The way of the cross ; a contribution to the doctrine of Christian sanctity

Front matter

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CQESRIGHT DEPOSIT.

THE WAY OF THE CROSS Rev. J. GREGORY MANTLE, d.d.

Foreword

The cordial reception given to this book in five previous editions ; the testimonies from far and near to definite blessing as the result of pondering and appropriating its truths ; the exceedingly sympathetic welcome given to the book by the reviewers, representing nearly every section of the Christian Church; the demand for the volume now that it is out of print — are surely sufficient reasons to warrant the issue of another edition.

The book first appeared more than a quarter of a century ago. Instead of finding it necessary to change or modify this teaching of the Cross, I find myself in accord with it more thoroughly than ever.

I have carefully revised these pages, and now send forth the book again on an errand, as I firmly believe, of still larger usefulness.

J. Gregory Mantle.

Nyack'On-Hiidson, AT. F.

The Cross Day By Day .

Chapter I : The All-methodical God Three crosses stood grimly side by side

On the hill of Calvary; On each a suffering man had died;

Two for their crimes, the other for me.

Like a lamb they led Him out to die

From shades of Gethsemane; He uttered no moan, no bitter cry;

'Twas love that moved Him to die for me.

On the central cross they nailed my Friend,

To languish in agony; He bore it all to the bitter end —

O vi^onderful love, He died for me. '

"If Thou art the Christ," they taunting, said, "Come down from the cursed tree;"

He heeded no jeering word they said. But, bowing His head. He died for me.

Like a wandering sheep I had gone astray,

But all my iniquity My God laid on Him that awful day,

When, bearing my sins, He died for me.

Oh, thanks for the love that brought Him down.

Love, fathomless, like the sea; His brow was pierced by a thorny crown.

That a crown of life might be given me.

My brother, behold Him, crucified,

On the cross of Calvary; Thy ransom see in that crimson tide ;

Oh freely it flowed for you and me.

—British Weekly.

Chapter I: The All-methodical God

Readers of Sir George Adam Smith's ^Isaiah" will remember that on several occasions in the first volume of his Commentary he calls attention to the word ambiguously translated ''judgment/' and reminds us that the word means method, order, system, law; so that when we read in chapter xxx. i8, that "the Lord is a God of judgment," Isaiah means that God has His own way and time for doing things, and that "having laid down His lines according to righteousness and established His laws in wisdom, He remains in His dealings with men consistent with these."

"It is a great truth," says he, "that the All-mighty and All-merciful is the All-methodical too; and no religion is complete in its creed, or healthy in its influence, which does not insist equally on all these." A full recognition of the orderliness of God in His working would save us from much of the disappointment which we now experience, and greatly increase the healthiness and consequent power of true religion.

This suggestive fragment of history is an illustration of the importance of the doctrine which this book is intended to enforce, for God will not allow the Divine Order in the purification and perfecting of Christian character to be disturbed without penalty. Alarmed by Isaiah's predictions of the siege of Jerusalem, the Jewish poHticians were startled into doing something. Instead, however, of returning in penitence to God, and relying upon Him in the time of their threatened trouble, they sought to accomplish an expensive and profitless alliance with Egypt. .What scorn Isaiah pours upon this suicidal intrigue !

Then he pictures the caravan which Judah sent with tribute to Egypt. In a few graphic strokes he gives us to see asses and camels carrying their riches through the land of trouble and anguish, through lions and vipers and fiery-flying serpents, to a people who will only deceive and disappoint them, for "Egypt helpeth in vain, and to no purpose, therefore have I called her Rahab Sit-StiW (xxx. i-8). It was not dliance they needed, as Dr. Smith says, but reliance; for "Thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength; and ye would not. . . . And therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you; and therefore will He be exalted, that He may have mercy upon you, for the Lord is a God of method : blessed are all they that wait for Him."

We sometimes congratulate ourselves on the cleverness and ingenuity of our plans, as the princes of Judah did in this instance; but Isaiah reminds them that "God also is clever, and will bring evil, and will not call back His words" (xxxi. 2). Until we have learned that no individual, church, or nation can play tricks with God, that He has His own way and time of doing things. He will wait, that He may be gracious; and blessed are they who turn away from Egypt, with their chariots and horsemen, and wait for Him.

The great sin of man has always been in this direction, a preference of his own will to the will of God; a preference of his own inclinations for God's obligations. It is the sin of the Church to-day, and the explanation of her enfeebled and pitiable position in the eyes of the world. When we think we have discovered a short and easy road to success, and have forsaken the Fountain of living waters to hew out to ourselves cisterns, we shall always find that our hewing has been labour lost, and that our cisterns are broken and will hold no water.

Does the Church of Jesus Christ think she can accomplish God's work in the world without a definite experience of heart purity and the Pentecostal baptism? It is admitted that the early Christians l6 The Way of the Cross

were thus made usable to the Master; but there is an impression abroad that this qualification for successful service can be dispensed with in these days. The result is failure, disheartenment, disappointment; for the Lord is a God of method. The Holy Spirit waits to show men and women how the Cross of Christ is the pathway of complete deliverance from the guilt and power of sin; and He will stand aloof from His people while they cherish those "low views" with which, as Faber says, it is as easy for the devil to contend against God as with mortal sins.

These "low views" of sin and of privilege explain the pride, the passion, the selfishness, the envy, the jealousy, the resentment, the barrenness, the worldliness, the secret sympathy with sin over which thousands of really converted people mourn, and from which they sometimes think there is no deliverance. And God is raising up, all over the land, witnesses to His power to effect a "double cure," not only to save from wrath and to pardon actual transgressions, but to deal with that moral depravity which lies further back and deeper down in our nature, and is at the fountain-head of all character and activity.

What command could be more imperative and explicit than that which the risen Christ gave to His disciples : "Tarry ye until ye are endued with power from on high"? They dare not go forth to their work without this power. To have done so would have been to court defeat and to expose themselves to ridicule. When they were thus equipped they reached the maximum of their usefulness, men and women were saved by thousands, and the kingdom of Christ advanced by leaps and bounds. Then the Church formed an alliance with the world ; she laid her head in the lap of Delilah, and being shorn of her true strength, began making frantic efforts to do her work without the all-essential credentials. Those credentials are the possession of authority over all the power of the enemy; and we vainly imagine that abiding work can be done in our pulpits, Sabbath schools, mission halls, or in any other direction, by. activity minus the power of the Holy Spirit. Sooner or later we shall awake to the fact that the Lord is a God of method, and that blessed are all they that wait for Him.

Let us ponder, in conclusion, the four words which the prophet here uses to indicate in what direction their salvation lay, and upon what terms they might be sure of the Divine interposition and abiding protection.

The first is the word ''returning." "In returning and rest shall ye be saved" (Is. 30:15). Instead of going to Egypt for help, and impoverishing themselves by an alliance, forbidden, senseless, and l8 The Way of the Cross

unprofitable, they might be assured of God's forgiveness and favour by returning in brokenness of spirit to Him. Have we any reason to expect any large outpouring of the Holy Spirit until we too return in true and deep penitence to God? The place of confession is the place of forgiveness. It is here God is pledged to meet us, and nothing is more striking throughout the history of this rebellious and wayward people, than God's readiness to forgive and restore them to His favour on the first indication of true repentance. * 'Remember from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else. . . ." Immutable is the promise: "Return unto Me, and I will return unto you." The God All-methodical is the God All-merciful. He waits that He may he gracious.

The second word is "rest/^ The meaning is, of course, such a resting in God as would prove the genuineness of their return to him. Vain was their reliance on the multitude of chariots and the strong body of cavalry to which they would point as a valuable addition to the fighting strength of Judah; for, as Isaiah reminds them, "The Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit" (xxxi. 3). Yet their perversity was sucH that they preferred the horses of Egypt to the steeds of God.

Rest! Thousands of hearts are longing for it!

And it cannot be found, as some vainly dream, by flying away on the wings of a dove from their surroundings. Rest comes through a true confession and determined forsaking of sin, and through the cleansing of the nature from its stains, for sin in every form is dis-ease, the opposite of rest. Material things are in a state of rest while fulfilling the laws and purposes for which they exist. The least variation of adjustment results in disquietude instead of repose. So rest comes to man through an adjustment of his will to the will of God. "Take My yoke (i.e., My will) upon you , . . and ye shall find rest unto your souls." The Romans forced their enemies to put their neck under a yoke as a sign of defeat. Hence we get the word subjugate — sub, under; jugum, a yoke. Rest comes through the subjugation of the whole being to Jesus. The perfect emblem of rest is God, and in proportion as man has his centre in God he becomes a partaker of His rest (Heb. iv. 3),

The third word is ''quietness/' "In quietness and confidence shall be your strength." How the very word rebukes the haste, excitement, and trepidation with which they had prepared for the siege of their city! ''He that believeth shall not make haste f What so surely indicates the feebleness of our grasp of these eternal truths as the fretted, harassed, feverish, fussy lives so many of us live! When all occasion for conflict has been put away, and we drink deep draughts of heavenly life, we shall know what has been called ''the high pressure of the Holy Ghost," which is not contrary to that reposeful and quiet spirit which characterised the Lord Jesus Christ, and which He means us also to possess.

The fourth word is "confidence" The word means the assurance and courage which comes of the settling down of the soul upon one who is known to be true and trustworthy. "They that know Thy name will put their trust in Thee" (Psalm ix. lo). To know God is to trust Him; to know Him perfectly, is to have that perfect confidence in Him which alone inspires courage, and is the secret of all true spiritual strength. ''In confidence shall be your strength/' There are two departments in the school of grace where this confidence is acquired, and in both of them the pupils must be taught, — one is the Word of God, and the other is the walk with God. What can explain the confidence of Judson, and many another noble missionary, working steadily on for years without any sign of visible success, but this settling down of the spirit upon God — an attitude which had, with them, become a habit of life?

As we learn to tread the way of the Cross we shall enter more fully than ever into the meaning of Paul's words: *'We are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the Hesk'" (Phil, iii. 3). And loss of confidence in ourselves will be followed by a constant glorying in Jesus as the source of all our life, the secret of all our strength. Multitudes have yet to learn that the God All-methodical is, to those who practically recognise Him as such, the God All-mighty; and to be continually stayed upon Him is restfulness, quietness, confidence, and strength.

Chapter II : A Mixed Life Search me, O God ! my actions try

And let my life appear As seen by Thine all-searching eye— •

To mine my ways make clear.

Search all my sense, and know my heart Who only canst make known.

And let the deep, the hidden part To me be fully shown.

Throw light into the darkened cells.

Where passion reigns within; Quicken my conscience till it feels

The loathesomeness of sin.

Search all my thoughts, the secret springs. The motives that control; The chambers where polluted things Hold empire o'er the soul.

Search, till Thy fiery glance has cast

Its holy light through all, And I by grace am brought at last

Before Thy face to fall.

Thus prostrate I shall learn of Thee,

What now I feebly prove.

That God alone in Christ can be

Unutterable love!

— F. Boftome.

Chapter II: A Mixed Life

In the beginning a threefold separation was accomplished before the command was given: *'Be fruitful, and multiply.'' God separated the light from the darkness, the waters beneath from the waters above the firmament, the sea from the dryland.

To show His jealousy for physical order still further, He forbid an Israelite to plow with an ox and an ass under the same yoke (Deut. xxii. lo). The ox is a clean animal and works with a yoke on his neck. The ass is an unclean animal and works with a collar on his neck. They are contrary tO' each other in their nature, in their walk, and in their mode of pulling the plow. The sowing of a field with mingled seed, and the wearing of a garment mingled of linen and woollen were also strictly forbidden (Lev. xix. 19). To this day an orthodox Jew will not mend a woollen garment with a flaxen thread. One of the preparations made by the Jews for an approaching Passover was to go over the fields and root up plants that had grown from mingled seeds. These prohibitions were intended to cultivate in the mind of the people the sentiment of reverence for the order established in nature by God. Wool and linen come from separate kingdoms in nature, one from the animal, the other from the vegetable, and unmixedness of moral character is clearly foreshadowed. To wear, in the same robe, the wool of selfishness and the linen of spirituality is contrary to the law of order which prevails in the kingdom of grace as in the kingdom of nature. God is as jealous — ^nay, more jealous — of moral order than of physical order, and in the management of their cattle, in the cultivation of their fields, in the making and wearing of their clothes, God was whispering in their ear, "Be ye separate.'^ "Be pure in heart and life." "What communion hath light with darkness?'*

This thought of unmixedness is still further illustrated in the dress of the priests: "When the priests minister in the inner court, they shall be clothed with linen garments; no wool shall come upon them while they minister in the inner court, and within" (Ezek. xliv. 17). Woolen garments would occasion sweat. Sweat is a sign of the fall, and of man's sin. It is part of the curse and penalty of disobedience. Linen is entirely free from grease, and it is always used as a type of grace separate from sin. To enter "within the veil" and dwell there in the presence of God, there must be a laying aside of all that appertains to the dark world — ^the world of our selfhood — and we must be clothed with the fine linen, clean and white, which is the righteous acts of the saints and the robing of the Bride of Christ (Rev. xix. 8).

Few will deny that this mixedness in Christian life and work is a great bane, and seriously interferes with the effectiveness of both. This must be so, because it is a subversion of God's order, and, as we have previously intimated, the creature will not be permitted with impunity to interfere with the laws established by the Creator. This was Paul's trouble in the Corinthian Church. The Christians were possessed of a regenerate babe-life which Paul calls "carnality." They lived a kind of suspended life, now dominated by the flesh and now by the Spirit, and the result was an elementary experience, envying, strife, and division (i Cor. iii.). Those who are living this mixed life are spoken of as double-minded (more exactly double-souled) men (James i. 8; iii. 8). There is only one cure for such a condition. It is the converging of all the desires and affections in the same centre, viz., the love of God's will and glory. When this is the case true singleness of heart is experienced. "If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light."

Before we can live the unmixed life, and belong no longer to the carnal but to the spiritual Christians, we must be willing to know the extent of the mixedness in our own character, for what the eye does not see the heart will not grieve over. Before we invite God to search us, let us pause and ask whether we are willing that He should make a thorough work of this self -discovery, however painful and humbling it may be. If not, we had better not begin ; for it is better to be without the light than to possess it and be disobedient.

For obvious reasons no branch of knowledge is so neglected as knowledge of ourselves. In other sciences knowledge flatters the vanity of the unsanctified heart ; it exalts men in the eyes of others, it increases their influence in the world. But true self -discovery wounds our pride, and spoils the good opinion we had formed and cherished of ourselves. We may be skilled in every other science and ignorant in this. We may be able to calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, and know nothing of the movements of our own sinful nature. We may be able to plant our foot on a mountain summit where no human foot has ever before trod, and yet be ignorant of the dimensions of the black mountain of evil in our heart. We may be able by chemical analysis to detect and decompose the material substances around us, and yet never analyse the motives by which we are influenced, and which colour and stain all our conduct.

"Self-love conspires with trust in our own hearts to make dupes of us as regards our spiritual account. Proverbially, and in the verdict of all experience, love is blind; and if love be blind, self-love being the strongest, the most subtle, the most changeless, the most difficult to eradicate of all loves, is blinder still. Self-love will not see, as self -trust cannot see, anything against us." It is this ignorance that leads to quiescence. The hateful foe assumes such disguises, and appears so exactly the opposite of what he really is, that we lose sight of the fact that he is a devil still, and that, as Luther was wont to say, the white devil is more to be dreaded than the black.

yVhat is necessary then, since self-love will cause us to live in such a fool's paradise if we follow its interested opinion, is the search-light of God. This, and this alone, will disturb our self-complacency and self-deception. ^'Because thou sayest, I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing ; and knowest not that thou art the wretched one and miserable and poor and blind and naked; I counsel thee to buy of me gold refined by fire, that thou mayest become rich; and white garments that thou mayest clothe thyself, and that the shame of thy nakedness be not made manifest; and eyesalve to anoint thine eyes, that thou mayest see" (Rev. iii. 17, 18, r.v.). "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it? I the Lord search the heart; I try the reins (the hidden part) even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings*' (Jer. 17:9, 10). What are spoken of as the reins, here and elsewhere in the Bible, are the secret thoughts, desires, and affections of the soul.

The heart is so exceedingly complicated and intricate; it is so near the eye which seeks to investigate it, that it baffles our research. There are a few things about the heart which are broad and open, and which we can, in some measure, discover. But there are chambers, receding within chambers, which no human investigation can ever reach. To explore these hidden chambers is the prerogative of God alone.

We live in an age of shallowness and superficiality, and we possess a marvellous capacity for self-deception. This capacity the enemy finds to be one of his most effective weapons for destroying the souls of men.

Our love of ease and our unwillingness to be disturbed, lead us to avoid the prayer: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts; and see if there be any way of pain or grief in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:23,24).

Painful and humiliating as the searching and exposure may be, the very beginning of a life that is all for God turns upon our being absolutely honest with Him about our present spiritual condition.

The two great pillars upon which true Scriptural Christianity rests are the greatness of our fall and the greatness of our redemption. * 'Until/' says William Law, "yo^ ^^^ renewed in the spirit of your mind, your virtues are only taught practices and grafted upon a corrupt bottom. Everything that you do will be a mixture of good and bad ; your himiility will help you to pride; your charity to others will give nourishment to your own self-love, and as your prayers increase so will the opinion of your own sanctity. Because till the heart is purified to the bottom, and has felt the axe at the root of its evil (which cannot be done by outward instruction), everything that proceeds from it partakes of its impurity and corruption."

Nothing is easier than self-deception; few things are so difficult as real self -disclosure. We may be claiming and even professing the experience of holiness, and yet know nothing of a total death to the carnal or natural life. The dress and conversation of the inhabitants of Canaan are imitable; but the true Divine life is as inimitable as life always is. Let us not mistake phraseology for experience, the maiming of the enemy for his death, sanctimoniousness for sanctification, unctuousness for unction, or the knowledge of the truth for the Spirit of truth, for "when truths have once been fully revealed and been made a part of orthodoxy, the history of them does not necessarily imply an operation of the Spirit of God.'*

There is a striking thought in the literal translation of Hebrews iv. 13 : "Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight: but all things are naked, and lying open unto the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do." The passage might be rendered: "All things are stripped and stunned," the figure being that of an athlete in the Coliseum, who has fought his best in the arena, and has at length fallen at the feet of his adversary, disarmed and broken down in helplessness. There he lies, unable to strike a blow or lift his arm. He is stripped and stunned, disarmed and disabled, and there is nothing left for him but to lie at the feet of his adversary, and throw up his arms for mercy. It means, as Alford reminds us, not only the stripping off of all coverings and concealments, but the lying prostrate in exposure before the eye of God, the God "with whom we have to do." That is what the Holy Spirit and the searching Word will do for us if we are willing ; and until we are willing, we shall be living a mixed life, with more or less of self, and more or less of Christ.

The ingratitude and unreasonableness of offering the Lord Jesus Christ a mixed life, a divided heart, has rarely been better expressed than in the searching and forceful lines of quaint old Francis Quarles :

"Give Me thine heart, but as I gave it thee; Or give it Me at least as I Have given Mine To purchase thine.

I halved it not when I did die; But wholly gave Myself to set thee free.

"But whilst thine heart's divided, it is dead; Dead unto Me, unless it live To Me alone.

It is all one To keep all, and a part to give : For what's a body worth without a head ?

"Yet this is worse, that what thou keep'st from Me Thou dost bestow upon My foes: And those not Mine Alone, but thine: The proper cause of all thy woes From whom I gave My life to set thee free.

"Have I betrothed thee to Myself, and shall The devil, and the world, intrude Upon My right Even in My sight?

Think not thou canst Me so delude : / will have none, unless I may have aU.

"I made it all, I gave it all to thee. I gave all that I had for it : If I must lose, I'd rather choose Mine interest in it all to quit : Or keep it whole. Oh, give it whole to Me !"

Chapter III : The Light of the Cross

My God ! my God ! and can it be That I should sin so lightly now,

And think no more of evil thoughts

Than of the wind that waves the bough ?

I sin, and heaven and earth go round As if no dreadful deed were done;

As if Thy blood had never flowed To hinder sin or to atone.

Shall it be always thus, O Lord?

Wilt Thou not work this hour in me The grace Thy passion merited,

Hatred of self and love of Thee?

Oh, by the pains of Thy pure love, Grant me the gift of holy fear ;

And by Thy woes and bloody sweat. Oh, wash my guilty conscience clear.

Ever when tempted make me see.

Beneath the olives' moon-pierced shade

My God, alone, outstretched, and bruised And bleeding on the earth He made.

And make me feel it was my sin, As though no other sins there were.

That was to Him who bears the world A load that He could scarcely bear.

Chapter III: The Light of the Cross

"The school of the Cross/' said John Bunyan when he was dying, *4s the school of light." It is the mirror in which the selfishness, hideousness, and penalty of human sin are reflected. There is no search-light like that which flashes from the hill of Calvary for discovering to us the plague of our own hearts.

Simeon's words which predict the sorrows that are to pierce Mary's heart, predict also the laying open of the hidden dispositions of many other hearts (Luke ii. 34, 35). Our deepest self is revealed by our attitude to the Cross of Jesus. If we stand in its light, we shall find it a touchstone where we are tried and proved to the very depths of our being. It will be "quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight."

The Cross is not only possessed of sin-conquering, but of sin-discovering, power. Before it can be **death to every vice," it must be light to reveal its loathsomeness. When Mark Antony wanted to inflame the Roman populace against the assassins of Julius Caesar, he lifted up the dead emperor's garment and said: —