Spiritual ships : an allegory of religious characters and experiences

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CHAPTER I. A Spirituai, Sea Voyage

It is a time of new and thrilling interest in a family circle, when one or more in the family prepare to start on a strange and long journey for the first time. Maps are studied, railway and steamship guide books are diligently consulted, and the various routes of travel, and the places to be visited, are compared and re-compared. The study of geography is revived by every member of the family, and far away rivers, and mountains, and seas, and islands, and cities, in which there has never been any personal interest taken by the family, are suddenly invested with attraction for every member in the home. Oh ! what a time it is ; the buying of new strong trunks, and sorting out what will be needed, and then packing them full, it may be with many things that will never be needed, and leaving out some essential article that will be in demand before the journey ends. And then what a glowing fondness of special affection and interest is called forth for the particular ones who are going on the journey.

6 A SPIRITUAI, SKA VOYAGE.

They become all at once the centres of domestic devotion, and they are fairly drowned with affectionate attentiveness, and **God bless you/' and wishes for a happy voyage. There is another voyage, far more thrilling in interest, upon a journey much longer, and across moral and spiritual mountains, and plains, and rivers, and seas, far vaster than the little surface of this earth, and to a distant port, brighter and more tranquil than any crystal harbor of tropic islands, and into a city whose magnitude and unfading splendor surpasses the dream of all the tower builders of this world ; and upon this journey souls are constantly being urged by a sweet pleading voice that is evermore sounding over land and sea. Could we but draw aside the vail of time and sense, and watch the deep interest that angels and heavenly saints take in the conversion of a soul, and getting it embarked on a voyage for immortal glory ; and could we hear the soft rustling of their wings, and catch the low whisper of their musical words, and see the sweet burning flashes in their love-lit eyes, it would infinitely out-do the packing of trunks, and the social interest of starting on any earthly journey. After all, is not everything on earth and in human life, a shadowing forth

A SPIRITUAI, SKA VOYAGK. 7

of things of a higher order, and of an age to come? We propose in this little book, to trace out a spiritual sea voyage, the journey of a soul from sin and self, through various stages, till it reaches its eternal home, in the capacious and unruffled harbor of the bosom of God's spotless love. Who will join us in our journey? We do not expect to return to the old Adamic homestead any more ; as we are not only travelers, but emigrants as well, we shall sell out the old place back in the country, and leave all the old garments and rubbish behind us, and pack only a light luggage of essential things ; and though for the first few stages in our voyage, our unweaned hearts may suffer a little natural home sickness for the old home of self, yet we will press on, till brighter and more ennobling scenes begin to satisfy the home instincts of our nature, and we not only get weaned from the past, but come to abhor what we once loved, and be drawn on with ever increasing fascination with the things of God. We will start from some plain, rugged country home, away back in the hills, where the people know nothing of ships, or of the great sea upon which they sail ; for how true it is that man in his natural sinful state knows nothing of

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the ocean of God's nature, or of that spiritual commerce in heavenly things, which is carried on by devoted saints in the Holy Ghost. We shall first take a humble canal boat which is towed by a mule, till we come to navigable water. This canal boat represents the lowest state of legality in religion, of a soul that has no propelling power on board itself, bat is drawn along by the persuasion or the authority of some friend, or church, or social law. When we reach the terminus of the canal, we will get into a row boat, and seize the paddle, or the oar, and try the strength of our muscle and skill in crossing the river or the harbor. This row boat represents the second stage of legality in religion, v^here the soul is awakened more personally about the things of God and eternity, and begins to exert all its strength and knowledge to be good, to break away from sin, and keep the commandments. This row boat state is higher than the canal boat, because the moving energy is on board, in the form of an awakened conscience, and a decision in the will for righteousness. In the next place, having exhausted our strength in rowing, we get on board of a small sail vessel, that is wafted along by the Creator's energy in the wind. This represents a tired ^oul,

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after struggling to get right, and exhausting itself, giving itself up in simple faith to Jesus; to be born again by the blowing of the Vvind of the Holy Spirit, for Jesus says, **as the wind bloweth where it listeth, and we know not from v/hence it cometh, or whither it goeth, so is every one that is born of the Spirit/* In every place in Scripture where the Holy Spirit is compared to the wind, it is in connection with imparting life, and so our sail vessel is a type of the regenerated state in our voyage. After coasting in the bay, and along the shore, in a small sail boat, which represents the youthful experience in justification, we then board a great sail ship, and go out on the high seas, which represents the strong and established experience of the bebeliever in the justified life. This stage in our pilgrimage furnishes us with some beautiful studies in spiritual navigation, and we have occasion to find our latitude and longitude in the things of God, and how to use the compass of God's Word, and the log of inward experience. Then after finding the great invention of steam, and of how ships can have their sailing apparatus transferred from the outside down into the heart of the vessel, in the form of engine, and fire, and water, and lO A SPIRITUAL SEA VOYAGE.

steam, developing a new and mightier force for propelling us along, we take passage on the steamboat, which in our allegory sets forth the sanctified life, the hidden fire of the Holy Ghost working in the heart, and pushing the soul onward with amazing zeal. And as the steamboat is a new creation, and not the mere development out of a sail vessel, so our entrance into the sanctified state, is a specific work of grace, and not a gradual evolution from pardon. After taking a steamboat, we linger awhile with some side wheelers and coast steamers, and make a detour into some rivers and bays, and along coast lines, in order to accommodate some timid souls that are afraid, or have no calling to go beyond the sight of land ; which fitly corresponds with a class of sanctified people, who in their feelings and service for God, keep under the shelter of their particular sectarian doctrine or leaders. We next transfer to a staunch little steam tug, that is built for marvelous strength and utility in helping other ships, which beautifully agrees with those sturdy, great hearted saints, that have special gifts and calling for pulling souls off the rocks, and out of storms, and into harbor. In the next place we take voyage on a great iron ocean liner,

A SPIRITUAI. SEA VOYAGE. II

and have occasion to witness the true grandeur of a steamship at sea, in storm and calm, which sets forth the strong and manifold experiences under the guiding power of the Holy Spirit.

We then board a great man-of-war, a floating fortress, the special property and instrument of the government, and find an opportunity for fighting some battles, which typifies those conditions of extraordinary heroism and conflict in the lives of great reformers and spiritual leaders, who are God*s chosen agents to pioneer His work, to head new religious movements, and open up new realms of Bible truth, or missionary operations. By this time we have got into the confidence of ship builders, and government officials, and are quietly taken on board of a sub-marine ship, run by electricity, and sink entirely out of sight in the depths of the sea, and explore that vast, tranquil, hidden world of wonders, which blessedly sets forth the ultimate stage in the sanctified life on this earth, of sinking down deep into God, in a life of marvelous prayer, and unearthly stillness, where the vast silent waters of the divine perfections are explored, and studied, and admired with ever increasing delight, and the soul is lost in a sea of love,

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and prayer, and divine contemplation. Come, are you ready to start? The time is up, I hear the horn of the canal driver blowing for the locks to open and let down the boat, as it takes its first step towards the sea. All aboard for the river of grace, for the ocean of love, for the City of God, whose white glittering towers and sweet voiced inhabitants, are inviting us far away across the ocean.

TOW-BOAT CHRISTIANS. I J

CHAPTER II. Tow-BoAT Christians

As we start upon our spiritual navigation from the great mountains and forests of the wild life of nature, we must be content to take the lowest and humblest steps that belong to beginners. The lowest class of vessels that go by water are those of the tow-boat rank, such as are used on canals, and barges for hauling slow and heavy freight.

There are two classes of boats that we must utilize in our journey before we come to the sail boat, which, in a proper sense, represents the life of a regenerated believer ; of one who has the assurance of the Spirit that he is a child of God. In like manner there are two forms of legal religion which many persons pass through before reaching the assurance of justification. The tow-boat is pulled through the water by a force outside of itself, in the form of a mule on the bank of the canal, or of some sail or steamboat, to which it is tied with a strong rope or hawser. The other form of legal religion is represented by the row boat, which is a struggling force put forth by some one inside the boat, which we will consider in the next chapter.

Thus the tow-boat sets forth the pulling of a soul along in the ways of righteousness, by outside and natural forces, or the ropes of law, and is the lowest form of a religious life. In the true sense of the word the canal boat and the barge do not represent what the Scriptures mean by the word Christian, but we are now giving the modem and more accommodated use of the word, as embracing those who believe in the Scriptures, and are willing to put themselves under the restraints and obligations of religion, and begin seeking the lyord, if haply they may find Him. It is a sad fact that great multitudes who are classed as nominal Christians, are in this very lowest rank of canal boat legalism, and would never take one step in practical righteousness except they were drawn by a strong hawser, in the form of some law, or ceremony, or custom, or personal friendship. Most of the people that attend church services throughout the world, like the canal boat, do not possess on board, or within themselves, that awakened conscience, or sorrow for sin, or decision of right, or fear of God, sufficient to be amoving energy or a propelling force through the water;

but if left to themselves apart from some strong rope to pull them, they lie sluggish and still, or drift with the current whither soever it will carry them. Those of us who have served in some army, and know the rough and reckless life of soldiers or miners, have seen this truth glaringly illustrated. Thousands who at home, and under the soft and blessed restraints of domestic life, and the routine of daily toil, and the sound of Sabbath church bells, and the influence of strong saintly characters, and all the honorable institutions of well ordered society, were fairly good men, and upright in outward department ; when they were turned loose in the army or the mines, they soon threw off the pacific bandages of church and home, and like canal boats or barges on the Niagara river, without strong hawsers on the outside to hold them, they drifted rapidly to the awful precipice, and plunged into ruin.

Such is life in the present age, and such are the facts in regard to untold millions of our fallen and frail brethren in Adam, which only proves the utter helplessness of the human character, and the need of a super-natural power that comes down from some other world, and ties itself around man's inner spirit to l6 TOW-BOAT CHRISTIANS,

draw him to righteousness. The more we love God, and the more our hearts are softened by that charity that runs down from heaven ; the wider and deeper will be our sympathy for our fellow men, and instead of denouncing them for their wickedness, we v/ill weep, not only over their bad conduct, but over the terrible helplessness in their inner being, that like the poor drifting barge, has no energy in itself to stem the current. Well here we are in our canal boat state of religion, depending on some patient mule, or strong horse, or good tug boat, to pull us along through the preliminary steps of religion. So let us bid adieu to the dreary rocks, and lonely forests of the old natural life, and get on board of our tow boat that floats lazily in the quiet canal, away back near the head v/aters of some river, and see that the strong ropes are well fastened at the prow of our wills, and begin our journey down to the river, bay, or harbor, from whence we hope in due time to launch out on the high seas of a holy and victorious voyage. While we are being slowly towed along through changing scenery of landscape or river, let us spend the time examining the various ropes and horse power that draw us onward.

I. Tow boat professors of religion are drawn by the rope of temporal fear, and temporal good, that may come to them as a consequence of their serving or not serving the lyord. The keen, swift action of a lively conscience, belongs more properly to the row boat class of religion, and so the case we are now considering is even lower down than an aroused conscience, but it is that state where people live on the surface, and can be moved mostly by external, surface, and temporal motives of restraint from sin. Though such motives are temporary and transitory, yet let us not despise them, for they serve an important part in the lives of most people. Some Christians speak very depreciatingly of weak states of grace, and of acting from earthly motives of temporal good or harm, but such persons forget that in their past years they have acted from the same motives, and been influenced by little things which they now consider as mere trifles. It takes a mature state of grace to properly appreciate the weakness that is common to the faint beginnings of religion. The Old Testament is filled with motives of a temporal character, to draw the Lord's people to ways of righteousness. If the Israelites would obey God, there would come long life, freedom from disease, victory over enemies, blessings in basket and store, in the fruit of their bodies, their cattle, and their fields. On the other hand if they forsook God, a long caravan of calamities would overtake them. Those grand old Scriptures have never been repealed, and God still appeals to man in his compound nature of body, soul, and spirit ; and still uses the hopes of temporal good, and the fears of temporal evil, as strong cords to diaw men from wickedness to righteousness. The prison, the gallows, the dread of some terrible form of sickness, or disgrace, acts with power on millions of mankind, and to speak with scorn against the wisdom of these motives of fear, betrays a mind exceedingly ignorant of the great laws that govern human creatures. Also the hope of temporal good, as a reward of well doing, though it be a lower motive than true Christians should act from, yet it is a legitimate motive, set forth in Scripture, and in the constitution of the human mind, and in the laws of society, and never can be ignored by intelligent faith. Hence thousands begin to serve God, drawn like a tow-boat by these outward visible cords of escaping earthly and temporal ruin, and the hope of gaining earthly, physical, social, and temporal good. We are constantly appealing

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to children, to young people, to drunkards, to spendthrifts, to reckless people, with motives of danger in this life, and blessings in this life, and to their bodies as well as their souls, which are like the ropes that draw the tow-boat. God's providence over men is so vast and minute, it sweeps the entire range of motives, and hopes, and fears, of the body as well as the soul, and of time as well as eternity.

2. Another strong hawser by which barge and canal boat Christians are taken in tow, is the personal influence and friendship of good saintly characters. We find a case like this in the history of the kings of Judah. In the time when Joash was a young prince in Jerusalem, there lived a very godly priest named Jehoiada, who exerted a powerful influence in the city, and over the young king. We read that Joash did that which was right in the sight of the Lord all the days of Jehoiada, the priest. (2 Chron. 24 : 2.) But farther on in his life, after Jehoiada died, the strong external cord that drew Joash in right ways, was broken ; and like a barge cut loose from its tow, he drifted on the rocks, and persecuted and slew the prophets of God.

There are numberless cases of a similar character, where souls are under the restraining and drawing power of a holy wife, or a godly husband, or a praying mother, or a righteous father, or a pious minister, or a devoted sister, or brother, or a deeply spiritual friend, who exerts a heavenly sway over the conduct, the words, the manners, the business transactions, and the feelings of those who have no deep seated principle of religion in the soul, no secret propelling power for righteousness in their own hearts, but are led into many v/ays of goodness by the cordage of some other person's godliness. They are not in touch with God themselves, and are like those plants which are too weak to endure the light directly from the sun, but timidly open their flowers to the cooler light of the moon, and are influenced by divine things only at second-hand. In fact the majority of professing Christians never learn how to deal immediately with God, but get their inspiration second-handily from noon day believers. Their religion is lunar and not solar. For this reason those who love God with a personal love, should love him all the more, in as much as by them the Holy Spirit pulls along so many slow legalists, who otherwise would take no step at all toward God.

3. Another rope by which the tow-boat class of Christians are drawn onward, may be termed the religious mechanism of the Christian religion as it exists in the visible church, and religious society. There is much in religious education, and much of tenderness, and effection, and holy restraint, in the social habits of a Christian family, with its family altar, its evening hymns, its religious reading, its regular church going, to draw souls from the wrong to piety. Then there is much power in the public institutions of religion, the preaching of the Gospel, the solemn stillness of the Sabbath day, the memories brought up by the melody of church bells, the tender pathos that hovers over the church yard or the cemetery, where the good of other days are buried, and much in the regular forms of religious service, with its sacred associations to touch the natural feelings of the imagination and the heart, to restrain many a one from outvvard sin, and make them to think upon eternity and religion. It is true that many are environed with all of this education, and poetry, and pathos, who never admit the personal Savior into their heart of hearts, but whose lives are rendered better by the sway of these providential forces of religion. God told the ancient Jews that he had drawn them with the cords of a man, which is just the thought we are unfolding in this chapter. Have we not all of us passed through this state, where we felt we had no strength to arouse ourselves, or to pray, or take a step toward God, but like the sluggish canal boat, were glad to have a father's prayers, or a mother's love, or some sweet and noble friendship come and tie themselves fast to us, and by appealing to our human love, draw us toward the right. We shall find in this trip, that we are taking in our spiritual ships, many sturdy things far beyond the tow-boat religionist, but in the meanwhile let us thank God for the first feeble drawings of a soul toward God, even though it creeps along at the slow pace of a canal boat, drawn by some humble mule, who is a servant of the law, an I yet may be carrying a precious cargo that will feed many a hungry one across the distant seas.

CHAPTER III. Thk Row Boat Christian

When we look at any plain ordinary human being how little we suspect what a vast multiplied world he is, and hovv^ in many things he is like the huge globe on which we are walking. Like the globe, a man is played upon by certain laws and forces on the outside, and then has a hidden world of lavvS and forces within himself, resembling the secret giant forces inside the earth. The external portion of the earth is operated upon by light, heat, cold, darkness, wind, rain, electrical currents, and the far away magic of celestial bodies, and waves of fine stellar magnetism that break in ceaseless silent music upon the shores of our world. Then far down in sub-marine and subterranean regions, there is a standing army of laws and forces in the form of central gravitation, liquid fire, geysers, the feverish heart of volcanoes, deep ocean currents, the potent chemistry in the soil, out of which spring forth forests and harvests, and then that ceaseless unnoticed vibration through the crust of the planet, like the soundless pulse of a sleeping

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infant, as the world is rocked in its soft cradle of ether around the sun. Only think that our God, each of the three Divine Persons, are incessantly present in all these enormous and coFiiplex forces, living separated from these things, yet pervading, infolding, upholding, and perpetuating them with intelligent love and v/isdom. Well this plain ordinary looking man that we meet any hour on the street, and take so little notice of liini, is a vaster world, with a more complicated make-up, and a sublimer destiny, than the world we walk on. He also is played upon on his outer life by laws and forces manifold ; civil law, natural law, social custom, w^hat others think of him, poverty, and wealth, natural scenery, religious institutions, church forms and ceremonies, the blistering criticisms of his fellows, the hatred of those who may be a thousand miles away, and the soft soothing streams of sympathy from friends, that fall like cooling showers upon his parched soul ; these and other outward influences act on him from without. But down in his inner being, like the planet, there is another world of laws and forces which he carries as a constant cargo on board himself wherever he goes. These inner forces take in his conscience, which must deal with questions of right and wrong ; his moral affections, his proclivities, and choices, his air castles, that are Vv^oven out in the secret loom of thought, and the central springs of action in the soul ; all correspond with the hidden forces inside the earih.

There are two kinds of legalists, that is people whose religion is made up of serving God by set duties, and forms, and obligations of righteousness. The outward legalist is one that is led and moulded by outward forces in the visible church, and the cords of power from other people, which resemble the tow-boat, as explained in the previous chapter. Now we are to consider the inward legalist, that is one who endeavors to serve God by those higher laws that enter his inner life, and take hold upon the conscience, and the deep purposes of his will. He resembles the row boat, because a vessel that is propelled by oars has its moving force on board, within the vessel itself ; and therefore takes higher rank in navigation than the canal boat which is pulled along by an outside force. Having gone the first stage of our great voyage on the spiritual canal boat, let us now transfer to a good row boat, and seize the oars, and pl}^' them vigorously across the river or harbor. In this stage of our journey we will row through the waters of the seventh chapter of Romans, which in the main describes the row boat legalist, the conscientious church man struggling to serve God by adjusting his inner nature to divine law. Of course this spiritual row boat is not really a salvation craft, that will come in the next chapter, but it may serve as a preliminary step in revealing the helplessness of legal religion, and bring us where we can get on board of a higher type of vessel which will carry us into regeneration.

I. The row boat has in it an individuality^ and a wider range of action, and a variety of motion, which distinguish it from the tow-boat. When we board the row boat we leave the canal mule, the long hawser, the narrow canal banks, and locks, for a larger space of water, and a more independent action. This fact is beautifully carried out in the case of a soul that has been moved religiously only by some church ceremony or sacrament, or pulled along by some slow, plodding, ecclesiastical mule, when it begins to think for itself, and have an awakened individual conscience, and cuts loose from the narrow tyranny of tradition, and forms and exercises its own inward moral energies, and begins to seek after

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truth for itself, and read God^s Word for itself, to find out the way of life. It is the dawn of a supernatural day when a soul begins to realize its own private personal accountability to God, and to find out its individuality of conscience, and form deep silent purposes to serve God for itself and not for another. This is pictured in the little row boat, where the occupant plies the oar himself, and learns to adjust his muscle to the waves or the current, and to turn the craft at will, darting hither and thither across the river or harbor. When the great Daniel Webster was once questioned as to what he considered the greatest thought he had ever had, he replied it was his personal accountability to Almighty God. There are multitudes of machine made religionists, swayed only by outside authority, and like canal boats, pulled along by the rope of red tape ; but when any such get under conviction for real righteousness, there breaks forth an individuality of conscience, and personal praying, and thinking, and striving for the right, and in sailor phrase *'they cut the shore line,'' and begin "paddling their own canoe.''

2. The row boat Christian, in contrast with the tow-boat, has the moving force on board within itself and not in some foreign creature. In this stage of our journey, the law has entered within the soul, and taken hold of the conscience, producing a sense of guilt for wrong doing, and aroused it to a sense of righteousness. While the person in this state does not knov/ the Holy Spirit, yet it is by God's Spirit, that the divine law is applied to the conscience, awakening a fear as to future destiny, and presenting powerful motives as to conduct, drawn from eternity. Up to this time most of the motives have been of an earthly and temporal consideration, but now eternal things are to be considered, and the motives to action are more powerful, and penetrate into the secret fountains of conduct. This operation of divine law begins to stir the will to an amendment of life, '*the ceasing to do evil, and the learning to do well." This action of the will toward righteousness corresponds with the man in the row boat, who takes firm hold on the oars to propel the vessel in the right direction, though it be against wind and tide. In this state, where the inner faculties are aroused to religious obligations, and to earnest effort to quit sinning, and do good, there is opened up a whole list of religious duties. The doing of these duties is not