The anxious enquirer after salvation

Front matter

THE

ANXIOUS ENaUIRER

AFTER

Preface

disposed to think I have carried my endeavours after simplicity too far, and are desirous of something more elaborate, I refer them to the excellent work of Dr. Henry, of Charleston, entitled, " Letters to a Friend," recommended by Dr. Pye Smith, the object of which is precisely the same as my own, but which is written in a more diffuse style, and illustrated by a greater variety of facts.

J. A. J.

Edgbaston, April, 1834.

Introduction

DIRECTIONS FOR THE PROFITABLE READING OF THE FOLLOWING TREATISE.

It may seem strange to some persons, that I should give directions for the performance of an act so well understood as the perusal of a book; and especially the perusal of a book of so simple and elementary a kind as this. But the fact is, that multitudes either do not know, or do not remember at the time, how to read, to advantage ; and therefore profit but little by what they read. Besides, simple and elementary as is this treatise, it is on a subject of infinite and eternal importance, and is perused in the most critical season of a man's everlasting history ; when, in a very peculiar sense, every means of grace, and this among the rest, will be either a savour of death unto death, or of life unto 1* life, to the reader. Tremendous idea ! But strictlytrue.

Reader, whosoever thou art, it is no presumptuous thought of the Author, to believe that thou wilt remember the contents of this small Treatise in eternity, either with pleasure and. gratitude in heaven, or with remorse and despair in hell. Can it then be an impertinently officious act, to remind thee how to read with advantage what I have written ?

1. Take it with you into your closet, I mean your place of retirement for prayer ; for of course you have such a place. Prayer is the very soul of all religion, and privacy is the very life of prayer itself. This is a book to be read when you are alone ; when none is near but God and your conscience ; when you are not hindered by the presence of a fellow- creature from the utmost freedom of manner, thought, and feeling ; when unobserved by any human eye, you could lay down the book, and meditate, or weep, or fall upon your knees to pray, or give vent to your feelings in short and sudden petitions to God. I charge you then to reserve the volume for your private seasons of devotion and thoughtfulness ; look not into it in company, except it be the company of a poor, trembling, and anxious Inquirer, like yourself.

2. Read it with deep seriousness. Remember, it speaks to you of God, of eternity, of salvation, of heaven, and hell. Take it up with something of the awe " that warns you how you touch a holy thing. 55 It meets you in your solicitude about your soul's welfare, it meets you fleeing from destruction, escaping for your life, crying out " what shall I do to be saved ;" and proffers its assistance to guide you for refuge to the hope set before you in the gospel. It is itself serious ; its Author is serious ; it is on a serious subject, and demands to be read in a most devout and serious mood. Take it not up lightly nor read it lightly. If your spirit be not as solemn as usual, do not touch it ; and when you do touch it, command away every other subject, and endeavour to realize the idea that God, salvation, and eternity, are before you, and that you are actually collecting the ingredients of the cup of salvation, or the wormwood and gall to embitter the cup of damnation.

3. Read it with earnest prayer. It can do you no good, without God's blessing ; nothing short of divine grace can render it the means of instructing your mind, or impressing your heart. It will con vey no experimental knowledge, relieve no anxiety, dissipate no doubts, afford neither peace nor sanctification, if God do not give his Holy Spirit And if you would have the Spirit, you must ask for it. If, therefore, you wish it to benefit you, do not read another page, till you have most fervently, as well as sincerely, prayed to God for his blessing to accompany the perusal. I have earnestly prayed to God to enable me to write it, and if you as earnestly pray to him to enable you to read it, there is thanksgiving in store for us both ; for usually what is begun in prayer, ends in praise.

4. Read but a chapter at a time. Books that are intended to instruct and impress, should be read slowly. Most persons read too much at a time. Your object is not merely to read this treatise through, but to read it in order to profit by it. Food cannot be digested well if too much be eaten at a time, so neither can knowledge.

5. Meditate upon what you read. Meditation bears the same office in the mental constitution, as digestion does in our corporeal system. The first mental exercise is attention, the next reflection. If we would gain a correct notion of an object, we must not only see it, but look at it ; and so also, if we would gain knowledge from books, we must not only see the matters treated of, but look steadily at them. Nothing but meditation can enable us to understand or feel. In reading the scriptures and religious books, we are, or should be, reading for eternity. Salvation depends on knowledge, and knowledge on meditation. At almost every step of our progress through a book which is intended to guide us to salvation, we should pause and ask, " Do I understand this ?" Our profiting depends not on the quantity we read, but the quantity we understand. One verse in- scripture if understood and meditated upon, will do us more good than a chapter or even a book, read through in haste, and without reflection.

6. Read regularly through in order. Do not wander about from one part to another, and in your eagerness to gain relief, pick and cull particular portions, on account of their supposed suitableness o your case. It is all suitable, and will be found most so by being taken together and as a whole. A rambling method of reading, whether it be the icriptures or other books, is not to edification : it often arises from levity of mind, and sometimes from impatience, both of which are states very unfriendly to improvement. Remember, it is salvation you are in quest of, an object of such trans cendant importance, as to be a check upon all volatility, and of such value, as to encourage the most exemplary patience.

7. Read calmly. You are anxious to obtain eternal life ; you are eagerly asking, " What shall I do to be saved." But still, you must not allow your solicitude so far to agitate your mind, as to prevent you from listening calmly and coolly for the answer. In circumstances of great anxiety, men are sometimes so much under the power of excited feelings, that the judgment is bewildered, and not only prevented from finding out what is best to be done, but from seeing it when it is laid down by another. This anxious and hurried state of mind, is very common in those who are just awakened to a concern about salvation ; they are restless and eager to gain relief, but are defeated in their object by their very solicitude to obtain it; the scriptures are read, sermons are heard, advice of friends is received, in a confused state of mind. Now you must guard against this, and endeavour

INTRODUCTION. II

so far to control your thoughts and calm your perturbation, as to attend to the counsels and cautions which are here suggested.

8. J very earnestly recommend the perusal of all those passages of scripture and chapters which I have quoted, and which for the sake of brevity I have only referred to, without quoting the words. I lay great stress upon this. Read this book with your bible at your elbow, and do not think much of the trouble of turning to the passages quoted. If unhappily you should consider me, or my little volume, as a substitute for the bible, instead of a guide to it, I have done you an injury, or rather you have done yourself an injury by thus employing it. " As new born babes," says the Apostle, " desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby." And as those infants thrive best who are fed from the breast of their mother, so those converts grow most in grace, who are most devoted to a spiritual perusal of the Scriptures. If therefore I stand between you and the Word of God, I do you great disservice ; but if I persuade you to read the scriptures, I greatly help you in your religious course. Perhaps, in the present state of your mind, it is not desirous to begin and read regularly the Word of God, but to go through those passages which I have selected and recommended.

And now may God, of his great goodness and sovereign grace, deign to bless the perusal of this book to many immortal souls, by making it, however humble the production, the means of conducting them into the path of life.

Chapter I. Deep Solicitude About Salvation Reasonable And Necessary

Reader, you have lately been awakened by the mercy of God, to asV with some degree of anxiety, that momentous question " What shall I do to be saved 7" No wonder you should be anxious ; the wonder is, that you were not concerned about this matter before, that you are not more deeply solicitous now, and that all who possess the Word of God do not sympathize with you in this anxiety. Every thing justifies solicitude and condemns indifference. Unconcern about the soul, indifference to salvation, is a most irrational as well as a most guilty state of mind. The wildest enthusiasm about these matters is less surprising and unreasonable than absolute carelessness, as will appear from the following considerations.

1. You are an immortal creature, a being born

for eternity, a creature that will never go out of

existence. Millions of ages, as numerous as the

sands upon the shore, and the drops of the ocean, and the leaves of all the forests on the globe, will not shorten the duration of your being ; eternity, vast eternity, incomprehensible eternity, is before you. Every day brings you nearer to everlasting torments or felicity. You may die any moment, and you are as near to heaven or hell as you are to death. No wonder you are asking "What shall I do to be saved V 7

2. But the reasonableness of this anxiety appears, if you add to this consideration that you are sinners. You have broken God's law \ you have rebelled against his authority ; you have acted as an enemy to him, and made him your enemy. If you had committed only one single act of transgression, your situation would be alarming. One sin would have subjected you to the sentence of his law, and exposed you to his displeasure : but you have committed sins more in number and greater in magnitude than you know, or can conceive of. Your whole life has been one continued sin : you have, so far as God is considered, done nothing but sin. Your transgressions have sent up to heaven a cry for vengeance. You are actually under the curse of the Almighty.

3. Consider what the loss of the soul includes. The loss of the soul, is the loss of every thing dear to man as an immortal creature ; it is the loss of heaven, with all its honours, felicities, and glories ; it is the loss of God's favour, which is the life of all rational creatures ; it is the loss of every thing that caD contribute to our happiness ; and it is the loss of hope, the last refuge of the wretched. The loss of ihe soul includes in it all that is contained in that dreadful word, Hell ; — it is the eternal endurance of the wrath of God ; it is the lighting down of the curse of the Almighty upon tne human spirit, or rather it is the falling of the human spirit into that curse, as into a lake that burneth with fire and brimstone. How true as well as solemn, are the words of Christ, " What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ; or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul."''' All the tears that ever have been or ever will be shed on the face of the earth ; all the groans that ever have been or ever will be heaved ; all the anguish that ever has been or ever will be endured by all the inhabitants of the world, through all the ages of time, do not make up an equal amount of misery to that which is included, in the loss of one human soul. Justly therefore do you say, who are exposed to this misery, " What shall I do to be saved ?"

4. This solicitude is reasonable, if we consider that the eternal loss of the soul is not a rare, but a very common occurrence. It is so tremendous a catastrophe, that if it happened only once in a :. or once in a century, so as to render it barely possible that it should happen to you, it would be unpardonable carelessness, not to feel some solicitude about the matter : how much more then, when, alas ! it is an every day calamity. So far from its being a rare thing for men to go to hell, it is a much rarer thing for them to go to heaven. Our Lord tells us that the road to destruction is thronged, while the way to life is travelled by few. Hell opens its mouth wide, and swallows up multitudes in perdition. How alarming is the idea, and how probable the fact, that you may be among this number. Some that read these pages will very likely spend their eternity with lost souls ; it is therefore your wisdom, as well as your duty, to cherish the anxiety which says, " What shall I do to be saved V

5. Salvation is possible, for if it were not it would be useless to be anxious about it. It would be cruel, and only tormenting you before your time, to encourage an anxiety which could never be relieved by the possession of the object which excites it. Who, if such a thiri£ were possible, would say any thing to " lost souls in prison," by way of encouraging in them a solicitude to be saved ? But your case is not hopeless ; you may be saved ; you are invited to be saved. Christ has died for your salvation, and God waits to save you ; all the opportunities and advantages, and helps, and encouragements to salvation are round you ; the blessing is within your reach ; it is brought near to you ; and t will be your own fault if you do not possess it. Your solicitude is not therefore directed to an unattainable object.

anxie r y . 17

6. Salvation has been obtained by multitudes, and why may it not be obtained by you? Millions in heaven are already saved ; myriads more are on the road to salvation. God is still as willing, and Christ is still as able to save you, as them ; why then should not you be saved ?

7. And then what a blessing — Salvation ! A blessing that includes all the riches of grace, and all the greater riches of glory ; deliverance from sin, death, and hell ; the possession of pardon, peace, holiness, and heaven ; a blessing, in short, immense, infinite, everlasting : which occupied the mind of Deity from eternity, was procured by the Son of God upon the cross, and which will fill eternity with its happiness. O, how little, how insignificant, how contemptible is the highest object of human ambition, to say nothing of the lower matters of men's desires, compared with salvation. Riches, rank, fame, honours, are but as the small dust of the balance when compared with the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory Who that pretends to the least regard to his own happiness would not say, " What shall I do to be saved ?"

8. The circumstances in which you are placed for obtaining this blessing are partly favourable

and partly unfavourable. The love of God is infinite ; the merit of Christ is infinite ; the power of the Holy Spirit is infinite ; Jehovah is willing and waiting to save you ; Christ invites , all things 2* are ready, and the grace of God offered for youi conversion. On the other hand, you have a corrupt heart, and are placed in a world where every thing seems to combine to draw off your attention from salvation, and to cause you to neglect it. Satan is busy to blind your mind ; the world to fill your imagination and heart with other objects, so that even the " Righteous are scarcely saved." You cannot quit the world and go into monasteries and convents, but must seek the salvation of your soul, amidst the engrossing cares of this busy and troublesome world, where anxiety about the body is so liable to put away anxiety about the soul, and things seen and temporal are likely to withdraw the attention from things that are unseen and eternal. O, how difficult is it to pay just enough regard to present things, and yet not too much ! How difficult to attend properly to the affairs both of earth and heaven ; to be busy for two worlds at once ! These circumstances may well excite your solicitude.

Anxiety, then, deep anxiety about salvation, is the most reasonable thing in the world : and we feel almost ready to ask, can that man have a soul, or know that he has one, who is careless about its eternal happiness ? Is he a man, or a brute ? Is he in the exercise of his reason, or is he a maniac ? Ever walking on the edge of the precipice that beetles over the bottomless pit, and not anxious about salvation ! O fatal, awful, destructive indifference ! cherish then your solicitude. You must he anxious, you ought to he so, you cannot be saved without it, for no man ever was, or ever will be. The salvation of a lost soul, is such a stupendous deliverance, such an infinitely momentous concern, that it is impossible in the very nature of things, it should be bestowed on any one, who is not in earnest to obtain it. This is the very end of your existence, the purpose for which God created you. Apart from this you are an enigma in creation ; a mystery in nature. Why has God given you faculties which seem to point to eternity, and desires which go forward to it, if he has not destined you for it ? Eternal salvation IS THE GREAT END OF LIFE I GET WHAT YOU WILL, IF YOU LOSE THIS YOU HAVE LOST THE PURPOSE OF

existence. Could you obtain all the wealth of the globe ; could you rise to the possession of universal empire ; could you by the most splendid discoveries in science, or the most useful inventions in art, or the most magnificent achievements in literature, fill the earth with the fame of your exploits, and send down your name with honour to the latest ages of time, still if you lost the salvation of your soul, you would have lived in vain. Whatever you may gain, life will be a lost adventure, if you do not gain salvation. The poorest creature that ever yet obtained eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ, although he had but a mere glimmering of intellect, just enough of understanding to apprehend the nature of repentance; although he lived out his days amidst the squalid poverty and repulsive scenes of a hovel or a workhouse ; although he was unknown even among the poor; and although when he died was buried in the pau per's grave on which no tear was ever shed, the condition of even this poor refuse of society, is infinitely to be preferred to that of the most successful merchant, the greatest conqueror, the profoundest philosopher, or the sublimest poet, that ever existed, if he lived and died without salvation. The lowest place in heaven is infinitely to be preferred to the highest place on earth. Go on then to urge the question, " What shall I do to be saved?" Let no one turn off your attention from this matter. As long as you covet this, your eye and heart and hope are fixed on the sublimest object in the universe; and when officious, but ignorant friends, would persuade you that you are too anxious, point them to the bottomless pit, and ask them if any one can be too anxious to escape its torments ? Point them to heaven, and ask them, if any one can be too anxious to obtain its glories? Point them to eternity, and ask them if any one can be too anxious to secure immortality ? Point them to the cross of Christ, and ask them if any one can be too anxious to secure the object for which he died ?

Chapter II

RELIGIOUS IMPRESSIONS, AND THE IMMENSE IMPORT- ANCE OF RETAINING AND DEEPENING THEM.

Awakened and anxious Sinner, your present situation is a most momentous one. You are in the crisis of your religious history, and of your eternal destiny. No tongue can tell, no pen describe, the importance of your present circumstances. You are just arousing from your long slumber of sin and spiritual death, and will now either rise up and run the race that is set before you, or will soon sink back again, as those are likely to do who are just disturbed, into a deeper sleep than ever. The Spirit of God is striving with you, and you will yield to his suggestions, and give yourself up to be led by his gracious influence, or you will grieve him by resistance and neglect, and compel him to depart. God is drawing you with the cords of love ; Christ is saying, " Behold I stand at the door and knock." The Spirit is striving with you. Yield to these silken bands ; open to that gracious Saviour ; grieve not, quench not, the motions of that divine Spirit. Salvation is come near, and heaven is opening to your soul. Remember you may quench the Spirit not only by direct resistance, but by careless neglect. Do not I beseech you be insensible to your situation. A single conviction ought not to be treated with indifference, nor a single impression be overlooked. You cannot long remain as you now are, your convictions will soon end in conversion, or in greater indifference : like the blossoms of spring, they will soon set in fruit, or fall to the ground. Should your present solicitude diminish, it will soon subside altogether ; and if it subside, it may probably never be revived. It is a most dangerous thing to tamper or trifle with convictions of sin, and religious impressions. If you would not lose your present feelings, take the following advice : —

1. Admit the possibility of losing them. Do not presume that it is impossible for you to relapse. Let there be no approach to the vain glorious, selfconfident temper of the apostle Peter, who said, " though all should forsake thee, yet will not I." Nothing is more common than mere transient devotions. The character of Pliable, in the Pilgrim's Progress, is one of every day's occurrence. There are very few that hear the gospel who are not at one time, or other, the subject of religious impressions. Multitudes who are lifting up their eyes in torment, are looking back upon lost impressions. Do not conclude that because you are now so concerned about salvation, you must be saved. O no.

Many that will read these pages, under the deepest solicitude, will add to the number of backsliders. Self-confidence will be sure to end in confusion 5 while self-diffidence is the way to stand.

2. Dread the idea of relapsing into indifference. Let the bare apprehension make you tremble. Exclaim in an almost agony of spirit, " Oh, if I should prove treacherous ; if my goodness should be as the morning cloud or early dew ; if this heart of mine, which now seems so much in earnest, should become indifferent ; if m,y soul, which now seems not far from the kingdom of God, should go back from its very gates and walk the ways of God no more ; if my friends or minister should meet me in a retreating course, and have to say to me, ' you did run well, what has hindered you. 5 Dreadful change ! May God in mercy prevent it." My dear reader, let these be your reflections. Let death seem to you to be rather coveted than backsliding ; let it be your feeling that you would rather go forward in the pursuit of salvation, though you were, to die the moment your sins were pardoned, than gain long life and the whole world, by going back to indifference. Next to the loss of the soul, there is nothing so dreadful in itself, nor so much to be dreaded, as the loss of religious impressions 5 and the latter leads on to the former.

3. Make it a subject of devout and earnest prayer, that God would render your impressions permanent, by the effectual aid of his Holy Spirit Reader, here learn these two lessons, that God alone can seal these emotions upon your heart j and he can be expected to do it only in answer to prayer. It is of infinite consequence that you should, at this stage of your religious history, deeply ponder this great truth, that all true piety in the heart ot man is the work of God's Spirit. Do not read another line till you have well weighed that sentiment, and have so wrought it into your heart, as to make it become a principle of action, a rule of conduct. Every conviction will be extinguished, every impression will be effaced, unless God himself, by his own sovereign and efficacious grace, render them permanent. If God do not put forth Ms power, you will as certainly lose every pious emotion as you now possess any. You may as rationally expect light without the sun, as piety without God. Not a single really holy feeling will ever come into the mind, or be kept there, but by God. Hence, the object and the use of prayer, are to obtain this gracious influence. Prayer is the first step in the divine life, prayer is the second, prayer is the third, and indeed it is necessary through the whole christian course. Awakened sinner, you must pray. You must find opportunity to be alone ; you must cry mightily unto God ; you must implore his aid ; you must give up a portion of your sleep if you can command no time in the day for prayer.

In one sense you should pray always. The spirit of prayer should dwell in you and never depart, and be continually leading you to ejaculatory petitions, in the house and by the way, upon your bed and in your occupations ; and this should be the subject of your petitions, that your impressions may not be permitted to die away but go on to conversion. You may read books, consult friends, hear sermons, make resolutions ; but books, friends, sermons, resolutions, will all fail, if God do not give his Holy Spirit. It is very common for beginners to trust too much to means, and too little to God. If you will not, or even if you suppose you cannot, find time for private prayer, you may as well stop at once and give up the pursuit of salvation, for you cannot be saved without it. 4. If you would retain your impressions, and persevere in the pursuit of salvation, you must at once determine to give up whatever you know to be sinful in your conduct, and you must also be very watchful against sin. Thus runs the direction of the word of God, " Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near ; let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts ; and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." — Isaiah, lv. 6, 7. To the same effect is the language of one of Job's friends. " If thou prepare thine heart and stretch out thine hands towards him, if iniquity be in thy hand put it away."— Job xi. 13, 14.

It is 3 right for you at once to know, that the salvation which is in Christ is a deliver ance/rom s in. " Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins," said the angel to Joseph, when he announced the approaching nativity oi Christ, " Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." — Titus ii. 14. It is of immense consequence that you should at once have a distinct idea that the salvation you are beginning to seek, is a holy calling. Whatever is sinful in your temper, such as malice, revenge, violent passions ; or whatever is sinful in your words, in the way of falsehood, railing, backbiting ; or whatever is sinful in your practice, in the way of sabbath-breaking, injustice, unkindness, undutifulness to parents or masters, must immediately be given up without hesitation, reluctance, or reserve. The retaining of one single sin, which you know to be such, will soon stifle all your convictions, and efface all your impressions. If you are not willing to give up your sins, it is not salvation you are seeking. You may suppose you wish to become a Christian, and you read the bible, and offer up prayers, and regularly hear sermons, and wonder that you do not get on in religion ; but perhaps the reason is, you are not willing to give up your sins, your worldly-mindedness, your carnal pleasures, or some practice that you find to be gainful or agreeable, although you know it to be sinful. Well then, you cannot get on in this state of mind. Do, do, therefore, look carefully within, examine faithfully your conduct, and see whether there he in you any thing, which you know to be wrong, but which you are nevertheless unwilling to abandon ; — if there is, it is vain for you to think of retaining your impressions, and becoming a Christian. And let me also remind you, that this willingness to give up your sins must be immediate ; you must desire and purpose an instant abandonment of sin. Augustine confesses that he used to pray to God to convert him, but with this reservation, u Lord, not yet." He wished to live a little longer in the gratification of his sinful lusts, before he was completely turned to the Lord from his evil ways. Thus there are some who are, or profess to be, desirous to be converted at some time or other, and who are willing to give up their sins, but u not yet." There is a mixture of feeling, a concern to be saved, but a lingering love of some sin, and the matter is settled by a resolution to sacrifice the sin at some future time. Awful delusion ! God says now, and you must reply, yes, Lord, now. I would now be converted from this and every sin.