Windings of the river of the water of life : in the development, discipline, and fruits of faith

Preface

Ix this humble attempt to unite the speculative and the practical en the subject of Faith, I have followed no theory, but have endeavored to trace the stream of Christian experience, as it is recorded in the Word of God, and makes its appearance in the hearts of God’s people. But we begin the stream back of its appearance as a River of Life, even there, where belief exists, as a constitutional element of our being, though not as faith in God manifest in the flesh. Men cannot live even in and for the body only, without a belief in something above the body, and out of it. We take away the very ground under the feet of infidelity, by showing that the unbeliever, even in not believing, has to throw himself upon belief, and has to be a more credulous soul by far, than the man of spiritual Faith. But as Thomas Carlyle somewhere excellently says (or something very like it), the credulity of unbelief is a faith in mere inert dead masses, with a blank denial or blind ignorance of that spiritual lightning, which alone can set things on fire. And a wotul, dead, hopeless age it is, when the belief in spiritual hghtning has gone, and there is nothing deemed real but the five senses.

The union of Grace and Truth is only in Jesus Christ; and Faith is the manifestation, not of human power, but of Christ himself in the mind, Christ in the heart, Christ in the life, and Christ in the soul, the hope of glory. Faith is a life, not a speculation; it is a life, and not a mere emotion in regard to the Author of life. I have endeavored to trace its workings, its forms, its results, its various developments, for the ministry of the life of a practical piety, in Christians who, like Paul, count not themselves to have attained, hut would be pressing forward. May the Divine blessing accompany the effort !

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Preface To The Second Edition

In this edition a few verbal alterations have been made, and some things have been added, to carry out more perfectly the design of the work. The Author could have wished to connect with this volume some additional chapters on Praying in the name of Christ, and on Justification by Faith; but the size of the book already forbids. We will only add the remark of Luther, “ Nothing is more sure than this,—he that does not take hold on Christ by faith, and comfort himself herein, that Christ is made a curse for him, remains under the curse. The more we labor by works to obtain grace, the less we know how to take hold on Christ; for where he is not known and comprehended by faith, there is not to be expected either advice, help, or comfort, though we torment ourselves to death.”

New York, January, 1850.

Preface To The Third Edition

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Wuere Christ is known and comprehended by faith, there heavenly works follow and prove the faith ; but if the fig-tree know not Christ, there is no fruit, but leaves only. A good man once said, There be many religions, but only one righteousness, and that is in and of Christ only. Two men in a market-place were once disputing on some controverted points of divinity. A countryman stood by and said, Show us your wheat. It will be very much with the final trial of your speculations, as with the sale of your wheat. No matter where it comes from. Your customer does not ask if it came in by this road or that, by the plank-road or the rail road, by the river or the lakes, nor whether it came in a wagon or a barge; but he thrusts his arn into the bag, and pulls out a handful of the wheat, and looks at it. So it is in religious things. There are many religions, but only one righteousness. Show us your wheat. The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his; and, let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.

New York, February, 1851.

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Beginnings of the River.—Poverty of truth without life—Grace and truth combined only in Christ—Mistakes of mere head-work without heart-work .. : ; . : : ; : ; - A 3

Chapter II

Coloring of Truth through the prism of individual experience.—Grace a winding River, and a free, original, unconstrained life-—Danger of making press-gangs out of human theories and hypotheses.—The law within and the law without—Light within and light without.— Heart-light and intellectual light, and God’s prerogative in regard to them . f ; : : : 4 ’ : F ‘ sour AU

CHAPTER II.

Faith here, a discipline preparatory to knowledge and faith hereafter.—Passage of faith into knowledge and life-—Faith in the testimony of God becoming experience.—The life of heaven a life of faith—The extreme credulity of unbelief.—Necessity of faith in evil as well as good.—Impossibility of escaping from the evil, except by | believing God’s testimony in regard to it . ’ ; : : pees |

Viti CONTENTS.

Chapter IV

PAGE Faith followed by the Earnest of the Spirit—The distinction between Faith, Knowledge, and Experience.—Neither Faith nor Experience possible, if Experience be demanded first—Reproductive power of Faith, and its reduplicating processes of growth.—Connexion between the Earnest of the Spirit in the Church, and the conversion of souls from the world 3 ; : : s : ; ‘ : Ree 7

Chapter V

Effect of unbelief upon the Character.—lIllustrations of unbelief in the Pharisees and Sadducees.—Absolute necessity cf relying on God’s testimony.—Purpose for which that testimony was given, that by faith we may avoid the experience of evil, and secure the experience of good.—Comparison of the experiment of faith, and the experiment of experience.—Faith alone can lead the soul to heaven; experience alone leads it down to hell. ‘ ; : : 2 nue

Chapter VI

Sympathy with God and sympathy with man.—Faith in God’s Word, faith in God’s holiness and justice, and faith in man’s guilt, the elements of power in leading the Soul to faith in Christ the Saviour.— Comparison of Edwards and Whitefield—Comparison of revivals of religion as produced mainly by true sympathy with God, and a regard to his glory, or mainly by sympathy with man and the desire of salvation . “ : : : : ‘ ; ; ; . 49

PPO

Individuality and independence.—God in man, not man reduplicated.— Entire dependence God-ward, entire independence and originality, man-ward.—Helps from Christian biographies —Supremacy and power of Christ’s example

Chapter XI

Counterfeit Bills—The religion of imitation, not experience.—Faith trembling and self-distrustful, unbelief presuming and self-confident CHAPTER XII.

Counterfeit Bills continued.—Formalism and Faith, Pride and—Contrition in contrast—The power of the element of self-despair CHAPTER XIII.

Faith guided of God.—Unbelief left to itself—The separating pillar.— Sunshine and darkness in the same dispensation. —The source of infidelity

CHAPTER: XIv..: The trials of faith. Trials of character, and trials to mend character.— Inward and external trials.—Christian sympathy CHAPTER XV.

Faith still put to the test.—Is it faith in sight, or faith in God ?—Three days in the wilderness.—Light out of darkness, strength out of weakness.—The discovery of God in self-disappointment and abasement

CHAPTER XVI.

Faith an in-working law, with the obedience voluntary ; not a despotism, with the obedience compulsory or irresistible——God working in man both to will and to do.—Deceitfulness and danger of the idea of perfection attained

CHAPTER XVII.

Faith working by Love.—Assurance not an attainment, but a result.— Not a direct gift, but the consequence of Christ in the aflections.— Not a direct duty, but the companion of duty, and its after-part

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CHAPTER XVIII.

Illustrations of the Life of Faith in Christ’s Apostles.—The Life of Faith a Missionary Spirit at the very outset, and a life of Love continued

CHAPTER XIX.

The calling of Philip, and Philip’s work upon Nathaniel_—The social power and impulse of Christianity.—Desirableness of Love to Christ as the reigning feature in the character

CHAPTER XX.

Philip and Nathaniel—The voice of the Gospel and of Faith, Come and See!

CHAPTER XXI.

The Creed of Doubt . ‘ a - : 2 X ‘ i

CHAPTER XXII.

The Creed of Faith . : : . P : : A ‘

CHAPTER XXIII.

The Reproof of Mercy

‘CHAPTER XXIV.

Justification by Faith, and obedience after it—The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus. 3 ‘ 7 : : ‘ ; : CHAPTER XXV.

The Cross daily—-The Morality of Faith the only true and constant Morality.—Faith the element of power in Prayer CHAPTER XXVI.

Faith, the element of power in Prayer.—Imaginary Prayer.—Dreaming of flying —Wandering thoughts in Prayer.—The incaleulable importance of right habits, as fixtures of the soul in Prayer .

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CONTENTS.

Part Fourth. Christ In The Soul The Hope Of Glory

CHAPTER XXVII.

Christ the Light of the Soul.—In this world, partial, as through a glass darkly. In the Celestial world, supreme, entire, unmingled, universal.—T he single eye, and the Spiritual body

CHAPTER XXVIII.

The Vision of Faith continued.—Spiritual discernment only from God.— The natural man and the Spiritual man, the blind man and the seeing

CHAPTER XXIX.

Faith’s Vision continued.—Spiritual discernment and Spiritual insensibility both illustrated by the Transfiguration . 5

CHAPTER XXX.

Faith’s Vision continued.—F aith passing into Love.—Self put out by letting Christ in.—Object of the appeals to Self in the Gospel

CHAPTER XXXI.

Justification by Faith.—The religion of Faith and the system of Works delineated.—Faith producing Works.—Justification followed by glorification : : ‘ : : ; ; : : A

CHAPTER XXXII.

Glorification completed.—Heaven a perfect state, both relatively and absolutely, but such perfectness not attained this side of Heaven.— And in Heaven itself, all perfection is in and of Christ—Conclusion of the Windings of the River of the Water of Life . : : :

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33-4 byt ee

DEVELOPMENT, DISCIPLINE,

ERUPTS OF TALE.

Part First. Grace And Truth

CHRIS? “IN -THE MIND.

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WINDINGS OF THE RIVER

OF THE

WATER OF LIFE

Chapter I. Introduction

Beginnings of the River.—Poverty of truth without life——-Grace and trutli combined only in Christ—Mistakes of mere head-work without heart-work,

Doss the River of the Water of Life go into the mind first, and into the heart through the mind, or into the mind through the heart? Grecian, J ewish, and Saxon philosophers, so called, might laugh at this question, as if it were very easily answered ; for they think that truth alone constitutes life, truth according to their seeing; and that all truth is addressed only to the understanding. But truth alone, truth left to itself, is not the River of the Water of Life to sinful beings ; but if they be left to themselves, and the truth left to itself and to their reception of it, itis a river of death. The Law of God is truth without mixture ; but to sinful beings it is not a river of life; without grace it worketh death. The Law was given by Moses, but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ. Grace and Truth together, and that only, is the River of the Water of Life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. Grace and Truth, from the throne of God and of the Lamb.

All truth is addressed to the understanding; but if men “walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their hearts,’ then the process of enlightenment, the process of cure, must begin with the heart. In this sense: the River of the Water of Life runs into the heart first, from the throne of God and of the Lamb, and then into the mind; and the mind is enlightened only in proportion as the heart is cleansed. Hence the prayer of the Psalmist, Create in me a clean heart, O God! and the prayer of the Apostle, “That the God our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him; the eyes of your understanding being enlightened.” 'The eyes of the understanding, in spiritual things, are right affections and a believing heart. This is that single eye, with which the whole body shall be full of light. Full of light, because there is life-light in the heart. It is not simple intention merely, but a heart purified by faith. A single eye, in the ordinary sense, is no great wonder. A man may have a single eye, it is well said, by putting one eye out, or keeping one eye shut ; and in this way men full of prejudice and blindness often think they have a single eye. In this way even an Atheist may have a single eye, putting one eye out entirely, and looking with the other straight forward into darkness. But the true single eye is where both eyes look out from a single heart, purified by faith; looking together, and looking to God, and looking in God’s light.

And so again the Apostle prays to be “strengthened with might by God’s Spirit in the inner man that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend.” So it is plain that Jove is the source and ground of comprehending— of understanding. Right affections are the opening of the eyes of the understanding, the removal of the blindness of the heart, and then and thus light pours into the mind. “ The entrance of thy words giveth light ; it giveth understanding to the simple.”

In Hmm was Life, and the Life was the light of men. The Life was the light, not the light was the life. The law given by Moses was light, but it was not life. In Him, in Christ was the life, and the life was the light. Truth discloses sin, but cannot cure it. God’s law shines upon it, but only to forbid and condemn it. The light alone cannot remove the deformed objects it shines upon, but there must be another hand, another power, another influence. There must be a life at work within, as well asa light shining upon.

For this reason it is that that remarkable expression is used to signify regenerated persons, Children of Light. Children; it is a filial, affectionate, obedient relationship to the light as life, a confiding, childlike life in it. Children of light, not mere servants or slaves. The servant abideth not in the house for ever, but the Son abideth ever. The mind without the heart may be a slave of light, but the heart only can be a child of light. The mind filled with light may be a convict, condemned to work at the galleys ; but the regenerated heart filled with light is a free, gentle, loving child. And so, for all gracious truth, all true liberty, all true life, the mind must come, just like a little child, to Christ. For truth, the mind may go to a great many sources, and may gather many kinds of truth; but for grace and truth it can go only to Jesus Christ; it can find that combination nowhere else.

Let men therefore beware of thinking to work out their own salvation by the truth only, or the head only, or by speculative knowledge, or by the prayer-book only, or by external rites. The salvation of the soul will’ not come, revivals of religion will not come, except by grace and truth, and they come only by Jesus Christ. And whoever undertakes to produce them in any other way than by ‘ going to him, will be found very much in the predicament of those seven sons of one Sceva a Jew and Chief Priest, who took upon themselves to call over those who had evil spirits, the name of the Lord Jesus; the name only, but neither grace nor truth; and the man in whom the evil spirit dwelt leaped upon them and beat them, so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded. Such, sooner or later, must be the result of all efforts, either upon ourselves or others, made by mere names and ceremonies, without a heart acquaintance with Christ, and a humble, contrite application to him for grace and truth.

Truth, alone, is mere head-work, grace is heart-work. Truth in the head alone, turns into error; it becomes vermiculate, as Lord Bacon once said of the wit of man exercised upon mere speculation; it breeds worms, and men spin it into brain-cobwebs of their own fancies. Men by the head, take truth which was meant for the heart, and which must be baptized into the heart, along with grace, and the heart into it, before it would be salvation, and absolutely pervert it into falsehood by using it apart from its meaning and intent. They take the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, for example, which is really heart-truth, and heart-affecting truth, and was meant eminently for the heart’s good, and which, as a rite, is the heart’s language of loving remembrance towards the Blessed Saviour, and the Saviour’s assurance of neverceasing love to his disciples, and they work at it and by it with the head only; they assert and reason themselves into regeneration by it; they eat it, and say they are saved by the ordinance ; and a man who believes himself saved by an external ordinance, or is persuaded that he receives the Spirit of God by an external ordinance, without the heart, is not likely to take much other trouble to gain the Spirit of God; is not likely, either, to inquire very particularly into the need of the Spirit of God in the heart, or to make regeneration a heart-work in any way. So this truth is made a lie, by working at it with the head only, without the heart. We might show, indeed, how multitudes of monstrous, misshapen errors have come about in the same way.

CHRIST IN THE MIND. y;

We say of a ship, ill-constructed, that she is too much by the head; she ploughs into the waves, instead of flying over them, and making them the means of her progress: so men who carry truth by the head knock their heads against it, instead of using it for heart-life, and for onward progress. Such men put forms for realities, and change realities into mere forms. They take, for example, ‘the truth of regeneration by the Holy Spirit, which was meant for the heart, and is nothing without the heart, and put it into the form of baptism, and go at it by the head, saying, that men are regenerated by baptism, and that baptism is regeneration. They take the truth of baptism, also, which is nothing without the heart, and was meant for the heart to be put into, and which is like an outward case to be put round a picture that God himself is painting, and by head-work only they put baptism itself in the place of that which it merely signifies, in the place and stead of regeneration in the heart. So men come to man to do that for them which God only can do. Suppose that men should be so utterly deluded as to resort to a man professing the ability to produce perfect miniatures, but giving instead thereof merely the outside morocco cases; and suppose they should accept the empty cases and carry them home on the faith of the man’s assurance (inasmuch. as he received his commission for painting in a direct line from Titian), that when they get home they shall find the pictures inside ; we should look upon that as a very strange delusion. Yet in spiritual things, many take the cases, and comfort themselves with the assurance that they have the pictures; and they lay them away carefully, but never look inside to see whether they are not disappointed. Poor Ignorance fumbled for his roll of assurance at the Gate of the Celestial City, but found it not!

Thus more head-work makes absolute error out of heart-truth. . It is so in innumerable cases. Prayer itself may be turned from truth into error, and always is, when it is resorted to and relied upon by the head without the heart.

It is truth resorted to without grace. A man must bring his heart to Christ, for truth and grace to be put into it, and not stand tinkering upon it himself by truth only, or by Moses instead of Christ. Moses and morality are good, if they lead to Christ. Moses commanding morality is good, as the Schoolmaster, to teach a man his own sinfulness, his utter destitution of all that can make any pretence to morality, and his need of Christ; but that is all Moses can do. And if, instead of learning of Moses their need of grace and truth, and coming to Christ for it, men work with Moses and truth only, it is just using truth with the head merely, and not the heart, and so it proves error, or at the best, mere condemnation. Such will the truth always be to sinful men, separated from grace and without it.

There are fabrics of our food, which have to pass through certain processes to become wholesome, and taken without those processes, may be absolute poisons. There are fabrics in the arts for our clothing, which have to pass through certain mediums or processes before they are fit for use, and which, if men take them without those processes, are slazy and worthless. So it is with forms of truth belonging to the heart, and of heart-manufacture by grace, when men attempt empirically to lay hold upon them, and pronounce names over them, and use them in the raw, without those heart processes. They may be deemed valuable, but they are worthless. They may be relied upon for salvation, but dead or perverted truth is no better for salvation than positive unmingled error. It is just as if a man going to sea, should provide his ship with a quantity of unspun hemp instead of cables, and having pronounced the word cables over it, should confidently set sail, insisting that the heap of raw hemp was cable enough, and would hold the ship, if kept beneath the hatches: so miserably mad and deluded are men who rely upon forms, without God’s grace in the heart, in the affections. There are those who, in times of spiritual.

danger, run to forms instead of Christ, as if a return to form, or a clinging to form, would save them. A delusion not unlike that of those who, in a case of fire, will throw a looking-glass out of the window, and carry an andiron carefully down stairs.

Even where external forms seem not to be trusted in, nor mere external morality, there may be a formalism of. the heart, and a trusting to Moses there without grace, or to truth there without Christ. And truth without Christ is as poor as forms without truth, We may sometimes see serious-minded men pounding upon their own hearts with prayer and with the truth, away from Christ, and wondering that still nothing is returned but the ring of empty metal. They do not pound very earnestly, for if they did, like Luther, for example, in his time of delusions, they would soon find the vanity of such mere pronunciamentos away from Christ. But they work just enough to half satisfy conscience, and keep themselves from that self-despair which might lead to Christ. It may, perhaps, be asked, What can a man do, otherwise than go to the Word of God and prayer? He can go to Christ. That is what he ean do, and must do. and that is his whole duty. But is not my Word (does not God say ?) like the fire and hammer, to break the rock in pieces? Indeed it is, in the hands of the Spirit of God, in the hands of Christ; but if you stay away from Christ, and think to do the work yourself before coming to him, you may stay pounding till you die, and no good will come of it. Take the hammer and the fire, and your heart also, and carry them to Christ.

CHAP TER sie:

Colormg er Truth through the prism of individual experience.-—Graee 6 windins stiver, and a free, original, unconstrained life—Danger of making press-gangs out of human theories and hypotheses.—The law within and the law without.—Light within and light without.—Heart-light ane intellectual light, and God’s prerogative in regard to them.

Tue stream of truth, running into the heart and mind, or through the heart into the mind, will also be colored, more or less, by the individual’s own experience ; a thing in regard to which each for himself, and all for each, must be upon their guard. If not, how can any one know that his peculiar views, which he may have regarded as the result of great knowlodgo or originality, ere not owing merely to a defective experience? It is very certain that the purer, the truer, and deeper a soul’s religious experience becomes, and the more a man distrusts and abases self, and clings solely to God and his Word, exalting them, the more sure and trustworthy and full of truth will be that soul’s views of religious doctrine. He who exalts the Word, the Word will exalt him; but he who neglects or disesteems the Word, will himself go down in proportion. It is surprising what an invigorating and expanding power a great faith in God’s Word exerts upon the mind; and on the other hand, a weak faith in God’s Word leads to weakness, in doubt, self-confidence, and dependence upon men.

Hence, among the questions to be asked concerning a propounder of new things are these: Has he a deep experience of the Divine Life ? Is he known as maintaining a close walk with God? Is he a soul of much prayer, -much communion with Christ, living, by faith, upon God’s Word, received as Ged’s, not man’s? It is certain that none but such souls are qualified to be guides in untried paths. Hence the writing of the books of inspiration was committed only to those, whom God had trained to great heights of attainment in holiness. If it had not been so, where would have been, or what would have been, our volume of inspiration? If only an ordinary Christian had had the writing of the Epistles, what a poor and low exhibition of Christian experience would we have had, instead of the glowing and lofty experience of Paul, Peter, and John; what a defective or excrescential or one-sided exhibition, in personal hobbies of doctrine ridden upon out of vanity, like the shows of horsemanship in a circus, instead of simple gospel truth, displayed for God’s glory. This River of grace in the heart of man runs not in an artificial channel, but is a winding stream, going hither and thither at God’s will, not man’s. Men may attempt to dyke it in, and keep it strait and elaborate, according to their own mathematical surveying of the ground, but it follows no human arrangement or analysis, but takes its own way. And a much sweeter, lovelier way it is, than men’s metaphysics would often appoint for it, or than any human heart-geographer ever traces for it in his map, when, — wishing to have all things very accurate, and according to some pretended invariable model or rule, he draws his line and says, this course the river of grace always pursues. Doubtless, there has been too much pursuing ef this river by maps, after certain old surveys by others, taken for complete and accurate, instead of going anew to the fountain head in God’s word, and thence following the stream through vailey and meadow, woodland and green pastures. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus works various forms of fruit and beauty in the character of life, almost infinitely various, yet all the work of the self-same

Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. - The work of faith, the life of faith, the law of faith, is not a work, or life, or law, of human metaphysics or monotony ; but of infinite grace, wisdom, and variety. It is a mistake indeed, to take one character, and analyse the law and proceedings of faith from that, and make a rule out of it, and carpenter-like proceed to regulate every other character accordingly. The work of grace is a free, original life, after an inward law.

An external law indeed it is, as God’s law; but that law, from being merely external, becomes an inward law of life, an in-working law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. While God’s law is merely without a man, outside of him, he is outside of it, and it acts no otherwise upon him, if it acts at all, than as a man acts upon a clock who stands outside of it and turns the hands according to the town-time, its own mainspring being broken. But when the maker of the clock comes and puts it inwardly to rights, he puts, as it were, the principle and law of the external time within the heart of it, and then it goes freely of itself, and keeps time without any need of a man standing beside it, with a law of the town-clock by the sun, to turn its hands. Hence God says that when the time of the free dispensation of his spirit comes, he will write his law in men’s hearts, and hence David says, “Thy law have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee ;” and he prays the same thing in various forms. He did not think it enough to study God’s law with his eyes, but he must hide it within his heart, to work, as a law, there; and so, by governing his affections and thoughts, or rather inspiring them, or as a fountain bubbling up with them from the bottom, it would govern his life, running with the winding stream of his thoughts and affections everywhere.