a bond-servant; and Christ has
come to set us free again, to impart to us the Spirit of adoption, whereby
we become God's children, and again approach Him as our Father.
I say, by birth we are in a state of defect and want; we have not all
that is necessary for the perfection of our nature. As the body is not
complete in itself, but requires the soul to give it a meaning, so again
the soul till God is present with it and manifested in it, has faculties
and affections without a ruling principle, object, or purpose. Such it
is by birth, and this Scripture signifies to us by many figures; sometimes
calling human nature blind, sometimes hungry, sometimes unclothed, and
calling the gift of the Spirit light, health, food, warmth, and raiment;
all by way of teaching us what our first state is, and what our gratitude
should be to Him who has brought us into a new state. For instance, "Because
thou sayest, I am rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing;
and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind,
and naked: I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou
mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, ... and
anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see." Again, "God, who
commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts,
to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of
Jesus Christ." Again, "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead,
and Christ shall give thee light." Again, 'Whosoever drinketh of the water
that I shall give him, shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give
him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."
And in the Book of Psalms, "They shall be satisfied with the plenteousness
of Thy house; and Thou shalt give them drink of Thy pleasures as out of
the river. For with Thee is the well of life, and in Thy Light shall we
see light." And in another Psalm, "My soul shall be satisfied, even as
it were with marrow and fatness, when my mouth praiseth Thee with joyful
lips." And so again, in the Prophet Jeremiah, "I will satiate the souls
of the priests with fatness; and My people shall be satisfied with My goodness
... I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful
soul." [Rev. iii. 17, 18. 2 Cor. iv. 6. Ephes. v. 14. John iv. 14. Ps.
xxxvi. 8, 9; lxiii. 5. Jer. xxxi. 14, 25.]
Now the doctrine which these passages contain is often truly expressed
thus: that the soul of man is made for the contemplation of its Maker;
and that nothing short of that high contemplation is its happiness; that,
whatever it may possess besides, it is unsatisfied till it is vouchsafed
God's presence, and lives in the light of it. There are many aspects in
which the same solemn truth may be viewed; there are many ways in which
it may be signified. I will now dwell upon it as I have been stating it.
I say, then, that the happiness of the soul consists in the exercise
of the affections; not in sensual pleasures, not in activity, not in excitement,
not in self esteem, not in the consciousness of power, not in knowledge;
in none of these things lies our happiness, but in our affections being
elicited, employed, supplied. As hunger and thirst, as taste, sound, and
smell, are the channels through which this bodily frame receives pleasure,
so the affections are the instruments by which the soul has pleasure. When
they are exercised duly, it is happy; when they are undeveloped, restrained,
or thwarted, it is not happy. This is our real and true bliss, not to know,
or to affect, or to pursue; but to love, to hope, to joy, to admire, to
revere, to adore. Our real and true bliss lies in the possession of those
objects on which our hearts may rest and be satisfied.
Now, if this be so, here is at once a reason for saying that the thought
of God, and nothing short of it, is the happiness of man; for though there
is much besides to serve as subject of knowledge, or motive for action,
or means of excitement, yet the affections require a something more vast
and more enduring than anything created. What is novel and sudden excites,
but does not influence; what is pleasurable or useful raises no awe; self
moves no reverence, and mere knowledge kindles no love. He alone is sufficient
for the heart who made it. I do not say, of course, that nothing short
of the Almighty Creator can awaken and answer to our love, reverence, and
trust; man can do this for man. Man doubtless is an object to rouse his
brother's love, and repays it in his measure. Nay, it is a great duty,
one of the two chief duties of religion, thus to be minded towards our
neighbour. But I am not speaking here of what we can do, or ought to do,
but what it is our happiness to do: and surely it may be said that though
the love of the brethren, the love of all men, be one half of our obedience,
yet exercised by itself, were that possible, which it is not, it would
be no part of our reward. And for this reason, if for no other, that our
hearts require something more permanent and uniform than man can be. We
gain much for a time from fellowship with each other. It is a relief to
us, as fresh air to the fainting, or meat and drink to the hungry, or a
flood of tears to the heavy in mind. It is a soothing comfort to have those
whom we may make our confidants; a comfort to have those to whom we may
confess our faults; a comfort to have those to whom we may look for sympathy.
Love of home and family in these and other ways is sufficient to make this
life tolerable to the multitude of men, which otherwise it would not be;
but still, after all, our affections exceed such exercise of them, and
demand what is more stable. Do not all men die? are they not taken from
us? are they not as uncertain as the grass of the field? We do not give
our hearts to things irrational, because these have no permanence in them.
We do not place our affections in sun, moon, and stars, or this rich and
fair earth, because all things material come to nought, and vanish like
day and night. Man, too, though he has an intelligence within him, yet
in his best estate he is altogether vanity. If our happiness consists in
our affections being employed and recompensed, "man that is born of a woman"
cannot be our happiness; for how can he stay another, who "continueth not
in one stay" himself?
But there is another reason why God alone is the happiness of our souls,
to which I wish rather to direct attention:—the contemplation of Him, and
nothing but it, is able fully to open and relieve the mind, to unlock,
occupy, and fix our affections. We may indeed love things created with
great intenseness, but such affection, when disjoined from the love of
the Creator, is like a stream running in a narrow channel, impetuous, vehement,
turbid. The heart runs out, as it were, only at one door; it is not an
expanding of the whole man. Created natures cannot open us, or elicit the
ten thousand mental senses which belong to us, and through which we really
live. None but the presence of our Maker can enter us; for to none besides
can the whole heart in all its thoughts and feelings be unlocked and subjected.
"Behold," He says, "I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear My voice
and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he
with Me." "My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make
Our abode with him." "God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your
hearts." "God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things." [Rev.
iii. 20. John xiv. 23. Gal. iv. 6. 1 John iii. 20.] It is this feeling
of simple and absolute confidence and communion, which soothes and satisfies
those to whom it is vouchsafed. We know that even our nearest friends enter
into us but partially, and hold intercourse with us only at times; whereas
the consciousness of a perfect and enduring Presence, and it alone, keeps
the heart open. Withdraw the Object on which it rests, and it will relapse
again into its state of confinement and constraint; and in proportion as
it is limited, either to certain seasons or to certain affections, the
heart is straitened and distressed. If it be not over bold to say it, He
who is infinite can alone be its measure; He alone can answer to the mysterious
assemblage of feelings and thoughts which it has within it. "There is no
creature that is not manifest in His sight, but all things are naked and
opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." [Heb. iv. 12.]
This is what is meant by the peace of a good conscience; it is the habitual
consciousness that our hearts are open to God, with a desire that they
should be open. It is a confidence in God, from a feeling that there is
nothing in us which we need be ashamed or afraid of. You will say that
no man on earth is in such a state; for we are all sinners, and that daily.
It is so; certainly we are quite unfitted to endure God's all-searching
Eye, to come into direct contact (if I may so speak) with His glorious
Presence, without any medium of intercourse between Him and us. But, first,
there may be degrees of this confidence in different men, though the perfection
of it be in none. And again, God in His great mercy, as we all well know,
has revealed to us that there is a Mediator between the sinful soul and
Himself. And as His merits most wonderfully intervene between our sins
and God's judgment, so the thought of those merits, when present with the
Christian, enables him, in spite of his sins, to lift up his heart to God;
and believing, as he does, that he is (to use Scripture language) in Christ,
or, in other words, that he addresses Almighty God, not simply face to
face, but in and through Christ, he can bear to submit and open his heart
to God, and to wish it open. For while he is very conscious both of original
and actual sin, yet still a feeling of his own sincerity and earnestness
is possible; and in proportion as he gains as much as this, he will be
able to walk unreservedly with Christ his God and Saviour, and desire His
continual presence with him, though he be a sinner, and will wish to be
allowed to make Him the one Object of his heart. Perhaps, under somewhat
of this feeling, Hagar said, "Thou, God, seest me." It is under this feeling
that holy David may be supposed to say, "Examine me, O lord, and prove
me; try out my reins and my heart." "Try me, O God, and seek the ground
of my heart; prove me, and examine my thoughts. Look well, if there be
any way of wickedness in me; and lead me in the way everlasting." [Ps.
xxvi. 2; cxxxix. 23, 24.] And especially is it instanced in St. Paul, who
seems to delight in the continual laying open of his heart to God, and
submitting it to His scrutiny, and waiting for His Presence upon it; or,
in other words, in the joy of a good conscience. For instance, "I have
lived in all good conscience before God until this day." "Herein do I exercise
myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward
men." "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not; my conscience also bearing
me witness in the Holy Ghost." "Our rejoicing is this, the testimony of
our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly
wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world,
and more abundantly to you-ward [Acts xxiii. 1; xxiv. 16. Rom. ix. 1. 2
Cor. i. 12.]. It is, I say, the characteristic of St. Paul, as manifested
to us in his Epistles, to live in the sight of Him who "searcheth the reins
and the heart," to love to place himself before Him, and, while contemplating
God, to dwell on the thought of God's contemplating him.
And, it may be, this is something of the Apostle's meaning, when he
speaks of the witness of the Spirit. Perhaps he is speaking of that satisfaction
and rest which the soul experiences in proportion as it is able to surrender
itself wholly to God, and to have no desire, no aim, but to please Him.
When we are awake, we are conscious we are awake, in a sense in which we
cannot fancy we are, when we are asleep. When we have discovered the solution
of some difficult problem in science, we have a conviction about it which
is distinct from that which accompanies fancied discoveries or guesses.
When we realize a truth we have a feeling which they have not, who take
words for things. And so, in like manner, if we are allowed to find that
real and most sacred Object on which our heart may fix itself, a fulness
of peace will follow, which nothing but it can give. In proportion as we
have given up the love of the world, and are dead to the creature, and,
on the other hand, are born of the Spirit unto love of our Maker and Lord,
this love carries with it its own evidence whence it comes. Hence the Apostle
says, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the
children of God." Again, he speaks of Him "who hath sealed us, and given
the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." [Rom. viii. 16. 2 Cor. i. 22.]
I have been saying that our happiness consists in the contemplation
of God;—(such a contemplation is alone capable of accompanying the mind
always and everywhere, for God alone can be always and everywhere present;)—and
that what is commonly said about the happiness of a good conscience, confirms
this; for what is it to have a good conscience, when we examine the force
of our words, but to be ever reminded of God by our own hearts, to have
our hearts in such a state as to be led thereby to look up to Him, and
to desire His eye to be upon us through the day? It is in the case of holy
men the feeling attendant on the contemplation of Almighty God.
But, again, this sense of God's presence is not only the ground of the
peace of a good conscience, but of the peace of repentance also. At first
sight it might seem strange how repentance can have in it anything of comfort
and peace. The Gospel, indeed, promises to turn all sorrow into joy. It
makes us take pleasure in desolateness, weakness, and contempt. "We glory
in tribulations also," says the Apostle, "because the love of God is shed
abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." It destroys
anxiety: "Take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought
for the things of itself." It bids us take comfort under bereavement: "I
would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep,
that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope." [Rom. v. 3, 5.
Matt. vi. 34. 1 Thess. iv. 13.] But if there be one sorrow, which might
seem to be unmixed misery, if there be one misery left under the Gospel,
the awakened sense of having abused the Gospel might have been considered
that one. And, again, if there be a time when the presence of the Most
High would at first sight seem to be intolerable, it would be then, when
first the consciousness vividly bursts upon us that we have ungratefully
rebelled against Him. Yet so it is that true repentance cannot be without
the thought of God; it has the thought of God, for it seeks Him; and it
seeks Him, because it is quickened with love; and even sorrow must have
a sweetness, if love be in it. For what is to repent but to surrender ourselves
to God for pardon or punishment; as loving His presence for its own sake,
and accounting chastisement from Him better than rest and peace from the
world? While the prodigal son remained among the swine, he had sorrow enough,
but no repentance; remorse only; but repentance led him to rise and go
to his Father, and to confess his sins. Thus he relieved his heart of its
misery, which before was like some hard and fretful tumour weighing upon
it. Or, again, consider St. Paul's account of the repentance of the Corinthians;
there is sorrow in abundance, nay, anguish, but no gloom, no dryness of
spirit, no sternness. The penitents afflict themselves, but it is from
the fulness of their hearts, from love, gratitude, devotion, horror of
the past, desire to escape from their present selves into some state holier
and more heavenly. St. Paul speaks of their "earnest desire, their mourning,
their fervent mind towards him." He rejoices, "not that they were made
sorry, but that they sorrowed to repentance." "For ye were made sorry,"
he proceeds, "after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us
in nothing." And he describes this "sorrowing after a godly sort," to consist
in "carefulness, which it wrought in them," "clearing of themselves,"—"indignation,"—"fear,"—"vehement
desire,"—"zeal,"—"revenge," [2 Cor. vii. 7, 9, 11.]—feelings, all of them,
which open the heart, yet, without relaxing it, in that they terminate
in acts or works.
On the other hand, remorse, or what the Apostle calls "the sorrow of
the world," worketh death. Instead of coming to the Fount of life, to the
God of all consolation, remorseful men feed on their own thoughts, without
any confidant of their sorrow. They disburden themselves to no one: to
God they will not, to the world they cannot confess. The world will not
attend to their confession; it is a good associate, but it cannot be an
intimate. It cannot approach us or stand by us in trouble; it is no Paraclete;
it leaves all our feelings buried within us, either tumultuous, or, at
best, dead: it leaves us gloomy or obdurate. Such is our state, while we
live to the world, whether we be in sorrow or in joy. We are pent up within
ourselves, and are therefore miserable. Perhaps we may not be able to analyse
our misery, or even to realize it, as persons oftentimes who are in bodily
sicknesses. We do not know, perhaps, what or where our pain is; we are
so used to it that we do not call it pain. Still so it is; we need a relief
to our hearts, that they may be dark and sullen no longer, or that they
may not go on feeding upon themselves; we need to escape from ourselves
to something beyond; and much as we may wish it otherwise, and may try
to make idols to ourselves, nothing short of God's presence is our true
refuge; everything else is either a mockery, or but an expedient useful
for its season or in its measure.
How miserable then is he, who does not practically know this great truth!
Year after year he will be a more unhappy man, or, at least, he will emerge
into a maturity of misery at once, when he passes out of this world of
shadows into that kingdom where all is real. He is at present attempting
to satisfy his soul with that which is not bread; or he thinks the soul
can thrive without nourishment. He fancies he can live without an object.
He fancies that he is sufficient for himself; or he supposes that knowledge
is sufficient for his happiness; or that exertion, or that the good opinion
of others, or (what is called) fame, or that the comforts and luxuries
of wealth, are sufficient for him. What a truly wretched state is that
coldness and dryness of soul, in which so many live and die, high and low,
learned and unlearned. Many a great man, many a peasant, many a busy man,
lives and dies with closed heart, with affections undeveloped, unexercised.
You see the poor man, passing day after day, Sunday after Sunday, year
after year, without a thought in his mind, to appearance almost like a
stone. You see the educated man, full of thought, fall of intelligence,
full of action, but still with a stone heart, as cold and dead as regards
his affections, as if he were the poor ignorant countryman. You see others,
with warm affections, perhaps, for their families, with benevolent feelings
towards their fellow-men, yet stopping there; centring their hearts on
what is sure to fail them, as being perishable. Life passes, riches fly
away, popularity is fickle, the senses decay, the world changes, friends
die. One alone is constant; One alone is true to us; One alone can be true;
One alone can be all things to us; One alone can supply our needs; One
alone can train us up to our full perfection; One alone can give a meaning
to our complex and intricate nature; One alone can give us tune and harmony;
One alone can form and possess us. Are we allowed to put ourselves under
His guidance? this surely is the only question. Has He really made us His
children, and taken possession of us by His Holy Spirit? Are we still in
His kingdom of grace, in spite of our sins? The question is not whether
we should go, but whether He will receive. And we trust, that, in spite
of our sins, He will receive us still, every one of us, if we seek His
face in love unfeigned, and holy fear. Let us then do our part, as He has
done His, and much more. Let us say with the Psalmist, "Whom have I in
heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth I desire in comparison of
Thee. My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart,
and my portion for ever." [Ps. lxxiii. 25, 26.]
Copyright © 2000 by Bob Elder. All rights reserved.
Used with permission. See the Newman website:
http://www.newmanreader.org/index.html
