PART
III
PROGRESS AND POWER
Soul, then know
thy full salvation;
Rise o’er sin and fear and care;
Joy to find in every station,
Something still to do or bear,
Think what Spirit dwells within thee,
Think what Father’s smiles are thine;
Think that Jesus died to win thee –
Child of heaven, canst thou repine?
Armed by faith and winged with prayer,
Heaven’s eternal day before thee,
God’s own hand shall guide thee there.
Soon shall close they earthly mission,
Soon shall pass thy pilgrim days,
Hope shall change to glad fruition
Faith to sight, and prayer to praise.
The tone of this remark had a shade of impatience
and contempt, accompanied by just the slightest curl of the lip and all the
emphasis of a finality.
The young gentleman who made it had, the day before
— it was now Monday morning — been trying the new-fledged wings
of his recent licensure, and was just returning in the cars to the halls
of theological lore, to make a new sermon or mend the old one, against the
time of the next invitation from an over-worked pastor needing respite, or
a vacant church, seeking supply.
The gentleman to whom it was made was one of some dozen years’
experience as a minister of the gospel, seated by his side in the cars. The
two had providentially met a few moments before in the depot, and been introduced
by a mutual friend. Seated together, and whirling along toward B., they beat
about for a while in desultory conversation upon various things general or
personal, but soon settled, upon the topic of the higher walks of the Christian
life. Some turn in their talk had called out this remark.
“No,” added the young gentleman deliberately, with a peculiar
emphasis of a deep downward inflection on the word hate. “No, I
hate the idea of a certain fixed point to be gained — a resting
place — the all in all to be aimed at or expected by the
Christian.”
His travelling companion, in the softened tone of a mellowed experience
of the love of Christ, and of a developed patience with the foibles of mortals
like himself, suggested that perhaps his friend had yoked together a right
idea with a wrong one, and was condemning the innocent with the guilty, simply
from having himself unwittingly placed it in bad company. “You are certainly
right in rejecting the idea of any stopping place for the Christian this
side of heaven; but are you sure that a definite point in experience is a
stopping place.”
“We are rushing along in the ears at the
rate of twenty miles an hour towards A., and I have no thought of stopping
until it is reached; but we have just now passed the very definite point
B., in our journey, and have been doubly advertised of the fact by the car
whistle as we were halting, and the clear voice of the conductor calling
out B., in the long-drawn manner to be heard over all the din of voices and
clatter of feet, and also by the name B., in large letters upon the front
of the depot. And in a few moments again, we shall come to C., another very
definite point — both on our checks and on the bills, known and read
of all journeyers by rail. And yet beyond the moment spent in wooding and
watering, and stretching our limbs — are they in any proper sense stopping
places — much less the all in all aimed at and expected by journeyers
to A.? Are they not — mere stages in the journey — new and nearer
starting points for home? You do not believe in conversion
perhaps?”
“0 yes, indeed I do and teach it too.
I believe in it, and urge it with all my might upon everybody as a distinct
experience, the privilege and necessity of all, known by signs before and
signs following, clear and easily distinguishable.”
“Well, is the new birth a final stopping
place?’”
“0, no, indeed! Too many, it is to be feared,
think they have gained all — when once they have had clear evidence
that they have been born again — until they are afterwards reluctantly
taught better, but it is only the starting point of the Christian
race.”
“Well, may there not be another period as
well, the new starting point of a higher progress, just as distinctly marked
as conversion itself, and the second no more a stopping place than the
first?”
The young gentleman was interested — not
convinced — and eager and more eager as they rushed on toward the moment
and place of separation, to have his car companion unfold his ideas of the
unfolding Christian life.
Willing rather to put his young friend upon the
permanent track of a higher happiness and of a nobler usefulness, than merely
to gratify any momentary curiosity, the servant of Jesus graphically delineated
the two stages of experience as they have been given to the world by eminent
men from their own personal history, Luther and D”Aubigne amongst the
number. Each stage he described as the definite attainment of an actual progress,
the first as the victory conquering peace, and the second as a new start,
both in a richer peace and a more expansive wisdom and
beneficence.
As the conversation went on and the point of separation drew near,
the fire kindled in the ingenuous heart of the young man and shone forth
in his noble face.
Hope — a new hope of gaining for himself,
Luther like, a deeper, stronger vital union with the True Vine, and a more
generous fruitage in the vineyard of his Lord, just now opening out before
him, sprang up in his soul. He frankly confessed his fruitless struggles
and sad disappointments in the past, and as frankly owned his now newly awakened
hope for the future. Many things said by his companion struck deep into the
generous soil of his ardent young heart, and clear and active mind: nothing
however more deeply than the two-fold significance of the text which became
the Reformer’s watchword and talisman, “The just shall live by
faith.” The just shall be made alive first, and afterwards
learn to live by faith. The just shall be justified before God
first, and afterwards learn the way to become just also in heart and
life, by faith. This two-fold significance of the text, illustrated by
its suggestion the first and the second times in the Reformer’s heart,
as by a celestial voice within, with the interval of years between the two,
and meeting in each case a want so different, caused the young man to exclaim,
“0 the depth of the riches of the word of God! What hidden force it
contains! We get but half of it at most, and then too often think we have
all!“
They parted with reluctance. But cars like time
and tide wait for no man. With their shrill signals and ringing-bells, they
constantly reiterate the words of warning and wisdom, “What thou doest,
do quickly,” though, alas, only too many like Judas are hurried on by
them to the betrayal of the Master for silver. Not so with our travellers,
however. Our young friend had even now, got a spur arid a life-long power
also in the work of his Master, and his companion’s heart like the fountain,
welling up and full to the brim, was all the fresher and not a whit the less
full for all he had given to his thirsty fellow-traveller by the
way.
Was it not just such conversations, in just such
places that the prophet Malachi referred to, when he said, “Then they
that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and
heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him. And they shall be
mine, saith the Lord, in that day when I make up my jewels. And I will spare
them as a man spareth his own son that serveth
him.“
Surely, the Lord, in this instance, did stoop
down and bend his ear to their talk by the way, for he evidently sealed it
to the permanent blessing of the young man, giving him — it may be hoped
— in his own happy experience the evidence in his own case of a definite
point gained, not a final stopping-place, but the new and nearer starting
point of a higher and happier progress. The moment came. They had met for
the first time, and now were about to part for the last time, to meet again
— not until that hour when each shall come bearing his sheafs with him.
Their hearts were touched; the warm grasp of their hands told it more than
their words.
“I shall never forget you, sir, nor this
hour in the ears. Already, long ago, I was made alive by faith, and the day
and the hour are engraven in living letters in my memory. It was the starting
point of Christian life with me; but never until this hour have I learned
that the way to live, is also, and in the same way by faith. Now I trust
God has taught it to me, and this is to me a new and is a higher stage and
starting point. May God reward you, sir. Good by.” “Good by. The
Lord make you wise and strong to teach others the way. God bless you.”
So they parted, the one to go on his way to B. and the other to turn off,
and return to the venerable school of the prophets.
While upon this subject of stages and starting
points, there are yet two or three questions to be
answered:
First: Why speak of stages in the Christian life at
all. Is it not a thing of gradual growth, like the plant, from the blade
to the full corn in the ear, and of steadily unfolding progress, like that
of the light from the first grey dawn of the morning twilight onward to the
perfect day, rather than a thing of steps and stages at
all?
Here again is another mal-adjustment of ideas:
Not now, however, the yoking together of two ideas not yoke-fellows at all,
the one true and the other false, and so of condemning the true with false,
as the young man in the cars did, but the separation of two ideas both alike
true, and true yoke-fellows, and pitting them one over against the other,
like David and Goliath arrayed in mortal combat.
The Christian life is, indeed, plant-like, a thing
of gradual growth; but then it is also none the less plant-like as a thing
of stages.
Conviction is its first stage and starting point.
The truth, like the seed sown by the husbandman, may have lain long buried
under the soil of youthful levity, or under the hard crust of a heart often
reproved; but at last, when the rain and the sunshine of heaven come down
upon it, it begins to feel the power of a divine energy within and swells
and bursts its cerements of worldliness, and pushes upward, feeling after
the light of heaven until it comes forth “the blade,” a
new creature born of God into the kingdom of light.
Conversion is a new and a higher starting point,
from which plant-like the Christian life unfolds, joint after joint, leaf
after leaf, stretching upward and onward for fruitage and fulness of stature,
until at last it gains the fruit-bearing status of true Christian manhood
and majority and liberty, and rejoices in that stage of its progress marked
by our Saviour as “the corn.”
Having now learned the way to live by faith, it
goes on ripening its fruit for the golden harvest, and the heavenly garner
of its Lord, and becomes in due time the “full corn in the ear,”
ready for the sickle of the angel reapers.
Or, taking the figure of the light, increasing
more and more to the perfect day, you have the same two ideas of gradual
growth, and yet of stages of progress, harmoniously and beautifully blended
and expressed. For while the light pours in upon us, in ever increasing flood,
through the opening gates of day, from the first rays gladdening night’s
darkest hour onward until, in noontide splendor, the day is perfected. Yet
is there not first the dawn, then the sunrise, and finally
the noon of the perfect day? Strange that an argument for the rejection
of the idea of distinct stages in the Christian life should ever have sought
its basis in these comparisons, which so beautifully and clearly express
and illustrate the very ideas sought to be condemned by the
argument!
The same idea is also given by the apostle Paul
in his Epistle to the Romans i. 17. “For therein (in the gospel) the
righteousness of God (to all and upon all that believe, Jew and Greek,) is
revealed (made manifest) from faith unto faith (from stage to stage)
as it is written the just shall live by faith.”
And how vivid the living comment and confirmation of Luther’s
actual progress by stages in connection with this very
text!
Expressed again also by the apostle to the
Corinthians, second Epistle, iii. 18, by a figure which gives the true philosophy
of the whole glorious mvstery of our sanctification or transformation into
the image of God by a single dash of the pen. “But we all with open
face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same
image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.” That
is the Holy Spirit as promised by our Lord to his disciples — takes
of the relations of Christ to us, and unfolds them before us, while we behold
his glory, and his glorious fitness exactly to meet each want of our souls,
as in turn one after the other they unfold and press upon us, whether of
justification from the law, or of sanctification to God, or of glorification
in his presence above; and thus we are changed by the view of Christ into
his image from glory to glory. The same thing is expressed also by the apostle
in another form in first Cor. i. 30, where the various relations of Christ
are unfolded in order to us as they do actually open out in experience, to
meet our unfolding wants from stage to stage. “Made of God unto us
WISDOM,” that is conviction of folly and sin, conviction, as Jesus himself
says, because they believe not on me. The fear of God which, according to
King Solomon, is the beginning of wisdom — RIGHTEOUSNESS — that
is, justification from sin —SANCTIFICATION — that is transformation
into the likeness of God — and REDEMPTION that is transfiguration from
the earthly image of the Lord to the glorious image he bears now in heaven,
and translation to heaven.
The answer, therefore, to the question, “Why
speak of the Christian life as a thing of stages at all? is first of all
because it is so, and so to speak of it is to speak
truth.
But this is not all. There is another reason impelling
it, because it is a fire in the bones — it must out.
And another and a better one still, because it
is the way of all ways to arrest attention, and induce men to press for the
experimental apprehension of that which is set before
them.
The preaching of John the Baptist had this striking
feature, that it was distinct and clear above all who had gone before him,
and therefore his success was greater, insomuch that the Saviour said that,
amongst those born into the world a greater had not arisen than John. His
trumpet had the clarion ring of an Elijah in its power. And it had also the
clear ring of an apostle almost in the definiteness with which he presented
the one stage of experience, “metanoia “ change of
heart.
The force of John’s preaching is in some
measure hidden to us by the translation of the word metanoia as repentance,
whereas its full meaning is new birth or change of heart. But as we, in
imagination, bend the ear and listen to the prophet on the banks of the Jordan,
proclaiming to the gathering crowd coming from far and near, the baptism
of repentance, the need of a change of heart to escape the damnation of hell,
we might almost imagine it to be Whitefield on Bristol common, reiterating
the Saviour’ s words, “Except ye shall be born again, ye cannot
see the kingdom of God,” and urging his message by depicting the wrath
to come. It was just this vivid apprehension of the truth, and this definite
presentation of it, which gave both the Judean and the Anglican prophets
such power and success.
The success of the apostles in winning men to
the higher experience — the baptism of the Holy Ghost — first received
by themselves, and then definitely proclaimed by them to others, as the privilege
of all who would believe on the Lord Jesus, was due also, in great measure,
to the definite vividness, with which they set this stage of the Christian
life before men as an object of desire and attainment.
There are those who seek to muffle the arrows
of truth, lest their naked points should pierce the heart and hurt the feelings,
but arrows must be sharp in the hearts of the king’s enemies,
or they will not fall under them.
It is the lack of a definite experience, first,
in our own hearts of the fact and truth that Christ is made of God unto us
sanctification, and then the consequent lack of a clear and vivid
presentation of it to others, as an experience within sure and easy reach
of all who will make it a point, and urge their way to it which, more than
everything else — love of the world not excepted — keeps the church
back from receiving and living in the fullness of the blessings of the gospel
of peace.
The second
question
is this: Admitting that the Christian life is one of stages, do all Christians
pass through the same — the same in number and
variety?
The answer is both yes and no. Yes, if the question
embraces only such stages as are essential to: salvation. No, if it relates
to such as have their occasions in the peculiar circumstances of individual
life.
A glance must satisfy every disciple of Christ,
that in the case of every sinner saved, unless filled with the Holy Ghost
from his mother’s womb like John the Baptist, there must be a period
of conviction — a time when he is convinced of sin — else he never
could repent and be saved.
And also the period of conversion; the moment
when he does repent of sin, forsake the world, and become the Lord’s;
else he never would be the Lord’s.
And a time likewise when he comes to the perception
and reception, of the fact that Jesus will cleanse him from all sin, and
fit him for heaven; else he never will be fitted for heaven, for Jesus alone
can fit him, and faith alone is the condition upon which he does
it.
These several periods may, or may not be marked
at the moments of their occurrence, and may or may not be remembered afterwards.
They may be very unequal in the intervals between — sometimes all crowded
into a moment, as in the case of the thief on the cross. Sometimes the period
of conviction may last a life-time almost, and the subsequent stages all
be passed through in an hour, as in the case of the brother of George Whitefield,
who after long years of gloomy forebodings, at last, while at the table of
Lady Huntingdon, caught from her lips the words that Jesus came to seek
and save that which was lost, and in these words received Jesus by faith
— and next morning was dead — already washed white and made pure
in the blood of the Lamb, and presented faultless by the hand of him whom
he had so lately received as the seeker and Saviour of the lost. Sometimes
the interval after the conviction may be only a moment before conversion,
but a whole lifetime may be spent after conversion before learning that faith
is the victory that overcometh; and at last, after terrible struggles and
fears, like those of that wonderful man,
Dr. Payson, he may in the evening hour of life
learn the great secret of the gospel as the way of salvation from sin, and
have a peaceful — yea, a gorgeous sunset of it.
So, also, these several periods may each be separated
from every other, and from everything else, so as to be clearly and distinctly
described as stages of experience, or they may be so associated with other
and peculiar circumstances of individual life as to be regarded by themselves
and others, as special incidents of their own peculiar lot in the
world.
As for example, the case of
Before
becoming the bride of the man of her choice, she had espoused the bridegroom
of the church. Indeed, in giving to him her heart with her hand, she gave
him clearly to understand that it was a heart in which Jesus was enthroned.
This he liked well — for he too had settled the great question of life
first of all, long before becoming engrossed with the questions and cares
of a settlement in the world.
So, as they journeyed westward through the —
then dense forests of the new country, they had the company of him who had
proclaimed himself to Jacob at Bethel, and promised him never to leave him
or forsake him until he should have done all that he had told him of. And
when they threw up their log cabin, in the unbroken wilderness, and kindled
their first fire on the hearth, and prepared their first repast in their
new forest home, and sat down for the first time to their table spread in
the wilderness for them, the cheerful blaze in the heart toward God was brighter
than the fire on the hearth, and they had meat to eat which was unseen on
the table — their cabin and table, and all like themselves to each other
were regarded as God’s gifts, and held by them as God’s
stewards.
But days of darkness came. Children were born
to them and given to the Lord from their birth — but it was hard for
them, the mother especially, to lay them in the grave. The death of their
first born, with its mutiplied sorrows, and the long weary watchings induced
a low long running fever from which, after many months, she recovered, but
always bore the marks of it in two ways: first, in a weakened body weighed
down with infirmity, and second, in a strengthened heart borne up by a trust
and a peace never felt before.
Her murmurings and rebellions in the days of her
trial had brought up to the surface all the deep sediment of sin, and startled
her at the sight of herself, and her sickness had called up the judgment
as at hand, and her own heart had condemned her as unfit and unready to meet
the welcome of her Judge. She was afraid to die, but her struggles to prepare
were as vain as any attempt could have been to remove mountains, until at
last in sheer despair, she cast the whole care of her sins — the cure
of her sins — as well as their pardon, upon Christ and was at peace.
While at the same time she cast all her cares for her own health and the
safety of her husband and children, and indeed every thing else on the Lord:
and when at last she rose from that weary but blessed bed, she was changed
to herself and to every body else. Calm and peaceful, placid and
happy.
But then it was so connected in her own mind and
the mind of others with the deaths of her child and her own illness, that
it was always spoken of as a special result of the Lord’s special
chastenings upon her — altogether a special thing — while in fact,
hidden under the special circumstances of her case, there was the experimental
apprehension of the way of salvation from sin by faith in the Lord Jesus,
which was the hidden spring of the great change in her feelings, and the
open fountain of her peace and good fruits abounding in all after
life.
And this brings us to the second answer —
No. No, to the question, Do all Christians pass through the same stages of
experience, when the question embraces such stages as are peculiar to the
special mission or circumstances of particular
individuals.
While there are general features of likeness amongst
all, each one has his own special mission in the world, and his own special
occasions with God.
Not every one like Abraham is called upon to pack
up all — strike tent and away for a strange land, the very name and
boundaries of which lie knows nothing at all.
Not every one like Abraham is called upon to lay
an Isaac upon the altar and lift the knife to slay him, and then to hear
the angel voice that commands him to stay his hand, for God had prepared
himself a Lamb. Why? Because not every one is called to become the father
of nations hike Abraham and the father of the faithful.
These experiences of the patriarch are peculiar
to himself, because peculiar to his mission. And yet Abraham at some time
and in some way, had to pass through the period of conviction, and afterwards
learn the way of pardon by faith, and also of purification in the same way;
all the same as any of the multitudes who call him
father.
Oftentimes, doubtless, there is — in the
wise providence of God a combination of that which is general with that which,
is peculiar, as in the case of the Lady in the West. The Bethel scene in
the life of Jacob is an instance of this kind. His peculiar distress in leaving
his home and losing the heirship of his father’s wealth, sold to him
by Esau in the birthright for a mess of pottage, but wrested from him again
by threatened violence, together with his fears for his own safety in the
long lone wilderness journey before him, and his own sins rising up in accusation
against him and bringing with them dread of God’s wrath, caused him
to cry unto God in the bitter anguish of despair, as he was about to pillow
his head on the stone and stretch his weary limbs on the ground for the night..
And this made occasion for God to manifest himself to him, and unfold to
him his purposes towards him, and his loving care and kindness over him.
And this in turn called forth the vow of service from Jacob, and filled his
heart with a joyous faith in the Lord.
Under all these specialties there was, all enfolded
in their drapery, the one great generality — the youthful patriarch’s
conversion to God.
He went forth from Bethel a new creature, born
not of man nor of the will of the flesh, but of God.
The third and last question relating to this topic
of stages and starting points, is this: must all who are saved, then pass
through the stage of experience called for convenience second
conversion?
The answer here again is both yes and no. No,
if by the question it is intended to ask whether every one or any one must
have a time of deep anxiety and violent struggling, like many whose experiences
have been sketched in these pages, followed by a moment when light breaks
in, and joy springs up, and peace overflows, and doubt and darkness all flee
away.
Any particular kind of experience is nowhere in
the Bible made a pre-requisite of salvation. He who really and truly believes
in the Lord Jesus, will be saved whether he has any experience at all to
relate or not.
Like the record of the patriarch ISAAC’S
LIFE, there may be a life laid on the altar of God, by parental faith in
infancy, followed in due time by a faith in the child, like the little boy
prophet Samuel’s, as bright as an Abraham’s and yet too early in
its beginnings, and too steady in its unfoldings to be marked by memory or
recounted in its stages; a life which life-long, is a living sacrifice to
God, unceasingly sending up the smoke of its incense from the glowing fire
in the heart, kindled and fanned and fed by the Holy One of Israel, and yet
with no particular Damascus Road, or Bethel scene to mark it from first to
last. And who will say that such a life is any less the living epistle of
God, or any the less the sure precursor of heaven, than the life of vicissitudes
and vacillations, marked by a Bethel, a Mahanaim, a Jabbok and a Shechem,
like the patriarch Jacob’s?
But then, on the
other hand, if the questioner means to ask whether it is necessary for all
to come to the point of trusting in the Lord for purity of heart to be prepared
for heaven, the answer is yes. For there is no other way under heaven to
be purified but by faith in the Lord. And none but the pure in heart shall
see God in peace.
This may be learned sooner or later in life, and
with or without a distinct period of struggling, followed by the joys of
knowing the glorious truth; but it is a point that must be gained, or heaven
must be lost.
Millions have lived life-long in ignorance of
it, trembling often and often at the thought of death and of their own unfitness
for heaven. And at last, in the very last days, or hours, or moments, or
seconds of life, the glorious fact that Jesus would purify them and present
them whiter than snow in is his own spotless robes has been revealed to them,
and all their doubts and fears have been swallowed up in the triumphs of
faith.
For many years the Governor was distinguished
as a Christian — a consistent member of his church. A rare and a shining
mark, both for the jests of ungodly politicians, and for the happy references
of all lovers of Jesus.
It is a very lovely thing, and only too remarkable
to see one occupying the highest position of honor in a State, himself honoring
the King of kings. Happy is the people who exalt such a ruler, to the places
of power, and happy such a ruler, in his exaltation, more, however, in the
humility with which he bows to Jesus, than in the homage which the people
pay to him.
His conversion was clear and satisfactory, and
he renounced all merit of his own as the ground of his acceptance with God.
The blood of Jesus, the Lamb of Calvary, was all his hope. He was firmly
grounded in the atonement of Christ. And all went well until death and the
judgment drew near. About three weeks before the hour of his departure, he
was seized with an illness which he himself felt would end in his death.
And with the premonition of death came the question of fitness for heaven.
He was troubled. His unfitness was only too apparent for his peace. The fever
of his mind was higher than the fever in his veins — and, alas he had
not yet learned that Jesus is the physician of unfailing skill, to cure every
ill that the spirit is heir to. He saw plainly enough how he could be justified
from the law that it should not condemn him; for its penalty had been borne
already by the Saviour himself; and its claims on the score of justice were
all satisfied. But he did not see that the same hands which had been nailed
to the cross would also break off the manacles of sin, wash out its stains
and adjust the spotless robe of Christ’s perfect righteousness upon
him, and invest him with every heavenly grace.
His perplexity was great. The night thickened
upon him, his soul was in agony, and his struggles utterly
vain.
The point of despair is sure to he reached, sooner
or later, by the struggling soul, and the point of despair to him who abandons
all to Jesus is also the point of hope. The Governor at last gave over and
gave up, saying in his heart, “ Ah! Well. I see it is of no use. Die
I must. Fit myself for heaven I cannot. 0, Lord Jesus I must throw myself
upon thy mercy, and die as I am.”
This hopeless abandonment was the beginning of
rest to his soul. Indeed, it was the victory that overcometh. Soon the loveliness
of Jesus began to be unfolded to him, and he saw that the way of salvation
from sin was by faith in the Saviour. The fire in his veins burned on, steadily
and surely consuming the vital forces of his manly frame, but the fever of
his spirit was all allayed by the copious and cooling draughts given him
from the gushing fountain of the waters of life flowing from the smitten
Rock, and his joy was unbounded.
As his stricken and sorrowing family gathered
around his bed for the last words of the noble man, he told them with a face
radiant with joy, that he had just found what was worth more to him than
riches, or honors, or office, or anything else upon earth. “The way
of salvation by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,” and he charged them
as his dying mandate, by the love they bore him, not to rest until they too
— whether already Christians as he himself long had been, or not, had
also found the same blessed treasure.
They asked him what legacy he wished to leave
for an absent relative, whom they knew it was his intention to have remembered
in the division of his estate.
“That is all arranged in my will,” said
he. “But tell her from me that I have found the way of salvation by
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and if she too will find that, she will find
infinitely more than I could bestow upon her, if I should give her all I
am worth in the world.”
They mentioned the name of a distinguished fellow
officer and special friend of the governor’s, living in a distant part
of the State, and asked if he had any message for him.
“Tell him that I have found the way of salvation
by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and if he will also find it for himself
it will be better than the highest offices and honors in the reach of man
upon earth.”
So he died. “0, had he only known this
before,” you say. Yes, that was just what he himself said. “0,
had I only known this when I first engaged in the service of God, how happy
I should have been! And how much good I could have
done!”
How like the dying regret of Dr. Payson. Likening
himself in the fulness of his bliss, as the chariot of fire which should
bear him to heaven drew near, to a mote floating in the sunshine of infinite
love. He exclaimed, “0 had I only known what I now know twenty years
ago!”
And this might answer still another question should
it be asked as it often has been, viz.
How does it fare with all those professors of
religion who live on to the end of their days without the experimental knowledge
of the way of sanctification by faith?
Badly, of course, if they are mere professors,
and not truly converted, as it is to be feared too many are. For they have
not been justified, and therefore they cannot be either sanctified or glorified,
but will be banished from the presence of God and the glory of his power
forever, and covered with shame everlasting contempt.
But, if really converted, then the way of
sanctification by faith in Jesus will be made plain in the evening of their
earthly course, as in the case of Payson and Duncan, for if it is so with
the leaders of God’s host, will it not be also with the rank and
file?
But 0 how much better it had been! How much better
would it be in the morning of life! How much it would save! How much it would
bless the world if it should be twenty years
earlier!