7 
 
 
. s 
 
THE 
 
 SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 BY THE REV. 
 
 THOMAS GRIFFITH, M.A. 
 
 MINISTER OF RAM's CHAPEL, HOMERTON. 
 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 T. CADELL, STRAND; 
 
 HATCHARD AND SON, PICCADILLY; 
 
 AND SEELEY, FLEET STREET. 
 
 1836. 
 
G77 7 
 
 PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEV, 
 
 Dorset Street, Fleet Street. 
 
/ 3V 
 
 ^ 
 
 } 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 It may conduce to the understanding of the 
 do wing work to state that the subject is con- 
 aiplated as forming that grand division of 
 CH istianity — the Experimental — to which its 
 ^octrines are introductory, and of which its 
 Duties are the practical result. The one theme 
 of the Christian system appears to me to be 
 The Kingdom of Heaven. The leading idea of 
 Christian Doctrine is the opening of this king- 
 dom to all believers. The distinctive spirit of 
 Christian Experience is a filial confidence of our 
 election to this kingdom.* And the governing 
 principle of Christian Practice is a correspond- 
 ing zeal for the advancement, in ourselves and 
 others, of that holiness by which alone this 
 Kingdom can be ultimately reached.-f* 
 
 * See 2 Thess. ii. 13—15. t See 2 Peter i. 10—12. 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 Of the first of these particulars — the Leading 
 Idea of Christianity — I have already ventured 
 an outline in a former publication. Of the se- 
 cond — the Distinctive Spirit of Christianity — 
 the present work endeavours to treat. I know 
 indeed the peculiar difficulty of this subject. I 
 know how impossible it is to convey by words 
 what by experience alone can be fully under- 
 stood. Our inward feelings we can but imper- 
 fectly express. This expression, again, is still 
 more imperfectly apprehended. And this ap- 
 prehension, yet further, requires for its substan- 
 tiation the reproduction in the mind of the 
 reader, of those states of consciousness which 
 are referred to, rather than described, by the 
 writer. And thus a threefold difficulty is in- 
 volved in the transmission of our sentiments on 
 all those subjects which are neither scientific 
 nor historical, but lie within the domain of taste 
 and feeling, and address themselves to the heart 
 rather than the head. Their intelligibility de- 
 pends more upon the spirit of the reader than 
 on the power of the writer. In a full-charged 
 atmosphere the smallest vibration will be heard. 
 In vacuo the largest bell is struck in vain. 
 
 And hence the deep importance of our bring- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 ing to all works of experimental religion, a per- 
 sonal, self-questioning, and meditative interest. 
 For what has been said of Virtue is equally true 
 of Piety ; no man can teach it to another ; not by 
 definition, argument, description, can it be com- 
 municated ; by sympathy alone can its independ- 
 ent life be stirred within the soul, and develop- 
 ed into vigour. Men can teach only what they 
 know. What they feel, they must be satisfied 
 with humbly telling forth in patient expecta- 
 tion, till the feeble breath of their experience 
 have crept quietly along the chords of congenial 
 minds, and one and another give back at its gen- 
 tle touch a responsive sound. 
 
 Nor is such a personal interest and respon- 
 siveness less necessary to our profiting by devo- 
 tional and practical subjects than to our appre- 
 hension of them. With the most accurate con- 
 ceptions of religious truth, we shall have but 
 little spiritual growth, without that working out 
 a subject in our own minds, and realizing in them 
 the experiences of which we read, which me- 
 ditation, self-examination, and prayer can alone 
 produce. Each successive year will behold us 
 only where we were. Our spiritual movement 
 (for movement we may have) will be not pro- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 gression, but oscillation. We shall only swing 
 round with the tide of other men's emotions, 
 not stretch out in our proper course. Our very 
 diligence will be only conservative, not construc- 
 tive. We shall repair from time to time the 
 slight-made structure which in the first fervour 
 of Repentance we had hastily run up, but we 
 shall not strengthen its foundations, nor enlarge 
 its plan, nor adorn its front, nor build it up 
 towards heaven. 
 
 May God sanctify this book to such an Edifi- 
 cation of those who read it ; that they, " build- 
 ing up themselves on their most holy faith, and 
 praying in the Holy Ghost, may keep themselves 
 in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life !" 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 THE ESSENCE OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 Page 
 
 
 Chap. I. — Piety in General. 
 
 Piety is not merely Knowledge of doctrinal Truths. 9 
 Nor Practice of moral Duties. . . .11 
 
 Still less is it an ignorant and immoral Sensibility. 13 
 But it is the Sense of God's presence and authority 
 in Nature — in Events — in Mind. . .15 
 
 Chap. II. — Christian Piety. 
 
 The primary element of Piety is Awe of the Divine 
 
 Authority. .... 
 
 But Christianity developes, in addition, a filial Con 
 fldence in the Divine Love. 
 
 With this Adam was created. 
 
 This has been lost by Sin. 
 
 But to this the Christian is restored by the Atonement 
 
 of Christ. .... 
 
 And exercises by the Spirit of Christ. 
 
 20 
 
 23 
 
 25 
 26 
 
 2T 
 28 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 Chap. III. — The Manifestations of Christian Piety. 
 
 The Scriptures describe the Spirit of Christian Piety 
 as manifesting its presence by producing Devoted- 
 ness to God. . . . . 31 
 
 Intercourse with God. . . . .33 
 
 Peace with God. . . , . . 36 
 
 Power for God. . . . . .40 
 
 PART II. 
 
 THE DEVELOPEMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 Chap. I. — The Source of the Spiritual Life. 
 
 This Life must take its rise in the depths of the 
 human spirit. . . . . 50 
 
 For therein lies our disease. . . .51 
 
 Which is too extensive for partial palliatives. . 52 
 
 And too deep for superficial ones. . . 53 
 
 And which requires, therefore, a remedy as inward as 
 itself. . . . . . . 54 
 
 This Life must spring from a Divine Source. 55 
 
 For man cannot fully know, or effectually influence his 
 own Spirit. . . . . .6 
 
 And Piety must be a growth, prepared by a combina- 
 tion of influences, exerted through a series of time. 57 
 Its production, therefore, we are obliged to refer to 
 God. . . . . .58 
 
 To whom it is ascribed in Scripture. . 59 
 
 And by the Church of England. . . .59 
 
 Hence we see the Difficulties which the Subject must 
 present to the earthly mind. . . 61 
 
 The Encouragement which it affords to all who seek 
 for Piety. . • .65 
 
CONTENTS. IX 
 
 Page 
 And the Means which they should use for its attain- 
 ment ; viz. — Intercourse with themselves — with 
 their Fellow Christians — with their God. . 67 
 
 Chap. II. — The Process of the Spiritual Life. 
 
 The Developement of Spiritual Life must be mani- 
 fest to the consciousness of the Individual. . 72 
 
 For the general phenomena of mind are perceptible. . 73 
 
 And equally so must be those of Piety. . . 74 
 
 And these phenomena are described in Scripture. . 75 
 
 And must be equally essential now. . . 78 
 
 The Process of this Manifestation will be similar in 
 all religious minds. . . . .82 
 
 For the natural condition of all men is similar. . 82 
 
 And similar must be the process of their deliverance 
 
 from it. . . . . .84 
 
 Of which Deliverance the principal stages are 
 
 From Indifference to Earnestness. 
 
 From Ignorance to Knowledge. 
 
 From Aversion to Love. 
 
 From Dread to Peace. . . .87 
 
 From Despondency to Hope. 
 
 Chap. III. — Spiritual Awakening. 
 
 Men are naturally indifferent to God. . . 92 
 
 It is long before they know him at all. . . 92 
 
 Longer before they are interested in him. . . 93 
 
 And even then too little influenced by him. . 4 
 
 They need therefore the Awakening of their Atten- 
 tion to Him. . . . . .96 
 
 Without this it is vain to have been consecrated to 
 his service — to be members of his church — to un. 
 derstand his truth — to be zealous for his cause. . 96 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 For Attention is a personal interest in Truth as suited 
 
 to our own necessities. • . .97 
 
 And a personal Awaking to the Sense of God, and of 
 
 our relation to him. .... 100 
 
 This Awakening must be the work of God. . 102 
 
 It is ascribed to him in Scripture. . . 103 
 
 And therefore termed His Calling men to him. . 104 
 
 Which Call, God vouchsafes in every object of Nature 
 
 and every Means of Grace. . . . 105 
 
 Chap. IV. — Spiritual Illumination. 
 
 There may be much ignorance of God in the midst 
 of outward advantages. . . . 109 
 
 The Understanding may possess some knowledge of 
 his laws. . . . . .110 
 
 The Heart may feel some reverence for his authority. Ill 
 And yet His character may be little understood. . 113 
 
 The removal of this ignorance is essential to Chris- 
 tian Piety. . . . . .114 
 
 For Christian Piety is the exercise of love towards God. 114 
 And this love depends on our acquaintance with God's 
 love towards us. . . . .116 
 
 And this Removal is effected by the contemplation 
 of God in Jesus Christ. . . . 118 
 
 In Christ only is displayed God's love to man. . 119 
 
 For natural religion gives but an imperfect notion of 
 
 God. . . . . .120 
 
 Nay, an erroneous one. .... 121 
 
 Thanks, then, be to God for his revelation of himself 
 
 in Christ ! • . / . . .123 
 
 Chap. V. — Spiritual Regeneration. 
 
 Sect. I. — The Nature of Spiritual Regeneration. 
 
 It is the awakening of a new disposition towards 
 God 125 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 Page 
 
 This is intimated by the Scripture descriptions of the 
 Fact. . . . . .126 
 
 And by the Scripture names which designate that Fact. 129 
 
 Sect. II. — The Necessity of Spiritual Regeneration. 
 
 The term Regeneration expresses, 1. A relative 
 change of state. . . . .134 
 
 Both in Scripture — the Fathers — and the Church of 
 England. ..... 135 
 
 But not the less, 2. A personal change of heart. . 144 
 Which is indispensable to all men. . . 145 
 
 Is demanded, under that very term, by our best Divines. 150 
 And from its own nature, — and the Scripture state- 
 ments concerning it — must necessarily be a personal 
 experience. ..... 153 
 
 Sect. III. — The Means of Spiritual Regeneration. 
 
 The Scriptures state the Means of our Regeneration 
 to be the Word of God. . . .157 
 
 By which they mean the Proclamation of his mercy in 
 
 Christ. . ... 158 
 
 As the effects attributed to its reception, further show. 160 
 
 The whole subject suggests Inquiry concerning our 
 
 experience of this new disposition towards God. 164 
 
 Direction, concerning its cultivation. . . 166 
 
 Encouragement, to hope for its perfection. . 168 
 
 Chap. VI. — Spiritual Peace. 
 
 This results from Delight in God's presence. . 171 
 
 Which the Christian realizes in the circumstances — the 
 enjoyments — and the trials — of life. . . 171 
 
 From Dependence on God's care. . . 175 
 
 Such as was enjoyed by our Lord — and by St. Paul — 
 and is the privilege of all his people. . . 176 
 
 From Harmony with God's will. . . .178 
 
XII CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 Happiness is simply inward harmony. . . 178 
 
 And what, then, is the happiness of Harmony with 
 God! . . . . .179 
 
 Chap. VII. — Spiritual Hope. 
 
 Hope is the only effectual stay amidst the mental — 
 spiritual — and moral imperfection of our present 
 state. . . . . . .184 
 
 For our present Knowledge of God is limited — it shall 
 
 be complete ! .... 186 
 
 Our Communion with God is interrupted — it shall be 
 
 permanent! ..... 187 
 Our service of God is feeble — it shall be full of vigour ! 188 
 Hope, therefore, has ever formed the sustaining grace 
 
 of God's people. . . . 189 
 
 And this Hope is an humble and a sanctifying one. 192 
 Springing from dependence on the work of Christ. 193 
 And maintained by cherishing the Spirit of Christ. 195 
 
 PART III. 
 
 THE NOURISHMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 Chap. I The Necessity of Devotional Exercises. 
 
 Devotion is the Natural Effusion of the spirit of 
 adoption. ..... 200 
 
 For this spirit is a heavenly Spirit, and therefore tends 
 heavenward. .... 201 
 
 It is a filial spirit, and therefore seeks communion 
 with its Father. . . . .202 
 
 This we see in our Lord. . . . 202 
 
 And in his Disciples. .... 204 
 
 And the indispensable Means of its nourishment. . 206 
 
 For so only can Spiritual Ideas be made familiar to us. 206 
 Spiritual Dispositions be made habitual. . . 208 
 
CONTENTS. Xlll 
 
 Page 
 And a life of Faith be maintained amidst a world of 
 
 sense. ..... 209 
 
 Devotion therefore must be an intentional, as well as a 
 
 spontaneous exercise. .... 210 
 It was so even with our Lord — both generally — and on 
 
 particular occasions. . . . .211 
 
 Much more must it be so with his People. . . 212 
 
 Chap. II. — Devout Exercises of Mind. 
 
 Sect. I. — Devotional Meditation. 
 
 The Mind requires to be trained to the habitual En- 
 joyment of God's presence. . . .214 
 To this, Meditation is an important means. . 218 
 For which, Contemplation furnishes the materials. 218 
 
 Ranging through all the works and ways of God. . 219 
 
 And recognizing Him alike in all His revelations of 
 Himself. . . . . .223 
 
 And of which, Adoration is the result. . . 225 
 
 Which is the enjoyment of all spiritual minds. . 226 
 
 And forms the highest exercise of Piety. . . 229 
 
 Sect. II.-— Devotional Reading. 
 
 Reading is the food of Thought. . . .231 
 
 The Bible especially supplies this food. . . 234 
 
 In reading which for Spiritual nourishment, consider 
 it as the voice of God himself. . . . 236 
 
 So shall it bring God present to your mind, even as he 
 was to the Scripture Saints. . . . 237 
 
 You will study its revelations as addressed directly to 
 yourself. . . . . .241 
 
 And find them an unfailing Guide. . . 242 
 
 Sect. III. — Devotional Fellowship. 
 
 Social Fellowship is essential to the nourishment of 
 the human mind. .... 246 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 Such Fellowship is not supplied by the ordinary in- 
 tercourse of the world. .... 248 
 But it is provided for in the Church of Christ. . 250 
 
 Which was formed for this purpose by our Lord. . 251 
 Was consolidated by his Apostles. . . 252 
 And communion with which is urged on every Chris- 
 tian, as the means of spiritual growth. . . 253 
 
 Cultivate, therefore, Christian Fellowship, in the 
 Private circle. ..... 255 
 
 And in the Public congregation. . . . 257 
 
 Chap. III. — Devout Exercises of Heart. 
 
 The Christian is privileged to refer up to God all his 
 sorrows and joys. .... 263 
 
 Regarding his trials as God's appointment. . • 266 
 
 And his comforts as God's gifts. . . . 267 
 
 And waiting upon God in both. . . . 268 
 
 To lay before God all his fears and hopes. . 269 
 
 And to commend himself universally into the hands 
 of God, with uncalculating faith. . . 273 
 
 Chap. IV. — Devout Exercises of Will. 
 
 Devotion influences the will by settling our Judg- 
 ment of what is right. .... 278 
 
 For it considers things, under God's eye. . . 279 
 
 And discourses about them with God. . . 281 
 
 And by strengthening our Determination for what is 
 right. . . . . . .282 
 
 For it affects the heart with love to holiness. . 282 
 
 And draws down the Spirit of power for holiness. . 284 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 LECTURES ON CONFIRMATION AND THE LORD'S 
 SUPPER. Fcap. 8vo. 6s. in cloth. 
 
 THE LEADING IDEA OF CHRISTIANITY, 12mo. 5s. 
 in cloth. 
 
 SERMONS, preached in St. James's Chapel, Ryde. 8vo. 
 lis. 
 
 LIFE A PILGRIMAGE. A New Year's Sermon. Second 
 Edition, demy 24mo. Is. 
 
 CHRISTIAN LOYALTY. A Sermon on the Anniversary of 
 the King's Accession. 8vo. Is. 
 
PART I. 
 
 THE ESSENCE 
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 Though Christ be the Head, yet is the Holy Ghost the 
 Heart of the Church, from whence the vital spirits of grace 
 and holiness are issued out, unto the quickening of the body 
 mystical. 
 
 Heylyn. 
 
In the powers and faculties of our souls God requireth the 
 uttermost which our unfeigned affection toward him is able to 
 yield ; so that if we affect him not far above and before all 
 things, our religion hath not that inward perfection which it 
 should have, neither do we indeed worship him as our God. 
 
 Hooker. 
 
PART L 
 
 THE ESSENCE OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PIETY IN GENERAL. 
 
 We can never remind ourselves too often of the 
 fact that Christianity is a remedy for human need ; 
 that its leading Idea is Deliverance from all the ills 
 that flesh is heir to, and its leading proclamation is 
 peace — peace to them that are near and to all that 
 are afar off. This grand characteristic is beauti- 
 fully exhibited in the very title which is given to 
 it in the Irish tongue, in which our term "The 
 Gospel," is translated " The Story of Peace ;" and 
 it is touchingly expressed by St. Augustine when 
 he says, " In Cicero and Plato I meet with many 
 things wisely said, and things that have a manifest 
 tendency to move the passions, but in none of them 
 do I find these words, ' Come unto me all ye that 
 
 th 
 
 7 
 
4 PIETY IN GENERAL. 
 
 are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you 
 rest.' " 
 
 But the ills of man are various, and as various 
 therefore are the consolations and the helps which 
 the Gospel of Deliverance from those ills, pro- 
 claims. Are we sensitive beings, and therefore 
 wounded in every nerve by the physical evil which 
 overspreads the earth ? The Gospel tells us of a 
 time when all tears shall be wiped from every eye, 
 and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. Are we 
 moral beings, and therefore shocked and humbled 
 by the degradation and self-contradiction which we 
 witness in ourselves and in mankind at large ? The 
 Gospel brings that healing medicine which can both 
 soothe the diseased spirit, and restore it, ulti- 
 mately, to perfect health. And are we religious 
 beings, formed to recognize a relation of ourselves 
 and of all things to an unseen Creator and Gover- 
 nor, and therefore pained to see how little this 
 relation is remembered, nay, how much that re- 
 membrance is shrunk from and opposed? The 
 Gospel cheers us by unveiling our Heavenly Father 
 now to the eye of faith, and promising that he shall 
 break forth in unshrouded glory over all the earth 
 hereafter. Only let us learn to know ourselves, 
 and estimate aright the actual condition of man- 
 kind, and the remedy which that condition needs 
 and calls for ; and so shall we appreciate the worth 
 
PIETY IN GENERAL. O 
 
 of the Revelation which is the supplement to that 
 condition, the supply of that remedy, the answer 
 to that call. 
 
 And in the same proportion also shall we be led 
 to understand the nature of the help which Chris- 
 tianity supplies, and be convinced that, as our dis- 
 ease is personal and moral, so must the remedy 
 revealed be equally personal and moral. The truths 
 of the Gospel become saving, — that is, effectual to 
 deliver us from the state in which they find us, — 
 only as they are brought to bear upon ourselves. 
 The seed is given, indeed, from Heaven, but it is 
 only as it takes root in the heart of man, and 
 springs up in his character, that it can expand into 
 everlasting life. 
 
 And hence the infinite importance of personal 
 Piety, as that without which all knowledge of 
 Christian truth and all attempt at Christian duty 
 will be ineffectual. There are, indeed, three grand 
 classes of religious meditation; — the meditation, 
 namely, on what has been done^br us, what must 
 be done in us, and what should be done by us ; and 
 these classes may be verbally distinguished into 
 doctrinal, experimental, and practical ; but they 
 are inseparable in fact ; for all true doctrine, expe- 
 rience, and practice, are one and indivisible. And 
 the connecting link, say rather the assimilating 
 life, which effects this unity, resides in the middle 
 
PIETY IN GENERAL. 
 
 term, — the experience of what must be done in us. 
 Only persona] piety, (and by the word experience 
 we mean personal piety in all its parts,) brings 
 down general doctrine into individual application, 
 and quickens notions into principles. And only 
 personal piety can supply the life, the feeling, and 
 the energy, by which consistent practice can be 
 either fully purposed, or successfully pursued. 
 
 How solemn, therefore, is the subject to which I 
 would direct the attention of my reader in this book, 
 and in the prosecution of which I would entreat the 
 active and devout co-operation of his own mind ! 
 Suffer me to begin, and carry it on throughout, with 
 direct appeals to your personal sympathy. Join 
 with me in frequent ejaculations for divine help and 
 blessing. The topic is, beyond all others, devout 
 and practical. Devoutly and practically let us 
 enter on it. It concerns the soul of him who writes 
 and him who reads. It can be realized only in and 
 by our souls. Spiritual truth is but the seed of 
 spiritual life. And though spiritual truth may be 
 dropped into the mind by instruction from without 
 us, spiritual life can be awakened only by an energy 
 within us: by our meditating on the truths de- 
 clared ; by our applying them to our particular state 
 of heart ; by our brooding over them in our inmost 
 soul ; above all, by prayerful seeking of the Spirit 
 of life, — which is the Spirit of God, — to come and 
 
PIETY IN GENERAL. 7 
 
 quicken them by warmth from heaven. O thou 
 Lord and Giver of life, who art the Author of all 
 godliness, vouchsafe thy presence and thy blessing 
 to our united meditations ! Grant that he who 
 writes and he who reads may feel the power of the 
 truths which we consider together. Grant that 
 what issues from the heart may reach the heart, 
 that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may 
 rejoice together ! 
 
 Our first endeavour must be to attain a full per- 
 ception of what we mean by Personal Piety : and 
 therefore our First Part will enquire into the es- 
 sence of the spiritual life. And then, since 
 this life is a subject of inward experience, and re- 
 veals itself in the consciousness by gradual mani- 
 festations, our Second Part will trace the process 
 of its developement. And further, since, like 
 all life, it requires sustenance and is capable of 
 increase and invigoration, our Third Part will indi- 
 cate some of the principal means on which de- 
 pend ITS NOURISHMENT AND GROWTH. 
 
 And now then, in this First Part we address our- 
 selves to the enquiry, What is the essence of the 
 
 SPIRITUAL LIFE? 
 
 We cannot meditate on the examples of pious 
 men without perceiving in them one condition of 
 
8 PIETY IN GENERAL. 
 
 mind which specially characterizes all God's chil- 
 dren, and marks them for his own. It forms the 
 family likeness by which they are distinguished, 
 the common temper which, amidst every variety 
 of character, makes them like each other and like 
 their Father. By this, every servant of God in 
 every age is assimilated to the whole body of the 
 faithful; and it is because we sympathize with this, 
 that a Noah, an Abraham, a David, an Isaiah, a 
 Daniel, a Paul, widely different as they are in other 
 respects, are felt to be our brethren ; and their 
 writings touch the deepest and most secret springs 
 of our nature, and express, in words more apt than 
 we ourselves can form, the most intimate workings 
 of our hearts. 
 
 This common temper is expressed in Scripture 
 by various terms. Sometimes it is called "the 
 fear of God," — the bowing of the soul before invi- 
 sible Authority. Sometimes, " the walking before 
 God," — the having reference to his guidance in all 
 our steps. Sometimes it is termed " Godliness," — 
 the feeling that in God we live, and move, and 
 have our being ; and " Devoutness," — the assidu- 
 ous care* to cultivate his favour, and honour Him 
 in all our ways. Sometimes again, it is called " the 
 living to God," — the regulating our spirit and con- 
 duct with reference to his will. And still further, to 
 
 * EvXaSuu. See Luke ii. 25. 
 
PIETY IN GENERAL. 9 
 
 express the freeness and spontaneousness of this 
 life, — its welling forth from the hidden fountain of 
 the heart as the unconstrained expression of an 
 inward affection, it is specially denominated " the 
 love of God." 
 
 In all which Scripture terms we cannot but ob- 
 serve one idea invariably recurring amidst the vari- 
 ous shades of meaning, and forming, therefore, the 
 common mark of Personal Piety, — the direction, 
 namely, of the mind and heart towards God ; the 
 turning to Him as the centre of our being, and of 
 the sphere in which we live. The Spiritual life is 
 emphatically a life in God, — flowing from Him as 
 its source, and ever pressing upwards towards Him 
 as its natural level. 
 
 Such a life then is evidently distinct from, and 
 over and above, the Knotvledge merely of doctrinal 
 truths. For such knowledge, though essential to 
 the purifying and the regulation of piety,, can by no 
 means produce that piety, nor does it determine 
 the degree in which that piety may exist. Very 
 often is there manifested a deep devoutness even 
 in the mere twilight of religious knowledge — a de- 
 voutness which we should do well to cherish the 
 more sedulously as that twilight brightens into 
 broader day. For it will profit us little to enjoy 
 the blaze of noon- tide illumination, if we have lost 
 therein that thrilling awe of the Unseen which in 
 
10 
 
 PIETY IN GENERAL. 
 
 the dim religious light of earlier consciousness stole 
 over us. To preserve the fresh and simple feelings 
 of the child in union with the matured experience 
 and attainments of the man, is the perfection of 
 the human character. And to be ever children 
 in spirit while in understanding we are men, is 
 the perfection of religion. But, alas, this union is 
 not necessarily maintained, nor do these elements 
 expand in proportion to each other. We may see, 
 on the contrary, in many instances — we may feel it 
 in ourselves — a growing insight into Christian doc- 
 trine, correction of early errors, acquaintance with 
 new truths, or with more of the detail and connex- 
 ion of old ones, an increasing clearness and har- 
 mony of Theological system ; — and yet Piety, so 
 far from growing in proportion to all this, not per- 
 haps growing at all; nay, withering under the 
 glare of this intenser light ; — the old simplicity of 
 heart gone ; the old earnestness of spirit dead ; the 
 fulness of the soul dried up ; the liquid dew and 
 bloom of youthful feeling brushed away, and the 
 life of our religion checked and fixed, if not de- 
 stroyed. Reader, I entreat you, seek knowledge 
 indeed; cultivate a just and rational Theology; en- 
 deavour to attain increasing insight into religious 
 truth ; but let all your knowledge be accompanied, 
 be guarded, be impregnated, and quickened, by a 
 living and life-giving Piety ! 
 
PIETY IN GENERAL. 11 
 
 But this spiritual life is not less distinct from, 
 and over and above, the Practice merely of moral 
 duties. For here again, though pious feeling with- 
 out holy practice is but a delusion of the stimu- 
 lated sensibility, a product of the animal and not 
 the spiritual life ; yet there may be much of out- 
 ward practice, " works " of every kind, the bustle 
 of an active and a showy doing, and yet no experi- 
 ence, — or no proportionate experience, — of that in- 
 ward spirit which supplies the proper motive of all 
 true moral and religious observance. It is true in- 
 deed,— it is never to be forgotten by us, — that by 
 our fruits we must be known ; by the practical re- 
 sults of knowledge and of feeling in the daily con- 
 duct must our character be estimated both by our- 
 selves and by the world. But then, equally true is 
 it, and equally to be remembered, that not our 
 separate acts, nor any series of acts, considered in 
 themselves alone, but the general motives out of 
 which all particular doings spring, and the pervad- 
 ing spirit which determines and characterizes our 
 habits, constitute the true and only moral worth 
 of man. And when we see how almost every act, 
 and course of conduct, may be the fruit of contrary 
 principles, and imbued with contrary feelings, — the 
 most dissimilar causes producing often the most 
 similar effects, — we must acknowledge how very 
 insufficient works are by themselves as proofs of 
 
12 
 
 PIETY IN GENERAL. 
 
 piety ; and how distinct from works is that devout- 
 ness which nevertheless will impel the heart to 
 their performance. O let not the man who finds 
 himself, (or thinks he finds himself, for we too 
 easily satisfy our conscience in these matters,) ful- 
 filling many of the duties of his station, attending 
 to the interests of his family, maintaining a good 
 name in his business and his social circle, " doing 
 as he would be done by," nay, adding to all this a 
 recognition of the claims of religion, and an attend- 
 ance on its public services, — let not such a man 
 imagine that he has, therefore, necessarily, that in- 
 ward piety which constitutes the spiritual life. 
 Let him not be satisfied with what he may deno- 
 minate effects, though all unconscious of the feel- 
 ings which should be their cause. For piety is not 
 some secret essence, the imagined base of sensible 
 phenomena, while itself insensible : it is itself also a 
 phenomenon, with marks and evidences of its own. 
 It is ever found, indeed, in intimate connexion 
 with external duties, but it must neither be con- 
 founded with them, nor resolved into them. 
 
 And this caution and distinction must be ex- 
 tended even to specifically religious works ; — works 
 done consciously and avowedly for God, and in his 
 cause ; works of Christian charity and zeal ; the 
 supporting of religious societies, the distribution of 
 religious books, the communication of religious in- 
 struction, the attending of religious meetings. All 
 
PIETY IN GENERAL. 13 
 
 these things may be done, and yet they are not the 
 measure of our piety ; nay, rather they too often 
 overlay and crush that delicate spirit within us. 
 Our inward spirituality may be decaying while our 
 outward activity becomes the admiration of our fel- 
 low men, — or of ourselves. The breathings of the 
 spirit may be few and languid, while the pulsations 
 of the animal life may be strong and frequent. We 
 may be giving out supplies to men, but not drawing 
 in supplies from God. Let us not forget these 
 truths in this day of diseased activity. Let us 
 pause frequently amidst the whirl of the machinery 
 by which we are surrounded. Let us watch the 
 spirit of our minds, — their bent and bias, their pri- 
 vate aspirations, their deeper and more delicate 
 breathings, — that our exertions may not be super- 
 ficial or partial, the product of external stimulants 
 only ; but flowing out of an interior life diffused 
 equally and simultaneously through all the powers 
 of our moral being. 
 
 But let me not be mistaken here. Let me not 
 be supposed, while indicating the distinction which 
 seems to me to exist between Piety and the Know- 
 ledge of Doctrine on the one hand, and the Prac- 
 tice of Duty on the other, to concede for a moment 
 that these several elements can be totally sepa- 
 rated, or that a genuine piety can exist without 
 some Knowledge to inform, and some Practice to 
 express its presence. There is, indeed, a feeling 
 
14 PIETY IN GENERAL. 
 
 but too frequently exhibited, which seems to bear 
 some marks of true devoutness, and yet can co- 
 exist with both the grossest superstition, and the 
 idlest self-indulgence. But this feeling lies no 
 deeper than the nervous system and the bodily 
 temperament, and is no more than a general sus- 
 ceptibility for the mysterious and the awful, with- 
 out that intelligent and moral recognition of supe- 
 rior authority as well as might, of holiness as well 
 as love, which alone gives the thought of God an 
 influence on the heart and life. " Religion, in 
 Italy," says the unhappy Shelley, " is interwoven 
 with the whole fabric of life. It is adoration, faith, 
 submission, penitence, blind admiration, — not a rule 
 for moral conduct. It has no necessary connexion 
 with any one virtue. It pervades intensely the 
 whole frame of society, and is, according to the 
 temper of the mind which it inhabits, a passion, 
 a persuasion, an excuse, a refuge, — never a check." 
 And O that such were not sometimes too much the 
 character of religion in England ! Do we not too 
 often see at least some approximation to this awful 
 delusion? Do we not meet with sensitive natures 
 susceptible of deep impression from divine things, 
 penetrated with the grandeur, the beauty, and the 
 interest of religion, rapt into a reverie of adoration, 
 and willing to dissolve themselves away in contem- 
 plative emotion ; but when the call to Practice 
 comes, the demand for solid, sober, resolute, per- 
 
PIETY IN GENERAL. 15 
 
 severing contention with difficulty, and schooling of 
 the heart, and toiling up the steep of moral excel- 
 lence — " immediately they are offended." Nay, 
 they will not only shrink from practice, but will 
 denounce on principle, this moral energy. They 
 canonize their sensations as the whole of piety. 
 They undervalue painful duties as works of super- 
 erogation and self-righteousness. They fall languid- 
 ly into the arms of an enervating Theology, and ex- 
 cuse their indolence under the name of spirituality, 
 and their inconsistency under querulous bemoan- 
 ings of indwelling sin. And then come the reve- 
 ries of quietism, a passive yielding to the stream 
 of outward circumstances, and the humours of the 
 animal sensibility — an alternation of religious ague- 
 fits, and in the end a mere voluptuous selfishness. 
 
 Piety, then, is neither Knowledge merely of doc- 
 trinal truth, nor Practice merely of moral duty : 
 yet still less is it a blind, immoral Sensibility. This 
 latter it excludes as spurious, and the former it 
 accompanies as their sanctifier and their friend ; 
 breathes over them a heavenly fragrance ; infuses 
 into them spiritual life ; communicates to them a 
 geniality, an earnestness, a glow of holiest feeling, 
 and consecrates them to God. For piety is the 
 sense of God — of his presence, his authority, his 
 love, — pervading and ennobling the whole soul. 
 It is the reference to Him of all we know, and the 
 doing for Him of all we do. It is the holding his 
 
16 PIETY IN GENERAL. 
 
 idea in our mind, as the central light in which 
 alone all other objects can be truly seen and fitly 
 estimated. It is the enshrining his character in 
 our heart, as the model of all excellence, the object 
 of all admiration and affection and devotedness. 
 And it is the enthroning his authority in our will, 
 as the Observer, the Ruler, and the Judge of all our 
 purposes. 
 
 And O the blessedness of such a sense of God! 
 the peace that passeth understanding which re- 
 sults from referring all things to God, leaving all 
 things with God, enjoying all things in God, com- 
 muning with God, leaning upon God, feeling un- 
 derneath us the everlasting arms of God ! It is 
 this which makes all Nature, Providence, and Mind, 
 full of life, and instinct with Deity — " Him first, 
 him midst, him last, and without end ;" — which 
 assures us, not only that there is a God, (a cold, 
 inoperative thought, a speculation merely,) but 
 that this God is present in and with his works, so 
 that not one of the phenomena of nature, nor of 
 the events of life, nor of the workings of the mind, 
 but pre-suppose and point to him, as the cause of 
 all causation, the law-giver of every law, the prime- 
 mover of all movement, the life of all life. 
 
 Do we contemplate the very simplest causes 
 manifested in the sphere of nature — or make our 
 way through all the combinations of a complicated 
 work, — or ascend from one step to another, through 
 
PIETY IN GENERAL. 17 
 
 a long series of results, till we arrive at general or 
 apparently ultimate laws ? — still, in the centre of 
 all this complication, and as the law of these laws, 
 the devout man ever recognizes God. 
 
 Or do we turn to the manifold, perplexed events 
 of human life, — the fortunes of individuals, the 
 revolutions of society, the rise and fall of king- 
 doms, the whole mysterious story of the world ? 
 Here equally does piety behold a present God. 
 Not merely in single, strange events, where only 
 one immediate step is traceable from the visible 
 effect to the invisible cause, but in every circum- 
 stance and every long and twisted chain of circum- 
 stances, where the instruments are more numerous 
 and evident, and where, from being able to account 
 for much, men cheat themselves with the assump- 
 tion that they have accounted for everything. For 
 the pious man knows that to God nothing is little 
 because nothing is great, nothing is ordinary be- 
 cause nothing is strange ; and he therefore re- 
 cognizes His hand as quickly, and adores it as pro- 
 foundly, in the most usual occurrences of life, as 
 the ignorant and earthly-minded in the most mi- 
 raculous. 
 
 And not less in the workings of the human mind, 
 — the conclusions of the understanding, the dis- 
 coveries of the reason, the determinations of the will, 
 the whole formation of the spirit from earliest in- 
 
 c 
 
18 PIETY IN GENERAL. 
 
 fancy to any given moment of its being, — the devout 
 man recognizes God. Be his thoughts and their 
 connexion traceable, or be they not ; can he refer 
 to the origin of his conceptions and the ground of 
 his decisions, or can he not ; this, at least, he can 
 refer to as the source of all that bears the stamp 
 of good within him, — God. God, by whose power 
 he was made and is sustained, in whose world he 
 lives, by whose creatures he is acted on, by whose 
 Spirit he is illuminated, comforted, and strengthen- 
 ed, and who " worketh in him both to will and to do 
 of his own good pleasure/' O the wondrous pre- 
 sence of God in all things, and of all things to God ! 
 O the mysterious breathing of his Spirit through 
 the universe, quickening, sustaining, informing, 
 actuating the stupendous whole I 
 
 " Surrounded by His power we stand, 
 On every side we feel his hand ; 
 O skill for human reach too high, 
 Too dazzling bright for mortal eye !" 
 
 O thou Father of our spirits, by whose inspiration 
 only we can know and love thee, draw us by these 
 meditations to thyself! wake up the diviner parti- 
 cle within our souls, arouse the slumbering chords 
 of piety in our hearts, and sweep across them by 
 thy powerful yet gentle Spirit, till they thrill in 
 trembling sympathy, responsive to thy touch, and 
 vocal in thy praise ! 
 
19 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CHRISTIAN PIETY. 
 
 Piety, we have seen, is the sense of God ; the 
 feeling of the absolute dependance of ourselves and 
 of the universe upon unseen Power and Authority ; 
 
 " A sense o'er all the soul imprest 
 That we are weak, but not unblest, 
 Since in us, round us, everywhere, 
 Eternal strength and wisdom are." * 
 
 But in calling this experience a " sense," and a 
 " feeling," it must be remembered that we mean 
 thereby a state of mind essentially different from 
 the impulses of sensation, and the passing humours 
 and emotions of sensibility; a state analogous to 
 that which we experience in contemplating the 
 true, the noble, the beautiful, and the good, where- 
 in the soul is elevated above itself, absorbed in the 
 objects which attract its gaze, and roused from the 
 cool indifference of mere observation into the earn- 
 estness of personal interest. 
 
 * Coleridge. 
 
20 CHRISTIAN PIETY. 
 
 Yet this very feeling of personal interest in the 
 idea of God, this very sense of a relation of that 
 God to us and our well-being, which constitutes 
 the life of Piety, must bring with it an awe, a 
 shrinking of the mind before superior might, in' 
 proportion as we feel the greatness of the Being 
 with whom we have to do. The same works 
 and ways which excite in us veneration of a 
 supreme Creator and Ordainer, humble us at the 
 same time with the painful sense of our own ex- 
 ceeding littleness. As our conception of God ex- 
 pands, our conception of man contracts. The 
 higher we lift our eyes towards heaven, the lower 
 we sink in our own esteem. And Veneration 
 therefore, by itself alone, takes the form of dread. 
 Piety manifests itself as superstition. The sense 
 of God lies like a heavy weight upon the soul, 
 and crushes it down into abjectness. If we regard 
 ourselves as only parts, — and most insignificant 
 parts, — of the vast creation which he grasps within 
 the hollow of his hand ; as portions of that endless 
 chain of which each link is reciprocally cause and 
 effect, — effect and cause; as fleeting beings of a 
 day, tossed for a few short moments to the surface 
 of a troubled ocean, and then absorbed again into 
 its bosom ; the creatures of necessity, the sport of 
 fate ; — then the more we recognize the might which 
 compresses us, the impulse which sweeps us on- 
 
CHRISTIAN PIETY. 
 
 21 
 
 ward, the irresistible energy which seems to dash 
 the several elements of being one against another, 
 the more does our sense of dependance become op- 
 pressive, and we crouch before the Invisible as a 
 slave before his master, a captive before his con- 
 queror. Hence the costly expiations by which the 
 terrified savage endeavours to propitiate the spirit 
 of the storm, the demon of the various ills in which 
 he is involved. Hence the trembling awe with 
 which the more enlightened Greek contemplated 
 the march of inexorable fate, and whispered to 
 himself, " O never may my spirit dare to set itself 
 against His stern decrees!" Hence the "fear 
 which hath torment," into which even the mind of 
 Job began to sink when he mused on his calamities 
 and exclaimed, " He breaketh me with a tempest, 
 he multiplieth my wounds without cause ; let him 
 take his rod away from me, and let not his fear ter- 
 rify me. Is it good to thee that thou shouldst op- 
 press, that thou shouldst despise the work of thine 
 hands ?" And hence, " the spirit of bondage," 
 which made the Israelites " remove and stand far 
 off from God," and cry to Moses, " Speak thou with 
 us and we will hear, but let not God speak with 
 us lest we die." When we bring together in our 
 mind the greatness of God, and the littleness of 
 man, we feel that we must be at an immeasurable 
 distance from him ; that there can be no recipro- 
 
22 CHRISTIAN PIETY. 
 
 city, no communion, no friendship, no affinity be- 
 tween the Strong and the feeble ; the Everlasting 
 and the momentary, the tremendous Creator and 
 the abject creature. " The consideration of na- 
 ture," says Neander, in his History of the Church, 
 " raised, indeed, in the minds of thinking men, the 
 dim suspicion of an infinite and Almighty Spirit, 
 not to be judged of by the limits of the human 
 understanding. But this sense of Deity did not 
 strengthen, elevate, or animate their minds, but 
 rather abased and prostrated them, for there was 
 involved in it the accompanying sense of their 
 own littleness and nothingness, and they knew no 
 mediating truth by which these two conflicting 
 feelings might be reconciled and held together in 
 peace. They saw nothing but the gulph which 
 stretched between the finite and the Infinite, the 
 mortal and the Immortal, the Almighty and the 
 impotent ; and they knew no means by which that 
 gulph might be filled up. The God whom they 
 imagined to themselves was only a being elevated 
 infinitely above degraded man, not a being related 
 to him, inviting him to his bosom, nay, stooping 
 condescendingly to his infirmities. Only the Ma- 
 jesty, not the Sanctity, nor the Love of God, filled 
 their souls." 
 
 Some other element, therefore, besides the fear 
 of God's authority, and the recognition of his ever- 
 
CHRISTIAN PIETY. 23 
 
 present working, is essential to a healthy piety. 
 The sense not only of dependance and subjection, 
 but of affinity and friendship ; the spirit not of a 
 slave, but of a child ; the knowledge not of one who 
 looks on merely, on the workings of a stranger, but 
 who communes with, and enters into, the mind and 
 purpose of a friend. We must know God not as 
 our Creator only, and our Governor, but as our 
 Father ; not as above us only, but within us ; as 
 connected with us, not merely as he is connected 
 with unconscious matter or unreasoning life, but 
 as a parent with his offspring, as mind with mind 
 and soul with soul. 
 
 And this is just that other element of Piety 
 which revelation supplies, and which Christianity 
 makes alive and predominant within the heart. 
 The Scripture doctrine of the origin, the nature, 
 and the destiny of man, and the Scripture pro- 
 mises of the spirit which the Gospel shall infuse 
 into him, exactly meet the difficulty, answer 
 the demand,, and do away the terrors, of natural 
 Piety. They afford the supplement it needs : the 
 reconciling truth, the animating assurance, the 
 new-creating life, which tempers veneration with 
 love, abasement with elevation, and sacred awe 
 with filial confidence. Him whom we ignorantly 
 worship they declare to us. God that made the 
 world and all things therein, they proclaim to be 
 
24 CHRISTIAN PIETY. 
 
 not far from every one of us, for we are his off- 
 spring. 
 
 For it is carefully to be noted that the Scripture 
 doctrine concerning man takes him out of the me- 
 chanism of material things, and elevates him far 
 above the rank of a mere animal creature into that 
 of a son of God. All things were made by God; 
 but man, we are told by revelation, was made, 
 moreover, like God. All other living creatures the 
 earth brought forth at God's command, but con- 
 cerning man He said, " Let us make man in our 
 own image, after our likeness ;" and though his 
 body was formed of the dust of the ground, yet 
 his soul was breathed into him by the Spirit of 
 God. " The Spirit of God," says Job, " hath 
 made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath 
 given me life." " The dust, indeed," says Solo- 
 mon, " shall return to the earth as it was ; but the 
 spirit shall return to God who gave it." " He," 
 says St. Paul, " is the Father of spirits." And it is 
 the great object of that Apostle in his address to 
 the Athenians, to raise their minds above the 
 grossness of idolatry by reminding them that God 
 was to be found, not around them and above them 
 only, but within them, in their own souls, " for in 
 him we live and move, and have our being, and we 
 are all his offspring," — of his race, bearing affinity 
 to him, so as no material things can do, partakers 
 
CHRISTIAN PIETY. 25 
 
 of his spirituality, and the image of his eternity. 
 Which truth is expressed by St. Luke, when he 
 calls Adam the son of God ; and is constantly 
 brought before us by our Lord, by the favourite 
 appellation which he uses, and encourages his fol- 
 lowers to use, for God ; " your Father," — " your 
 heavenly Father.'* 
 
 In the consciousness, then, of this relationship to 
 God — the assurance that we are not the mere insects 
 of a moment, and of the race of earth alone, but 
 members of that whole family in heaven and earth, 
 which constitutes the intellectual sphere in which 
 the Father of spirits dwells, — in this assurance, and 
 in the elevation of mind, the expansion of heart, 
 the energy of will which it inspires, consists the 
 proper piety of man — that piety which connects us 
 in heart and will with the God whom we adore, 
 and has its conversation in heaven as its home, and 
 brings us to dwell in God and God in us. With 
 this Adam was created, and this he enjoyed when 
 God communed with him in the holy garden, and 
 the divine wisdom rejoiced in the habitable part of 
 the earth, and her delights were with the sons of 
 men. And this, Jesus, the second Adam, exhibited 
 in all its quiet grandeur, when he walked in uninter- 
 rupted communion with his Father, and the angels 
 of God ascended and descended upon the Son of 
 man, and though he had come down from heaven 
 
26 CHRISTIAN PIETY. 
 
 he was still " in heaven," speaking and acting not 
 of himself, but by the Father that dwelt in him, 
 and being " not alone, because the Father was 
 with him." 
 
 But in Adam, from the moment of his fall, and 
 in every child of Adam, naturally born of him, this 
 blessed consciousness of relationship to God was 
 lost, and is destroyed. Brought under the domi- 
 nion of sense, the life of the spirit was smothered. 
 Entering into connexion with the evil one, the 
 connexion with God was broken off. A sense of 
 distance, alienation, strangeness, has taken the place 
 of filial confidence ; and that bodily expulsion from 
 the garden of God's presence, is but a type of 
 the estrangement of mind, and separation of heart 
 from God, in which man now is born, and lives, 
 — and dies, except there come upon him new life 
 from above, a new infusion of the Spirit that he 
 has lost. The knowledge of God is no longer 
 the love of God : the recognition of his presence 
 is not naturally delight in that presence : the 
 sense of our relation to Him as his creatures, is 
 not the sense of union and communion with Him 
 as his children. Born of the flesh, we are flesh : 
 children of this world, we have no taste for a 
 higher : familiar but too soon with sin, and weigh- 
 ed down with a consciousness of guilt, we shrink 
 from contact with the Holy One, and dare not 
 draw near to the Just One. 
 
CHRISTIAN PIETY. 27 
 
 And therefore now, true filial Piety is not of 
 spontaneous growth in man, will not develope 
 itself by the natural expansion of the mind. The 
 principle of it is effete, and must again be quick- 
 ened from above. We must be born of the 
 Spirit before we can become Spirit. We must 
 be invited, encouraged, drawn by God, before 
 we shall regard him as our Father and return to 
 his bosom. The necessity for union with him still 
 exists. The want of that union is the cause of 
 that aching void and restless craving which all 
 men feel, they know not why : for none but God 
 can fill the soul of man. But the full conscious- 
 ness of this want, the knowledge of the means by 
 which it may be supplied, even the desire itself 
 for that supply, these must come from God. And 
 to produce these He has revealed himself. He 
 has broken the awful silence in which he stands 
 wrapped up in nature. He has condescended to 
 explain himself in words of truth and love, by the 
 patriarchs, by Moses, by the prophets, by his own 
 beloved Son. " God, who at sundry times, and in 
 divers manners, spake in times past to our fathers 
 by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken 
 unto us by his Son." The intercourse which sin 
 had interrupted has been gradually renewed. Hea- 
 ven has been opened. The Spirit of God has de- 
 scended. The soul of man has been raised to- 
 wards him from whom it sprang. Ideas of heavenly 
 
28 
 
 CHRISTIAN PIETY. 
 
 origin have been implanted in him, and they have 
 borne him upwards towards their native sphere ; 
 feelings and purposes have been awakened 
 
 " Whose very sweetness yieldeth proof 
 
 That they were born for immortality." 
 
 O the wondrous condescension of our Father, — 
 to come down to us in our low estate, to seek us in 
 our banishment, to knit again the links which we 
 had rudely torn asunder ; to " speak unto us, rising 
 up early and speaking;" to "send to us all his 
 servants the prophets, rising up early and sending 
 them, though we hearkened not unto his voice ;" 
 and then to manifest himself in all his fulness in 
 the person of his own beloved Son, that " as many 
 as receive him may have privilege to become the 
 sons of God," and " whosoever loveth the Son and 
 keepeth his words the Father may love him, and 
 come to him and make his abode with him !" This 
 is the consummation which was predicted by the 
 prophets, announced by John the Baptist as the 
 special benefit of Christianity, promised by Jesus 
 as the consequence of his exaltation, and actually 
 bestowed by him on his disciples as the seed of 
 eternal life, and the earnest of the inheritance 
 of the saints in light. The Spirit of God creates 
 us again after the divine image and makes us par- 
 takers of the divine nature, and thus becomes the 
 
CHRISTIAN PIETY. 29 
 
 spirit of filial piety, — the spirit of adoption where- 
 by we cry Abba, Father, — this spirit itself bearing 
 witness with our spirit that we are the children 
 of God, and if children then heirs, heirs of God, 
 and joint heirs with Christ ! 
 
 Reader, let me ask you, do you feel your need 
 of this re-union with the Father of your spirit? 
 Are you led by all the outward manifestations of 
 his power and his kindness, to seek the Lord if 
 haply you may feel after him and find him, there, 
 from whence he is not far, within yourself ? Do 
 you feel that the human heart was made for God, 
 and cannot be in peace till it has become acquaint- 
 ed with him, and yielded up to him its trust, its 
 love, its tenderest devotion ? Then will you be 
 prepared to trace with me the gracious promises 
 which he has given of this inward life, the me- 
 thod of its developement, the means of its nourish- 
 ment and growth, till you exclaim with David in 
 the consciousness of its actual enjoyment, " Whom 
 have I in heaven but Thee, and there is none upon 
 earth that I desire beside Thee ! My flesh and my 
 heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, 
 and my portion for ever !" 
 
30 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE MANIFESTATIONS OF CHRISTIAN PIETY. 
 
 We have seen that the inward life of Piety finds 
 its due developement only in the form of filial con- 
 fidence towards God, and that this filial confidence 
 is the product of that revelation of his character 
 and infusion of his Spirit into the heart, which 
 Christianity — and Christianity alone — affords. For, 
 as the leading Idea of Christianity, as indicated by 
 its one specific term, " The Gospel," is the procla- 
 mation of inheritance in the kingdom of God ; so 
 the distinctive Benefit of Christianity, which by 
 that proclamation it produces in the heart of its 
 recipients, is similarly indicated by one specific 
 term, "The Spirit;" the communication of that 
 filial disposition towards God, which is at once the 
 indispensable qualification for that inheritance, and 
 the certain pledge of its ultimate possession. This 
 is that " promise of the Father," that gift of God, 
 which the prophets predicted, and the Baptist 
 pointed to, and Jesus actually conferred on his dis- 
 ciples, as the seal of their adoption, the earnest of 
 their inheritance, until the redemption of the pur- 
 
THE MANIFESTATIONS OF CHRISTIAN PIETY. 31 
 
 chased possession. And it is important, therefore, 
 to consider some of the Scripture declarations con- 
 cerning this gift, that we may learn both how uni- 
 formly it is marked out as the special privilege of 
 Christianity, and what are the chief manifestations 
 of its presence in the heart. 
 
 And here we must begin with the predictions of 
 the Old Testament Prophets. For all the revelations 
 of God are closely connected with each other, and 
 no one of them, therefore, can be fully understood 
 without reference to the rest. Judaism can be 
 rightly estimated only when viewed as anticipative 
 of Christianity, and Christianity has no meaning 
 but as the product and consummation of Judaism. 
 The Old Testament and the New are but different 
 chapters in the one book of God, and in the former 
 do we find the seeds of those divine ideas which in 
 the latter are developed into full expansion. " I 
 am not come," said Jesus, " to destroy the law and 
 the prophets, but to fulfil them." 
 
 Turning then, in the first place, to the prophet 
 Isaiah, we shall find him, in the 44th chapter of 
 his book, predicting as the special blessing which 
 God designed to bestow upon his people in the 
 times of the Messiah, the outpouring of his Spirit. 
 " I will pour water upon him that is thirsty," he 
 declares in verses 3 — 5, " and floods upon the dry 
 ground ; I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and 
 
32 THE MANIFESTATIONS OF 
 
 my blessing upon thine offspring ; and they shall 
 spring up as among the grass, as willows by the 
 water-courses. One shall say, I am the Lord's ; 
 and another shall call himself by the name of 
 Jacob ; and another shall subscribe with his hand 
 unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name 
 of Israel." Where you observe, first, that the 
 particular character under which the Spirit is pro- 
 mised, is that of refreshment, and new life. As 
 the rain upon the parched ground, which makes 
 all things spring up as it were from death, so 
 is the Spirit of God to the heart of man; the 
 source of vital energy ; " the Lord and Giver 
 of life" as the Nicene Creed denominates him. 
 In proportion as his influences are restrained, all 
 things languish : in proportion as they are again 
 poured forth, all things are revived, and germi- 
 nate, and blossom into blessedness. Which ger- 
 minating of the heart, you will observe, secondly, 
 is placed in the developement of moral affections 
 towards God. " One shall say, I am the Lord's — 
 and another shall subscribe with his hand unto 
 the Lord ;" — the first manifestation of spiritual 
 life shall be entire self-consecration and devotedness 
 to God. 
 
 And this characteristic of inward life is still 
 more fully exhibited in a further prediction of the 
 
CHRISTIAN PIETY. 33 
 
 Spirit, which is given by Ezekiel in his 36th chap- 
 ter, verses 23 — 27. For therein God promises, in 
 connexion with his pardoning compassion and re- 
 covery of his people, " A new heart also will I 
 give you, and a new Spirit will I put within you ; 
 and I will take away the ston}' heart out of your 
 flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh ; and I 
 will put my spirit within you, and cause you to 
 walk in my statutes and keep my judgments and 
 do them." Where you perceive that the Spirit of 
 God is promised as something altogether " new," 
 and different from that which hitherto had actuated 
 the Jews, impelling them to love and keep those 
 laws which they had hitherto so uniformly broken. 
 It is the Spirit of a child tenderly susceptible of 
 his Father's influence, and sensitive to his opinion, 
 (instead of hardening himself against it,) and vo- 
 luntarily walking in the path which he points out. 
 God himself in the heart, his will made our own, 
 and animating and directing all we think and do. 
 
 But, next, the Spirit is promised by the Pro- 
 phets as the source of intimate communion and 
 intercourse with God. This characteristic is dis- 
 tinctly commemorated by the Prophet Joel, (ii. 
 28, 29,) as the special privilege of the times of 
 the Messiah. " It shall come to pass afterward," 
 (that is, in the last days, the days of the Christ,) 
 
34 THE MANIFESTATIONS OF 
 
 " that I will pour out . my Spirit upon all flesh, 
 and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, 
 your old men shall dream dreams, your young 
 men shall see visions ; and also upon the ser- 
 vants and upon the handmaids in those days will 
 I pour out my Spirit." Where the essence of 
 the promise is the same with those in Isaiah and 
 Ezekiel, but the characteristic of inward spiritual 
 life is more strongly marked, by reference to what 
 had hitherto constituted the privilege of a pecu- 
 liar class of men. In those days, says Joel, not 
 the prophetic class alone, not any one particular 
 rank, or sex, or age, but all shall prophesy — that 
 is, shall have the Spirit of a Prophet, the Spirit of 
 Wisdom, Piety, and Zeal, for God. Just as Isaiah 
 had proclaimed of these same times. "All thy 
 children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall 
 be the peace of thy children." And Jeremiah more 
 diffusely : " After those days, saith the Lord, I will 
 put my law in their inward parts, and write it in 
 their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall 
 be my people, and they shall teach no more every 
 man his neighbour, saying, Know the Lord, for they 
 shall all know me, from the least of them unto the 
 greatest of them, saith the Lord." All that insight 
 into God's truth, and acquaintance with his will, and 
 communion with his Spirit, which has been hitherto 
 vouchsafed, and that by measure only, and occa- 
 
CHRISTIAN PIETY. 35 
 
 sionally, to some few favoured men, by dreams 
 and visions, shall then be diffused, copiously and 
 ordinarily, by the teaching and the influences of a 
 common Spirit, through all the people of God. The 
 inward judgment shall direct, the inward con- 
 science shall control, the inward life of communion 
 with the Father shall animate and strengthen. 
 They shall have fulfilled in them the generous wish 
 of Moses : — " Would God that all the Lord's peo- 
 ple were prophets, and that the Lord would put his 
 Spirit upon them." They shall possess, what St. 
 John describes as actually enjoyed by those to 
 whom he writes, " an unction from the Holy One, 
 and know all things ; and the anointing which 
 they receive of Him shall abide in them, and 
 they need not that any man should teach them, 
 but as the same anointing teacheth them of all things, 
 and is truth, and is no lie, they shall abide in 
 Him." This is the Spirit which is predicted by 
 the Prophets as the glory of the Gospel times, and 
 which the Christian therefore is to seek for and to 
 cultivate, as his special privilege ; — the Spirit of in- 
 tercourse with God, of friendship, freedom, lifting up 
 of heart, which the Prophets were endowed with. 
 That state of mind which rises above the world, 
 not that it may disdainfully spurn that world away 
 as unworthy of its care, but that it may inhale 
 from the purer atmosphere into which it soars, 
 
36 THE MANIFESTATIONS OF 
 
 all the wisdom, energy, and courage which may en- 
 able it to act the most effectually with and for that 
 world. That spirit which is fruitful in all holy cogi- 
 tations and majestic purposes ; which views all things 
 round us with serenity and hopefulness, because it 
 views them in God ; and which works on all things 
 round us with patience and efficiency, because it 
 works by God. That far-seeing glance into futurity, 
 that calm anticipation of success, that quiet consci- 
 ousness of heavenly strength, which makes us ever 
 earnest, but never anxious ; ever diligent, but never 
 bustling ; ever vigorous, but never violent ; ever 
 bold, but never rash ; ever strenuous for God, but 
 never exhausted and convulsed by overstrained en- 
 deavour. O for this quiet, yet all-powerful life 
 within our souls ! O for the breath of God diffused 
 through every faculty, and his " saving health" re- 
 animating every power, that we may live in the 
 Spirit, be led by the Spirit, walk in the Spirit, be 
 strengthened with all might by the Spirit in the 
 inner man ! 
 
 But if we go on now to the New Testament, we 
 find John the Baptist promising this Spirit, farther, 
 as the source of Peace and Joy in God. The peni- 
 tents who come to him confessing their sins, he 
 cheers with the assurance of a blessing far superior 
 to anything that he can convey to them. " I in- 
 deed baptize you with water, but one mightier than 
 
CHRISTIAN PIETY. 37 
 
 I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not wor- 
 thy to unloose ; he shall baptize you with the Holy 
 Ghost, and with fire." Where, observe the con- 
 trast which the Baptist intimates between the bap- 
 tism of Repentance, which he administered, and the 
 baptism of the Spirit, which it was the prerogative 
 of the Christ alone to vouchsafe. Repentance is 
 negative. The Holy Ghost is positive. The one 
 is the renunciation of evil ; the other, the attain- 
 ment of good. The one breaks off friendship and 
 communion with the world ; the other realizes 
 friendship and communion with God. The one is 
 a spirit of sorrow, and self-reproach ; the other is a 
 spirit of confidence, and peace. The one strug- 
 gles up towards God ; the other walks along with 
 God. The one is as the crisis of our spiritual disease, 
 an anxious moment of revulsion and of effort ; the 
 other is the restoration to spiritual health, when the 
 blessed air of heaven plays upon the soul, and 
 there is felt a buoyancy, a lightness, a balanced 
 harmony of conscious blessedness which none 
 can understand but those who feel it, and none 
 can tell or can convey to ethers even when they 
 feel. Then does the inward spirit begin to breathe. 
 Then do the shackles of the sense relax them- 
 selves, and the iron band which had so long re- 
 pressed the aspirations of the soul towards God 
 is burst asunder, and a stream of hopeful heavenly 
 
38 THE MANIFESTATIONS OF 
 
 affections sweeps joyously along, and the light of 
 heaven plays upon it, and it sparkles under the 
 approving glance of God, and it spreads through 
 every thought, and refreshes into gladness and 
 beauty every region of the soul. " He that drink- 
 eth of the water that I shall give him," says our 
 Lord, " shall never thirst, but the water that I 
 shall give him shall be in him a well of water 
 springing up into everlasting life." " He that be- 
 lieveth on me," he says again, " from his belly," — 
 i. e. from within himself, not from outward sources 
 which may be soon dried up, but from the living 
 spring which shall be unlocked within his soul, (as 
 Solomon means when he declares, ' the good man 
 shall be satisfied from himself,') — " from his inmost 
 being, there shall flow out rivers of living water." 
 " And this," says St. John, " spake he of the 
 Spirit which they that believe on him should re- 
 ceive." — Have you this Spirit, Christian Reader ? 
 Is this the characteristic of your Piety ? Have you 
 got beyond the fitful alternations, the painful 
 struggles, the remorseful anguish, the " fear which 
 hath torment" of an always renewing but never 
 perfected Repentance, of a conscience too enlight- 
 ened to slumber, yet too irresolute to spring up for 
 God, into that " righteousness, and peace, and 
 joy, in the Holy Ghost," which Christ came into 
 the world, and died, and rose again, and ascended 
 
CHRISTIAN PIETY. 39 
 
 I 
 
 up to heaven, to procure and to communicate to 
 miserable man ? Are you still groping amidst the 
 chilling mists which brood over the valley of humi- 
 liation, which truly is the valley of the shadow of 
 death; or have you reached the open heights of 
 faith, and emerged into the light and life of the 
 Divine favour as it shines forth in the face of Jesus 
 Christ? These are no unimportant questions. They 
 affect not our comfort merely. They affect the 
 very essence of our piety ; our growth in holiness ; 
 our usefulness among our fellow men ; our power 
 to glorify our Father, and to adorn the doctrine of 
 God our Saviour in all things. Religion without 
 this Baptism of the Holy Ghost is but the terrific 
 gloom of superstition. It is at best but the trem- 
 bling awe of Judaism. It is but the tempest and 
 the whirlwind, and the blackness and the flame : — 
 we need the calm outshining of the sun upon the 
 desolated scene, illuminating all things with a tran- 
 quil radiance. It is but the strong wind, and the 
 earthquake, and the fire, which awake and make 
 attent the awe-struck spirit: — we need the still 
 small voice of friendly communing with God. 
 God, grant us to derive from Christianity all that it 
 can convey ! To receive from Jesus all that he 
 was exalted to bestow ! Grant that we may be 
 " filled with the Spirit, speaking to ourselves in 
 psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing 
 
40 THE MANIFESTATIONS OF 
 
 and making melody in our hearts unto the Lord, 
 giving thanks always for all things unto God 
 and the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ !" 
 
 For thus shall we experience this same Spirit of 
 devotedness to God — and intercourse with God — 
 and peace with God — to be moreover a Spirit of 
 power for God. " He shall baptize you," says the 
 Baptist, " with the Holy Ghost and with fire" 
 Which image, I need scarcely remind you, has 
 ever been a favourite one in every language to ex- 
 press that inward ardour of mind which cannot be 
 restrained, but bursts forth into fervent words and 
 deeds. Thus we find it used in one author to de- 
 note the energy of genius : " He was all spirit, all 
 lire ;" — in another, that of poetic impulse — " Thou 
 canst not be idle if thou wouldst ; thy noble quali- 
 ties are like a fire burning within, and compel thee 
 to pour thyself out in music and in song." And in 
 Scripture it expresses both, generally, any strong 
 emotion ; as inXuke xxiv. 32 : " Did not our heart 
 burn within us, while he talked with us by the way 
 and opened to us the Scriptures ?" and in Psalm 
 xxxix. 3 : " My heart was hot within me ; while I 
 was musing the fire kindled, and at the last I spake 
 with my tongue ;"— and, more particularly, the im- 
 pulse of the prophetic inspiration ; as in Jeremiah 
 xx. 8, 9 ; where the Prophet declares, " The word 
 
CHRISTIAN PIETY. 41 
 
 of the Lord was made a reproach unto me and a 
 derision daily," — my testimony for God was turned 
 into ridicule, — " and then I said, I will not make 
 mention of him nor speak any more in his name ;" 
 — I was tempted to shrink from standing up for 
 God — " but his word was in mine heart as a burn- 
 ing fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with 
 forbearing and I could not stay ;" — the Spirit of God 
 within me could not be repressed ; it would burst 
 forth in word and act. 
 
 And therefore, since the promised Spirit of 
 Christianity is, as we have learned from Joel, the 
 Spirit of a Prophet, full of the divine influence, by 
 this same image does the Baptist express its pre- 
 sence and power ; " He shall baptize you with the 
 Holy Ghost, which shall be quick and active in you 
 as a secret fire."* Just as it was found to be by 
 the disciples on the day of Pentecost, when there 
 came a rushing mighty wind, (the symbol of the 
 Spirit's life-giving breath,) and there appeared to 
 them lambent flames of fire, (the symbol of his ar- 
 dent energy,) and they were filled with the Holy 
 Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as 
 the Spirit moved them to proclaim the wondrous 
 
 * Per ignem intelligitur vigor evangelicae gratiae, qui intus 
 datur, cum Judaici ritus fuerint frigidi. Ignis enim inter omnia 
 elementa maximam habet agilitatem, omnia in se transformans, 
 ac sursum rapiens. — Erasmus. 
 
42 THE MANIFESTATIONS OF 
 
 works of God. Just as St. Paul would have it to 
 exist within the heart of every Christian, when he 
 exhorts the Thessalonians, — " Quench not the Spi- 
 rit," — do not smother and put out his sacred fire ; 
 and the Romans, " Be ye fervent in spirit, serving 
 the Lord :" and the sluggish Timothy ; " Stir up," 
 — rouse into a flame, — " the gift of God which is in 
 thee by the putting on of my hands ; for God hath 
 not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and 
 of love, and of a sound {a healthy and vigorous) 
 mind." 
 
 This, then, is that Power of the Holy Ghost 
 which, as our Homily for Whitsunday declares, 
 " openeth the mouth to declare the mighty works 
 of God, engendereth a burning zeal towards God's 
 word, and giveth all men a tongue, yea, and a fiery 
 tongue, so that they may boldly and cheerfully 
 profess the truth in the face of the whole world." 
 This is that divine enthusiasm, without which no 
 man was ever great or good, which alone produces 
 noble thoughts and noble deeds. This gave a 
 sacred dignity to St. Peter on the day of Pentecost, 
 when he rose up and exclaimed before them all, 
 " These are not drunken as you suppose, but this 
 is that which Joel spake of, when he said, ' I will 
 pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.' " This put force 
 and efficacy into his address when he declared, 
 " Let all the house of Israel know assuredly that 
 
CHRISTIAN PIETY. 43 
 
 God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have 
 crucified, both Lord and Christ ;" and when they 
 heard this they were pricked to the heart, and 
 there were added to the church three thousand 
 souls. This, again, endued the disciples with a 
 calm and modest bravery, when they said to the 
 assembly of the rulers, " Whether it be right in 
 the sight of God to hearken unto you more than 
 unto God, judge ye, for we cannot but speak the 
 things which we have seen and heard." This filled 
 their hearts with power from on high when they 
 prayed and said, " Now, Lord, behold their threat- 
 enings, and grant unto thy servants that with all 
 boldness they may speak thy word ; and when they 
 had prayed the place was shaken where they were 
 assembled together, and they were all filled with 
 the Holy Ghost, and spake the word of God with 
 boldness." This stirred itself in Stephen when he 
 " being full of the Holy Ghost looked up steadfastly 
 into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus 
 standing on the right hand of God." This ani- 
 mated Paul when he exclaimed to the Ephesians, 
 " None of these things move me, neither count I 
 my life dear unto myself so that I might finish my 
 course with joy, and the ministry that I have re- 
 ceived of the Lord Jesus to testify the Gospel of 
 the grace of God." This invested him with dig- 
 nity and grace when he declared before the hea- 
 
44 THE MANIFESTATIONS OF 
 
 then governor, " I am not mad, most noble Festus, 
 but show forth the words of truth and soberness ;" 
 and when he cried to the terrified mariners, " Sirs, 
 I exhort you to be of good cheer, for there stood 
 by me this night the angel of God, whose I am and 
 whom I serve." And this manifested all its fervour 
 in him among the Corinthians, when, though he was 
 with them, " in weakness and in fear, and in much 
 trembling, his speech and his preaching was in de- 
 monstration of the Spirit and of power." 
 
 Nor was this power of the Holy Ghost less pre- 
 sent and effectual in subsequent ages of the church. 
 " Give me a man," says Lactantius, " passionate, 
 headstrong, and unruly — by the words of God he 
 shall become gentle as a lamb. Give me a greedy, 
 covetous, and churlish man— he shall become a ge- 
 nerous creature, full of rich benevolence. Give me 
 a cruel and blood-thirsty man — he shall put on a 
 mild and gracious spirit. Give me a dishonest 
 man, a foolish man, a sensual man — he shall be 
 made honest, wise, and virtuous." " Hear," says 
 St. Cyprian, " that which is felt before it is learnt, 
 that which is not collected together by long study, 
 but which is received by the power of grace. While 
 I lay in darkness, driven about by the waves of this 
 world, a stranger to truth and light, that which the 
 Divine mercy promised for my salvation seemed to 
 me altogether hard and difficult ; namely, that a man 
 
CHRISTIAN PIETY. 45 
 
 should be born again, and laying aside what he had 
 once been, should become in soul and mind a dif- 
 ferent man. How, said I, is so great a change 
 possible ? That what so long had taken root should 
 be done away ? And thus entangled in my errors 
 I believed there could be no deliverance ; and while 
 I despaired of amendment, I gave myself up to all 
 my vices as if they had been a part of myself. But 
 when, the water of regeneration having washed 
 away the stains of my former life, the light from 
 above shed itself into a heart freed from guilt and 
 purified; when the Spirit from heaven had been 
 breathed into me and formed me by a second birth 
 into a new man ; then most wonderfully that be- 
 came certain to me which had been doubtful be- 
 fore ; that was open which had been closed ; that 
 became easy which had been difficult ; that became 
 practicable which before had been impossible ; so 
 that the life which I have now begun to lead is the 
 beginning of a life proceeding from God, a life pro- 
 duced and quickened by the Holy Ghost. From 
 God, I say, from God is all our might, and from 
 Him do we receive all life and power f" 
 
 And where then is this mighty Spirit now? 
 Where are these thoughts that breathe and words 
 that burn ? Where is that calm yet vigorous, 
 quiet yet effective, meek yet manly energy, which 
 was predicted by the Prophets, promised by the 
 
46 MANIFESTATIONS OF CHRISTIAN PIETY. 
 
 Baptist, and given by the risen Jesus to his Apos- 
 tles and his Church ? Woe, woe unto us, for we 
 have sinned ! We have been careless of the sacred 
 fire, — we have suffered the holy flame to quiver 
 and to sink upon the altar of our hearts, — and we 
 are cold, and dull, and dead ! O for life and power 
 from on high ! O to join the church continually 
 in the aspirations of her ordination hymn, — 
 
 " Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, 
 And lighten with celestial fire ! 
 Thy blessed unction from above, 
 
 Is comfort, life, and fire of love !" 
 
PART II. 
 
 THE DEVELOPEMENT 
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 They which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God, be 
 called according to God's purpose by his Spirit working in due 
 season : they through grace obey the calling : they be justified 
 freely : they be made sons of God by adoption : they be made 
 like the image of his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ : they walk 
 religiously in good works, and at length, by God's mercy, they 
 attain to everlasting felicity. 
 
 Article XVII. 
 
Bonus vir sine Deo nemo est. An potest aliquis supra for- 
 tunam nisi ab illo adjutus, exsurgere 1 Ille dat consilia magni- 
 fica et erecta. In unoquoque virorum bonorum habitat Deus. — 
 Animum excellentern ccelestis potentia agitat. Non potest res 
 tanta sine adminiculo numinis stare. Seneca. 
 
 A good man is the work of God ; for how can any one rise 
 above the influence of outward things without his help 1 He is 
 the source of all magnificent and elevated thoughts. He dwells 
 in the heart of every one that is good. The virtuous mind is ac- 
 tuated by a heavenly influence ; for only by the help of God can 
 such a mind be formed. 
 
49 
 
 PART II. 
 
 THE DEVELOPEMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE SOURCE OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 All truths will influence the conduct in propor- 
 tion as they become domesticated, as it were, in 
 the mind. And they will become thus domestica- 
 ted in proportion to the frequency with which they 
 are called up therein, and to the completeness — the 
 extensiveness of compass and of association — in 
 which they present themselves. 
 
 To know a subject, therefore, practically, so as 
 to be influenced thereby, we must not only turn 
 our attention to it repeatedly ; but we must investi- 
 gate it thoroughly ; survey it on all sides ; be add- 
 ing, on each successive view, some further thoughts 
 which go to make up the fulness of the conception, 
 or of its associations, in our mind. 
 
50 THE SOURCE OF 
 
 Having, therefore, enlarged with some diffuse- 
 ness on the several particulars which make up the 
 scriptural conception of the inward life of Chris- 
 tianity, I would now turn the attention of my reader 
 to the process by which that life is ordinarily deve- 
 loped in the consciousness. 
 
 And here, in the first place, I would show that 
 this Inward Life must take its rise in the depths of the 
 human spirit. 
 
 For Christianity is a remedy for human guilt and 
 corruption, and the Spirit, therefore, which applies 
 that remedy to the individual soul, must reach and 
 influence the very seat of the disease, if it would 
 radically purify the character. Deep as is our 
 depravity, so deep must commence our sancti- 
 fication. 
 
 Now the source of our habitual thoughts and 
 conduct, — of all that properly constitutes the cha- 
 racter of a man, — lies in the prevailing tendency 
 which has formed itself within him from earliest 
 infancy, and which, by virtue of precedence and 
 pre-occupation, gives a bias to all successive im- 
 pressions and acts. There is a characteristic prin- 
 ciple of human nature, which forms, as it were, the 
 nucleus of the man, round which all subsequent 
 conceptions arrange themselves ; — the nature to 
 which they assimilate, the type according to which 
 they crystallize. The instincts and appetites of 
 
THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 51 
 
 the body form its centre ; the passions of the ani- 
 mal Will dispose themselves around it ; and the 
 ever-changing objects of the world increase inces- 
 santly the evil mass. And according to the influ- 
 ence of this, we view the truths presented to us ; — 
 they are tinged with the jaundice of our diseased 
 nature. According to this, we are determined in 
 our judgments, purposes, and actions. And accord- 
 ing to this, therefore, the general character is form- 
 ed ; a character common in its broader features to 
 all men, but modified in its details by the proportion 
 of the several appetites, desires, and imaginations 
 to each other in different minds. 
 
 This inward source of character and conduct 
 is what is called in Scripture, the heart, the spirit, 
 the natural man. In this lies the well-spring of hu- 
 man action ; and from this flows that silent but 
 powerful current which bears us onward, almost 
 unconsciously, in a direction far away from God. 
 O what a dangerous influence is constantly exert- 
 ing itself within us, — the more effectually because 
 beneath the light of consciousness ! What a fountain 
 of evil is constantly tossing up its bitter waters and 
 absorbing into its bosom each purer thought that 
 may be thrown into the mind ! How shall we 
 counteract its power? how shall we dam up, or 
 turn, its ever-swelling current? Is it not clear 
 that nothing partial can stem that which is so ex- 
 
52 THE SOURCE OF 
 
 tensive ; nothing temporary can restrain that which 
 is so constant? 
 
 And therefore it is that all the moral influences 
 which man himself can bring to bear upon his cha- 
 racter are so inadequate. Much is attempted by 
 appeals to self-interest, and prudential calculation ; 
 much by the sense of shame, and love of reputation ; 
 much by the dictates of elevated moral sentiment, 
 and refined taste ; much by pleas for conscience, 
 that is, for the peace which follows a conformity to 
 our convictions. And these all are good and valu- 
 able. These all do something. These all are to be 
 plied in every way, to stem the torrent of corrup- 
 tion. But, I ask observation, and I ask experience, 
 — How far do they go ? What is the extent of their 
 influence on the inward man ? The one character- 
 istic and the one defect of all is, that they are but 
 partial in their operation ; they may modify the 
 native principle, but they do not change it ; they 
 may confine the stream in narrower bounds, or they 
 may turn it somewhat from its course, or they may 
 produce therein occasional counter currents ; but it 
 is the same stream still ; too often flowing but the 
 deeper for the narrowing of its banks, too often 
 running but the faster in one channel, from the 
 partial obstruction that it meets with in another. 
 The principle of evil is not materially weakened, 
 though the developement of evil is restrained. The 
 
THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 53 
 
 arguments of Prudence may successfully oppose the 
 sins which manifestly injure us. Regard for repu- 
 tation may keep down all that is accounted dis- 
 graceful in good society. Good taste may check 
 whatever is abhorrent to delicate refinement. The 
 desire of inward peace may stimulate us to keep 
 our conduct up to the level of our principles. But 
 then, with all these various influences brought to 
 bear upon the manifestations of corruption, what, 
 again I ask, is really done with its hidden source ? 
 The remedies are partial, and partial only therefore 
 can be the cure. The symptoms are attacked and 
 modified : the disease remains. 
 
 And equally ineffectual must be every temporary 
 obstruction which human power can apply, how- 
 ever extensive it may be for the time it lasts. There 
 are, indeed, circumstances, which sometimes rouse 
 the whole man into opposition to his evil nature. 
 There are moments when all his feelings are en- 
 listed on the side of duty ; when every motive to it 
 is combined ; when the folly, danger, grossness, mi- 
 sery of sin, so flash upon the mind, that we see it 
 in its true light, and we hate it and denounce it. 
 Providential occurrences will do this. The preach- 
 ing of the word of God will do this. Sudden remi- 
 niscences will do this. The menaces of danger and 
 of death will do this. And for a time the import- 
 ant work seems done ; the stream of evil seems 
 
54 THE SOURCE OF 
 
 dammed up ; the current is thrown back upon iu 
 self; the man seems left uninfluenced by it, free to 
 
 turn himself whither he may please : yet, even 
 
 now, the flood is gathering strength, collecting all 
 its energy, sapping the temporary barrier, till down 
 it pours in all its fury, rushing onward but the 
 more impetuously for its momentary repression. O 
 the utter insufficiency of merely human motive ! O 
 the absolute necessity of something more than this 
 in both extent and permanency ; nay, different from, 
 and of a higher kind, than any power that earth 
 can furnish ! Must not all effectual reformation 
 begin within, — in the principle itself; and not merely 
 be opposed from without, to its results ? Must not 
 the bitter stream itself be cleansed by the casting in 
 of a divine remedy ? Must not the very spring-head 
 of the evil be made the spring-head of the good ? 
 
 I answer in the words of one who knows full well 
 the powers of human reason,* and I say, " The 
 spirit of prudential motive, however ennobled by 
 the magnitude and awfulness of its objects, and 
 though as the termination of a lower it may be the 
 commencement, (and not seldom the occasion,) of 
 an higher state, is not, even in respect of morality 
 itself, that abiding and continuous principle of action 
 which is either one with the faith spoken of by St. 
 Paul, or its immediate offspring. It cannot be that 
 * Coleridge. Second Lay Sermon. 
 
THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 55 
 
 spirit of obedience to the commands of Christ, by 
 which the soul dwelleth in him and he in it, (1 John 
 iii. 4.) and which our Saviour himself announces as 
 a being born again. And this indispensable act, or 
 influence, or impregnation, of which, as of a divine 
 tradition, the eldest philosophy is not silent ; which 
 flashed through the darkness of the pagan myste- 
 ries ; and which it was therefore a reproach to a 
 Master in Israel that he had not already known ; 
 (John iii.) — this is elsewhere explained as a seed 
 which, though of gradual developement, did yet 
 potentially contain the essential form not merely 
 of a better, but of an other life ; amidst all the 
 frailties and transient eclipses of mortality, making, 
 I repeat, the subjects of this regeneration not so 
 properly better as other men, whom, therefore, the 
 world could not but hate as aliens. Its own native 
 growth, however improved by cultivation, (whether 
 through the agency of blind sympathies or of an in- 
 telligent self-interest, the utmost heights to which 
 the worldly life can ascend,) the world has always 
 been ready and willing to acknowledge and admire. 
 < They are of the world ; therefore speak they out 
 of the heart of the world, and the world heareth 
 them.' " 
 
 H^nce then, you perceive, it follows in the 
 second place, that this Inward Life must spring 
 from a Divine source. 
 
56 THE SOURCE OF 
 
 For, the depths of the human spirit, who can pe- 
 netrate, and who can influence, but He who is its 
 maker and sustainer? What we ourselves per- 
 ceive of our own minds in the moment of self-con- 
 sciousness is not one millionth part of that vast 
 store of conceptions, and those innumerable trains 
 of thought, which, far below the ken of inward con- 
 templation, are ever living and effective in the soul; 
 seething, as it were, in its unfathomed depths, and 
 causing, every instant, changes sudden and exten- 
 sive in the surface waves which we behold. And 
 the laws of those changes, who can calculate ? 
 the causes which are thus in constant operation, 
 who can alter ? To work effectually, therefore, upon 
 our own spirits by our own unassisted skill and 
 force is far beyond the power of man. We may 
 catch a glimpse of some of the more general Jaws 
 of thought, we may conjecture the existence of 
 manifold concurrent causes, we may learn by long 
 experience what we must avoid and what pursue 
 upon the whole ; — but who can touch the heart ? 
 Who can discover the secret spring that sets in 
 motion all its complicated and inexplicable work- 
 ings ? Who can supply the regulator which con- 
 trols and harmonizes them ? Who but God who 
 searcheth the heart and trieth the reins, and work- 
 eth all in all ? 
 
 Besides, the rise of Piety in the heart takes 
 
THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 57 
 
 place, not as a mechanical effect, but as a living 
 growth. Even in cases where it seems to dawn 
 the most suddenly on the consciousness and on the 
 world, it has been a growth. And to this growth, 
 not ourselves alone, but all persons and all cir- 
 cumstances without intermission have contributed. 
 Any one condition of mind at any one moment is 
 the product of the circumstances of that moment, 
 multiplied into all its preceding conditions. And 
 who is the arranger of those circumstances, and 
 who forms the ground and life of those conditions, 
 but the God in whom we live and move ? The 
 blessed principles and feelings of true religion do 
 not then first begin to be, when our attention is 
 engaged by them ; the moment of their birth into 
 the consciousness is not the moment of their gene- 
 ration in the soul. The seeds thereof have been 
 thrown in from time to time by the ever-working 
 providence and grace of God ; they have long 
 been buried in the clods of the earthly nature; 
 they have been secretly impregnated by the all- 
 pervading Spirit of life ; they have expanded silent- 
 ly and unsuspected ; they put forth timidly their 
 delicate shoots ; often they are met and nipped by 
 the chilling blasts of an uncongenial world, and 
 they shrink again into themselves ; till some more 
 favourable moment is vouchsafed them ; a gentler 
 air breathes over them ; they burst through every 
 
58 
 
 THE SOURCE OF 
 
 remaining obstacle, they press up through all the 
 superincumbent weight of earthliness ; — and there 
 they are ! discoverable now by the downward glance 
 of meditation, perceptible to the mind that ponders 
 on itself, and gladdening with their young and ten- 
 der verdure the admiring soul. All growth, in mind 
 as in nature, must be mysterious, and independent 
 of ourselves. We can perceive only that things 
 have grown : we have not eyes to trace them in 
 their growth. 
 
 " Who ever saw the earliest rose 
 First open her sweet breast V* 
 
 And who can chronicle the growth of friend- 
 ship, and the buddings of affection? Do we 
 not awake to the perception of them as if some 
 sudden light had only now revealed to us senti- 
 ments which, nevertheless, we, in the very moment 
 of their revelation, feel ourselves to be familiar 
 With ; and which, therefore, we do not so much 
 discover as recognize within us ? 
 
 And just so is it with the dawn of Piety in the 
 mind. We feel it to be in us, yet not of us. It 
 bears upon itself the stamp of heavenly origin. 
 We confess with St. Paul that it " has pleased God 
 to reveal his Son in us." We cry, in the words of 
 Jesus, " Blessed art thou, my soul, for flesh and 
 blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but thy Fa- 
 
THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 59 
 
 ther which is in heaven." And we exclaim with the 
 Apostle, " the depth of the riches both of the 
 wisdom and of the knowledge of God ! For of Him 
 and through Him, and to Him, are all things, to 
 whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen I" 
 
 This then is the truth which Scripture expresses 
 so emphatically when it declares : " The wind blow- 
 eth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound 
 thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh nor 
 whither it goeth ; so is every one that is born 
 of the Spirit." (John iii. 8.) " Of his own will 
 begat he us with the word of truth, that we should 
 be a kind of first fruits of his creatures." (James 
 i. 18.) "We have received, not the spirit of the 
 world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might 
 know the things that are freely given to us of 
 God." (1 Cor. ii. 12.) "As many as received 
 him, to them gave he power to become the Sons of 
 God, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will 
 of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." 
 (John i. 12, 13.) 
 
 And so the Bishops and Fathers of our church. 
 " Holy we cannot be," says Bishop Andrews, " by 
 any habit, moral or acquisite. There is none such 
 in all moral philosophy. As we have our faith by 
 illumination, so have we our holiness by inspira- 
 tion ; < receive' both from without. To a habit 
 the Philosophers came, and so Christians may. 
 
60 
 
 THE SOURCE OF 
 
 But that will not serve ; they must go further. Our 
 habits acquisite will lift us no further than they 
 did the heathen men; no further than the place 
 where they grow, that is, earth and nature. They 
 cannot work beyond their kind, (nothing can,) nor 
 rise higher than their spring. It is not, therefore, 
 ' si habitum acquisistis,' but ' si spiritum recepistis,' 
 that we must go by." — " The condition of man after 
 the fall of Adam," says our Tenth Article, "is such, 
 that he cannot turn and prepare himself by his own 
 natural strength and good works to faith and call- 
 ing upon God : wherefore, we have no power to do 
 good works pleasant and acceptable to God, with- 
 out the grace of God, by Christ, preventing us, that 
 we may have a good will, and working with us 
 when we have that good will." " It is the Holy 
 Ghost," says our Homily for Whitsunday, " and no 
 other thing, that doth quicken the minds of men, 
 stirring up good and godly motions in their hearts, 
 which are agreeable to the will and commandment 
 of God, such as otherwise of their own crooked 
 and perverse nature they should never have. That 
 which is born of the Spirit is spirit. As who should 
 say, Man of his own nature is fleshly and carnal, 
 corrupt, and naught, sinful and disobedient to 
 God, without any spark of goodness in him, with- 
 out any virtuous or godly motion, only given to 
 evil thoughts and wicked deeds. As for the works 
 
THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 61 
 
 of the Spirit, the fruits of faith, charitable and 
 godly motions, if he have any at all in him, they 
 proceed only of the Holy Ghost, who is the only 
 worker of our sanctification, and maketh us new 
 men in Christ Jesus." " O thou Lord of all power 
 and might, — who art the author of all godliness — 
 without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy — 
 by whose only inspiration we can think those things 
 that be good — from whom all holy desires, all good 
 counsels, and all just works do proceed — graft in 
 our hearts the love of thy name, increase in us true 
 religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of thy 
 great mercy keep us in the same, through Jesus 
 Christ our Lord ! " 
 
 If then such be the Source of the Spiritual Life, 
 we see at once the difficulties which this sub- 
 ject must unavoidably present to every superficial 
 thinker. To him who is indifferent to his danger 
 as a sinner alienated from God, and not awake to 
 the absolute necessity of this new life to his salva- 
 tion, the mysterious inwardness and divinity of its 
 rise in the spirit must ever produce surprise and 
 cavil. He knows not himself and the depths of his 
 own heart, and the inveteracy of his disease, and 
 he cannot therefore understand the nature of the 
 remedy that he needs. He thinks and lives in the 
 world of sense, and everything pertaining to the 
 
62 THE SOURCE OF 
 
 world of spirit must be strange to him. The whole 
 region is to him an untrodden, nay, an unimagined 
 one, and it is but natural, therefore, that he should 
 doubt, and perhaps deride, the reports of others as 
 he would a traveller's tale of wonder. Piety is a 
 spiritual experience ; that is, it lies beyond the 
 sphere of sense, and cannot, therefore, be described 
 or demonstrated under the forms of sense ; and con- 
 sequently he who pleads for it, must be prepared to 
 meet objections drawn from such a source with dig- 
 nified tranquillity.* He will not think to solve them 
 while yet the very ear is wanting by which the solu- 
 tion can be heard, and the heart by which it can 
 
 * "That amendment and elevation of heart and character 
 should be obtained not by any power dwelling by nature within 
 the individual ; that it should be gained, not by the operation of 
 the ordinary motives of morality, not by the vaunted power of 
 favourable habits ; or, to speak the whole at once, that there 
 should be a constant communion between this earthly world and 
 a higher, between this earthly and visible creature and that hea- 
 venly and invisible Creator who inhabiteth eternity ; that this 
 communion should be open to all who desire it and who use the 
 means by which it is to be obtained ; and finally, that by this 
 communion alone man can attain to that degree of perfection of 
 which he is capable ; — these are things, indeed, which a reason- 
 able man will not expect to be appiehended by those whose 
 views are confined to matter, to the pursuit of the knowledge 
 connected with it, and to the desire after the good which it can 
 bestow." H.J.Rose. The Commission of the Clergy. 
 
THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 63 
 
 be understood ; but will seek rather to address him- 
 self to the deeper source of all objections, — the indif- 
 ference, and self-ignorance, and false security, from 
 which they spring. This was the method Jesus 
 took with Nicodemus (John hi. 4 — 8). When the 
 latter asked him, " How can a man be born when he 
 is old ?" he attempts not to answer this " How," till 
 he has pressed upon the conscience of the objector 
 the absolute necessity of the experience itself about 
 which he objects ; — " Except a man be born of 
 water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the 
 kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is 
 flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 
 Marvel not that I said unto thee. Ye must be born 
 again." All difficulties about the manner of the 
 workings of Religion are but the trifling of an un- 
 concerned mind; but when the necessity of Reli- 
 gion is once felt, when a holy earnestness comes 
 over us, and we heartily desire and seek the thing 
 itself, then are we prepared either to have our 
 real perplexities removed, or to learn with humble 
 faith that they are not removable to finite man. 
 And, therefore, Jesus having re-asserted to Nico- 
 demus the great truth which he began with, and 
 shown the absolute necessity of its experience in 
 every man, from the simple fact that all are born 
 enveloped in an earthly nature, and cannot, there- 
 fore, possibly be fit for a heavenly state till out of 
 
64 THE SOURCE OF 
 
 that earthly nature has been made to spring a 
 heavenly one — " he only that is born of the Spirit 
 can be spiritual ;'* — having thus solemnly re-assert- 
 ed the necessity of the fact, let the manner be in- 
 telligible or not ; — then first recurs to the question 
 of the Jewish Ruler, How can such a change take 
 place, not indeed to answer it, but to indicate its 
 unanswerableness ; not to unfold the mysteries of 
 the human spirit and of its transition from death 
 to life, but to declare that they are far too deep for 
 our perception ; for while results of thought present 
 themselves in the consciousness and issue out in 
 the conduct, the causes of thought, and their occa- 
 sions, and their complex associations, and their 
 manifold workings, are hidden from the human 
 eye. It is with the spirit that breathes within us 
 even as with the wind that breathes around us, — 
 sensible in its effects, but hidden in its source. 
 " The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou 
 nearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell 
 
 whence it cometh nor whither it goeth ; so," 
 
 similar in what is perceptible and what is imper- 
 ceptible ; similar in the certainty of the facts, and 
 
 in the uncertainty of the cause and manner, 
 
 " so is every one that is born of the Spirit." The 
 Spiritual Life may be experienced in the con- 
 sciousness and will display itself in the conduct ; 
 
THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 65 
 
 but how it came into the heart, and whence it 
 came, — these are matters not of observation, but 
 of faith. 
 
 But what encouragement does this truth of the 
 Divine origin of Piety afford, to every one who de- 
 sires the experience of it in himself! If you com- 
 prehend enough of the awful purity of God, and of 
 the corruption of your own heart, to feel the abso- 
 lute necessity of a change in you, the sinner, in or- 
 der to your dwelling with Him, the Holy One ; of a 
 participation of the divine nature now, in order to 
 your entering into the divine glory hereafter ; then, 
 I ask you, where will you go for such a transforma- 
 tion ? Whence will you derive it ? How will you 
 effect it ? Can flesh develope itself into spirit ? Can 
 it give birth spontaneously and by its natural vir- 
 tue to anything above its own kind ? Can under- 
 standing expand beyond the confines of the sphere 
 for which it has been formed, and in which it dwells 
 and acts ? Can the heavenly and divine spring out 
 from the earthly and the human ? Can the Ethio- 
 pian change his skin, and the leopard his spots ; or 
 he who has been accustomed to do evil, of himself 
 do good ? And what hope, then, can you have of 
 being renewed in the spirit of your mind, if that 
 renewal does not come from God? But if it does, 
 —then is there hope for you, for every man who 
 
 F 
 
6Q THE SOURCE OF 
 
 turns to seek the blessing from its proper source ; 
 for, you and every man are within the compass 
 of the all-embracing love of God. He is your 
 Father, and he has a Father's ear for every sigh 
 of supplication that is breathed towards him, and a 
 Father's bountifulness to bestow the blessings that 
 you ask for. Were, indeed, the source of good to 
 be sought within yourself, what could we say to 
 cheer you, for you yourself are empty of all good ; 
 but if it be in God, (and in God it is abundantly,) 
 then may we address you with the mingled ex- 
 hortation, and reproof, and promises of holy writ, — 
 " Wisdom crieth without, she uttereth her voice in 
 the streets, saying, How long, ye simple ones, will 
 ye love simplicity, and the scorners delight in 
 their scorning ? Turn you at my reproof ; behold, 
 I will pour out my Spirit upon you, I will make 
 known my ivords unto you /" Do you hesitate be- 
 cause you feel yourself unworthy ? Do you keep 
 away from God because you have not the Spirit of 
 God? — Remember that you cannot find this Spirit 
 till you come to him to receive it from Him as his 
 gift ; that on this very account your Saviour has 
 prepared a way for your approach to God, has 
 thrown wide open the doors of His presence-cham- 
 ber, that you may have access to his grace, and 
 gain from him the Spirit of adoption whereby you 
 may cry Abba Father ! 
 
THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 67 
 
 And do you ask what are the means by which 
 this gift must be sought, the channels through 
 which it descends into the soul ? The very nature 
 of the Gift sufficiently points out the nature of 
 those Means. For God must influence the spirit 
 of man in a spiritual manner, — that is, by intro- 
 ducing and awakening thoughts and feelings which 
 may work within the mind according to the laws 
 of mind, and thus bring home the remedy to the 
 very seat, and in accordance with the very form 
 and character, of the disease. The Spirit of God is 
 Mind, and therefore works by Mind, and is to be 
 found in Mind, and communicates himself through 
 Mind. By intercourse with our own soul ; by in- 
 tercourse with the souls of other Christian men; 
 by intercourse with God, who is the soul of our soul 
 and of theirs; shall we obtain that living Spirit 
 which we need. 
 
 Let us cultivate, then, Intercourse with ourselves; 
 acquaintance with our own mind, and heart, and 
 character ; — reflection, meditation, self-inspection, 
 self-knowledge. " The true knowledge of our- 
 selves," says our Second Homily, " is necessary, to 
 come to the right knowledge of God :" " He who 
 knows himself," says an ancient Heathen writer, 
 " will know God ; and he who knows God will be- 
 come like God ; and he who becomes like God will 
 walk worthy of God, thinking, speaking, and acting 
 
68 THE SOURCE OF 
 
 even as God would think, and speak, and act." All 
 depends on pausing to consider our own ways ; find- 
 ing out the man within ourselves and becoming 
 intimate and at home in our own bosom. Not that 
 we need laborious thought ; difficult abstraction ; 
 mystic musings ; morbid brooding over frames and 
 feelings ; anything that cannot be pursued by the 
 most occupied or the least intellectual : — but simply 
 that observing of ourselves, as we observe other men, 
 — that questioning of ourselves, keeping account of 
 ourselves, talking with ourselves, which exalts the 
 thinking man above the heedless child, and makes 
 him live for something higher than to be the slave 
 and sport of each successive outward object that 
 may present itself to his bodily eyes or ears. The 
 considering who we are ; what we are ; whence we 
 are ; why we are ; whither we are going : — the pon- 
 dering on our relation to God who is our Father ; to 
 the world which is our school of discipline ; to men 
 who are our brethren ; and to Eternity which is our 
 home. So shall we understand our actual state of 
 mind ; our spiritual wants ; the suitableness of the 
 Gospel truths and promises to their supply ; the 
 course we are to run, the steps that we must take ; 
 beginning with ourselves to end with God. 
 
 And let us add to this, Intercourse with our Fel- 
 low Christians, For all the experiences of Religion 
 depend upon the influences of the Spirit of God ; and 
 
THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 69 
 
 the Spirit of God resides in the church of Christ, 
 and diffuses itself by means of the members of 
 Christ. It is a Family Spirit, to be caught by in- 
 tercourse with that Family. And, therefore, the 
 grand means appointed by Christ himself for its 
 communication has ever been the social inter- 
 course of Christian men. This he promised his 
 Apostles when he said, " I will pray the Father, 
 and he shall give you another Comforter which 
 shall abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of 
 truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it 
 seeth him not, neither knoweth him ; but ye know 
 him, for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you ;" 
 speaking here not to any individual separately, (the 
 pronouns are plural,) but to the whole collectively 
 as a united body. Wherefore it was that he after- 
 wards commanded them not to break up their com- 
 munity and separate themselves to different parts, 
 saying that " they should not depart from Jerusalem, 
 but wait for the promise of the Father which they 
 had heard of him ;" and then, " when they were 
 all with one accord in one place," that promise 
 was fulfilled, and they were filled with the Holy 
 Ghost. For this, moreover, he has given " Apos- 
 tles, and Prophets, and Evangelists, and Pastors, 
 and Teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for 
 the work of ministering to their spiritual wants, for 
 the edifying of the body of Christ, from whom the 
 
70 THE SOURCE OF 
 
 whole body fitly joined together, and compacted by 
 tliat which every joint supplieth, maketh increase of 
 the body unto the edifying of itself in love." For 
 this, he has commanded us by his Apostle " not to 
 forsake the assembling of ourselves together," be- 
 cause " where two or three are gathered together 
 in his name, there is he in the midst of them." For 
 this, he gives the manifestation of the Spirit to 
 every Christian man that he may profit his bre- 
 thren therewith. And, therefore, to participate in 
 this, we must be regular and frequent in public 
 worship, in family and social prayer, in friendly 
 Christian intercourse, thereby to imbibe and to 
 sustain the Spiritual Life. We must place our- 
 selves in the atmosphere of the Spirit if we would 
 inhale the Spirit. The principle of Social interest, 
 which leads us to join ourselves to other men; the 
 principle of Imitation, which bends the mind un- 
 consciously in the direction of those to whom we 
 join ourselves ; the principle of Sympathy, which 
 makes the slightest thought and feeling of our own 
 mind to be increased to a fourfold intensity, by our 
 consciousness of its participation by those around 
 us ; — of their being sensible themselves of this par- 
 ticipation ; — of their emotions being heightened by 
 their sympathy with ours ; — of their thus respond- 
 ing not to us alone, but to all the rest in mutual 
 communion with us ; — these several mighty means 
 
THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 71 
 
 of influence on the human heart, by which the 
 Spirit of God communicates, as through the links 
 of an electric chain, the principle of spiritual life, 
 must all be grasped by us if we would thrill with 
 fire from heaven. 
 
 But then, with both these means, we must unite 
 Intercourse with God by secret Prayer. For Prayer 
 re-acts upon all other influences, and collects them 
 into the unity of our own spirit, and diffuses them 
 through every power of the man. And Prayer brings 
 down into the midst of every thought, and train of 
 thought, the idea of God; reminds us that ourselves 
 are in the presence and under the control of God ; 
 our circumstances have been all arranged by God ; 
 our opportunities of grace have been ordained by 
 God ; our teachers have been commissioned by God ; 
 our Christian friends are actuated and blessed by 
 God ; — and thus infuses into the most ordinary ob- 
 jects, persons, and occurrences, the character and 
 power of a divine communication to the soul. 
 " Now, therefore," said Cornelius to St. Peter, 
 " we are all here present before God, to hear all 
 things that are commanded thee of God." And 
 what was the result of this devout infusion of the 
 thought of God into all the words that Peter then 
 addressed to them ? — " While Peter yet spake 
 these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which 
 heard the word." 
 
72 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PROCESS OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 The Spiritual Life must, we have seen, from 
 the very nature of our being, take its rise in the 
 inscrutable depths of the human soul, and have its 
 source in the secret inspiration of the Holy Ghost. 
 But the developement of this life must not the less, 
 from this same nature of our being, become mani- 
 fest to the consciousness of the Individual ; and the 
 Process of that Developement will, moreover, from 
 the general similarity of man to man, be, for the 
 most part, similar in all religious minds. These 
 are the two points which will occupy the present 
 chapter. 
 
 And first, — The Developement of Spiritual Life 
 must become manifest to the consciousness of the 
 individual in whom it is awakened. For deep and 
 hidden as are the mass of our conceptions in the 
 recesses of the spirit, their workings and results 
 become both seen and felt by that peculiar power 
 of self-consciousness, — of introspection and inward 
 
PROCESS OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 73 
 
 sense, — with which we are endowed. The essence 
 of Mind we cannot discover, any more than we can 
 the essences of the external world ; but the pheno- 
 mena of Mind are presented to the inward intui- 
 tion just as the phenomena of matter are to the 
 outward observation. We cannot possess vigor- 
 ous thoughts, affections, and purposes, on any sub- 
 ject and of any kind, without becoming more or 
 less conscious of their existence ; that is, without a 
 feeling and experience of the goings on within our 
 mind. And as generally, on any subject that in- 
 terests us, so particularly must there be such feel- 
 ing and experience on the subject of Religion; 
 if, indeed, this last have seized on our attention, 
 and become alive in our heart. " Religious Ex- 
 perience" is, indeed, a phrase often mistaken and 
 sometimes misused; but it expresses a fact, or 
 series of facts, in the consciousness, without which 
 no man can be saved. It denotes all those exer- 
 cises of the mind and heart which indicate that 
 Religion is not merely a profession and a creed, 
 but an influence and a life. It expresses the find- 
 ing in ourselves the realities, the things signified, of 
 which words are but the shadows and the signs. 
 And only, therefore, as we do find in ourselves (that 
 is, experience^ these realities, can we truly under- 
 stand the words — that is, place under them a solid 
 and substantial meaning — whatever knowledge we 
 
74 
 
 THE PROCESS OF 
 
 may have attained of their grammatical use and 
 force. By experience only, either that of external 
 sensation, or of internal consciousness, can we un- 
 derstand words, — which are the signs of facts oc- 
 curring in that sensation or that consciousness. If 
 a man tells me of a bodily sensation — a head-ache, 
 for example — I understand him only so far as that 
 sensation has been present to myself; and I reply 
 either " I cannot enter into your feelings, for I 
 never experienced what a head- ache is," — or "I 
 understand you, for I have experienced the same." 
 If he speaks to me of esteem, gratitude, affection, — 
 which are mental sensations, sentiments, or feel- 
 ings, — I can answer, " Yes, I know well what you 
 mean, for I have experienced such sentiments my- 
 self." If he tells me of the glow of admiration 
 which came over him at the contemplation of such 
 or such a lovely scene ; or of the thrill of pleasure 
 which was awakened in him by such or such 
 melodious sounds ; here again I can believe he is 
 not uttering rapturous nonsense ; because I have 
 myself experienced the same emotions. A\\<i just 
 similarly in Religion : there are experiences of the 
 conscience and the heart, by rinding which within 
 ourselves we can alone supply a meaning to the 
 glowing words and images of Scripture, or can re- 
 gard the men themselves who use those words as 
 other than enthusiasts, of Oriental warmth of tem- 
 
THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 75 
 
 perament, and exaggeration of language. Either 
 they mean something weighty, and essential to Re- 
 ligion, or they do not. And if they do mean some- 
 thing weighty, and essential to Religion, (which 
 every one who reverences the Bible or its Authors 
 will at once concede,) then, from the nature of the 
 case, that meaning cannot be collected merely by 
 critical interpretation, and conveyed by verbal defi- 
 nition, but must be supplied and substantiated by 
 personal experience. Notions may be conveyed 
 from mind to mind by logical definitions, but feel- 
 ings can be only indicated by analogies, the sense 
 of which must be found by the hearer for himself 
 and in his own bosom. The one is as the imprint- 
 ing of a stamp upon the understanding : the other is 
 the touching of a string whose vibrations may awake 
 a corresponding chord in the heart. Therefore, 
 without the finding in ourselves those states of con- 
 sciousness which the Scripture writers found with- 
 in themselves, and of which their words and images 
 are short-hand signs, there can be no possession of 
 the mind of the pious men of God, and therefore no 
 real piety. In this, as in all practical truth, the 
 axiom holds good " quantum sumus, scimus" — only 
 what we actually are, do we really know. 
 
 To answer — as, alas ! it has been answered — that 
 the words of Scripture which indicate such experi- 
 ences " mean nothing to us ; nothing, (that is) to 
 
76 THE PROCESS OF 
 
 be found or sought for in the present circumstances 
 of Christianity," — is to confound the temporary with 
 the permanent, the ever varying circumstances of 
 man, with the ever similar nature of man. It is to 
 forget the general principle which Scripture itself 
 lays down — " as in water, face answereth to face, 
 so the heart of man to man." Man, in the essen- 
 tials of his nature, is in all ages, countries, and cir- 
 cumstances, the same ; " with the same organs, di- 
 mensions, senses, affections, passions ; fed by the 
 same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to 
 the same diseases, healed by the same means, 
 warmed and cooled by the same winter and sum- 
 mer." And, therefore, similarly, a religious man, 
 in the essentials of his character, must be in all 
 ages, countries, and circumstances the same ; and, 
 notwithstanding all the accidental differences of 
 form, and of degree, which may result from differ- 
 ence of knowledge, temperament, and situation, 
 still, whatever was essential to render a Jew pious, 
 or a Roman pious, or an Ephesian or Colossian 
 pious, must be equally essential to render an 
 Englishman pious ; nay, whatever workings of such 
 piety were experienced in the vast translation from 
 Heathenism to Christianity, such workings in sub- 
 stance, must be similarly experienced, in the not 
 less real and necessary translation from a nominal 
 Christianity to a personal one ; from a participation 
 
THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 77 
 
 of the outward instructions, privileges, and ordi- 
 nances, of a true church, to the participation of that 
 inward life of faith, and love, and hope, to be the 
 occasion of which, those instructions, privileges, 
 and ordinances, are vouchsafed. Separate the ac- 
 cidental marks of their experiences, as Jews or Hea- 
 thens, from their essential ones, as corrupt and guilty 
 men, and these latter must apply to us and be 
 necessary to us. It was to Israelites, remember, — 
 that is, to the chosen people of the true God ; to 
 men educated in the law of God, and partakers 
 of the ordinances of God, — to whom the Prophets 
 Jeremiah and Ezekiel cried, "Make you a new heart 
 and a new spirit, lest ye die ;" and concerning whom 
 they promised from the Lord, " I will take away 
 from them the heart of stone, and give to them a 
 heart of flesh :" and shall then any Ecclesiastical 
 privileges make such exhortations and such pro- 
 mises less needful to us ? It was to a Jew, — a 
 ruler of the Jews, " a most respectable man," — that 
 Jesus said, " Ye must be born again." Nay, it was 
 to Christianized Ephesians, baptized Ephesians, 
 members of the body of Christ, that St. Paul de- 
 clares — " Put off the old man which is corrupt, and 
 be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the 
 new man, which after God is created in righteous- 
 ness and true holiness." 
 
 Never, then, let this necessity of personal expe- 
 
78 THE PROCESS OF 
 
 rience of the inward life be overlooked, lest we de- 
 ceive ourselves with unwarrantable hopes of a sal- 
 vation, the very seeds of which have never yet been 
 manifested in our heart or conduct. Much is said, 
 I know, about a modest and a secret Piety, — about 
 avoiding ostentation and hypocrisy, and keeping the 
 awful subject of Religion between our conscience 
 and our God, and disclaiming pretensions to enthu- 
 siastic movements of the mind. But as much must 
 be said, upon the other hand, about life being know- 
 able only by its actings, and principles and feelings 
 only by their manifestations. However secret the 
 causes, yet, surely the effects, to be actual, — that is, 
 to be effects at all,-— must come out into the consci- 
 ousness and conduct. We should give little credit 
 to that asserted patience which produced no actual 
 calm of mind ; or to that professed affection which 
 left the heart unmoved by any ripple of emotion ; or 
 to that declared devotion to our interests, of which 
 no trace betrayed itself by acts of zeal and service. 
 We do not, indeed, wish a friend to boast inces- 
 santly of the attachment that he feels for us ; but 
 still we should not quite expect the secret of it to 
 be so marvellously well preserved, that neither to 
 ourselves, nor any one besides, should any glimmer 
 of it struggle into view. Nor does the man of taste, 
 perhaps, attempt to analyze his feelings very meta- 
 physically, or pore over them with morbid sensibi- 
 
THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 79 
 
 lity ; yet, most certainly a man of taste he could 
 not be if he had not those feelings, — if all objects 
 and all subjects were to him alike indifferent — if his 
 eye never glistened at some splendid scene of nature, 
 and his heart never leaped up within him at some 
 noble act of heroism, and his spirit never quivered 
 like a well-strung instrument when the breath of 
 eloquence swept over it, or the strains of music 
 lingered on its chords. O why will men think of 
 banishing emotion from Religion when they feel that 
 on every other subject of interest and of grandeur 
 and of beauty, to be without emotion is to be with- 
 out the characteristic of humanity ! Why will they 
 give to the flesh and to the world their very soul, 
 and reserve for Him who made that soul the dregs 
 alone, the flat residuum which may be left when 
 all its life has been drawn off and all its nobler 
 workings have subsided ! Let no man fancy that 
 he loves God, if he be not conscious that he loves 
 God. Let no man flatter himself that he is serv- 
 ing God, if the seeming good that he can point to 
 in his conduct has not sprung from pious motive, 
 intelligent self-dedication, affectionate communion 
 with his heavenly Father. He who is " a godly per- 
 son," according to our Seventeenth Article, " must 
 feel in himself the workings of the Spirit of Christ, 
 mortifying the works of the flesh and his earthly 
 members, and drawing up his mind to high and 
 
80 THE PROCESS OF 
 
 heavenly things." And he who has " the very 
 sure and lively Christian faith," according to our 
 Fourth Homily, " this Faith doth not lie dead in 
 the heart, but is lively and fruitful in bringing forth 
 good works." For, " as the light cannot be hid, but 
 will show forth itself at one place or another ; so a 
 true faith cannot be secret^ but when occasion is of- 
 fered it will break out and show itself by good 
 works. And as the living body of a man ever exer- 
 ciseth such things as belong to a natural and living 
 body for nourishment and preservation of the same 
 as it hath need, opportunity, and occasion ; even so 
 the soul that hath a lively faith in it will be doing 
 always some good work which shall declare that it 
 is living, and will not be unoccupied." — " This is 
 the true, lively, and unfeigned Christian faith, and 
 is not in the mouth and outward profession only, but 
 it liveth and stirreth inwardly in the heart." " The 
 wind," says our blessed Lord, " bloweth where it 
 listeth, and no man knoweth whence it cometh and 
 whither it goeth, but thou hearest the sound there* 
 of" — the source of personal Religion may be in- 
 scrutable, — but the fact itself, the thing — the actual 
 elevation of the mind and spiritualizing of the affec- 
 tions, and renewing of the purposes, and sanctify- 
 ing of the tastes, and habits, and pursuits, — this 
 will be as plain and palpable in him who is truly 
 new-born, as the contrary condition of impeni- 
 
THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 81 
 
 tence and fleshliness is plain and palpable. By 
 their fruits, the two distinctive principles — the old 
 man and the new man — must be known. " A good 
 tree cannot bring forth corrupt fruit, neither can a 
 corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. A good man 
 out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth 
 good things, even as an evil man out of the evil 
 treasure of his heart bringeth forth evil things ; for 
 out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." 
 Reader, where are your evidences of personal piety? 
 Where are your fruits, — of inward love and outward 
 holiness ? We cannot do without these. We must 
 not, indeed, search for them in unessential or decep- 
 tive marks. But we must search for them. We 
 must not derive them from merely temporary 
 frames and feelings, or supposed illapses of the 
 Spirit. We must not delude ourselves upon the 
 one hand, or torment ourselves upon the other, by 
 placing dependance on casual experiences which 
 may, after all, (both the good and the evil,) be only 
 bodily sensations, or, at most, excited states of 
 mind ; — but at the same time, evidences we must 
 have. And those evidences we must seek and find 
 in the general pulse of the soul — not in its variations, 
 which may often unnecessarily raise or depress us, 
 but in its existence ; — not in the degrees of love to 
 God, and prayerful ness, and energy, and zeal, but 
 in the fact that we have such love, and prayerful- 
 
82 THE PROCESS OF 
 
 ness, and energy, and zeal, at all. Surely a man 
 may know whether he have love for his father or his 
 mother — his wife or children — his brother or his 
 friend ! And just by the same general evidence of 
 permanent consciousness may he know whether he 
 have love to God, and be his child in spirit and in 
 truth ; in a word, whether he possess the Inward 
 life of Christianity, " Hereby we know that God 
 abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given 
 us." (1 John iii. 24.) 
 
 It remains now to consider, in the Second Place, 
 that as the Developement of the Spiritual Life 
 must be more or less manifest to the consciousness 
 of the Individual, so the Process of this Manifesta- 
 tion will be, for the most part, similar in all religious 
 minds. 
 
 For, the natural condition of all men is the same, 
 whatever the varieties of form in which it may be 
 manifested. The corruption of man's heart is as 
 general a fact as the existence of man's nature. In 
 " every man, naturally engendered of the offspring 
 of Adam," sinfulness is now a characteristic of hu- 
 manity. It is as true now as it was in the days of 
 Noah that " the imagination of man's heart is evil 
 from his youth." It is as undeniable now as it was 
 in the days of Jeremiah, that the heart of man is 
 "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." 
 
THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 83 
 
 It is as certain now as it was in the days of Jesus 
 that "out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, 
 murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false wit- 
 ness, blasphemies." And, therefore, the assertions 
 of Scripture touching our depravity are made ge- 
 nerally of man as man, and expressed in a universal 
 form. " That which is born of the flesh, is flesh." 
 (John iii. 6.) " All have sinned and come short of 
 the glory of God." (Romans iii. 23.) " There is 
 not a just man upon earth that doeth good and 
 sinneth not." (Eccl. vii. 20.) " What is man, 
 that he should be clean, and he that is born of a 
 woman, that he should be righteous ?" (Job xv. 
 14.) " Who can say, I have made my heart clean, 
 I am pure from my sin ?" (Prov. xx. 9.) 
 
 And as the natural condition is thus similar in 
 all men, so equally must be the necessities which 
 result from such a condition ; the sum of which ne- 
 cessities is, Deliverance from a state of sinfulness, 
 with all its workings and concomitants, into a state 
 of Holiness ; which Deliverance, therefore, is the 
 grand benefit announced by Revelation, provided 
 for in Christ, and placed within the reach of all to 
 whom the glad tidings of Christianity are pro- 
 claimed. The Remedy is commensurate with the 
 disease. 
 
 But if the Disease be universal, and equally so 
 the Remedy, then certainly the mode of operation 
 
84 THE PROCESS OF 
 
 of that Remedy must, in all essential points, be 
 similar ; the method (or path of transit) of the 
 Deliverance from a state of sinfulness into a state 
 of Holiness, must be but one and the same for 
 all. The course of Christian experience, — how- 
 ever marked by different accidental circumstances 
 in different individuals, and however varying in 
 intensity or in rapidity, according to their tem- 
 perament, or opportunities — must exhibit certain 
 general features common to each particular case. 
 And hence it is that St. Paul lays down the princi- 
 pal steps of this transition in consecutive order, 
 when he tells the Romans, " Whom God did pre- 
 destinate them he also called, and whom he called 
 them he also justified, and whom he justified them 
 he also glorified ;" and that Christian churches and 
 divines have always noted them with more or less 
 distinctness in their Confessions, and their Theo- 
 logical Systems ; the fullest as well as the most ex- 
 quisite example of which is afforded us incidentally 
 in the Seventeenth Article of the Church of England, 
 where she declares that they who be endued with the 
 benefit of God's predestination, " be called accord- 
 ing to God's purpose by his Spirit working in due 
 season : they through Grace obey the calling : they 
 be justified freely : they be made Sons of God by 
 adoption : they be made like the image of his only- 
 begotten Son Jesus Christ ; they walk religiously 
 
THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 85 
 
 in good works, and at length, by God's mercy, they 
 attain to everlasting felicity." 
 
 If, then, we simply cast our eyes on some of the 
 broader facts of the unrenewed soul, and consider 
 what is the transformation which the mere exist- 
 ence of those facts supposes necessary in order to 
 the realizing of that sense of God as our Father 
 which constitutes, as we have before seen, the Es- 
 sence of Christian Piety, we shall perceive, I think, 
 that the developement of the Spiritual Life, wher- 
 ever it has been awakened, must manifest itself in 
 something like the following progression of Ex- 
 perience. 
 
 First. — All men are by nature indifferent to God. 
 They do not willingly think of Him, do not desire the 
 knowledge of his ways, are fully occupied with the 
 cares, the business, and the pleasures of their earth- 
 ly nature ; and thus live practically " without God 
 in the world." The first step, therefore, which they 
 need towards Piety is to have their attention awaken- 
 ed to the cares, the business, and the pleasures of 
 their spiritual nature ; to have their minds roused 
 from the torpor of indifference to divine things ; 
 and the thought of God, and of their relation to 
 Him, and of all the solemn consequences of that 
 relation, made alive within them. And this the 
 Scriptures denominate their Calling, — their waking 
 out of sleep — their rising from the dead. 
 
86 THE PROCESS OF 
 
 Secondly. — Men are ignorant of God. They know 
 Him not ; they understand him not ; and even when 
 an interest in the thought of Him has been awaken- 
 ed, that thought is vague, imperfect, feeble. It is 
 for the most part an " unknown God," whom they 
 are " feeling after if haply they may find him, 
 though he is not far from every one of them." Here, 
 then, they need farther to have their understand- 
 ing opened to his character, his will, his demands 
 upon their conscience, his doings in their behalf, 
 his invitations and directions to them. And this is 
 called in Scripture their Illumination — Christ giv- 
 ing to them light — their being taught of God in the 
 Gospel of his Son. 
 
 Thirdly. — The hearts of men are averse to God. 
 The thought of Him is not welcome — it is irksome 
 — they would rather be without it. And this not 
 only on account of its strangeness as contrasted with 
 the nature of their earthly imaginations and pur- 
 suits — the Spiritual not sorting well with the 
 Sensual : and not only on account of its dimness, its 
 being so unfamiliar and perplexing, — as no man 
 likes the contemplation of Ideas whose obscurity 
 upbraids his ignorance ; but, still more, because of 
 its contrariety ; because of the natural opposition 
 that exists between Sinfulness and Holiness, the 
 resistance of the evil nature to the demands of 
 goodness, and the consequent dislike which rises 
 
THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 87 
 
 against Him who is the Ideal of that Holiness and 
 the Author and Enforcer of those demands ; and 
 whose very purity, the more it is perceived and 
 understood, becomes the more reproachful to us, 
 — our image darkening by the contrast, as the 
 image of the Holy One emerges into greater bright- 
 ness. We need, therefore, the removal, or at 
 least, the repression, of this sense of contrariety : 
 we need the softening of this opposing will; the 
 winning over of this Cain-like sullenness ; the cast- 
 ing down imaginations and every high thing that 
 exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and 
 the bringing every thought into subjection to the 
 obedience of Christ ; so that the alien may be na- 
 turalized, the rebel be transformed into a loyal sub- 
 ject, the heart made friends with God, and ready 
 to obey his will. And this the Scriptures call Re- 
 pentance, or a change of mind towards God ; Con- 
 version, or the turning back to God ; Regeneration, 
 or the awakening of a will in harmony with God's 
 will ; — a new creation ; — the renewing of the Spirit 
 of the mind. 
 
 Fourthly. — Where there is indifference, and igno- 
 rance, and aversion, there also is Dread of God. A 
 sense of contrariety brings with it a sense of guilt. 
 For there is something in our nature which tells us 
 unequivocally, (speculate as we may,) that we are 
 responsible for our neglect, and deserve punish- 
 
88 THE PROCESS OF 
 
 merit for our dislike, of God. We feel that we 
 owe to him a very different return for all his good- 
 ness to us, and that the debt must be reckoned 
 to our account. And this dread of God is not re- 
 moved even by the submission of our heart to him. 
 Nay, it is deepened, in proportion to that growing 
 consciousness of sin and guilt which accompanies 
 the workings of a true Repentance. For no sorrow 
 for our breach of God's Law can do away the claims 
 of that Law ; no resolutions for the future can ob- 
 literate the past. And the more, therefore, the 
 heart is softened, the greater becomes its despond- 
 ency. The stronger its desire to turn to God, the 
 more it needs to be assured that it may turn to 
 Him as to a Friend — a pacified, forgiving, satisfied 
 Friend. A sense of personal acceptance, a trust 
 in God as entering into a new relation with us, an 
 animating consciousness of our heavenly Father's 
 presence, care, and approbation — this is essential 
 to our running the new race of holiness to which 
 repentance pledges us, with that quiet vigour 
 which alone ensures success. And this state of 
 mind is called in Scripture the state of Justifica- 
 tion — the being " justified by Faith, and having 
 Peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord," — 
 the having " the Spirit of Adoption whereby we 
 cry, Abba, Father," — the enjoying " fellowship with 
 the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ," — the 
 
THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 89 
 
 "joying in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by 
 whom we have received the Atonement." 
 
 Once more. — The unconverted man has no defi- 
 nite and lively Hope in God. The future is to him 
 a blank, or at best the sphere of mere conjecture 
 and assumption. Each imagined contingency of 
 the present life excites, according to his tempera- 
 ment and circumstances, unfounded expectation or 
 anxious fear. He has no one on whom to cast the 
 burden of the coming day. And with respect to 
 the life to come, even if he escapes the forebodings 
 of an uneasy though slumbering conscience, he at- 
 tains but to the vapid self-security of one who, hav- 
 ing gained the necessary passports to a foreign 
 land, thinks no more of his departure till the time 
 of separation from his friends can be no longer 
 delayed. His best anticipations are unthinking 
 confidence. His worst are blank despair. Nor is 
 the Christian convert without his perplexities and 
 apprehensions. He feels almost alone in a world 
 of trial and temptation. He cannot depend upon 
 himself. He knows that few will understand him, 
 sympathize with him, assist him, in the race that 
 he is running. He needs, therefore, a child-like 
 confidence in God as his unfailing Counsellor and 
 Preserver, — dependance on his guidance and sup- 
 port through each successive difficulty of this 
 world — and that " blessed Hope of everlasting 
 
90 THE PROCESS OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 life," which looks forward to the world to come as 
 to our dwelling-place and home. And this the 
 Scriptures call the spirit of Assurance — the " walk- 
 ing by Faith and not by sight," — the " holding fast 
 the confidence and the rejoicing of our Hope firm 
 unto the end " — the " rejoicing in Hope of the 
 glory of God." 
 
 Such then are some of the principal manifesta- 
 tions of that Spiritual Life which, welling out from 
 the secret fountains of the soul, purines and quickens 
 all the better feelings of our nature, and rises into 
 that commingled Love, and Joy, and Hope, the ex- 
 ercise of which toward God forms the essential 
 spirit of Christian Piety here, and is the foretaste 
 of eternal blessedness hereafter. O may God pour 
 such a stream of Godliness and Gladness into our 
 hearts ! 
 
91 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 
 
 As we cannot appreciate the worth of Christi- 
 anity in general unless we consider the actual 
 condition and necessities of human nature, to meet 
 which Christianity was vouchsafed; so neither shall 
 we be prepared to acquiesce in the Scripture state- 
 ments concerning the process by which the life of 
 Christianity usually manifests itself in the indivi- 
 dual soul, unless we have fixed our attention on 
 some of the broader features of our natural state 
 of mind, and have thus convinced ourselves of the 
 extent of the transformation that we need, in order 
 to become new creatures in Christ Jesus. We 
 must duly estimate the natural Indifference, Igno- 
 rance, Alienation, Dread, and Despondency of the 
 human mind towards God, before we can duly esti- 
 mate either the necessity or the worth of that Spiri- 
 tual Awakening, Illumination, Conversion, Peace, 
 and Hope, which the influences of the Holy Ghost 
 produce. 
 
 Let us, therefore, now devote ourselves to the 
 
92 SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 
 
 consideration of these particulars in detail. And, 
 First, let us bring before our minds the Fact of 
 man's Indifference to God. 
 
 Men are naturally indifferent to God; — this is 
 the first broad fact of our fallen condition, which 
 the slightest observation may convince us of. They 
 need, therefore, as the first step to Salvation, to 
 have their Attention awakened to Him : — this is the 
 conclusion of Reason from the observation of that 
 obvious fact. And the Excitement of this Attention 
 is the work of God: — this is the Assertion of Scrip- 
 ture in answer to the demands of that need. 
 
 All our observation and experience testify to us 
 the first broad Fact of our condition, that man is 
 naturally indifferent to God. It is only by de- 
 grees that we gain any conception of God and of 
 his relation to us, and of the infinite importance of 
 that relation to our welfare; and without some 
 knowledge of these truths, there can of course be 
 no interest in them. We are to God — all of us in 
 childhood, many of us through youth and manhood, 
 and many, alas ! yet longer still, yea, even through- 
 out their lives — we are to God, as the infant to its 
 parent ; deriving from Him our being ; fed and 
 warmed, and nourished by His care ; watched over 
 by His never-sleeping eye ; and guarded and sus- 
 tained by his ever-extended arm ; — but yet uncon- 
 scious of Him ; occupied only with the gifts, un- 
 
SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 93 
 
 knowing, or heedless of the Giver ; and even when 
 we do awake to the fact of His Existence, yet still 
 possessing no distinct impression of our dependance 
 on Him — still less of our responsibility to Him — still 
 less of the awful certainty that all our happiness, of 
 body and of soul, for time and for eternity, hangs 
 only on His favour. 
 
 And who knows not how continually this early 
 indifference, arising from our natural unaequaint- 
 ance with God, is strengthened and becomes habi- 
 tual, by our subsequent indocility and dulness with 
 respect to spiritual things ! The term " God" may, 
 indeed, soon become familiar to us ; (often too fa- 
 miliar !) his attributes and character we may, per- 
 haps, be able to state out in words : — but the Idea, 
 — the reality — where is it felt ? What are its in- 
 fluences ? How far does it live within us ? The 
 world and the things of the world first lay hold 
 of the attention, and preoccupy the heart; and 
 we know from Scripture testimony, (we know r 
 it equally from experience and fact,) that where 
 the love of the world is, there is not the love of 
 God ; "for all that is in the world, the lust of the 
 flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, 
 is not of the Father, but is of the world." The very 
 objects, circumstances, and occupations, which, as 
 means and steps of consideration, are capable of 
 leading up the thoughts to God, and bringing Him 
 
94 SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 
 
 continually before the mind, come crowding in so 
 thickly and incessantly upon us, that they exhaust 
 our attention on themselves as ends, and become to 
 us a veil which hides God from our sight, rather 
 than the transparent medium through which we 
 might behold him. We are immersed in so thick an 
 atmosphere steaming up from earth, that we can- 
 not see the very sun from which that earth derives 
 its life and light, and round which it revolves. 
 
 Nay, even suppose that some rays of light gleam 
 in upon us, and excite some momentary warmth, and 
 that when we think of God we feel some interest 
 in Him, still I must ask, how much, how often, how 
 deeply, do men really think of God and feel this 
 interest in Him ? Do they not " hear and talk of 
 Religion," to use the words of Jeremy Taylor, " but 
 as of a dream, and does not Religion make such 
 impression as is the conversation of a Dreamer, 
 whence they awake to the business of the world ?" 
 Have our religious thoughts the life, the force, the 
 interest, which is acquired by the slightest circum- 
 stances that affect our personal, our social, our po- 
 litical, well-being ? What, — I would ask of many 
 of my readers — has been the amount of Influence 
 upon you exercised by the Idea of God in any given 
 day or week — through all the hours and minutes 
 of which you have been held in life by God, fed by 
 God, blessed by God, have lived, and moved, and 
 
SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 95 
 
 had your being in God ? How much have you cared 
 about his approbation ? How much have you im- 
 plored his mercy, intreated his help, laboured in his 
 service, and been zealous for his honour ? What, in 
 short, has been your interest for God, as compared 
 with that which you have experienced for the com- 
 munity of which you are a member, for the friends 
 whom you esteem, for the wife and children whom 
 you love, or for yourself, which is yet dearer to you 
 than them all ? I address the general class of de- 
 cent, reputable, well-disposed, professedly Christian 
 men, and I pray them to examine — as before the 
 heart-searching God who knoweth all things — whe- 
 ther they are not habitually, whatever be their oc- 
 casional or periodical thoughts and feelings of Reli- 
 gion, indifferent to God ? — whether, therefore, they 
 do not need a new impulse in their heart, a new life 
 in their soul, an awaking as from sleep, a resurrection 
 as from the dead, a new birth into a new world, with 
 new perceptions, anxieties, desires, efforts, and pur- 
 suits? O the awful danger of dreaming listlessly 
 through life without religion — or about religion! 
 Only start into the consciousness that you are in- 
 deed dreaming — (he is very near to waking who is 
 conscious that he dreams,) — only turn not drowsily 
 away from the friendly call of God, and you shall 
 " awake and arise from the dead, and Christ shall 
 give you light." 
 
96 SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 
 
 This is the point to which all men must be brought 
 if they would be saved : — they must have their atten- 
 tion awakened to God; they must have their eyes un- 
 closed to look upon Him, their ears unstopped to 
 listen to Him, their heart opened to attend to the 
 things that are spoken of Him. This is the first step 
 towards Piety. Till God has gained our attention 
 He has gained nothing, — nor have we gained any- 
 thing. Without this opening of the heart it is vain 
 to have been consecrated to God's service by the 
 Sacrament of Baptism, and thus to be inscribed and 
 recognized among the number of His " called" ones, 
 ecclesiastically. The Jews were thus consecrated, 
 but God cast them from Him as an unclean thing. 
 They were thus His called ones, but they were not 
 ultimately chosen by Him ; and in them, therefore, 
 do we see the appalling truth of that general propo- 
 sition, which applies equally to us — " Many are 
 called, but few are chosen." 
 
 Without this opening of the heart, it is vain to 
 trust in the fact that we are members of a Christian 
 church, however apostolical, and subscribers to a 
 Christian creed, however pure, and intitled to par- 
 take in Christian ordinances, however scriptural. 
 The Jews too " rested in the law/' (reposed them- 
 selves in satisfied assurance on the favours God 
 had shown them,) " and made their boast of God." 
 But that very law condemned them, and those very 
 
SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 97 
 
 privileges, — because trusted in presumptuously as 
 ends, instead of being used conscientiously as means, 
 — brought shame and ruin on them. 
 
 Without this opening of the heart, it is vain to 
 have applied our understanding to the truths which 
 have been taught us as baptized Catechumens. For 
 the Jews too " knew God's will, and approved the 
 things that were excellent, being instructed out of 
 the law, and were confident that they exclusively 
 were guides of the blind, a light of them which are 
 in darkness, instructors of the foolish, teachers of 
 babes, having the form of knowledge and of the 
 truth in the law ;" — and yet the God of this world 
 blinded their eyes, and the Gospel was hid from 
 them, and they were lost ! 
 
 Nay, without this opening of the heart, it were 
 vain to have a zeal for Christianity, an interest for 
 its defence, or its establishment and propagation. 
 — For the Jews too had this interest for Judaism. 
 They had a zeal for God, but not according to 
 knowledge; and therefore, " being ignorant of God's 
 righteousness, and going about to establish their 
 own righteousness, they did not submit themselves 
 to the righteousness of God." 
 
 Attention, therefore, to God is something more 
 than this. Nay, not merely more, (for it is not by 
 accumulation merely that we grow in piety as we 
 may in worldly wealth,) but something different, 
 
98 SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 
 
 and of another kind. It is different from assent to 
 truth, from understanding of truth, from zeal for 
 truth. It is the personal embracing of truth, — the 
 pressing it to our bosom, the taking it into our 
 heart, the inhaling it as the breath of a new and 
 higher life which by it begins to play within the 
 soul. It is a waking up of mind which can never 
 be described in words, but can only be illustrated 
 by reference to analogous experiences. Who knows 
 not the difference between seeing objects and pay- 
 ing attention to them ? — Nay, between attending to 
 objects and being personally interested in them ? — 
 Nay, between being interested in them as means, 
 and absorbed in them as ends? It has even become 
 proverbial to speak of seeing, and yet not seeing ; 
 hearing, and yet not hearing ; because there may 
 be perception without remarking and taking notice 
 of; — that is, without a consciousness of the percep- 
 tive act accompanying the perception, and associat- 
 ing it with other thoughts, and thereby giving to 
 it relation and place in our memory. Such a no- 
 ticing of religious truths is the first act of a real 
 attention. And the second is, a personal interest 
 in them ; that is, not merely a noticing, and there- 
 by forming an acquaintance with them, — but a no- 
 ticing them with reference to, and in connexion with, 
 ourselves — our state of mind, our previously existing 
 wants and wishes, to which they are applicable, and 
 
SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 99 
 
 to which therefore we apply them. You go into a 
 repository of various goods ; you cast a vacant 
 glance around upon the articles that it contains; 
 but your attention is arrested by something which 
 " strikes you," as the phrase is, — that is, which falls 
 in with some existing train of thought, or feeling, 
 or desire, in your mind, — which, therefore, you say, 
 suits you, will do for you, "answers" to the secret 
 inquiry within you. And so it is with Religion. 
 We attend to truths as we find them suitable to some 
 existing want of our soul, we welcome them because 
 they answer to the cravings of the inner man. O 
 that we knew more of those wants ! O that we 
 felt more strongly those cravings ! So would every 
 thought and word of Scripture be all a-glow with 
 interest to us — " more to be desired than gold, yea, 
 than much fine gold ; sweeter also than honey and 
 the honey-comb." " It has happened to myself," 
 says a Clergyman, " that a parishioner, who sud- 
 denly became ill without hope of recovery, con- 
 fessed — e I know no more of these things than 
 a child/ — I answered, 'Why, you have regularly 
 come to church, and I have spoken plainly enough 
 to you, and you seemed to listen.' — ' Yes, Sir; and 
 if you were to speak the same words now I should 
 understand them ; but it is one thing to listen, and 
 another to heed : I wish to understand you now' " 
 — God grant to us this wish ! 
 
100 SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 
 
 But this is not all which is included in our 
 attending to the things of God. For our attention 
 is then first complete when it is concentrated in 
 and absorbed by the objects themselves to which it 
 may be turned ; when we do not merely catch at 
 them, in our progress towards some farther end, as 
 means that may conduce to its attainment; but 
 when we pause upon them for their own sake, as an 
 end gained, a truth discovered, a treasure found, 
 which fixes every thought, and satisfies every de- 
 sire. Whence it results, that where there is the 
 most intense Attention, there is often the least 
 Recollection; because Recollection depends upon 
 our linking-on the new conceptions which present 
 themselves, to others by which they are surround- 
 ed, or by which they are preceded or followed ; 
 while Attention, in its fulness, sees only one ob- 
 ject — is occupied exclusively with one single mass 
 of thought, into which the spirit passes and be- 
 comes absorbed. This is that rapt Attention which 
 the Psalmist speaks of when he says, " I opened 
 my mouth and drew in my breath, for my delight 
 was in thy commandments." 
 
 And this, then, is the Attention which Religion 
 deserves and demands. Not mere assent to cer- 
 tain truths, but the moving of the spirit towards 
 those truths as bearing on our everlasting welfare. 
 Not an outward perception only, but an inward 
 
SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 101 
 
 Awakening ; not an approval only, but a love ; not 
 a contemplative judgment merely, but a stirring, 
 energizing work within the soul, which rouses the 
 conceptions into new activity, throws them into new 
 associations, fuses them into new masses. Indiffer- 
 ence passing onward into Earnestness. Cold pre- 
 sumption melting down into fervent anxiety. Un- 
 founded expectation becoming dashed with reason- 
 able fears. The general ideas of God, and Christ, 
 and sinfulness, and danger, and pardon, and obedi- 
 ence, and heaven, and hell, brought into particular 
 relation to our Self — our own individual being — 
 and assuming thus a magnitude, a reality, and a 
 solemnity, they never had before. God, in a word, 
 confronted with our soul ; and therefore, our rela- 
 tion to Him, dependance upon Him, obligations, 
 negligences, and rebellions, towards Him — our 
 whole dissimilarity from His tremendous Majesty 
 and Holiness — flashing on us in a light, bright as 
 the Sun at noon-day, and revealing to us at the 
 same time the imperative necessity of some personal 
 transaction between us and him, in order to our 
 safety and our peace. And herewith, therefore, 
 the springing up of thoughts we never knew be- 
 fore ; the opening of a prospect into which we 
 never hitherto had looked; the sinking of the pre- 
 sent and the visible before the mighty forms of 
 spiritual objects looming in the awful distance ; the 
 
102 SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 
 
 throwing forth the spirit out of one world into 
 another ; the passing onward into a new hemisphere 
 lighted by new stars, and bright with fruits and 
 flowers before unknown. 
 
 And how then shall such attention be awakened ? 
 Whence shall we derive this new impulse towards 
 religious truth? — The Scripture answer is — This is 
 the work of God. For the human heart is a great 
 mystery : it is undergoing constantly innumerable 
 changes which we cannot fathom, still less can, of 
 ourselves alone, produce or control. We feel, in 
 meditating on it, as we should in looking out upon 
 the vast expanse and never-ceasing flow of ocean ; 
 whose winds, and tides, and currents, we know to 
 be not entirely fortuitous, but subjected to law and 
 rule ; but yet to which our influence extends not, 
 and of which we can avail ourselves only by a 
 watchful dexterity. Much may be done by seizing 
 on and improving occasions, but nothing to produce 
 them. And, just similarly, — who has absolute power 
 over the human mind ? Who can discover the se- 
 cret causes of its ever-changing tides of feeling? 
 Who can trace the various currents of its thoughts ? 
 Who can " gather in his fists" the winds that sweep 
 across its bosom? Who can say to its troubled 
 billows, " Thus far shalt thou go, but no further ; 
 and here shall thy proud waves be stayed "? Alas ! 
 it is deceitful above all things, — who can know it 
 
SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 103 
 
 but the all-wise God ? It is fluctuating and un- 
 manageable, — who can rule it but the All-powerful 
 God ? " The way of man is not in himself ; it is 
 not in man that walketh to direct his steps." " The 
 preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of 
 the tongue, are from the Lord." 
 
 And, therefore, all Awakening of the attention 
 to Religion, — all " opening of the heart," to use the 
 language of the Bible, — all " effectual Calling," to 
 employ the phrase of technical Theology, — is in 
 Scripture constantly ascribed to God. It was " the 
 Lord" who " opened the heart of Lydia that she 
 attended to the things that were spoken by Paul :" 
 (Acts xvi. 14.) It was because " the hand of the 
 Lord was with the men of Cyprus and Cyrene," 
 that " a great number believed and turned unto the 
 Lord:" (Acts xi. 21.) "No man cometh unto 
 me," says Jesus, " except the Father which hath 
 sent me draw him ; for it is written in the prophets, 
 They shall be all taught of God; every man there- 
 fore that hath heard and learned of the Father 
 cometh unto me :" (John vi. 44, 45.) " Who then 
 is Paul," asks the Apostle, " and who is Apollos, 
 but ministers," — agents and instruments — "by 
 whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every 
 man ? I have planted ; Apollos watered, but God 
 gave the increase:" (1 Cor. iii. 5, 6.) " God," he 
 says again, " hath called you unto the fellowship of 
 
104 SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 
 
 his son Jesus Christ our Lord :" (1 Cor. i. 9.) " For 
 ye see your calling, Brethren, how that not many 
 wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not 
 many noble, have called you, but God hath chosen 
 the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, 
 and God hath chosen the weak things of the world 
 to confound the things which are mighty — that no 
 flesh should glory in his presence ; for of Him are 
 ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us 
 wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and 
 redemption, that, according as it is written, He 
 that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord" (1 Cor. 
 i. 26—31.) 
 
 And this divine origination of all Attention to 
 Religion, is strongly intimated in the very phrase 
 which is so frequently used for it in Scripture, 
 and which occurs in the latter passages quoted just 
 above, where this influence on the hitherto indiffer- 
 ent heart is termed a " Calling ;" and God is said 
 to " call" men to himself. For " to call " a per- 
 son, in Scripture language, is not only (in the first 
 place) To address ourselves to him ; to call forth 
 his notice of us ; as when God complains by Jere- 
 miah, " I spoke unto you, rising up early and 
 speaking, but ye heard not ; and I called you, but 
 ye answered not." Nor is it only (in the second 
 place) To call into our presence and society — to 
 summon and invite to us ; as the king " called his 
 
SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 105 
 
 servants to him and delivered unto them his 
 goods ;" and the guests were " called" to the mar- 
 riage supper. But it expresses (in the third place) 
 To call out, call forth, select, bring near to us by 
 authoritative influence ; as when God says of Israel, 
 " I have taken thee from the ends of the earth, 
 and called thee from the chief men thereof, and 
 said unto thee, Thou art my servant, I have chosen 
 thee." 
 
 In all which senses God calls every reader of 
 these pages to give himself to Him. Do you look 
 upon the solid earth on which you tread, and feel it 
 to be the representative and work of Unseen Might ? 
 Do you trace from link to link the ever-lengthening 
 series of causes and effects which nature presents 
 to you, and irresistibly conclude that still there 
 must be One Cause more beyond them all? Do 
 you consider the heavens the work of God's fingers, 
 the moon and the stars which He has ordained, till 
 their very silence becomes vocal to you, and you 
 hear them " singing as they shine, The hand that 
 made us is divine?" — In all these works of God 
 there is a call for your attention, to his being, to 
 his wisdom, to his eternal power and Godhead. 
 
 And are you enjoying manifold privileges of in- 
 struction, worship, and church fellowship, — the 
 knowledge of God's word, the invitations of his 
 Gospel, the open access to his throne of grace ? 
 
106 SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 
 
 These are calls of God and introductions to his 
 gracious presence — these bring you into his So- 
 ciety and within the influences of his Spirit. And 
 it is by the use of these privileges, and by the in- 
 haling, through them, of that quickening Spirit, 
 that you will rise into the Experience of that in- 
 ward Call which may arrest your very soul, and draw 
 forth all its best affections towards your heavenly 
 Father. O if we should neglect these gentle assi- 
 duities of our God ! O, if after all that he has 
 spoken to us, by his Works, his Providences, his 
 Word, his Church, his own beloved Son, we should 
 still be " dull of hearing !" — we should doze and 
 dream on in the torpor of Indifference, till " the 
 great cry" shall be made, " The Bridegroom 
 cometh;" and we start up from sleep — too late! 
 Awake now, thou sleeper, and call upon thy God I 
 He calls to you. Call you to Him ! His voice 
 now sounds to you the tender note of Invitation. 
 O may yours respond in that of reverent attention 
 — " Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth !" Let 
 no man obstinately say, " It is God 's work, — this 
 awakening, — and therefore I must leave it to him." 
 — Say rather, " It is God's work, and therefore I 
 will seek it from him !" All our encouragement 
 and hope lies in this assurance, that " He giveth 
 to all men liberally and upbraideth not." God's 
 work it is most truly, but not the less is it man's 
 
SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 107 
 
 work too. For this, — as all his operations, in na- 
 ture, providence, and grace, — this is effected by 
 Him not without, but with, the subject on which he 
 works — not without, but with, the various human 
 means that influence the mind, — those means accu- 
 mulated by Himself, adapted by Himself to the in- 
 tended end, and constituted by Himself to be suf- 
 ficient for that end. And those means are now 
 before you, and around you, and within you. It is 
 God who has brought these thoughts before your 
 mind this day — it is God who is, by them, moving 
 various feelings in your hearts — it is God whose 
 Spirit is this moment wrestling with your reluct- 
 ance, and urging you to awake and arise, and pray ; 
 and whispering to you so earnestly, though gently, 
 "Turn you to your God!" — O God, may every 
 Reader of these pages turn to thee ! Do Thou 
 open his heart to attend to the things that have 
 been spoken in them ! Do Thou so shine out upon 
 his mind, that he may cry with newly-awaken- 
 ed earnestness — "Lord, what wilt thou have me 
 to do!" 
 
108 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 
 
 The first step in Religion is the Awakening of 
 the Attention to the things of God. But this 
 attention, by whatever circumstances roused, can- 
 not be sustained but in proportion as we go on 
 to the Understanding of those things. Feeling is a 
 legitimate and essential means of determining the 
 thoughts towards God ; but genuine Feeling can 
 maintain its life and energy only as it is nourished 
 by increasing thoughts. The Illumination of the 
 Mind must both deepen and direct the Awakening 
 of the Heart. 
 
 Illumination, therefore, is the next step in the 
 Process of Developement of the Spiritual Life 
 which claims our attention. And this is so essen- 
 tial a preparative and part of Piety, that St. Paul in 
 his Epistle to the Hebrews uses the term to ex- 
 press the whole work of Conversion — " after ye 
 were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflic- 
 tions ;" and the Scriptures generally, express both 
 the substance of Christianity, and the experience 
 of it, by the term " light." " Show forth," says 
 St. Peter, " the praises of him who hath called you 
 out of darkness into his marvellous light." "Ye 
 
SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 109 
 
 were sometimes," says St. Paul, " darkness, but 
 now are ye light, in the Lord ; walk as children of 
 light." All which passages (and there are many 
 others) clearly showing that true Religion depends 
 on new and constantly enlarging views of God and 
 of his truth, and supplies a remedy for the Igno- 
 rance, as well as for the Indifference, of our fallen 
 nature. 
 
 To be convinced of which let us consider, first, 
 that There may be much ignorance of God even in 
 the midst of outward advantages. 
 
 Of this we have an instance in the case of the 
 Apostle Paul before his conversion. He had en- 
 joyed all the advantages which a Jew could possess 
 towards knowing God, and with his characteristic 
 energy he had improved those advantages to the 
 utmost. " Circumcised the eighth day, of the 
 stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew 
 of the Hebrews ; as touching the law a Pharisee ;" 
 — one of those, therefore, who " knew God's will, 
 and approved the things that are more excellent, 
 being instructed out of the law, having the form of 
 knowledge and of the truth in the law;" — nay, 
 "profiting in the Jew's religion above many his 
 equals in his own nation, being more exceedingly 
 zealous of the traditions of his fathers." And yet, 
 to this man we find Ananias sent by God, saying, 
 " The God of our Fathers hath chosen thee that 
 thou shouldest know his will and see that Just One 
 
110 SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 
 
 and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth." And 
 we find St. Paul himself, though he declared before 
 the Jews, "I am verily a man which am a Jew, 
 brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel and 
 taught according to the perfect manner of the law of 
 the Fathers, and was zealous towards God as ye all 
 are this day ;" yet, intimating in another place, to 
 Timothy, that the only possible excuse for his re- 
 sistance to the will of God as manifested by his 
 Son was that he " did it ignorantly in unbelief." 
 
 We see then in this instance how great may be 
 the darkness of the soul concerning God, even whilst 
 the understanding has been carefully instructed in 
 religion. We may know about God without know- 
 ing God. We may hear of him by the hearing of the 
 ear, and yet our eye may not see him. There is a 
 traditional knowledge of God as " the God of our 
 Fathers," which is not much more efficacious than 
 that which even the Heathen enjoyed who, " when 
 they knew God, glorified him not as God, neither were 
 thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and 
 their foolish heart was darkened." It is like the 
 knowledge that we may possess of our forefathers, 
 — their names and relation to us, and some dim 
 tradition of their doings ; — as compared with that 
 which we enjoy of our immediate parents, whose 
 sentiments and character are every day displayed 
 to us. The Jews of old, with all their manifold 
 advantages, were thus ignorant of God. " Ye say, 
 
SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. Ill 
 
 indeed," says Jesus to them, "that He is your God ; 
 yet ye have not known him : — he that sent me is 
 true, whom ye know not? Too many, even of the 
 early Christians also, blessed as they were with 
 the fuller light which streamed from Christ, were 
 thus ignorant of God. " They profess that they 
 know God," says St. Paul, "but in works they 
 deny him." And St. John solemnly warns all such 
 self-deceivers, "He that saith I know God and 
 keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the 
 truth is not in him." O it is an awful thing to 
 have the intellect enlightened while the heart re- 
 mains dark and cold ! To be familiar with the 
 sound of truth, but never to have unclosed our 
 eyes to look upon the truth itself! To be "grop- 
 ing at noon-day as the blind gropeth in darkness I" 
 " This," says our Lord, " is the condemnation, 
 " that light is come into the world, and men loved 
 darkness rather than light because their deeds were 
 evil!" 
 
 But more than this. There may be even some 
 practical, as well as theoretical, knowledge of God, 
 and yet this may extend only to some parts of his 
 character, and still leave much darkness on the 
 mind concerning its most essential features. St. 
 Paul, before his conversion, was not like those 
 worldly and ungodly Jews who shut out the truth 
 by their unrighteousness. He could declare before 
 them all, " I have lived in all good conscience be- 
 
112 SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 
 
 fore God unto this day," and assures Timothy that 
 he " served God from his forefathers with a pure 
 conscience." And yet this very Paul, as regarded 
 the most essential attribute of God, and the most 
 important conceptions of His will, was dark and 
 blind; — so much so, that the knowledge which 
 broke in upon him at his conversion he speaks of as 
 a new revelation. (Gal. i. 16.) Never, then, let 
 men be satisfied with dim conceptions of the cha- 
 racter and will of God ; with half-truths only in Re- 
 ligion. Happy, truly, is the man who is practically 
 affected by any thoughts of God, however obscure ; 
 far happier than he who with his understanding 
 open has his heart still closed. An ignorant and 
 even a superstitious Piety is better than no Piety at 
 all. A mistaken endeavour to please God is far su- 
 perior to cold indifference to Him. A zeal, even 
 without knowledge, is better, — so far as regards the 
 man's own mind and state, — than no zeal at all. 
 And we would rather see a man like Saul, even "ex- 
 ceedingly mad against the saints," provided that 
 like him "he verily thinks he ought to do many 
 things contrary to them ;" than a man like Gallio, 
 " caring for none of these things;" or like Festus, set- 
 ting down all topics of Religion — even the most mo- 
 mentous—as " questions about their own supersti- 
 tion and of one Jesus who was dead, and is affirm- 
 ed to be alive !" But then, we must say this com- 
 paratively only, and with anxious fear and trem- 
 
SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 113 
 
 bling for all who suffer themselves, while the true 
 light shineth round them, to close their eyes and 
 heart to better thoughts of God. Paul does not 
 the less blame himself for his former conduct, be- 
 cause of the ignorance which produced it. He 
 does not the less exclaim, with all the self-abhor- 
 rence of true penitence, and with its deep sense of 
 personal guilt, — " I was a blasphemer, and a per- 
 secutor, and injurious, yea, the chief of sinners !' 
 And, alas ! therefore, for any man who contents 
 himself with fragmentary notions of God, as the 
 God of Nature, and of Providence, and of Justice, 
 and of Law ; as the benevolent Benefactor and the 
 righteous Governor, and the protecting Patron, of 
 his fathers, and his fathers' church — and sees him 
 not as the God of Grace ; understands not his spe- 
 cific truth and will as revealed in the Gospel of his 
 Son, and therefore " being ignorant of God's righte- 
 ousness, and going about to establish his own righte- 
 ousness, does not submit himself to the righteous- 
 ness of God." O how much of reverence may there 
 be for God, and trembling worship of his name; 
 while yet it may be said of us, as Jesus did of the 
 Samaritans, " Ye worship ye know not what ;" and 
 as Paul of the Athenians — " As I passed by and 
 beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this in- 
 scription, To the unknown God : — whom, therefore, 
 ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you." 
 Such, then, being the natural Ignorance, both 
 
 i 
 
114 SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 
 
 theoretical and practical, of God, which may exist 
 notwithstanding manifold advantages ; let us consi- 
 der, in the second place, that The Removal of this 
 Ignorance is essential to true Christian Piety. Not, 
 indeed, that the existence of Piety depends on the 
 degree of distinctness with which we may perceive 
 the character of God. Very obscure conceptions 
 may give birth to genuine devotion. But the purity 
 and the moral influence of Piety do depend upon the 
 general light which may be thrown around that 
 character, and the aspect which it presents to us. 
 To love and serve God as we ought, we must 
 know Him as he is. " This," says our Lord, " is 
 life eternal, to know thee the only true God, and 
 Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." All hope of 
 eternal life, and all fitness for its enjoyment, de- 
 pend on our becoming acquainted with the Father 
 as he is revealed to us by Christ ; for only such a 
 revelation — the revelation of grace and truth — can 
 win the affections and elevate the character. 
 
 For genuine Piety is not merely Reverence of 
 certain unseen powers by which the world is actu- 
 ated — nor assent to certain historical facts which 
 are reported to us — nor following certain rules of 
 conduct which are imposed upon us by authority, 
 or custom, or which commend themselves to us as 
 advantageous, or rational, or becoming — but it is 
 the Exercise of the affections towards a personal 
 Being, and the elevation of the character by the 
 
SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION, 115 
 
 influence of those affections, into similarity with 
 His. It is not mere belief of God, but belief in 
 God ; that is, not merely belief of his Existence, 
 but reliance on his Character.* " With the heart 
 man believeth unto righteousness." And the 
 heart can repose its confidence in another only 
 as it knows that other ; it can love only as it be- 
 comes acquainted with what is loveable. A child 
 who has been sent for education to a distant coun- 
 try, may have some natural reverence for the Fa- 
 ther whom he knows to be at home, and some de- 
 sire that the reports which he may hear about him- 
 self should be satisfactory to him ; but he can love 
 that Father, (that is, personal affections can spring 
 up towards him,) only as he learns to know that 
 Father ; only as his letters and communications un- 
 fold to him something of his character, and of his 
 
 * When we keep this distinction in mind, how vain are all the 
 difficulties and objections that the man of mere Understanding 
 urges about the impossibility of assenting to propositions which 
 we do not fully comprehend ! It is not in assent to propositions, 
 whether many or few, simple or abstruse, that saving Faith con- 
 sists ; it is in yielding up our confidence to Him who makes those 
 propositions ; that confidence being grounded upon facts, (not 
 speculations,) which exhibit to us his character. Surely I might 
 have — and ought to have — the fullest confidence in the dicta and 
 directions of Newton upon any point of practical Astronomy, 
 though I might not understand, and therefore could not intelli- 
 gently assent to, any one book of his Principia. We may know 
 God, so as to confide in him and love him, without being able to 
 understand God. 
 
116 SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 
 
 feeling towards himself ; or when at last, returning 
 to the paternal home, he is pressed to the paternal 
 bosom, and feels, for the first time in its fulness, 
 what it is to have a Father, and to be a Son. And 
 the reason why, with all that fear of the unseen, 
 and that reverence for the mysterious, which must 
 be allowed to be almost universal in mankind 
 throughout all stages of their civilization, there is 
 still so little practical influence of these feelings on 
 the heart and life, is just because men know not 
 Him before whom they tremble ; they behold him 
 not, shining forth full-orbed in all the splendour of 
 his perfect character, as the Father of their spirits, 
 the God whose very being is Love. 
 
 For who can love God while ignorant or mis- 
 trustful of God's love to him? Who can possess 
 that spirit of filial confidence, and joy, and hope, 
 and buoyant energy, which is the proper spirit of 
 Christian Piety, while his conscience is unpacified 
 and his sense of alienation unremoved ? We must 
 in such a temper either boldly throw off our allegi- 
 ance to Him, or we must serve him by constraint 
 and with a heavy heart* Is this last the case 
 with any one who is now reading these lines ? Are 
 you well disposed towards Religion, and yet find it 
 wake no note of joy within your bosom ? Are you 
 a conscientious person, and yet sensible of a feeling 
 in you which, if you would let it speak, would 
 
SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 117 
 
 say, " I would indulge myself away from God if I 
 durst ?" Are your very best feelings towards him 
 more those of a Servant to his Master, than of a 
 Friend towards his Benefactor, or of a Son towards 
 his Father ? Then, do you not need Illumination ? 
 Is there not something in the idea of God to which 
 you have not hitherto given heed ? Is not the very 
 key to his whole character still undiscovered by 
 you ? Can you say that you know God truly if 
 you know him not as your God, — your Friend and 
 Father, — to whom you can exclaim with David, 
 " Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there is 
 none upon earth whom I desire beside Thee ?" Do 
 you not need, in short, that the God of your fathers 
 should be unveiled to you as he was to the Apostle 
 Paul, that you might " know his will?" (Acts xxii. 
 14.) That you might know his will : this is what 
 we need in order to a genuine Christian piety : not 
 his works only ; not his greatness and his power, 
 and his sovereign authority alone ; not his general 
 character of wisdom and benevolence merely ; but 
 " his Will," in that particular sense in which the 
 term is used by Ananias to St. Paul, and by the 
 Apostle himself in his Epistles, — His gracious Will, 
 his purposes of condescending and forgiving love, 
 his Will to save sinners, and justify the ungodly, 
 and bless the undeserving, and receive back to his 
 arms the most desponding penitent who feels he is 
 
1L8 SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 
 
 no longer worthy to be called his son, and cries 
 " Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before 
 Thee." That Will which St. Paul extols to the 
 Ephesians, when he tells them " God has predesti- 
 nated us unto the adoption of children to himself, 
 according to the good pleasure of his Will, to the 
 praise of the glory of his grace;" and to the Gala- 
 tians, when he says that Jesus " gave himself for 
 our sins, that he might deliver us from this present 
 evil world, according to the will of God and our Fa- 
 ther." Such was the Illumination which St. Paul 
 had need of, notwithstanding all his previous know- 
 ledge, and conscientiousness, and zeal, to render him 
 a child of God indeed ; such did he receive when 
 " it pleased God who separated him from his mo- 
 ther's womb, and called him by his grace, to reveal 
 his Son in him ;" and such do we need also, such 
 we must by similar means receive, if we would rise 
 into the faith, the love, the dignity, and the de- 
 votedness, of Christian men. O indeed we need it ! 
 Far more, all of us, than we have yet attained to ! 
 With far more comprehension of the breadth, and 
 length, and depth, and height, of that love of 
 Christ which passeth knowledge, if we would be 
 filled with all the fulness of God ! 
 
 And how, then, let us thirdly ask, is this removal 
 of our natural ignorance of God, this Illumination 
 of the mind, which is so essential to the first up- 
 springing of filial Piety in the heart, to be effected 1 ? 
 
SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 119 
 
 In proportion, I reply, as we contemplate that full 
 manifestation of God which has been vouchsafed to 
 us in his own beloved Son, Jesus Christ " The God 
 of our fathers hath chosen thee," said Ananias to 
 Saul, " that thou shouldst know his will, and see 
 that Just One, and shouldst hear the voice of his 
 mouth." He is the source of all true Illumination. 
 From his countenance stream forth those rays of 
 the Father's love, which fire the heart, and melt 
 the will, of man. " As no man knoweth the Son, 
 but the Father; so no man knoweth the Father, but 
 the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son shall reveal 
 him." (Matt. xi. 27.) " God, who commanded the 
 light to shine out of darkness, hath shined into our 
 hearts, to give the light of the Knowledge of the 
 glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." (2 Cor. 
 iv. 6.) " No man hath seen God at any time ; the 
 only-begotten Son which is in the bosom of the 
 Father, he hath declared him." (John i. 18.) 
 " The Word was made flesh, and we beheld his 
 glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Fa- 
 ther, full of grace and truth" — that is, resplendent 
 with just that peculiar glory which constitutes the 
 very being of God, — the fullest, truest, most un- 
 changeable grace or love. (John i. 14.) I mrght 
 refer you simply to the history of man, to show you 
 how, before the coming of Christ, this feature of 
 the Father's character was dim and doubtful — how, 
 among the benighted Heathen, fear made gods, and 
 
120 SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 
 
 cruelty invested them with attributes of fierceness 
 and implacability — how, even among the Jews, 
 though for the spiritual penitent there was many a 
 ray of mildest pity gleaming through the darkness 
 and the tempest of Mount Sinai, yet the general 
 aspect of the law-giving, and the law-avenging Je- 
 hovah, was austere and stern, so that St. John de- 
 clares, " The law was given by Moses, but grace and 
 truth came by Jesus Christ." But I would go far- 
 ther than historical deduction, and assert broadly 
 and beforehand, that it is not in Nature, in Events, 
 or in Reason, to unveil to us, with a certainty suffi- 
 cient for our Peace and Hope, the love of God to- 
 wards man ; and that in the personal communica- 
 tions only which the Father has vouchsafed us by 
 his Son can we truly know him as he is. What is 
 called Natural Religion, is indeed the ground-work 
 of Christianity, but it can never be the substitute 
 for it. It is the awaking of those feelings which 
 prepare for, anticipate, nay, demand, a Revelation 
 from Heaven ; but, so far from rendering such a 
 Revelation unnecessary, so far from having' the 
 power of self-expansion, so as of itself to grow up 
 and unfold into Christianity, the very fact of its 
 existence is just that which renders a Revelation in- 
 dispensable, as the supplement to its incipient, but 
 insufficient, workings — the chaos of emotion which 
 it stirs within the mind is just that which requires 
 the influence of the all-regulating and inform- 
 
SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 121 
 
 ing Word of truth. Because darkness covers the 
 face of the earth, and yet over that darkness 
 the Spirit of life sits brooding, therefore God has 
 said " Let there be light !" The glimpses of the 
 Divine character afforded to mankind by Nature 
 and Providence, teach them indeed those prelimi- 
 nary lessons to which the fuller manifestations of 
 Revelation are supplementary. But all the inti- 
 mations of Nature and of Providence are dark, im- 
 perfect, perplexing, without the key which Chris- 
 tianity presents. They furnish the component let- 
 ters of the Alphabet, but flung abroad without 
 arrangement; and even when we laboriously collect 
 these elements together, and piece out with them 
 some few words and sentences ; we find that we 
 have only just begun the language, and got frag- 
 ments only of the truths of God, and we instinctive- 
 ly cry out for more — more definite, more extensive, 
 more systematic, revelations of his will. All we 
 reach is mere conjecture ; and only by the inter- 
 pretation of the Author of these fragments, only 
 by the plainer history of the books of God, can we 
 make full sense of — even if we can at all decypher 
 — the puzzling hieroglyphics on the vast and awful 
 Pyramid of Nature, and the vague mysterious 
 legends of Tradition. 
 
 Nay, yet more than this. Not only do the de- 
 ductions of the understanding from the things and 
 events around us, not tell us clearly of the graci- 
 
122 SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 
 
 ous, Fatherly, character of God ; but they tell us 
 of the reverse. We learn from them, not so much 
 the truth of pardoning mercy, as of avenging jus- 
 tice.' The world is full of punishment — prolonged, 
 and often inexorable punishment. Almost every 
 transgression and disobedience, manifestly receives 
 its just recompense of reward. Not only wilful, but 
 even involuntary and heedless infractions of the laws 
 of Nature and Society, are by the natural course of 
 things continually bringing with them trouble, pain, 
 disease, and death. The voice of God concerning 
 transgression, if spoken forth at all in Nature, is a 
 voice of severity and condemnation. As the thun- 
 ders and lightnings of Mount Sinai were but one 
 particular instance of those general tempests which 
 so often rage in the natural world, so the denuncia- 
 tions of Mount Sinai were but a particular expres- 
 sion of the general truth which Nature is continu- 
 ally uttering — "God is a consuming fire." Even 
 the seeming exceptions prove this. Even the tem- 
 porary delays of punishment confirm this. Even 
 the letting sinners have their own way for a season, 
 only brings upon them more effectually and exten- 
 sively the misery which is annexed to Sin. Punish- 
 ment may let the Sinner get for a time the start, 
 but with unwearied pertinacity does it track his 
 steps, and inevitably springs upon him at last. 
 " The Lord is known by the judgment that he exe- 
 
SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 123 
 
 cuteth ; the wicked is snared in the work of his 
 own hands." 
 
 And O then, blessed be God, that "having in 
 times past spoken to the Fathers by the Prophets, 
 he hath at last spoken unto us by his Son !" Bless- 
 ed be God that " the Son of God is come and hath 
 given us an understanding that we may know him 
 that is true, yea, may be in him that is true"— 
 enter into union and communion with the unseen 
 Father — " through his Son Jesus Christ !" No 
 longer need we now cry " Show us the Father," for 
 " he that hath seen Jesus hath seen the Father." No 
 longer need we fear and doubt about the Father's 
 infinite compassion to every returning penitent, 
 for this compassion Christ has manifested, by ac- 
 cumulated proofs, in every possible way ; — by his 
 teaching, by his character, by his words and deeds 
 of never-wearied pity, and above all, by his sacrifi- 
 cial and vicarious death. " In this was manifested 
 the love of God towards us, because that God sent 
 his only-begotten Son into the world that we might 
 live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved 
 God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be 
 the propitiation for our Sins." " For, scarcely for 
 a righteous man will one die; yet, perad venture, 
 for a good man some would even dare to die ; but 
 God commendeth his love to us, in that while we 
 were yet sinners Christ died for us /" 
 
124 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 
 
 The object of revelation is to meet the fallen 
 condition of mankind in all its extent, and to bring 
 back the soul in all its exercises, to God. It ap- 
 plies itself, therefore, to the Heart, to remove its 
 natural Indifference to God; and to the Under- 
 standing, to dispel its natural Ignorance concerning 
 God : but it stops not here, for this alone would 
 leave untouched the main-spring of our nature, 
 the deep and influential Will. This, alas ! is na- 
 turally averse to God, It grows up in us as a will 
 " of the flesh," and therefore cannot but be con- 
 trary to Him who is Spirit, for " the flesh lusteth 
 always against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the 
 flesh." And consequently all Attention to God's 
 truth, and Acquaintance with his character, will 
 but deepen our Aversion to Him, because it height- 
 ens our perception of the natural contrariety which 
 exists between us, unless there come the influences 
 of his Spirit to subdue that natural opposition, and, 
 by the seed of the Divine Word, to beget in us a 
 love of God as our Father, and a will entirely de- 
 
SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 125 
 
 voted to Him as our Friend. " That which is bom 
 of the flesh," says Jesus, " is flesh ;" and that only 
 " which is born of the Spirit is spirit ; and, there- 
 fore, marvel not that I say unto you, Ye must be 
 born again." 
 
 New birth, then, or Regeneration, or, as it is 
 elsewhere called, Repentance, or change of mind 
 towards God — and Conversion, or returning back 
 into allegiance to Him — that inward revolution 
 in the moving powers of man which makes him 
 thenceforth love what had been irksome to him, 
 and give himself to what he had avoided — this is 
 the topic which now demands our serious medita- 
 tion. May God enable us to derive from it per- 
 sonal improvement ! 
 
 It will be my endeavour to show — First, the 
 Nature of that Regeneration which I have just 
 mentioned ; Secondly — the Necessity of our per- 
 sonal experience of it in order to Christian Piety ; 
 and Thirdly — the Means by which it is developed 
 in the soul. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 THE NATURE OF SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 
 
 Regeneration, in the sense which we are now 
 considering, is The awakening in the soul of new 
 sentiments and dispositions, and therewith new pur- 
 poses, towards God. Of this meaning of the term 
 
126 THE NATURE OF 
 
 we have sufficient evidence in the First Epistle of 
 St. Peter, chapter i. 14 — 25. For in this passage 
 we find the Apostle, first, reminding the Converts 
 of the Dispersion of their " former lusts according 
 to which they fashioned themselves when ignorant 
 of God," — that is, of the tendencies and dispositions 
 of the inward will, by which their outward charac- 
 ter had been formed. Then, he admonishes them 
 that they had been called to an entirely different 
 state of mind and character — even to be holy as 
 God himself is holy. Then, he tells them that in 
 obeying this call they had " purified their souls 
 through the Spirit," — they had cleansed their in- 
 ward man, " their souls" by spiritual influence, not 
 merely their outward man, their bodies, by ceremo- 
 nial washing.* By which the Apostle means, as 
 the twenty-first verse clearly shows, that they had 
 cleared their minds of those turbid passions of 
 dislike and fear of God, which were necessarily 
 connected with the dominion of their former lusts, 
 (for whoever is living contrary to God cannot 
 like God,) and had admitted new and purer feel- 
 
 * The same implied antithesis we have in Acts xv. 9, where 
 St. Peter contends, in opposition to those who demanded that the 
 Gentile converts should go through the ceremonial purifications 
 and the bodily circumcision of the law, that God had already 
 " purified their hearts by faith." See also 1 Peter iii. 21, where 
 the antithesis is expressed. 
 
SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 127 
 
 ings towards him — had called upon him as their 
 Father (verse 17); had " through Christ believed 
 in God," as reconciled to them and loving them, 
 and therefore had now put their "faith and hope in 
 God" And then, St. Peter goes on to exhort them 
 (verse 23), that "being thus born again;" or rather, 
 "having been thus born again ;"* (which, you per- 
 ceive, is only the repetition, in another form, of 
 the idea expressed before by the words "having 
 purified your souls through the Spirit ;" and which 
 is expressed again in chapter ii. 3. by " having 
 tasted that the Lord is gracious ;") they should 
 thenceforth develope the new seed of love and con- 
 fidence implanted in them ; they should nourish 
 those new sentiments towards God which had been 
 infused into them by his truth, and " as newborn 
 babes desire the pure milk of the word that they 
 might grow thereby/' 
 
 To which passage of St. Peter we find another 
 remarkably similar, in the Epistle of St. Paul to the 
 Ephesians ; extending from chapter iv. 17. to v. 2. 
 Where observe how, with the greatest diversity of 
 words, nay, and of forms of thought, the thoughts 
 themselves, the grand Ideas of the Sacred writers, 
 are identical : — for this is Inspiration ; this is their 
 being influenced by the common Spirit of the truth, 
 in one and all the same. St. Paul, you will perceive, 
 
 * ' Avaysyivvriftivoi. 
 
128 THE NATURE OF 
 
 is describing the same revolution in the will which 
 by St. Peter is called " New birth," but which he 
 denominates " Renewal in the spirit of the mind." 
 " This I say, therefore, that ye henceforth walk not 
 as other Gentiles 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 heart ;" 
 (here we have those three manifestations of empty 
 indhTerence, ignorance, and aversion, the removal 
 of which we have been considering in order, and 
 the sum of which is expressed by St. Peter when he 
 says, " Ye fashioned yourselves according to your 
 former lusts in your ignorance ;") but " that ye 
 put off, concerning the former conversation, the 
 old man, which is corrupt according to the deceit- 
 ful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind" 
 — become new and different in the inward spirit or 
 Will, which is the source of all the manifestations 
 which emerge into the consciousness or Mind; 
 (where we have the same idea which St. Peter has 
 expressed by " purifying your souls through the 
 Spirit," and " being born again" to a disposition 
 congenial with that of God, a will of the Spirit and 
 no longer a will of the flesh ;) " and that ye put on 
 the new man which after God is created in righte- 
 ousness and true holiness," — which is equivalent to 
 St. Peter's exhortation, " See that ye love one an- 
 
SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 129 
 
 other with a pure heart fervently ;" and " lay aside 
 all malice and all guile, and hypocrisies and envies, 
 and all evil speakings ;" (compare Eph. iv. 25 — v. 2 ;) 
 and "grow by the word of God." 
 
 And this same revolution in the Will is expressed 
 in other parts of Scripture by many different terms, 
 none of them, perhaps, entirely equivalent in force, 
 but each exhibiting different phases of the same 
 Spiritual fact, even as with every movement that 
 we make we see an object from a different point of 
 view, and define its form and position by reference 
 to some new neighbouring object which presents 
 itself as we pass on. Whence we gain the general 
 rule of sound interpretation, — never to press any 
 one figurative term to its utmost meaning, or exclu- 
 sively, but to seek for the general Idea, of which 
 each separate figure represents only some one par- 
 ticular aspect. Of these various terms, the prin- 
 cipal are Conversion — Repentance — New life and 
 New creation — and Regeneration or New birth. 
 And they exhibit to us, — if we consider the seve- 
 ral images to which their Etymology refers us, — 
 though no essential difference, yet some gradation, 
 of Idea ; some new feature of the one great spi- 
 ritual Fact which all express. For, " Conversion" 
 is a turning back to God ; an altering the direction 
 of our course ; a walking towards our heavenly 
 Father instead of from Him ; and therefore ex- 
 it 
 
130 THE NATURE OF 
 
 presses the manifest alteration of the conduct, such 
 as when men " turned from Idols to serve the 
 living and true God ;" (1 Thess. i. 9 ;) or from 
 Jewish superstition to confessing Christ ; (2 Cor. 
 iii. 16.) or generally, from the open ways of Sin to 
 those of holiness. (Acts xxvi. 18 — 20.) Whereas 
 " Repentance" expresses something more inward 
 than this. It is the internal cause of the external 
 effect. It is that change of mind — of taste and 
 feeling, sentiments and disposition, — out of which 
 results, and from which only can result, a permanent 
 and universal alteration of the outward practice. 
 Just as our bodily turning from the path in which 
 we may be walking is the result of a new turn or 
 determination in our mind, — of having " changed 
 our mind," (as the phrase is,) concerning the di- 
 rection we will take ; and the new path that we 
 enter on will be pursued only in proportion as that 
 new determination had a settled ground for it at 
 the first, and remains unshaken in the mind. 
 Whence John the Baptist warns the Pharisees 
 so solemnly to examine the grounds of the pur- 
 pose which had brought them to his baptism, and 
 to ascertain whether their professing to be con- 
 verts was the fruit, not of a temporary respect 
 towards him, nor of a vain expectation of a po- 
 litical Messiah, (both which motives would so soon 
 be disappointed and turn them away again from 
 
SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 131 
 
 him,) but of Repentance, or a change of mind to- 
 wards God. 
 
 But this inward alteration of the mind, which is 
 the cause of outward conversion, must itself also 
 have a still deeper cause. And this still deeper 
 cause of our Repentance, this source below the 
 consciousness, of the new desires and purposes 
 which flow up into the consciousness, is what 
 the Scriptures more specifically term " New life," 
 " New creation," and " New birth," or " Re- 
 generation." New life, declaring that it is a 
 change, not merely of opinion, or of tempo- 
 rary whim and humour, but of the active, living 
 powers, the Will of man — the spirit of the mind, 
 the Soul. And New creation, and New birth, or 
 Regeneration, denoting that this newly awakened 
 life comes from another than ourselves, is quickened 
 in us from above, is the child of the Holy Ghost, 
 " the Lord and Giver of life." " Ye have puri- 
 fied your souls," says Peter, "through the Spirit." 
 "That only," says our Lord, "which is born of the 
 Spirit, is spirit." " Which were born," says John, 
 " not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of 
 the will of man, but of God." See how this last 
 idea removes all claim to the efficient cause of Con- 
 version and Repentance from things around us — 
 the reasoning and persuasion of our fellow men, 
 the influences of our education, nay, the very 
 
132 SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 
 
 word of God itself, considered irrespectively of 
 Spiritual power ; and from things within us — our 
 own predisposition, or congruity, or condignity, or 
 by whatever other name proud man would pilfer 
 for himself some share of merit before God; — to 
 the preventing grace, the free and uncaused mercy, 
 the sovereign influence, of Him who is the Father 
 of our spirits, and who only can beget them into 
 likeness to himself. " Blessed be the God and 
 Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according 
 to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a 
 lively hope." (1 Peter i. 3.) " Behold what man- 
 ner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we 
 should be called the sons of God." (1 John iii. 1.) 
 " After that the kindness and love of God our Sa- 
 viour toward man appeared, not by works of right- 
 eousness which we have done, but according to his 
 mercy, he saved us, by the washing of regeneration 
 and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on 
 us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour." 
 (Titus iii. 4 — 6.) " For we are His workmanship 
 created in Christ Jesus unto good works which 
 God hath before ordained that we should walk in 
 them." (Ephes. ii. 10.) 
 
133 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 THE NECESSITY OF SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 
 
 Since Regeneration is the awakening in the soul 
 of new sentiments and dispositions, and therewith 
 new purposes, towards God; it follows necessarily, 
 that some personal consciousness of such a change 
 must be experienced by every mind which emerges 
 from its natural indifference to God into the life of 
 Christian Piety. Consciousness, I mean, not of the 
 deeper workings, whether quick or gradual, that 
 have prepared it ; still less of imagined pangs and 
 throes of the New birth in its very act ; but of 
 those altered and altering sentiments and disposi- 
 tions, which are the manifestations of inward revo- 
 lution to ourselves and to the world ; — that consci- 
 ousness which our Seventeenth Article calls " the 
 feeling in ourselves the working of the Spirit of Christ, 
 mortifying the works of the flesh and our earthly 
 members, and drawing up our minds to high and 
 heavenly things ;" and without which our Regene- 
 ration in any other possible sense does but deepen 
 our responsibility and guilt, and must increase our 
 condemnation. 
 
134 THE NECESSITY OF 
 
 There are, indeed, two senses of the term Rege- 
 neration, which the Scriptures furnish us with, and 
 which, therefore, are recognized by the ancient 
 Fathers, by the Lutheran Reformers, and by the 
 Church of England : two senses, both of which, I 
 do conceive, we must most carefully maintain, — 
 and maintain distinctly too, neither separating nor 
 confounding them — if we would not throw away, 
 upon the one hand, the privileges of the Church, 
 and the essential doctrine of anterior, vicarious 
 Justification by the blood and merits of our Saviour 
 Jesus Christ ; nor degrade and sully, on the other 
 hand, the character of the Church, and the equally 
 essential doctrine of interior, personal, Sanctifica- 
 tion, by the work and influences of the Holy Ghost. 
 JBy another than ourselves we must be justified, — 
 and this is relative Regeneration. But in ourselves 
 we must be sanctified ; and this is personal Rege- 
 neration. 
 
 For the image of Regeneration is used both in 
 heathen and Jewish authors, and in Scripture, in 
 the first place, to denote any favourable Change of 
 State; any marked transition from an outward 
 condition of evil to one of good ; — as from slavery 
 to liberty, and from misery to prosperity. Thus, 
 (to mention only Scriptural examples,) God's deli- 
 verance of his people from the bondage of Egypt, 
 
SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 135 
 
 and his forming them into a nation consecrated to 
 himself, is called his begetting them, and his creating 
 them. " Of the rock that begat thee," says Moses 
 to the Israelites, " thou art unmindful, and hast 
 forgotten God that formed thee." (Deut. xxxii. 18.) 
 And by the prophet Isaiah, God thus addresses his 
 people: — "Thus saith the Lord that created thee, 
 O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel : Fear 
 not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee 
 by thy name, thou art mine." (Isaiah xliii. 1.) And 
 again, — " Bring my sons from far, and my daughters 
 from the ends of the earth ; even every one that is 
 called by my name ; for I have created him for my 
 glory, I have formed him, yea, I have made him." 
 (Isaiah xliii. 6, 7.) And the final deliverance of 
 the world at large from the bondage of the Evil 
 one, the taking off the curse which sin has brought 
 upon it, its putting on a new face, and assuming a 
 new character, is, from the same analogy, expressed 
 in the same terms. " Behold," says the Lord, by 
 Isaiah, " / create new heavens and a new earth, and 
 the former shall not be remembered nor come into 
 mind ; but be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that 
 which I create, for behold I create Jerusalem a re- 
 joicing and her people a joy." (Isaiah Ixv. 17, 18.) 
 " In the Regeneration" says our Lord to his dis- 
 ciples, referring to the same period, " when the Son 
 
136 THE NECESSITY OF 
 
 of Man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also 
 shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve 
 tribes of Israel/' (Matt. xix. 28.) 
 
 And hence the farther application of these terms 
 to denote a marked and obvious change of state in 
 matters of Religious faith and worship ; especially 
 the passing over from idolatry to the service of the 
 true God ; and the becoming thereby numbered 
 among his people as partakers of his favour and 
 protection. Of this we have an instance in the 
 Eighty-seventh Psalm, in which the Psalmist, look- 
 ing forward to the glorious things which had been 
 promised concerning the city of God, exults in the 
 expected influx of Proselytes from the neighbour- 
 ing nations to swell the lists of her citizens, and 
 cries — I will enumerate the Egyptian and the 
 Babylonian among the worshippers of Jehovah ; I 
 will speak of the Philistine and the Tyrian, and 
 the Ethiopian, as "born" in the Holy City: for 
 " of Zion it shall be said, This and that man was 
 bom in her ; and the Highest himself shall establish 
 her. The Lord shall count when he writeth up the 
 people,* that this man was born there" — when he 
 
 * Compare Ezekiel xiii. 9. where excommunication from the 
 commonwealth of Israel is thus threatened — " Mine hand shall 
 be upon the prophets that see vanity and that divine lies : they 
 shall not be in the assembly of my people, neither shall they be 
 written in the writing of the house of Israel, neither shall they 
 
SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 137 
 
 makes up the list of his citizens he shall reckon 
 among them, as having all the privileges of birth- 
 right, many a Proselyte from heathen lands. Whence 
 the Jewish Doctors say that Abraham when he was 
 called by God, and cast off idolatry to serve him, 
 became " a new creature ;" and speak of Proselytes 
 as " born anew ;" " brought into the world a second 
 time, and by another mother," and changed from 
 " children of Satan into children of Abraham," 
 entering thereby into new family relations, and 
 new ties and obligations towards a new com- 
 munity. 
 
 We need not wonder, therefore, at the similar 
 use of these terms by the Apostles to express the 
 similar transition of the Gentile Proselyte from 
 Heathenism to Christianity ; from his relation and 
 connexion with a world that lay " in the wicked 
 one," to new relations and connexions with the 
 community of Christian worshippers. This tran- 
 sition was avowed and witnessed, both before 
 the world and before the church, in the public 
 solemnity of Baptism, which was the symbol of 
 
 enter into the land of Israel." And Isaiah xliv. 5. where recep- 
 tion into this commonwealth is thus promised — " One shall say, 
 I am the Lord's ; and another shall call himself by the name of 
 Jacob ; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord," 
 — he shall enter his name in the roll of my people, — " and shall 
 surname himself by the name of Israel." 
 
138 THE NECESSITY OF 
 
 the Convert's renunciation of the old family of 
 his birth, and entering as a new-born babe into 
 the new family of his adoption ; of the blotting 
 out his past existence and the commencing of a 
 new one ; and which, therefore, is denominated by 
 St. Paul " the washing of Regeneration" and is 
 referred to by St. Peter as transferring its recipient 
 from an old world into a new one, as completely as 
 the waters of the flood transported Noah and his 
 family from the wickedness and ruin of the ante- 
 diluvian, to the renewed purity and the regene- 
 rated hopes of the post-diluvian, state of things. 
 " God," says St. Paul to Titus, (iii. 5,) " according 
 to his mercy hath saved us," — hath transferred us 
 out of the community of the " foolish, disobedient, 
 deceived/' &c. (verse 8,) into the community of his 
 saved ones ; hath incorporated us into his church, 
 hath "justified" us, (as it is in verse 7,) and re- 
 ceived us into his favour and protection, — " by the 
 washing of Regeneration" " In the days of Noah," 
 says St. Peter, (1 Peter iii. 20, 21,) " few, that is, 
 eight souls were saved by water ;" — were rescued 
 on the bosom of the flood from the ruin of the old 
 world into the security and freshness of the new. — 
 " The like figure whereunto, even baptism, doth 
 also now save us," — by water in like manner is our 
 transition now effected from the world on which the 
 curse of God is come, and which is ready to be 
 
SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 139 
 
 burned, (2 Peter iii. 10,) into that little family of 
 his delivered ones who have the promise and the 
 hope of " new heavens and a new earth, wherein 
 dwelleth righteousness." (2 Peter iii. 13.) What 
 the writing of his name to the Mosaic Covenant 
 was to the Proselyte from Heathenism — what the 
 washing from the defilements of his birth was to 
 the new-born infant,* — what the water of the Flood 
 was to the rescued family of Noah, — that is Bap- 
 tism to the Christian convert; the method of tran- 
 sition into a new community — a new sphere of 
 being — a new world. 
 
 Scripturally, therefore, as well as by a just ana- 
 logy, does the Christian church employ this term 
 Regeneration to express the relative change of 
 state in those who are admitted by the ordinance 
 of Baptism into the family of God, and to the pri- 
 vileges which are enjoyed within its fold ; their 
 transference from being " children of wrath," to 
 " children of grace." Thus Justin Martyr, speak- 
 ing of the mode of dealing with converts in his 
 time, says, " They are then led by us to a place 
 where there is water, and are regenerated after the 
 
 * See Ezekiel xvi. 4, 5, and Mede in Poli Syn. on Titus iii. 
 5. " Analogia inter ablutionem aquce et Regenerationem, posita 
 est in illo more abluendi infantes recens natos, eosque a pollutio- 
 nibus matricis expurgandi." And Potter's Antiquities, book iv. 
 chap. xiv. 
 
140 THE NECESSITY OF 
 
 same manner that we ourselves have been regene- 
 rated. For they are bathed and cleansed in the 
 water in the name of God the Father and Lord of 
 all, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the 
 Holy Ghost/' In which sense, therefore, the word 
 Regeneration becomes nearly synonymous with 
 Justification, or Adoption into the favour and 
 family of God. As the Lutheran Reformers re- 
 mark,* — " Sometimes the word Regeneration is 
 used for Justification;... and then it means simply 
 remission of sins, and adoption into the number of 
 the children of God. In which sense it is fre- 
 quently employed in the Apology for our Confes- 
 sion, as for example where it is asserted, Justifica- 
 tion is Regeneration. ... In like manner as the 
 word to make alive" (compare Eph. ii. 1, 5,) " is 
 used to signify the remission of sins." To the same 
 purport our English Reformer, Wycliffe, says, " In 
 Baptism, God christeneth the souls of men ; that is 
 to say, washeth their souls from the uncleanness of 
 all sin." And again, — " Bodily baptizing is a figure 
 showing how man's soul should be baptized from 
 sin. — Bodily washing of a child is not the end of 
 baptizing ; but baptizing is a token of the washing 
 of the soul from sin, both original and actual, by vir- 
 tue taken of Christ's death." And this, therefore, is 
 
 * Formula Concordiae. 
 
SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 141 
 
 a prominent, though not the exclusive,* sense which 
 pervades the Articles and Liturgy of the Church of 
 England. As, for example, in the Twenty-seventh 
 Article, where we read that " Baptism is a sign 
 of Regeneration or New-birth, whereby, as by an 
 instrument, they that receive Baptism rightly are 
 grafted into the Church ; the promises of forgiveness 
 of Sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God 
 by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed." 
 So also in the Collect for Christmas-day we pray 
 that "being regenerate and made God's children 
 
 * Not the exclusive sense. For it is equally clear that the 
 Church supposes the communication of a sanctifying as well as 
 justifying benefit in Baptism. For in the twenty-seventh Article 
 she adds that thereby "faith is confirmed and grace increased by 
 virtue of prayer to God." And though she must be speaking 
 here of adult recipients only, since she puts in the condition of 
 their " receiving baptism rightly," and presupposes the existence 
 of that " faith" and " grace" which she asserts to be " confirm- 
 ed" and "increased" in Baptism ; yet in the Baptismal service 
 she prays for infants that " God's holy Spirit maybe given to them 
 that they may be born again," and that " all carnal affections 
 may die in them and all things belonging to the Spirit may live 
 and grow in them." The benefit, therefore, which our Church 
 ascribes to Baptism is threefold, and cannot be better summed 
 up than in the words of Dean Comber. 1. " It doth seal a 
 Pardon to us for all former transgression, and begets us again to 
 the hope of eternal life. 2. It restores us to the favour of God, 
 and gives us a new relation to Him and to his people. 3. It 
 heals our nature, by the Spirit hereby conveyed to us." The 
 belief of this third benefit is grounded on the supposition that all 
 
142 THE NECESSITY OF 
 
 by Adoption and Grace, we may daily be renewed 
 by his Holy Spirit." And in the Baptismal service 
 we pray " that this Infant coming to thy holy Bap- 
 tism may receive remission of his sins by Spiritual 
 Regeneration ;" and again — " Sanctify this water 
 to the mystical washing away of sin;" and then 
 afterwards give thanks to God " that this child is 
 regenerate and grafted into the body of Christ's 
 church." 
 
 Such then is the first sense of the term Regene- 
 ration ; denoting a relative change of state from 
 guilt, and condemnation, and ruin ; to pardon, ac- 
 ceptance, and the hope of everlasting life ; — from 
 being " without Christ, aliens from the common- 
 men naturally are " born in sin and the children of wrath," with 
 no capacity for good ; and it regards the Holy Ghost as gracious- 
 ly implanting in the infant soul that possibility of sanctification, 
 that seed of holiness, which by occasion of subsequent instruction, 
 discipline, and grace, may grow up and expand into " all things 
 belonging to the Spirit/' The difficulty as regards such implan- 
 tation is entirely metaphysical. The practical necessity of the 
 fostering and developing this seed, and the impossibility of ulti- 
 mate salvation in every adult but as it is so fostered and deve- 
 loped, remain untouched. And therefore any dispute upon the 
 subject, while that practical necessity is recognised andpressed and 
 acted on, would seem to me as idle as that between a follower of 
 Locke, who denies all innate ideas, and makes experience the 
 producing cause of every thought; and a Kantist, who contends 
 for the origination in the soul itself of the ideas of the universal 
 and the necessary, but holds, not the less, Experience to be 
 
SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 143 
 
 wealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants 
 of promise, having no hope, and without God in 
 the world ;" to being " made nigh by the blood of 
 Christ, and reconciled to God by his cross." — 
 Christian Reader ! Recollect, I pray you, that 
 this, with all its benefits, and all its attendant re- 
 sponsibility, is your state. You have passed through 
 this relative change. You have been transferred 
 from the Court of the Gentiles into the Sanctuary 
 of God. You have been dedicated in his temple 
 and made holy to the Lord. The blood of the 
 covenant has been sprinkled over you. The cross 
 of Christ is on your brow. And the Sacramental 
 
 indispensable as the occasion of their actual manifestation in the 
 consciousness. If, indeed, we so estimate what has been done 
 without our consciousness and co-operation, as to think and 
 teach that little more remains to be done with our consciousness 
 and co-operation ; — if we endeavour to make a regeneration of 
 capacity stand substitute for a regeneration of act and deed ; — 
 if we plead a previous " healing of our nature" to ward off all 
 demand for the experience of the healthful workings of that 
 nature in thought, and feeling, and purpose ; — if we refer to the 
 buried seed, when we are asked to find and to produce the grow- 
 ing fruits ; — then are we indulging in Pharisaical presumption 
 — popish superstition — antinomian licentiousness ; we are run- 
 ning counter to the spirit and the words, the feeling and the de- 
 mands, of all the formularies of our Church, and of every holy 
 man, of every school, therein ; we are outraging the eternal 
 principles of reason and morality ; and we are " making the 
 word of God of none effect by our traditions." 
 
]44 THE NECESSITY OF 
 
 oath of your allegiance to his name is registered 
 on high. You are no longer your own. You are 
 pledged and devoted as a follower of Jesus, " not 
 to be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ cruci- 
 fied, but manfully to fight under his banner against 
 Sin, the world, and the devil; and to continue 
 Christ's faithful soldier and servant unto your life's 
 end." O what must be your condemnation if you 
 become a deserter from his camp, a renegade to the 
 faith you have been dedicated to, false to the oath 
 that has been pronounced upon you ! " How shall 
 you escape if you neglect so great salvation !" 
 " Of how much sorer punishment, suppose you, 
 shall you be thought worthy if you tread under 
 foot the Son of God, and count the blood of the 
 Covenant wherewith you are sanctified an unholy 
 thing, and do despite unto the Spirit of grace !" O 
 be what you profess ! Realize what you are de- 
 voted to. Enter consciously, with heart and soul, 
 into your sacred relation to Almighty God. Be- 
 come in fact and personally,— -in mind and disposi- 
 tion, character, and conduct — a member of Christ, 
 a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of 
 heaven ! 
 
 For, this latter is the sense — the all-important 
 sense — in which Regeneration or New-birth is 
 spoken of, and pressed, (in the second place,) both 
 in Scripture, and by the best theological writers, as 
 
SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 145 
 
 absolutely necessary to our present piety and ulti- 
 mate salvation. Namely, as that personal change of 
 heart and will, — of inward state as well as outward, 
 — of character as well as name, — of experience as 
 well as privilege, — which we have already described 
 at large, and which, you will perceive at once, must 
 necessarily, from its very nature, be a matter of 
 our personal consciousness. It cannot merely take 
 place upon us ; it must be wrought in us. It can- 
 not be passed through passively, in the uncon- 
 sciousness of infancy ; it must be walked through 
 actively, with the energy of manhood. It cannot 
 be suffered by us as recipients only ; it must be 
 achieved by us as co-workers. No man can be 
 sanctified by proxy, or franked by ecclesiastical 
 privilege into heaven. In ourselves personally lies 
 the disease of sin ; by ourselves personally must be 
 experienced the remedy. There is no magic charm 
 in Christianity, to cure its patients at a distance, or 
 by the muttering of cabalistic words, or by the 
 opus operatum of a sacerdotal touch. Its medicines 
 must be lodged within the mind, and work upon the 
 thoughts, the feelings, the desires, the will; and 
 thus affect and alter the entire circulation of the 
 man, the whole current of his inmost life, — if he 
 would not die but live. 
 
 Such a personal Regeneration, I re-assert, is ab- 
 solutely necessary to our present Piety, and our 
 
 L 
 
146 THE NECESSITY OF 
 
 ultimate Salvation. For Piety is Friendship with 
 God; but the natural relation of man is that of 
 contrariety to God ; and therefore till this con- 
 trariety be removed there can be no Piety. And 
 Salvation is the perfecting of Friendship with God, 
 into complete Re-union with him. It is the unli- 
 mited enjoyment of God's presence; and there can 
 be no enjoyment of God's presence but by partici- 
 pation of God's character. And hence our Lord 
 declares to Nicodemus, " Except a man be born 
 again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Not, 
 you observe, " he shall not;" but " he cannot" — 
 in the nature of things it is impossible — there is a 
 moral necessity for his expulsion. None of the de- 
 crees of God are arbitrary and self-willed. They 
 are all decisions of the purest Reason, whose neces- 
 sity commends itself to our own judgment, and 
 wins from us, whenever we consider the grounds 
 of it, our own assent. And, therefore, they are 
 unchangeable — therefore we cannot conceive them 
 to be capable of giving way. Caprice may pos- 
 sibly yield to entreaty. Reason is eternally the 
 same. 
 
 Consider then, I pray you, the essential contrast 
 between the character of God, and the natural cha- 
 racter of man, and you will yourself pronounce the 
 absolute necessity of a personal change upon the 
 part of man. God is spirit, man is flesh. God is 
 pure and holy; man is corrupt and sinful. God is 
 
SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 147 
 
 heavenly ; man is earthly. God is all majesty and 
 glory ; man is all meanness and shame. Two be- 
 ings not different only, but contrary ; not merely 
 with qualities disproportionate, but those qualities 
 excluding each other, and contradictory. And 
 what, then, if these two are to be brought into 
 friendship ? What, if man would enter into fellow- 
 ship with God now, in order to enter into the king- 
 dom of God hereafter ? This cannot be while that 
 contrast remains. " For what fellowship hath righte- 
 ousness with unrighteousness ? and what communion 
 hath light with darkness ?" And what, then, must 
 be done ? There must be alteration on the one 
 part or the other. One of the contradictory cha- 
 racters must change. One party must give way. 
 But can God change ? Can He who is The Rock 
 give way ? Can the Eternal deny himself? Can 
 He put off that nature without which he would not 
 be God ? Or can He lower himself beneath his 
 nature ? Can He accommodate his perfections 
 to our sinfulness ? Can he abate one atom of 
 His spirituality — his purity — his consistency ? 
 The very thought were blasphemy ! And what 
 then must be done ? Where must the change 
 take place ? In whom must the approximation 
 be begun ? I put it to your common sense — I 
 put it to your moral judgment — What is the de- 
 mand — the necessary, unavoidable, demand — which 
 the slightest consideration of the awful contrast 
 
148 THE NECESSITY OF 
 
 between God and man forces home upon the 
 mind ? Is it not that of Jesus to Nicodemus ? — 
 " Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye must be born 
 again" — a higher spirit must possess you — a new 
 life must descend into you — you must die from sin 
 and rise again unto righteousness, continually morti- 
 fying all your evil and corrupt affections, and daily 
 proceeding in all virtue and godliness of living. 
 
 Such a personal Regeneration, then, we must 
 have — all of us — either by the gradual dawn of 
 light upon the soul stealing over its natural dark- 
 ness, and disclosing new forms of truth and beauty 
 to the wondering mind, almost before we are con- 
 scious of its source ; — or by the conscious spring of 
 the awakened spirit out of a world of vain appear- 
 
 ces into one of reality — from the delusive images, 
 and the confused purposes, and hurried efforts of 
 an earthly dream, into the distinct ideas, the well- 
 weighed resolutions, the pure aspirations of a hea- 
 venly life, — wherein God shines out upon us as the 
 central Sun of our existence, — and all other objects 
 are seen in his light, — and estimated with reference 
 to Him, and in subordination to his glory. " The 
 doctrine of Conversion," says Dr. Paley, " we must 
 preach plainly and directly to all those who, with 
 the name indeed of Christians, have hitherto passed 
 their lives without any internal religion whatever ; 
 who have not at all thought upon the subject ; 
 who, a few easy and customary forms excepted, 
 
SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 149 
 
 (and which with them are mere forms,) cannot 
 truly say of themselves that they have done one 
 action, which they would not have done equally, if 
 there had been no such thing as a God in the 
 world ; or that they have ever sacrificed any pas- 
 sion, any present enjoyment, or even any inclina- 
 tion of their minds, to the restraints and prohi- 
 bitions of religion ; with whom, indeed, religious 
 motives have not weighed a feather in the scale 
 against interest or pleasure. To these it is utterly 
 necessary that we preach conversion. At this day 
 we have not Jews and Gentiles to preach to ; but 
 these persons are really in as unconverted a state 
 as any Jew or Gentile could be in our Saviour's 
 time. They are no more Christians, as to any ac- 
 tual benefit of Christianity to their souls, than the 
 most hardened Jew or the most profligate Gentile 
 was in the age of the Gospel. As to any difference 
 at all in the two cases, the difference is all against 
 them. These must be converted before they can be 
 saved. The course of their thoughts must be 
 changed, the very principles upon which they act 
 must be changed. Considerations, which never, or 
 which hardly ever, entered into their minds, must 
 deeply and perpetually engage them. Views and 
 motives, which did not influence them at all, either 
 as checks from doing evil, or as inducements to do 
 good, must become the views and motives which 
 they regularly consult, and by which they are 
 
150 THE NECESSITY OF 
 
 guided : that is to say, there must be a revolution 
 of principle : the visible conduct will follow the 
 change ; but there must be a revolution within." 
 
 And this " revolution within" is, therefore, con- 
 tinually urged and described by our best Divines 
 — and that too in the very terms, " Regeneration," 
 and " New birth," — as absolutely necessary to the 
 formation of a Christian man. " It is the Holy 
 Ghost," says our Homily for Whitsunday, " and 
 no other thing, that doth quicken the minds of men, 
 stirring up good and godly motions in their hearts, 
 which are agreeable to the will and commandment 
 of God; such as otherwise of their own crooked and 
 perverse nature they should never have. That 
 which is born of the Spirit is spirit. As who should 
 say, man of his own nature is fleshly and carnal, 
 corrupt and naught, sinful and disobedient to God, 
 without any spark of goodness in him, without 
 any virtuous or godly motion, only given to evil 
 thoughts and wicked deeds. As for the works of 
 the Spirit, the fruits of faith, charitable and godly 
 motions, if he have any at all in him, they proceed 
 only of the Holy Ghost, who is the only worker of 
 our sanctification, and maketh us new men in Christ 
 Jesus." " Such is the power of the Holy Ghost to 
 regenerate men, and, as it were, to bring them forth 
 anew, so that they shall be nothing like the men 
 they were before." " If Nicodemus had known the 
 great power of the Holy Ghost in this behalf, that 
 
SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 151 
 
 it is he which inwardly worketh the regeneration 
 and new birth of mankind, he would never have 
 marvelled at Christ's words, but would rather take 
 occasion thereby to praise and glorify God." 
 
 " Regeneration," says the accurate Barrow, " is 
 a spiritual change, effected by the influence of the 
 Holy Spirit on the mind, the will, and the affections 
 of an adult sinner!' And these operations " do 
 constitute and accomplish that work which is styled 
 the Regeneration, renovation, vivification, new crea- 
 tion, resurrection, of man ; the faculties of our souls 
 being so improved that we become, as it were, 
 other men thereby ; able and apt to do that for 
 which before we were altogether indisposed and 
 unfit." 
 
 " When a man," says Bishop Beveridge, " be- 
 lieves in Christ the second Adam, and so is made a 
 member of his body, he is quickened and animated 
 b}' his Spirit, which being the principle of a new 
 life in him, he thereby becomes a new creature, 
 another kind of creature from what he was before, 
 and therefore is properly said to be bom again. His 
 whole nature is changed. He hath a new set of 
 thoughts and affections, a new sight and sense of 
 God, a new bias upon his mind, so that he is now 
 as much inclined to virtue as he was before to 
 vice, and of a foolish, proud, sinful, and carnal crea- 
 ture, is become wise and humble, and holy and spi- 
 ritual." 
 
152 THE NECESSITY OF 
 
 " As," says Bishop Taylor, " in the superinducing 
 our evil nature we were thrust forward by the world 
 and the devil, bj^ all objects from without and weak- 
 ness from within ; so in the curing it we are to be 
 helped by God and his Holy Spirit. We must have 
 a new nature put into us, which must be the prin- 
 ciple of new counsels and better purposes, of holy 
 actions and great devotion ; and this nature is de- 
 rived from God, and is a grace and a favour of hea- 
 ven. The same Spirit that caused the Holy Jesus 
 to be born after a new and strange manner, must 
 also descend upon us, and cause us to be born 
 again, and to begin a new life upon the stock of a 
 new nature. ' From him,' said Origen, * it first be- 
 gan that a divine and human nature were weaved 
 together, that the human nature by communication 
 with the celestial may also become divine ; not only 
 in Jesus, but in all that first believe in him and then 
 obey him, living such a life as Jesus taught.' And 
 this is the sum total of the whole design ; as we 
 have lived to the flesh, so we must hereafter live to 
 the Spirit : as our nature hath been flesh, not only 
 in its original, but in habits and affection, so our 
 nature must be spirit in habit and choice, in design 
 and effectual prosecutions : for nothing can cure 
 our old death but this new birth; and this is the re- 
 covery of our nature, and the restitution of our 
 hopes, and therefore the greatest joy of mankind. 
 
SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 153 
 
 It is a fine thing to see the light of the sun, and it 
 is pleasant to see the storm allayed and turned into 
 a smooth sea ; our eyes are pleased to see the earth 
 begin to live, and to produce her little issues with 
 parti-coloured coats; and nothing is so beauteous 
 as to see a new birth in a childless family ; — but all 
 this is nothing to the excellences of a new birth ; — 
 to see the old man carried forth to funeral with the 
 solemn tears of repentance, and buried in the grave 
 of Jesus, and in his place a new creation to arise, a 
 new heart, and a new understanding, and new affec- 
 tions, and excellent appetites :—for nothing less than 
 this can cure all the old distempers" 
 
 And this, then, must become the personal experi- 
 ence of each of us who are considering the moment- 
 ous subject of this chapter. The evil of our charac- 
 ters is personal. The process of their transforma- 
 tion into good must be equally personal. Our In- 
 difference to God is personal ; therefore so must be 
 our Awakening to attend to him. Our Ignorance 
 of God is personal ; therefore, so must be our Illu- 
 mination to know him. And our natural Aliena- 
 tion from God, yea Aversion to the thought of 
 Him, is, alas ! most personal ; and, therefore, so 
 must be our drawing towards him, our seek- 
 ing Him, our finding Him, our falling down be- 
 fore Him, our reconciliation to Him ; — that 
 is, our Regeneration, We must enter into an 
 
154 
 
 THE NECESSITY OF 
 
 entirely new relation of our consciousness towards 
 God, so that He whom we have dreaded because 
 of his tremendousness, and shrunk from because of 
 his purity, ay, and disliked the very mention of his 
 name, because of a conscious contrariety to his will 
 — even He,— the same — the Holy, Holy, Holy Lord 
 God of Hosts, that changeth not — is fled to by us 
 as a Saviour, trusted in as a Friend, loved and clung 
 to as a Father, — as our Father reconciled to us in 
 Christ. As the feelings of the prodigal towards his 
 parent when he gathered all his goods together and 
 took his journey into a far country to avoid his pre- 
 sence, — to the feelings of the same prodigal towards 
 the same parent, when he came to himself and said, 
 I will arise and go unto my Father, and when he 
 felt that Father's arms around his neck, and receiv- 
 ed and returned that Father's kiss of perfect recon- 
 ciliation, and heard that Father say, Make merry 
 and be glad, for this my Son was dead and is alive 
 again, was lost and is found; — such is the natural 
 consciousness of the human will, to that of its Re- 
 generation ; such is the transition from death to life, 
 from the old man to the new, which is denominated 
 by the Scriptures, being " born again." 
 
 Turn only to that passage of St. Peter, from which 
 we have already derived the Scripture notion of 
 Regeneration, and observe how all its words and 
 phrases equally declare that this Regeneration was 
 
SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 155 
 
 a matter of personal experience in those to whom the 
 Apostle writes. Hearing, thinking, judging, em- 
 bracing truth, are surely personal acts, — acts of 
 mind, which no man can do for us, and which cannot 
 takeplace within us independent of our consciousness. 
 And of these acts of mind St. Peter speaks when he 
 reminds the converts that they had been te born 
 again by the word of God, which word by the Gospel 
 had been preached to them," and that they had 
 " obeyed the truth," — submitted their judgment and 
 convictions to its influence. Feeling (again) is 
 surely a personal act — an act of the heart, which, 
 from its very nature, we cannot but be conscious of, 
 — which we possess only so far as we are conscious 
 of it. And of such acts of heart St. Peter speaks, 
 when he declares that they " by Christ had believed 
 in God," — had reposed their trust and confidence in 
 him as their Father, — and had " put their faith and 
 hope in God :" — and had " tasted that the Lord is 
 gracious," — had found the truth of God's forgiving 
 love as grateful to their spiritual sensibility as the 
 purest milk is to the bodily palate of the new-born 
 babe. Desire, (once more,) resolve, endeavour, are 
 surely personal acts — acts of will; the very expe- 
 riences which constitute us persons at all, in contra- 
 distinction to things, moving from an impulse within 
 ourselves, instead of being moved, like the wind- 
 tossed leaf, or the floating weed, by impulses with- 
 
156 
 
 NECESSITY OF SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 
 
 out us. And of these acts of will St. Peter speaks 
 when he exhorts them, " Therefore laying aside all 
 malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies and envies, 
 and all evil-speakings, desire the sincere milk of the 
 word, that ye may grow thereby." So evident, in- 
 deed, is all this, and so impossible is it to conceive 
 a human being going through all these changes of 
 the character without reflection, and emotion, and 
 determination, — by any other way than that of per- 
 sonal consciousness and interest and effort, — that 
 the drawing out the proof of this might well seem 
 superfluous, if not absurd, were it not that no words 
 can ever be too many, no efforts too assiduous, no 
 reasoning too minute, when we are endeavouring 
 to banish and drive away that fatal delusion, that 
 worst form of Enthusiasm, (though it claims the 
 merit of horror at Enthusiasm,) which dotes upon 
 the fancy that men may be sanctified without know- 
 ing it, and saved without the trouble of it, and be 
 literally carried, like a passive infant, by the angels 
 into Abraham's bosom ; — that, dozing listlessly for 
 all their life in one state, and that a state of irreli- 
 gion, — they may nevertheless wake at last with glad 
 surprise in another state, and that the state of glory 
 — swept from destruction in a dream, and smuggled 
 into heaven ! May God deliver us from such An- 
 tinomian slumber, and startle us into new and Spi- 
 ritual life ! 
 
157 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 THE MEANS OF SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 
 
 Spiritual Regeneration is the dev elopement of 
 love towards God. And the grand means of this 
 developement is therefore that Exhibition of God's 
 love towards us, which is vouchsafed in the Gospel of 
 Christ For it is love that begets love. Love can- 
 not exist alone. It must be reciprocal. And, 
 therefore, our affection towards God must vary as 
 our consciousness of the affection of God towards 
 us. And this affection of God towards us is just 
 the one great truth which is proclaimed to us in 
 Christ. It is by manifesting this that Christianity 
 obtains a power over the hearts of men, which no 
 philosophy, no persuasion, no religion even, in its 
 lower truths, can gain. And it is by commending 
 this to the individual mind that the Spirit of Christ 
 — which is emphatically " the Spirit of the Truth" 
 of this particular fundamental truth of God's saving 
 love, — becomes the Spirit of life, and new-creates 
 the soul. And this, therefore,, is what St. Peter re- 
 fers to, as the means and instrument of Regenera- 
 tion, in the passage we have already considered, 
 
158 THE MEANS OE 
 
 when he reminds his converts that they had been 
 born again, " not of corruptible seed, but of in- 
 corruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and 
 abideth for ever." And St. James, also, in a very 
 similar passage, (i. 18 — 27.) in which, having first 
 laid down the general proposition that nothing but 
 good can come from God, he adds, as the most con- 
 vincing proof of his beneficence, " of his own will 
 begat he us, with the word of truth, that we should 
 be a kind of first fruits of his creatures." 
 
 For, by referring to the context of the passage in 
 St. Peter, we see at once what was in the mind of 
 the Apostle when he used the phrase iC the word of 
 God." In the twenty-fifth verse he expressly ex- 
 plains his meaning : " This is the ivord" — this is 
 what I am specially referring to by that term — 
 " which by the Gospel is preached unto you." And 
 when, in verse twenty-two, he says, " ye have puri- 
 fied your souls in obeying the truth" you will find 
 from the preceding verses that " the truth" which 
 he has in view is that of Christ's " redemption of 
 them by his precious blood" — of his " manifestation 
 in these last times for them" — of his death, and re- 
 surrection, and glory, accomplished for them, " that 
 their faith and hope might be in God." Which truth 
 he again distinguishes in chapter ii. 3. by saying, 
 " ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious;" — that 
 is, have believed and felt that God is forgiving and 
 
SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 159 
 
 affectionate towards you, so that coming unto him 
 whom he has chosen and made precious, you are 
 made " a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sa- 
 crifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ;" — and 
 " though in time past not a people, yet are now the 
 people of God ; though ye had not obtained mercy, 
 yet now have obtained mercy" 
 
 And this specific use of the terms, " the word of 
 God," " the word/' iC the truth of the Gospel," to 
 express the fundamental doctrine of that Gospel, 
 that " God was in Christ reconciling the world 
 unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto 
 them," is the prevailing one in Scripture. It speaks 
 not, in those terms, of any particular words or writ- 
 ings, — as we are too much accustomed to intend 
 when we employ the phrase, as if the Spiritual life 
 might be evoked by the letter of Scripture as by 
 some cabalistic charm, — but of the truths which 
 formed the substance of the Apostolic writings and 
 addresses — the message, of which they were the 
 ambassadors, the disclosures concerning Godj and 
 his character, and his feelings towards us, and his 
 doings for us, which were made by his beloved Son. 
 It is not in words, but in " the word," — not in the 
 terms, but in the ideas of Christianity, that its 
 mighty power resides. When St. Paul reminds the 
 Colossians (i. 5, 6.) of " the hope laid up for them in 
 heaven, whereof they had heard before in the word 
 
160 THE MEANS OF 
 
 of the truth of the Gospel" he immediately exchanges 
 the latter phrase for an equivalent one which shows 
 its definite meaning — " since the day ye heard it, 
 and knew the grace of God in truth" — that is, were 
 made acquainted with that unadulterated message 
 from on high, that God is gracious and compassionate 
 through Christ. And when he desires that " the 
 peace of God should rule in their hearts and they 
 should be thankful" — that they should maintain a 
 grateful confidence in him as their Father, — he ex- 
 horts them in order to this — as the proper nou- 
 rishment of this — " to let the word of Christ dwell 
 in them richly in all wisdom," (Col. iii. 15.) to get 
 deeply imbued with that grand truth, in all its 
 richness, which Christ has taught us, and which 
 tells of Christ as our Reconciler with God. This 
 truth is what St. Peter calls, in another place, " the 
 word of God," (Acts xv. 7.) and St. Paul, " the 
 word of God's grace," (Acts xx. 32.) and "the 
 word of Salvation," (Acts xiii. 26.) and " the word 
 of faith," (Romans x. 8.) and " the word of recon- 
 ciliation," (2 Cor. v. 19.) and " the good word of 
 God," (Hebrews vi. 5.) 
 
 Which sense of the expression is evident, yet 
 further, from the effects declared to result from the 
 reception of this " word." " Ye have purified your 
 souls" says the Apostle, " in obeying the truth," — 
 that is, have cleansed them from the defilement of 
 
SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 161 
 
 an evil conscience afraid of God. Which is the same 
 result that is elsewhere ascribed to the reception of 
 the fundamental truth of Christianity, reconciliation 
 with God by the blood of Christ. " If the blood of 
 bulls and of goats sanctifleth to the purifying of the 
 flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ 
 purge your conscience from dead works, to serve the 
 living God." (Heb. ix. 13, 14.) " Let us draw near 
 with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having 
 our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience." (Heb. 
 x. 22.) That which is the effect of sin is recipro- 
 cally the cause of sin, — namely, the consciousness 
 of disagreement, and of distance, between us and 
 God. And nothing therefore will effectually do 
 away with sin, but that which does away with this 
 cause of sin, and brings into its place the opposite 
 consciousness of reconciliation and of nearness to 
 God. Against this assurance no one can hold out. 
 By the very proclamation of it the sinner is made 
 to pause, and think, and relent. A man may doubt, 
 indeed, the love of God to him — he may hastily put 
 from him an idea which aggravates his self-reproach 
 — he may rudely rage against an influence which he 
 feels to be unnerving his determination for evil ; — 
 but he cannot look this winning truth directly in the 
 face — he cannot give it time to look him in the face 
 in all the fulness of its radiance, and yet hold on in 
 obstinacy and rebellion. He begins to be affected 
 
162 THE MEANS OF 
 
 by its secret fascination ; he feels the power of its 
 spell ; he hesitates ; he turns ; his stubbornness is 
 melting fast away ; and, even as the Roman general 
 before his Mother's eye, " like a dull actor, he for- 
 gets his part" of proud impenitence, "and he is 
 out ;" — he yields ; he stoops ; he throws down the 
 arms of his rebellion ; he " casts away his transgres- 
 sions wherewith he has transgressed, and makes 
 him a new heart and a new spirit ;" he flings from 
 him his jealousies, and cavils, and murmurs, and 
 fears ; and he bows himself before the throne of the 
 Redeemer in entire surrender to the mighty good- 
 ness of God. " The love of Christ constraineth him; 
 and he judges that if one died for all, then they 
 which live should not henceforth live unto them- 
 selves, but unto him that died for them, and rose 
 again." And therefore he becomes, in Christ, a new 
 creature ; old things pass away, all things become 
 new. God has reconciled him to himself by Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 Thus, then, does " the word of God" — the glad 
 tidings of reconciliation with Him by Jesus Christ 
 — become the seed of our Regeneration. We are 
 " born again," — not by the corruptible seed of selfish 
 calculations of expediency, of bodily impulses and 
 fervours, of artificially excited feelings, of philoso- 
 phical argumentation, and of dexterous persuasion, 
 — all which motives are but temporary and perish- 
 
SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 163 
 
 able, touch only the understanding and passions, 
 stir only the upper surface of the mind, reach not 
 down to the deep under- current of the will, and 
 therefore can produce but superficial, transient, in- 
 complete results — " not by corruptible seed, but by 
 incorruptible" — by that which has a never-dying 
 vigour, which never becomes effete, — even " the 
 word of God which liveth and abideth for ever." 
 " Christ saith/' writes Bishop Latimer — the Martyr 
 Latimer, — " ' Except a man be born again from 
 above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.' He 
 must have Regeneration. And what is this regenera- 
 tion ? It is not to be christened in water, and no- 
 thing else. How is it to be expounded then ? St. 
 Peter showeth, that one place of Scripture de- 
 clareth another. For, saith St. Peter, l We be 
 born again,' — How ? Not by a mortal seed, but by 
 an immortal. What is this immortal seed ? * By 
 the word of the living God,' — by the word of God 
 preached and opened. Thus cometh in our New 
 birth." 
 
 Such, then, are the Nature, the Necessity, and 
 the Means of Spiritual Regeneration. I cannot quit 
 the subject without pressing on my Readers a few 
 words of Inquiry, of Direction, and of Encourage- 
 ment. 
 
 Is not Inquiry, I would ask, — personal inquiry 
 
164 THE MEANS OF 
 
 of ourselves, — pre-eminently necessary, after the 
 consideration of a topic like this ? It is not one of 
 doubtful theory, or curious investigation — it is one 
 which concerns the very being of our piety and 
 holiness. And can we then fail to turn round from 
 it on ourselves, — and ask with simple earnestness, 
 — Have / this indispensable new birth ? I do not 
 bid you point to any given moment of Spiritual 
 birth — I do not ask for the chronology of Conver- 
 sion — I do not even demand that the awakening 
 of a filial disposition towards God should have been, 
 in every case, marked enough to form an epoch in 
 the life — though Dr. Paley hesitates not to say 
 concerning those " who with the name of Chris- 
 tians have hitherto passed their lives without any 
 internal Religion," that " no one can be saved 
 without undergoing a conversion which he must 
 necessarily both be sensible of at the time, and 
 remember all his life afterward. It is too moment- 
 ous an event ever to be forgot. A man might as 
 easily forget his escape from a shipwreck." But 
 this I do ask — this I earnestly beseech you honest- 
 ly to ask yourselves, — Have you now, at this mo- 
 ment, — whether its developement within you have 
 been quick or slow, marked or unmarked — have you 
 now that spirit of adoption which enables you to 
 cry, Abba, Father ? Are you now at one with God ? 
 Is the thought of him delightful to you ? Is his pre- 
 
SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 165 
 
 sence welcome, — his will agreeable, and such as 
 you heartily accord with — his honour dear to you 
 —his interest made your own — his spirit dwelling 
 in you ? If not — Where are you ? What are you ? 
 What is your condition? your character? your hope? 
 Where is the benefit of your Christian privilege 
 and education ? What have you gained from your 
 baptismal consecration ? Wherein have you real- 
 ized the access to God laid open to you, nourished 
 the Spirit of God vouchsafed you, fulfilled the vows 
 to God which are upon you ? O there is nothing 
 in all this of doubtful speculation, to entitle you to 
 hold back from its consideration — nothing of mere 
 conflict of opinion, to permit you to return yourself 
 a party answer — the question touches your charac- 
 ter, your soul, your salvation. It sets before you 
 life or death, — blessing or cursing— heaven or hell 1 
 Sweep from you, for the moment, every shadow of 
 a difference of doctrine, and of name, and of expres- 
 sion — still the practical inquiry cannot be shaken 
 off ; it cleaves inseparably to your very self— it asks 
 with pertinacious earnestness — What still am / — 
 myself— m life, and character, and heart — before the 
 eye of God ? Not, What are my opinions, or the 
 opinions of other men concerning me ? — not, What 
 is my standing in the church, my name, my profes- 
 sion, my reputation ? But, What am / — myself — 
 before that heart-searching God, with whom there 
 
166 THE MEANS OF 
 
 is no respect of persons — and before whom not the 
 hearers of the law are just, but the doers of the law 
 — those who have the work of the law written in 
 their hearts — shall be justified, in that day when 
 God shall judge the secrets of men, by Jesus Christ ? 
 This is my Inquiry. I pause — that up to God who 
 seeth in secret, may be breathed in secret, by every 
 one who reads it, the answer that his conscience 
 dictates to its Judge ! 
 
 But then, I pass on to a Direction, to such as can 
 with trembling hope breathe this answer in the 
 affirmative : and I remind them that as their child- 
 like state of mind towards God was first begotten 
 in them, in like manner must it be nourished from 
 day to day. It is by " the word of God," — by what 
 you have heard, and meditated on, and pressed 
 home to your own necessities, concerning His for- 
 giving love in Christ, — that you have been awakened 
 to any measure of love to Him in return ; and, there- 
 fore, if you desire this love to grow — nay, to main- 
 tain its life — within you, it must be nourished by 
 daily feeding upon that same word — by the conti- 
 nual remembrance and re-application of that same 
 truth. The life of Regeneration must pass on into 
 that of daily Renovation. As you have begun, you 
 must go on. As you have been born, you must 
 grow. And this growth will form the only perma- 
 nent and satisfactory evidence of that birth. As 
 
SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 167 
 
 there cannot be growth in Holiness till the seed 
 of Holiness has been quickened into life ; so nei- 
 ther can this seed have been quickened if there be 
 not growth. And therefore St. Peter writes — 
 " Seeing that ye have purified your souls by obey- 
 ing the truth, — having been born again, not of cor- 
 ruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of 
 God which liveth and abideth for ever" — What 
 then? — What is the Apostle's conclusion from 
 these premises ? Is it — Therefore sit down satis- 
 fied that the work of Piety is done? — Therefore, 
 poin r , to the record of a past Experience as the 
 earnest of salvation ? — Therefore cry < Once a 
 saint, always a saint?' — Therefore answer all the 
 accusations of our conscience with those memor- 
 able words, ' Now I am safe, for I am sure that I 
 was once in a state of grace ?' — O No ! nothing of 
 all this is the conclusion of St. Peter ; but just the 
 very reverse — " Therefore laying aside all malice 
 and all guile, and hypocrisies and envies, and all 
 evil-speakings, as new-born babes desire the sincere 
 milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby V What 
 if, indeed, we are born again — We are but babes 
 still, and we need continual nourishment by that 
 same word which was the means of our regenera- 
 tion, that we may grow up into men. We have re- 
 ceived but the seed of the divine life, and it de- 
 mands unlimited developement. We have but tasted 
 
168 MEANS OF SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 
 
 of the graciousness of God, and we need to have it 
 circulate through every vein, and strengthen and 
 consolidate every power of the man. Therefore 
 " grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord 
 and Saviour Jesus Christ." 
 
 And would you have Encouragement for this ? 
 You find it in the very epithet applied by Peter to 
 the seed of your regeneration. It is " incorrupti- 
 ble." It does not spring up for a moment, and then 
 wither away. It has in it the principle of life, and 
 endless germination. It is capable of infinite deve- 
 lopement. It may expand, from being the least of 
 all seeds, to grow into a tree, " whose height shall 
 reach to heaven, and the sight thereof to the end 
 of the earth, the leaves thereof fair, and the fruit 
 thereof very much." " This is the comfort of the 
 saints," says Archbishop Leighton, " that though 
 the life which God by his word hath breathed into 
 their souls have many and strong enemies, such as 
 they themselves could never hold out against, yet 
 for his own glory and his promise sake, He will 
 maintain that life and bring it unto perfection." 
 
169 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SPIRITUAL PEACE. 
 
 Christianity is no system of mere restraint. It 
 is no new scheme of police regulations. It comes 
 not, merely to denounce evil, and to reduce its fol- 
 lowers to a negative orderliness. Its object is far 
 higher than this — its benefit far more excellent. 
 This had been already provided for by the Law of 
 God — that Law which springs up from the very 
 relations of things — is enforced by the significant 
 though silent discipline of natural consequences- — 
 and was proclaimed in unequivocal words and sta- 
 tutes in the Mosaic covenant. And Christianity is 
 no mere re-publication of this Law. It is the writ- 
 ing of it on the heart. It brings something in ad- 
 dition to it which changes its character and aug- 
 ments its influence— a love by which it is cordially 
 embraced — a Peace which renders its observance 
 perfect freedom. 
 
 For though the Gospel is primarily the glad 
 tidings of everlasting life, its message relates not 
 only to the future. It bestows blessings in hand — 
 
]70 SPIRITUAL PEACE. 
 
 a foretaste and a pledge of those that are to come. 
 It speaks of present pardon, peace, and favour. 
 And therefore the spirit that it awakens is not a 
 mere impatient expectation of a future inheritance, 
 but is the quiet confidence of present right and 
 title to that inheritance. 
 
 This is intimated by St. Paul in his Epistle to the 
 Romans, (chapter v.) when he declares that " be- 
 ing justified by faith,'' having entered into that new 
 relation to God as our reconciled Father which the 
 regenerate mind begins to recognize, "we have 
 peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ ;" 
 and by Him, moreover, enjoy a permanent state of 
 grace, or consciousness of the divine favour ; and 
 thus, " not only rejoice in hope of the glory of God," 
 — "not only so, but also joy in God himself " as our 
 present Friend and Father, " through our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, by whom we have received the atonement." 
 Which present benefit of the Gospel St. John also 
 speaks of when he says, " Owe fellowship is with the 
 Father and with his Son Jesus Christ ; and these 
 things write we unto you that your Joy may be 
 full." 
 
 It is the privilege, then, of the converted man, 
 who has been born again to the love of God, to de- 
 rive from this new state of his consciousness to- 
 wards his heavenly Father all the happiness which 
 can result from the experience of communion, con- 
 
SPIRITUAL PEACE. 171 
 
 fidence, sympathy, and co-operation with a bosom 
 Friend. Delight in God's presence — Dependence 
 on his care — Harmony with his will — these are the 
 legitimate elements of Spiritual Peace. 
 
 Spiritual Peace results from Delight in God's 
 presence, God is everywhere. He orders all 
 things after the counsel of his own will. He 
 worketh all in all. But the Christian convert, 
 whose mind has been opened to the sight of spi- 
 ritual things, even as the eyes of Elijah's servant 
 were opened to behold around him horses and 
 chariots of fire, becomes continually mindful of 
 this universal presence of his Father — recognizes 
 his hand in all the circumstances and events of life, 
 and refers up all effects to Him as their all-wise and 
 all-gracious Cause. In the beauty and pomp of Na- 
 ture, when it stretches out before his wondering 
 gaze in boundless prospect, or towers up above his 
 head to inaccessible heights — when it broods over 
 the unfathomable waters, or looks down from the 
 equally unfathomable sky — when it sparkles in the 
 sunbeam, or glows with milder splendour in the 
 starry host— in all this dread magnificence of Earth 
 and Heaven, the believer can rejoice in God. To 
 his eye, " the heavens declare the glory of God, 
 and the firmament showeth his handy work/' To 
 his mind, " the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness 
 thereof; the world and all they that dwell therein." 
 
172 SPIRITUAL PEACE. 
 
 And he exclaims with adoration ever fresh and new 
 — fresh and new with every recurrence of the ob- 
 jects that excite it — "The day is thine, the night 
 also is thine ; thou hast prepared the light and the 
 sun ; thou hast set all the borders of the earth ; 
 thou hast made summer and winter." " O Lord, 
 our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the 
 earth !" 
 
 And if in all things around him the Christian 
 thus delights to recognize God, how much more in 
 those which personally concern him ! God is not 
 only with all things, but he blesses all things. He 
 openeth his hand and filleth all things living with 
 plenteousness. From him cometh down every good 
 and perfect gift. This, then, the Christian recol- 
 lects, — and delights in the recollection. All the 
 comforts he enjoys convey to him a double blessing, 
 and with an emphasis of bliss are his, for with the 
 gift he enjoys the Giver also. Things which in 
 themselves are good, become to him inexpressibly 
 more so, as representatives of The Good One, and 
 as pledges of his love. And thus, to such a state 
 of mind, the earthly becomes the memorial of the 
 heavenly — the evanescent, of the permanent — the 
 incomplete, of the perfect— the limited, of the ab- 
 solute — the manifold rills, of the one unfailing foun- 
 tain — the reflected rays, of the originating Sun. 
 "Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God" says 
 
SPIRITUAL PEACE. 173 
 
 Moses, " for it is he that giveth thee power to get 
 wealth, that he may establish his covenant which 
 he sware unto thy fathers." " Thine, O Lord," says 
 David, " is the greatness, and the power, and the 
 glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is 
 in the heaven and in the earth is thine ; thine is the 
 kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above 
 all. Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou 
 reignest over all, and in thine hand is power and 
 might, and in thine hand it is to make great and 
 to give strength unto all. Now, therefore, O our 
 God, we thank Thee and praise Thy glorious Name" 
 — " for all things come of Thee, and of thine own 
 have we given thee," This is the spirit which en- 
 ables us truly to enjoy our various blessings — life, 
 health, competence, recreations, friends ; thankful 
 for the greatest without being dependent on them 
 — and deriving from the least a pleasure far above 
 their own. See in them God's smile ; hear in them 
 God's voice ; prize them as the tokens — the current 
 tokens, and no more, lest you assign to them intrin- 
 sic value — of God's sterling love ! 
 
 For then, you will be able to carry on your joy 
 in God, from the blessings, even to the seeming 
 evils, which he brings upon you. For if the cha- 
 racter of everything depends, not on the gift it- 
 self, but on the Giver and his intentions towards 
 us, then may the Christian rejoice not only in the 
 
174 SPIRITUAL PEACE. 
 
 open, but in the disguised gifts of God. A parent's 
 love may be exercised — and often much more exer- 
 cised — in a reproving frown than in an encouraging 
 smile ; in the discipline that pains and subdues, than 
 in the indulgence that gratifies and puffs up. And 
 the gift of medicine the most nauseous may be a 
 far more solid evidence of kindness to a diseased 
 friend than that of all the sweets that his depraved 
 appetite might crave. " Open rebuke is better than 
 secret (that is, indolent and indulgent) love : for 
 faithful are the wounds of a friend." And what 
 child of God may not rejoice in the wounds which 
 he has received from his heavenly Friend ? — may 
 not regard them as the very choicest tokens of his 
 love ? — may not exclaim with David, " It is good 
 forme to have been afflicted?" — may not "glory 
 even in tribulation, knowing that tribulation work- 
 eth patience, and patience experience, and experi- 
 ence hope, and hope maketh not ashamed, because 
 the love of God is shed abroad in his heart" — he is 
 conscious, in the midst of all, that God is gracious 
 to him — "by the Holy Ghost which is given to 
 him !" Only let us cultivate the habit of recog- 
 nizing God in all things, (and this is Piety ;) and 
 then shall we assuredly joy in God in all things, 
 (and this is Happiness). Bright things will become 
 more bright, and dark things will be made transpa- 
 rent. Even as the bursting of the sun upon a land- 
 
SPIRITUAL PEACE. 175 
 
 scape, so is the lifting up the light of God's coun- 
 tenance upon the soul — every object is invested 
 with new form and character, and shines with hues 
 from heaven. 
 
 But Spiritual Peace results, further, from De- 
 pendence on God's care. We are weak and igno- 
 rant, and helpless, and therefore to a Friend we 
 look, not for communion only, and the sweet inter- 
 course of thoughts, and words, and gifts, but for 
 advice — support — assistance. And herein consists 
 the Christian's Peace, that he may look to God for 
 this from day to day, That very inequality be- 
 tween himself and his heavenly Father which must 
 render full communion impossible, — that awful dis- 
 tance between the creature and the Creator which 
 makes us reverently hesitate to call the Almighty 
 One our Friend — this only increases the confidence 
 with which we may depend upon Him as our Guar- 
 dian. And in this exercise of absolute Dependence 
 on his care lies our truest peace — a peace such as 
 all the dreams of Independence which the fumes of 
 Sin have ever generated in the fancy of poor fallen 
 man could never, in their fullest realization, pro- 
 duce. For it is not dependence that is irksome — 
 it is the feeling our need of dependence, but not 
 knowing whom we can implicitly confide in. It is 
 not want which is painful — it is the not knowing 
 whence to get our wants supplied. It is not weak- 
 
176 SPIRITUAL PEACE. 
 
 ness that is miserable, either in doing or in suffer- 
 ing — but it is the being compelled, when weak, to 
 do and to suffer unpitied, unassisted, and alone. 
 What so delightful as the exercise of childlike con- 
 fidence ? What so blessed as the consciousness of 
 knowing one in whom that confidence may be ex- 
 ercised unreservedly in every circumstance, and 
 through every moment, of our lives ? Yet this is 
 the privilege of the Christian — if he would but en- 
 ter into it. This is that Peace which passeth un- 
 derstanding which the sense of God's unfailing help 
 can give. Jesus himself enjoyed it, when he said 
 to his Father — " I know that thou hearest me al- 
 ways." And he exhorts his followers to enjoy it, 
 when he says, — " Take no thought, saying, What 
 shall we eat ? or, What shall we drink ? or, Where- 
 withal shall we be clothed ? For your heavenly Fa- 
 ther hnoweth that ye have need of all these things." 
 Paul felt it when he wrote, — " I have learned, in 
 whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I 
 know both how to be abased, and I know how to 
 abound: everywhere and in all things I am in- 
 structed, both to be full and to be hungry, both to 
 abound and to suffer need. I can do all things 
 through Christ which strengthened me." And 
 when he could throw out those paradoxical assur- 
 ances, — " We are troubled on every side, yet not 
 distressed ; we are perplexed, but not in despair ; 
 
SPIRITUAL PEACE. 177 
 
 persecuted, but not forsaken ; cast down, but not 
 destroyed." And when he could exclaim, — " He 
 said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee ; for 
 my strength is perfected in weakness. Most glad- 
 ly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities, 
 that the power of Christ may rest upon me. There- 
 fore, / take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in 
 necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's 
 sake : for when I am weak, then am I strong." 
 And Paul exhorts all Christians to enter into this 
 confiding peace, when he writes to the Philippians, 
 — " Be careful for nothing ; but in everything by 
 prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your 
 requests be made known unto God. And the peace 
 of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep 
 your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." Why, 
 it is our need of help from God which affords us the 
 occasion of rejoicing in his care ! Had not our con- 
 sciences awoke to the misery and guilt of sin, how 
 could we joy in the Atonement which He has pro- 
 vided for sin ? Had we not girded ourselves to the 
 tremendous conflict with our inbred corruptions, 
 how could we joy in that grace by whose effectual 
 help they may be put to death ? Did we not feel 
 that we are strangers and pilgrims upon earth, how 
 could we glory in the prospect of that better coun- 
 try, and that city which hath foundations, which 
 God has prepared for us? In this our present 
 
 N 
 
178 SPIRITUAL PEACE. 
 
 fallen state, our deepest sense of evil is the mother 
 of our highest good — on the tears of our affliction 
 is painted the rainbow of our hope — and through 
 the gloom that gathers over the shows of earth we 
 best can see the stars of heaven. Anything that 
 bends us down into dependence is a blessing — for 
 in Dependence lies our Peace. 
 
 But Spiritual Peace depends, still more, on our 
 being in harmony with God's will. This is indis- 
 pensable to solid Christian joy. It is only as our 
 Friend that we can delight in the recollection of 
 God's presence, and exercise dependence on his 
 care ; and we can never rise to the conviction that 
 God is entirely our Friend, so long as our consci- 
 ence tells us that we are not friends, and wish not 
 to be friends, with Him. All true and lasting peace 
 — all sober certainty of waking bliss — depends on 
 the condition of our own minds, the moral harmony 
 that reigns within ourselves. It is because this 
 harmony has been disturbed that man is miserable. 
 And it is only in proportion as it is restored that he 
 can be happy. And it is because this harmony is 
 restored in the converted man — because he has re- 
 ceived into his soul that Spirit of holiness which 
 brings his will into accordance with the will of God, 
 that he can rejoice in God as now his Father in- 
 deed — not in name and relation only — not by crea- 
 tion, sustentation, and daily benevolence, merely — 
 
SPIRITUAL PEACE. 179 
 
 but as the Producer of a state of mind accordant 
 with His own — who has begotten him again of His 
 own Spirit, and created him anew in Christ Jesus 
 unto good works, which He had before ordained 
 that he should walk in them. It is this fellowship 
 of inward will that St. John especially refers to as 
 the source of Christian joy. For he tells us, " if we 
 say that we have fellowship with God, and walk in 
 darkness, we lie and do not the truth ; but if we 
 walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have 
 fellowship one with another." And again, "he that 
 keepeth God's commandments dwelleth in him, and 
 He in him. And hereby we know that He abideth 
 in us, by the Spirit which He hath given us." And 
 this, therefore, Jesus presses on his followers as the 
 source of all true inward joy. " If ye keep my 
 commandments, ye shall abide in my love ; even as 
 I have kept my Father's commandments and abide 
 in his love. And these things have I spoken unto 
 you that my joy might remain in you, and that 
 your joy might be full" And so felt St. Paul, — 
 " Our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our consci- 
 ence, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not 
 with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God, we 
 have had our conversation in the world." O it is 
 indeed a peace that passeth understanding to feel, 
 with all the wondering gratitude of conscious inte- 
 grity, that we have taken God's will for our own, 
 
180 SPIRITUAL PEACE. 
 
 and that amidst our frequent infirmities, and neg- 
 lects, and treacheries, we do desire and endeavour 
 to bring every thought into subjection to the obedi- 
 ence of Christ ! to be conscious that we do approve 
 of God's law, as holy, just, and good — admiring and 
 loving it — co-operating with it — rejoicing in its par- 
 tial fulfilment, in ourselves and others, now — and 
 looking forward with a hopeful zeal to that predict- 
 ed time when it shall be entirely fulfilled by all — 
 when God's will shall be done in earth even as it is 
 in heaven ! What so exhilarates the heart as the as- 
 surance that we are truly at one with a bosom friend 
 — that his confidence in us is not misplaced, that 
 his affection towards us is returned — that there exist 
 no private views and purposes in either mind — that 
 we are together pursuing the same end, pleased 
 with the same enjoyments, imbued with the same 
 tastes, working out together the same results ? 
 And what then is it to be conscious that in some 
 degree this fellowship exists with the Most High 
 God — with the sentiments of the Most Holy — 
 the purposes of the Most Wise — the workings 
 of the Most Mighty — the honour and ultimate 
 triumph of the Most Glorious, the King of kings, 
 and Lord of lords ! The greatest privilege and 
 blessedness that can be attained by mortal man 
 is told in Scripture by one word — the greatest re- 
 ward that can be given to the most devoted fidelity 
 
SPIRITUAL PEACE. 181 
 
 and obedience is assigned in a single syllable — and 
 that is just the word and syllable which expresses 
 all the peace we have been speaking of — " Abra- 
 ham believed in God, and it was counted unto him 
 for righteousness, and he was called the Friend of 
 God." " Ye are my Friends, if ye do whatsoever I 
 command you." 
 
 Would you then, dear Reader, enjoy this friend- 
 ship with God and all the Peace which it produces, 
 suffer me to remind you how this privilege was 
 gained for you, and how it must be realized within 
 you. 
 
 How it was gained for you. For it is written, 
 " Being justified by faith, we have peace with God, 
 through our Lord Jesus Christ ;" — and again, " We 
 joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom 
 we have received the atonement." This privilege, 
 then, is not ours by birthright. It comes not of 
 itself to us. It cannot be solicited for us, by our 
 fellow men. We cannot purchase it ourselves. 
 Nor does it grow up in us by spontaneous develope- 
 ment. No human heart is naturally friendly with 
 the High and Holy One. As well might the out- 
 cast beggar aspire to friendship with the crowned 
 monarch ; or the condemned felon feel familiar with 
 the robed man of justice ; or the conscience-stricken 
 murderer delight in the idea of him whose name he 
 had put out from the earth. Nature, history, phi- 
 
182 SPIRITUAL PEACE. 
 
 losophy, scripture, conscience, — all declare that 
 enmity, variance, suspicion, dread, are, and must 
 be, the natural emotions of a guilty spirit toward 
 its offended Maker, Governor, and Judge. And 
 therefore, to be friends with God we must become 
 reconciled to Him. We must be made at one before 
 we can feel and love as one. The past must be 
 settled before the future can be enjoyed. We must 
 be brought into agreement before we can walk to- 
 gether. And just in order to this Reconciliation, 
 this at-one-ment, this making up, this bringing 
 to agreement, God sent his only Son into the 
 world to be the Mediator, the Restorer, the At- 
 one-Maker, (as Tyndal calls him,) the mutual inter- 
 ceding Friend. " God was in Christ," says St. Paul, 
 <c reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing 
 their trespasses unto them; and hath committed 
 unto us the word of Reconciliation. Now then, as 
 Ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech 
 you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye re- 
 conciled to God." God has done everything on 
 his part towards a reconciliation. Now do you do 
 yours. God has made the first offers — has thrown 
 down the existing barriers — has provided the ne- 
 cessary pledges — has condescended to the most en- 
 couraging assurances — has not spared his own Son, 
 but has given him up for us all — has opened wide 
 his fatherly arms for every returning sinner — and 
 
SPIRITUAL PEACE. 183 
 
 cries to all, " Return to me, for I have redeemed 
 thee !" Now then, do you return, " Take with 
 you words and turn unto the Lord and say unto 
 him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graci- 
 ously." Lay your hand on the atonement which 
 has been sacrificed for you. Transfer upon his 
 head your guilt. Sprinkle on your conscience his 
 blood. And draw near to God with a true heart, 
 in full assurance of faith, that being justified by 
 faith you may have peace with God through Jesus 
 Christ your Lord. 
 
 And thus shall you realize in your mind the pri- 
 vilege which has been vouchsafed you through his 
 blood. You will receive the atonement which has 
 been wrought for you. You will enjoy personally 
 what has been done for you vicariously. You will 
 be yourself at one with God, and will joy in Him 
 who is not now first by some tedious process of 
 laborious penance to be made your Friend, but who 
 is already so, and has shown himself to be so through 
 his Son ; and by that showing has subdued and won 
 your heart, and with your heart will have your di- 
 ligent obedience — will he not? — from this time 
 forward even to eternity ! 
 
184 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SPIRITUAL HOPE. 
 
 The grand promise of the Gospel is that of the 
 restoration and perfecting of all things in the king- 
 dom of God. And the whole work of the Gospel 
 on the individual soul is the bringing it out of the 
 alienation and misery of sin into the capacity for 
 this glorious consummation. The Son of God has 
 opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers. 
 And the Spirit of God disposes, trains, and fits 
 them for its ultimate enjoyment. The Doctrines 
 of Christianity make known this kingdom, and the 
 way in which it must be sought. The Experience 
 of Christianity anticipates this kingdom, and brings 
 the mind to live by faith in some communion with 
 it. And the Precepts of Christianity prepare for 
 this kingdom, and reduce the character into con- 
 formity with its governing principle, the will of 
 God. 
 
 All genuine Christian Experience, therefore, 
 springs from the promise, and depends upon the 
 hope, of everlasting life. The whole work of deli- 
 verance from evil is begun, continued, and ended in 
 hope. "We are saved," says St. Paul, "by Hope." 
 
SPIRITUAL HOPE. , 185 
 
 That is — Hope forms the living principle of the 
 Christian mind, begetting, and accompanying all 
 its spiritual exercises. It was the hope of pardon 
 through the blood of Christ, which first delivered 
 us from this present evil world. It is the hope of 
 victory through the Spirit of Christ, which ani- 
 mates us to struggle for deliverance from the still 
 remaining power of sin. And it is the hope of 
 final triumph at the Second Coming of Christ, 
 which enables us patiently to wait for the deliver- 
 ance of all things from the bondage of corruption 
 into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 
 Hope, then, is the consummation of the spiritual 
 life — that which sustains all other feelings, and 
 breathes over them a freshness and a fragrance 
 ever new. O may the God of hope fill us with all 
 joy and peace in believing, that we may abound in 
 Hope through the power of the Holy Ghost ! 
 
 For Hope is the only unfailing support of the 
 Christian mind in this present state of things. Great 
 and manifold, it is true, are the blessings which 
 God vouchsafes, even now, to them that love him. 
 In the remembrance of past forbearance and com- 
 passion, and in the enjoyment of present favour 
 and communion, there springs up frequently in the 
 bosom of the Christian a joy which no man inter- 
 meddleth with ; according to the promise of our 
 Saviour — He that believeth on me, from within 
 himself shall flow forth constantly refreshing streams 
 
186 
 
 SPIRITUAL HOPE. 
 
 of gladness. But then, all these blessings, in the 
 present state of things, are necessarily incomplete, 
 variable, and disturbed. The pure river of water 
 of life may proceed out of the throne of God in the 
 heart, clear as crystal, but it flows into a mind still 
 turbid, and therefore it unavoidably becomes altered 
 and defiled. 
 
 Our knowledge of God, for example, how limited 
 is this ! He has proclaimed his character to us, 
 but we are dull of hearing. He has made himself 
 visible in Christ, but our eyes are heavy. When, 
 indeed, we can fix our gaze on his perfections, 
 when we can look forth full upon our God — his 
 will, his works, his ways — with quiet contemplation, 
 then do we understand somewhat of our Lord's 
 assurance that this is life eternal, to know the 
 only true God, through Jesus Christ whom he 
 hath sent ; and we are ready to exclaim, with the 
 disciples when they saw the glory of their Master, 
 " It is good for us to be here !" But alas, how soon 
 does a cloud overshadow us, and we awake and find 
 ourselves alone I That pure intuition of Deity which 
 the sages of antiquity aspired to as the summit of 
 perfection ; and which Moses, the sacred sage, was 
 favoured with when " God spake to him mouth to 
 mouth, even apparently, and the similitude of the 
 Lord did he behold;" and the full reality of which 
 is the exclusive portion of the only-begotten Son, 
 to whom the Father " showeth all things that him- 
 
SPIRITUAL HOPE. 187 
 
 self doeth," and who therefore " knoweth the Fa- 
 ther, even as the Father knoweth the Son :" — this is 
 not for ordinary flesh and blood, in this world of 
 sense and sensible conceptions, and by Hope alone 
 can we look out for any approximation to it. But 
 Hope does tell us that " the pure in heart shall see 
 God," — that we shall " behold his face in righteous- 
 ness," that " we shall see him as he is," — that " now, 
 indeed, we see through a glass, darkly, but then 
 face to face ; now we know in part, but then shall 
 we know even as we are known!" 
 
 And have we now some communion with God? 
 Do we realize, at any time, his presence, and there- 
 by enter somewhat into the original blessedness of 
 Paradise when the Lord God walked in the garden, 
 and the Divine Wisdom rejoiced in the habitable 
 part of the earth, and her delights were with the 
 sons of men ? Then truly do we enter into present 
 peace — a peace entirely independent of — unmind- 
 ful of — the world to come. The present moment is 
 bliss, and we are satisfied. But then, how few and 
 far between are visitations such as these — how 
 many voices of the world break in upon the holy 
 silence of the soul — how many earthly shapes in- 
 trude themselves into the sacred circle, and break 
 the charm. And where, then, is our consolation, but 
 in the Hope of that predicted full communion, when 
 " the tabernacle of God shall be with men, and He 
 will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, 
 
188 SPIRITUAL HOPE. 
 
 and God himself shall be with them and be their 
 God." 
 
 And what, still further, is our present service of 
 God, but mingled effort and disappointment ? True 
 it is that in that service the Christian finds his 
 greatest happiness — that it is perfect freedom — 
 that God's law is his delight — and that in keeping 
 of his commandments there is great reward. The 
 exhilaration that accompanies activity — the glow 
 of successful effort — the quiet sense of inward har- 
 mony — the delight of testifying our gratitude to 
 God— and the thrilling consciousness of his com- 
 placency towards us — all combine to shed an inex- 
 pressible blessedness through the heart, and to make 
 us cry with David, " Great peace have they which 
 love thy law, and nothing shall offend them !" But 
 then, what Christian is there who has not to mourn 
 the daily interruption of this holy service ? Who 
 does not confess that in many things we all offend ? 
 Who does not bitterly bewail that the things that 
 he would he does not, and the things that he would 
 not, those he does, and there is no health in him ? 
 O if our happiness were to depend exclusively on 
 what we have actually acquired of holiness, — if only 
 according to the precise measure of our righteous- 
 ness could be the measure of our peace, — no peace 
 could there be for fallen man; neither in this world, 
 for he has not attained to righteousness — nor in the 
 next, for never can he hope, on this condition, to 
 
SPIRITUAL HOPE. 189 
 
 attain it. All hope would be smothered under the 
 burden of despondency — all power for holiness 
 crushed under the oppressive sense of impotency. 
 To the future, therefore, we must look for all the 
 happiness of holiness, that by the vigour which that 
 future rouses in us we may achieve the holiness 
 which is happiness. By Hope alone, can we begin to 
 work. The command of the compassionate Saviour 
 must itself convey the life by which we may stretch 
 forth the withered arm. By Hope alone can we 
 continue to work, amidst enmity and allurement 
 without, and treachery within. And, blessed be 
 God ! such Hope is ours through the knowledge of 
 Him that hath called us to glory and virtue ! By 
 him are given unto us exceeding great and precious 
 promises, that by these we may become partakers of 
 the divine nature. And from those promises we 
 may derive a daily joy, at once consolatory under 
 disappointment, and productive of success. " Bless- 
 ed are they which do hunger and thirst after 
 righteousness, for they shall be filled? " We, ac- 
 cording to his promise, look for new heavens and a 
 new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." " And 
 the work of righteousness shall be peace ; and the 
 effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for 
 ever." 
 
 Hope, then, is our only certain stay amidst the 
 mental, spiritual, and moral imperfection of our 
 present state. It is the under-current of the re- 
 
190 SPIRITUAL HOPE. 
 
 newed soul, which alone runs steadily while the 
 surface is continually broken into eddies, and swept 
 by the vicissitudes of cloud and sunshine. And 
 hence it has ever formed the preserving grace of 
 God's people through every age. In the long cata- 
 logue of faithful men set before us in the ele- 
 venth chapter to the Hebrews, the Faith which is 
 extolled as having been their animating and sus- 
 taining principle is for the most part prospective — 
 is the assurance of blessings whose attainment was 
 yet to come — is " the substance of things hoped 
 for" — in short, is Hope; — only not that Hope 
 which rests on nothing more substantial than the 
 airy visions of a sanguine imagination, but which is 
 based and settled on the solid word of God, who 
 cannot lie. It was by this Faith, which is Hope, 
 that Abraham " sojourned in the land of promise 
 as in a strange country ; for he looked for a city 
 which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is 
 God." It was by this Faith, which is Hope, that the 
 patriarchs, " not having received the promises, saw 
 them afar off, and embraced them, and confessed 
 that they were strangers and pilgrims upon earth." 
 It was by this Faith, which is Hope, that Abraham, 
 " when he was tried, offered up Isaac, accounting 
 that God was able to raise him up, even from the 
 dead;" or, as St. Paul says in another epistle, 
 " against Hope believing in Hope, and being fully 
 
SPIRITUAL HOPE. 
 
 191 
 
 persuaded that what God had promised he was 
 able also to perform." And all those other men of 
 God who obtained a good report through faith, did 
 so " not having received the promise" because God 
 had " provided some better thing for us, that they 
 without us should not be made perfect." By Hope, 
 therefore, were they saved, and by Hope must we. 
 " Christ's house are we, if we hold fast the confidence 
 and the rejoicing of the Hope firm unto the end." 
 " And we desire that every one of you do show the 
 same diligence unto the full assurance of Hope unto 
 the end ; that ye be not slothful, but followers of 
 them who through faith and patience" (compare 
 Rom. viii. 25.) " inherit the promises." " By two 
 immutable things, in which it was impossible for 
 God to lie, we may have strong consolation which 
 have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the Hope set 
 before us in the Gospel ; which Hope we have as 
 an anchor of the soul sure and steadfast, and which 
 entereth into that within the veil, whither the 
 Fore-runner, Jesus, is for us entered." " Where- 
 fore, seeing we are compassed about with so great 
 a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, 
 and the sin " (that is, of Despondency,) " which 
 doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience 
 the race set before us, looking unto Jesus the 
 Author and finisher of our faith ; who, for the joy 
 that was set before him, endured the cross, despising 
 
192 SPIRITUAL HOPE. 
 
 the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the 
 throne of God. For consider him who endured 
 such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye 
 be wearied and faint in your minds !" 
 
 And this Hope, remember, is no vain-glorious 
 self-confidence ; for the essence of it is dependence 
 on the promises, and the continual help, of another 
 than ourselves. It is no idle and unholy presump- 
 tion, for it is limited and conditioned by the princi- 
 ples that we are holding fast, the dispositions we 
 are cherishing, the path of conscientious obedience 
 in which we are walking. It is a meek and quiet 
 confidence in the faithfulness of God to those who 
 love him, and an unpretending reliance on those as- 
 surances of Christ, — " My sheep hear my voice, 
 and I know them, and they follow me, and I give 
 unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, 
 neither shall any pluck them out of my hand ; — yea, 
 my Father which gave them unto me is greater 
 than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of 
 my Father's hand." Where the very form of the 
 encouragement secures it from misapplication, and 
 the very words that animate, must at the same 
 time sanctify. The Christian's Hope is the hope of 
 " Christ's sheep." — not of the self-willed, the proud, 
 and the presumptuous. It is the hope of those 
 who " hear his voice," — not who listen to the syren 
 song of Sin. It is the hope of those who " follow 
 him," — not who follow the devices and desires of 
 
SPIRITUAL HOPE. 193 
 
 their own hearts. It is the hope, that " when he 
 shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him 
 as he is," and therefore, " every one that hath this 
 Hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure" 
 
 But to enjoy this Hope, in its full assurance, and 
 to derive from it all the life and power which it can 
 convey, we must recollect whence it springs, and 
 how it is to be preserved from day to day. 
 
 It springs from dependence on the work that Christ 
 has wrought for us on the cross. For it is only as we 
 believe in God, that we can hope in God ; only as 
 we trust to his assurances of forgiveness for the 
 past, that we can embrace his promises of safety 
 for the future. " Being justified by his grace, we 
 are made heirs, through Hope, of eternal life." 
 We must enter into our relation with God as dear 
 children before we can look forward, with any feel- 
 ing that deserves the name of Hope, to the inherit- 
 ance of his children. The careless, worldly-mind- 
 ed, unconverted man is without hope, because he 
 is virtually without God ; and a stranger from the 
 covenants of promise, because in spirit an alien 
 from the commonwealth of Israel. We have only 
 to look round upon the general feeling of mankind 
 in the thought of death and of another world, — 
 the shrinking dread which betrays the utter empti- 
 ness of their expectations of eternity, — the clinging 
 to this life, which shows that here only do they feel 
 they have a solid footing and can grasp reality and 
 
194 SPIRITUAL HOPE. 
 
 substance; — we have only to remark the almost 
 universal substitution of the cold term " Resigna- 
 tion," — a term of which Scripture actually knows 
 nothing, — for the animated Christian term, and 
 the joyful Christian idea, of Hope — " lively Hope," 
 
 — " blessed Hope," — " Hope that maketh not 
 ashamed;" — in order to convince ourselves that 
 only from the spiritual Experience of the Gospel 
 can spring the spiritual Hope of the Gospel. If 
 we would have " everlasting consolation and good 
 hope," it is " through grace" that we must have it 
 
 — through the animating confidence that " our 
 Lord Jesus Christ himself and God even our Fa- 
 ther hath loved us and chosen us unto salvation, 
 through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the 
 truth." And therefore, St. Paul represents the hope 
 of future glory as springing from the faith in past 
 forgiveness, and sustained through every trial by 
 the consciousness of present friendship. "Being 
 justified by faith we have peace with God through 
 our Lord Jesus Christ," — there is past forgiveness ! 
 — " by whom also we have access by faith into this 
 grace wherein we stand," — there is present friend- 
 ship ! — " and rejoice in hope of the glory of God" — 
 there is future Assurance ! Which hope, the Apos- 
 tle declares yet further, is not shaken by tribulation, 
 does not make us hold down our heads with shame 
 and disappointment, " because the love of God is 
 shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which 
 
SPIRITUAL HOPE. 195 
 
 is given unto us," — because the declarations of 
 God's pardoning mercy pervade and fill the honest- 
 hearted Christian, and produce that buoyant con- 
 sciousness of safety which exclaims in each succes- 
 sive trial, " If God be for us, who can be against 
 us ? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered 
 him up for us all, how shall he not with him also 
 freely give us all things ?" " Who shall separate us 
 from the love of Christ ? Shall tribulation, or dis- 
 tress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, 
 or sword ? Nay, in all these things we are more than 
 conquerors, through him that loved us. For I am 
 persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, 
 nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor 
 things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other 
 creature, shall be able to separate us from the love 
 of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord !" 
 
 But remember equally, how this Hope must be 
 preserved from day to day. It must be preserved 
 by preservation of the heart from sin, and of the 
 conscience from defilement. Its life depends upon 
 the death of its antagonist principle. And this an- 
 tagonist principle is invigorated by every successive 
 fall from moral excellence, nay, flourishes of itself 
 when there is merely negligence, and want of growth 
 in moral excellence. The Hope we speak of is the 
 hope of holiness, and therefore it cannot be otherwise 
 than a holy Hope, and with Holiness only can it 
 dwell. " The hope of the righteous shall be gladness, 
 
196 SPIRITUAL HOPE. 
 
 but the expectation of the wicked shall perish." 
 " Can the rush grow up without mire ? Can the flag 
 grow without water ? Whilst it is yet in its green- 
 ness and not cut down, it withereth before any other 
 herb. So are the paths of all that forget God, and 
 the hypocrite's hope shall perish ; whose hope shall 
 be cut off, and whose trust shall be a spider's web." 
 O forget not that it is the Holy Ghost whose power 
 makes the Christian's hope abound, and that the 
 Holy Ghost can never dwell in an unholy heart. 
 It is " through the Spirit that we wait for the hope 
 of righteousness by faith," and this Spirit lusteth 
 against the flesh and produceth all the fruits of 
 righteousness. It is " the Holy Spirit of God where- 
 by we are sealed unto the day of redemption," and 
 this Spirit is soon grieved by " bitterness and wrath, 
 and clamour, and evil speaking," — by every evil 
 thought, and temper, and desire. O then for care- 
 ful, jealous cherishing of his gentle inspirations ! 
 O for daily nourishment of all those dispositions, in 
 the midst of which, as in the temple of his holiness, 
 he loves to dwell ! The assurance of our hope must 
 vary as the experience of our sanctification. And 
 it is only as we can say, with all the conscious inte- 
 grity of St. Paul, " I have fought a good fight, I 
 have finished my course, I have kept the faith," 
 that we can also say, with all the full assurance of 
 St. Paul, " Henceforth there is laid up for me a 
 crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righte- 
 ous judge, shall give me at that day I" 
 
PART III. 
 
 THE NOURISHMENT 
 
 OF 
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 The counsels of Religion are not to be applied to the distem- 
 pers of the soul as men used to take hellebore, but they must 
 dwell together with the Spirit of a man, and be twisted about his 
 understanding for ever ; they must be used like nourishment — 
 that is, by a daily care and meditation — not like a single medi- 
 cine and in the actual pressure of a present necessity. 
 
 Bishop J. Taylor. 
 
 What then remains 1 — To seek 
 Those helps, for his occasions ever near, 
 Who lacks not will to use them ; vows, renewed 
 On the first motion of a holy thought ; 
 Vigils of contemplation ; praise ; and prayer, 
 A stream, which, from the fountain of the heart, 
 Issuing, however feebly, nowhere flows 
 Without access of unexpected strength. 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
Qu'est-ce done qu'un homme qui, reconnoissant l'Etre Su- 
 preme, ne le prie pas 1 C'est un infortune qui n'a point de 
 Dieu ; qui vit tout seul dans Punivers ; qui ne tient a aucun 
 etre hors de lui ; qui, retombant sur son propre cceur, n'y trouve 
 que lui-meme, c'est a dire, ses peines, ses degouts, ses inquie- 
 tudes, ses terreurs, avec quoi il puisse s'entretenir. C'est un infor- 
 tune. .. .qui vit dans l'univers comme un homme que l'hasard 
 avoit jete tout seul dans une ile reculee et inaccessible, ou ilse- 
 roit sans maitre, sans souverain, sans soin, sans discipline, sans 
 attendre de ressource, sans se promettre une meilleure destinee, 
 sans porter ses vceux et ses souhaits au-dela du vaste abime qui 
 l'environnerait, et sans chercher d'autre adoucissement a, l'infor- 
 tune de sa condition qu'une molle indolence. 
 
 Massillon. 
 
PART III. 
 
 THE NOURISHMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE NECESSITY OF DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES. 
 
 We have seen that the Essence of the Spiritual 
 life of Christianity lies in the filial disposition of the 
 heart towards God, and that although the Source 
 of this life is necessarily hidden in the inscrutable 
 depths of the soul, its Developement will take 
 place according to the usual laws and workings of 
 the human mind. This developement may be neg- 
 lected, may be hindered, may be limited — or it may 
 be sought, assisted, fostered into full expansion. 
 It may be quick or slow. It may be vigorous or 
 feeble. But without some experience of it we have 
 failed to gain that personal benefit from the truths 
 of Christianity which they are intended to convey, 
 and to make its blessings and its hopes our own. 
 
 But this benefit, even when gained, must be 
 diligently cherished, if we would retain possession 
 of it, still more if we would reach the full enjoyment 
 of its sweetness and power. The stream of holy 
 
200 THE NECESSITY OF 
 
 thought must be continually fed from its original 
 fountains, and by tributary rills, or it will dry up and 
 perish. The presence and influence of the Spirit 
 of God are vouchsafed after a moral manner, — that 
 is, not mechanically or supernaturally, but according 
 to the laws of mind, and heart, and will ; and there- 
 fore they must be maintained and increased by 
 moral means — that is, by all those exercises of the 
 mind, and heart, and will, which are comprehended 
 under the term Devotion, in its widest sense. 
 Whatever tends to deepen and make vivid the 
 Sense of God — to strengthen and extend holy 
 thoughts, affections, and determinations — forms the 
 proper and the indispensable nourishment of the 
 Spiritual Life. O what a wide and fruitful field of 
 meditation is here opened to us ! God grant that 
 we may expatiate therein with solemn step I God 
 enable us to treat of Prayer in the spirit of prayer ! 
 — to meditate devoutly on devotion ! 
 
 Our first endeavour will be to show the Necessity 
 of Devotional exercises, as the natural Effusion of 
 the spirit of adoption, and as the indispensable 
 Means of its nourishment and growth. 
 
 As the natural Effusion of the spirit of Adop- 
 tion, the Christian cannot do without Prayer. For 
 this spirit is an effluence from the Spirit of God'. It 
 comes down from him ; and to him, therefore, it 
 
DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES. 201 
 
 cannot but again ascend. Rather, — It is not sepa- 
 rated from Him ; and in Him, therefore, it cannot 
 but dwell. The breath of natural life, though issuing 
 from the mysterious fountain of Being and diffused 
 throughout the world, is not, and cannot be, sepa- 
 rated therefrom ; and therefore the Apostle says, 
 of every creature, that " in God we live, and move, 
 and have our being." Life is no possession of our 
 own, made over to us, but it depends from hour to 
 hour on the unceasing inspiration of the breath of 
 God. " In his hand is the soul of every living 
 thing and the breath of all mankind." "Thou 
 sendest forth thy spirit and they are created ; thou 
 takest away their breath and they die." And just 
 so is it with the Spiritual, even as with the natural, 
 life. Not only from God does it proceed, but in 
 God it must live. It is a union of the soul to God, 
 and therewith a communion with God. Intercourse 
 is essential to its nature. The individual breath 
 commingles with the universal. And therefore 
 does St. John declare " we have fellowship with 
 the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." And 
 he who has the Spirit of God is said to dwell in 
 God, and God in him. There is affinity with God 
 begotten in the soul ; and where there is affinity, 
 there must be attraction and blending into one. 
 " Prayer," says Bishop Taylor, " what is it but an 
 ascent of the mind towards God ?" 
 
202 THE NECESSITY OF 
 
 Besides, this spirit of adoption is the spirit of a 
 Son — a child — a loving child towards his affec- 
 tionate parent ; and we know what are the effu- 
 sions of such a child towards him whom he loves. 
 How his heart goes forth towards him. How he de- 
 lights to seize, and to make, opportunities of coming 
 into his presence — of watching his eye, of catching 
 his smile, of communicating to him his thoughts, 
 and of listening to his words. How he turns to 
 him in every need, depending upon his encourage- 
 ment and help. How he refers to him his plans 
 and wishes, that he may obtain his approbation of 
 them, or get them modified by his suggestions. 
 And all these exercises of the filial mind are just 
 the chief component parts of Prayer. For Prayer is 
 the effusion of Delight in God's presence, Depend- 
 ence on God's help, and Deference to God's will. 
 
 And therefore do we see this spirit breathing 
 forth so naturally from our blessed Lord, who was 
 emphatically The Son of God, and was therefore 
 filled with the spirit of a Son. In how many in- 
 stances do we find him, not formally addressing 
 himself to Prayer, but his thoughts taking in their 
 very birth the form of Prayer, rising up as such 
 within the mind by their natural tendency towards 
 God. Supplication, thanksgiving, general com- 
 mendation of himself into his Father's hands— 
 escape from him, as it were, by their native buoy- 
 
DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES. 203 
 
 ancy and expansiveness. Supplication, for exam- 
 ple, when about to heal the deaf and dumb man — 
 " He took him aside from the multitude, and put 
 his fingers in his ears and touched his tongue, and 
 looking up to heaven he sighed, and saith unto him 
 Ephphatha, that is, Be opened." Thanksgiving, 
 again, when he had come to the grave of Lazarus 
 to raise his friend — He sees by faith, the work 
 already accomplished — his adoration cannot wait — 
 it breathes itself out before the fact — " Jesus lifted 
 up his eyes and said, Father, I thank thee that thou 
 hast heard me !" And this natural Thanksgiving 
 he exhibits in the slightest and the most habitual 
 occurrences of life, so that, as St. Luke informs us, 
 the disciples going to Emmaus recognized their 
 Master, after his resurrection, by his devoutness. 
 " It came to pass as he sat at meat with them he 
 took bread and blessed it" — that is, blessed God for 
 it — " and brake and gave to them, and their eyes were 
 opened and they knew him." It was customary, in- 
 deed, for the master of a family to begin each meal 
 with an ascription of praise to God as the Provider 
 of it ; but that this stranger should thus act for them 
 as the head of their little party, and breathe forth 
 the very thanksgiving which they had been accus- 
 tomed to from their Master — it must be He himself! 
 Even as gait, and manner, and various little habits, 
 betray a man, so was Jesus recognized by his De- 
 
204 THE NECESSITY OF 
 
 voutness. And then observe his general Depend- 
 ence upon God, and commendation of himself into 
 his hands. When the soldiers came with swords 
 and staves to take him, the Disciples think imme- 
 diately of dependence on an arm of flesh, and seize 
 the sword to defend their master. But Jesus thinks 
 only of God. " Put up thy sword into its place. 
 Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, 
 and he shall presently give me more than twelve 
 legions of angels ?" And when the awful moment 
 of dissolution came, and he must dismiss his spirit, 
 that spirit he breathed forth in prayer to God — 
 " Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit !" 
 
 Nor were the followers of Jesus destitute of 
 these effusions of Devoutness. You recollect how, 
 when the Apostles had reported to their friends all 
 that the chief priests and elders had said to them, 
 " when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to 
 God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God, 
 which hast made heaven and earth, and the sea, 
 and all that in them is." And how, in the prison 
 at Philippi, " at midnight, Paul and Silas prayed 
 and sang praises unto God." And how the con- 
 verts, on the day of Pentecost, " continued daily 
 with one accord in the temple, eating their meat 
 with gladness and singleness of heart, and praising 
 God." Here are instances of those spontaneous 
 aspirations which are the natural breathings of the 
 
DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES. 205 
 
 renewed mind. We speak not now of acts of 
 prayer, times of prayer, places of prayer, but of 
 the spirit of prayer, as the necessary effusion of the 
 spirit of adoption, — of that bent and bias of the 
 Spiritual nature which displays itself at every op- 
 portunity afforded it, and in which lies the evidence 
 of our possession of that nature. For true piety is 
 a spontaneous principle. Even amidst all our re- 
 maining evil, dulness, hinderances, and imperfections, 
 true piety is a spontaneous principle, — the welling 
 forth of an interior life. The spring may be but 
 imperfectly opened up ; the stream may flow but 
 languidly; its course may be obstructed by innu- 
 merable obstacles ; and it may often seem to lose 
 itself amidst the sands of earth — but still a spring 
 there must be, and that spring of living water. 
 " Religion," says the pious Scougal,* " is an in- 
 ward, free, self-moving principle, — and the love 
 which a pious man bears to God and goodness is 
 not so much by virtue of a command enjoining him 
 so to do, as by a new nature instructing and prompt- 
 ing him to it; nor doth he pay his devotions as an 
 unavoidable tribute, only to appease the divine jus- 
 tice, or quiet his clamorous conscience ; but those 
 religious exercises are the proper emanations of the 
 
 * In his " Life of God in the Soul of Man ;" one of the most 
 valuable tracts on the list of the Christian Knowledge Society. 
 
206 THE NECESSITY OF 
 
 divine life, the natural employments of the new-born 
 soul." 
 
 But the Necessity of devotional exercises will be 
 still more apparent if we consider them, further, as 
 the indispensable Means by which the spirit of adop- 
 tion must be nourished and invigorated. For, this 
 spirit, being not of native growth within us, — nay, 
 being every moment opposed and checked by that 
 which is of native growth, (Gal. v. 17. Article IX.) 
 — cannot be sustained, and still less, developed into 
 full expansion, but by continued inspirations from 
 its heavenly Source. " Grant to us," we pray in 
 our collect for the fifth Sunday after Easter, " that 
 by thy holy inspiration we may think those things 
 that be good." And again in our Communion ser- 
 vice, " Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the 
 inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly 
 love thee and worthily magnify thy holy name." 
 But these inspirations are communicated, not by 
 unaccountable illapse or by sensible impulse, but 
 through the ordinary exercises of devotion, and by 
 the excitement or revival of spiritual thoughts. By 
 the ideas of God and his relation to us in Christ 
 was this spirit first awakened in us, and by the re- 
 production and expansion of these ideas it must be 
 fed. But to the re-production of any one idea, — 
 still more to the making it familiar to us, so that it 
 shall connect itself with all our trains of thought, 
 and, rising up with them into the consciousness, 
 
DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES. 207 
 
 affect and modify their character by its presence, — 
 there is required a frequent re-presentation of the 
 object that it images, till, by the steady contempla- 
 tion of that object in its various relations, it take 
 place and permanence among our inward realities. 
 It is the actual presence of sensible objects, con- 
 stantly repeated, that makes them so familiar to us. 
 It is the frequent presence of a friend which has 
 obtained for his idea such a place in our hearts, and 
 an influence on our thoughts. And with objects not 
 sensible, with friends at a distance, this presence can 
 be realized only by the re-production of their image 
 in our consciousness, and by the holding of that 
 image there sufficiently long to find it filling the 
 mind's eye, and placing full and vividly before our 
 view the being that it represents. And hence then 
 the need of prayer to make present to us God — of 
 that meditative recollection of his character and 
 will, which withdraws the attention from all other 
 objects either of outward sense, or of inward imagi- 
 nation, and fixes it upon the portrait of our Father 
 as he is exhibited in Christ, till we seem to know 
 him for our own, to see him smile upon us, to ex- 
 pect him almost to speak to us in words of fatherly 
 affection ! Christian ! if you would have something 
 more than dim and shadowy conceptions of God — 
 if you would do more than hear of him by the hear- 
 ing of the ear — if your eyes would see him — you 
 must be diligent in all the means of grace. 
 
208 
 
 THE NECESSITY OF 
 
 But the spirit of adoption is something more than 
 vivid conceptions of God — it is a new disposition to- 
 wards him. And to the formation of a disposition 
 of mind there is required the frequent revival of the 
 feelings of which it is composed, and their habitual 
 exercise. It is the constant exercise, from earliest 
 childhood, of the filial feelings, which renders them 
 so strong, so regular, so apparently instinctive ; and 
 the most affectionate child will lose something of 
 the freshness and the force of those feelings, if he 
 be long separated from the presence and from the 
 memorials of his parent. And just similarly is it 
 with the filial feelings of the Christian towards his 
 heavenly Father. It was long perhaps before they 
 were awakened — their repetition is but fitful and 
 irregular — their settling into habit and disposition 
 is checked by many things without us, and more 
 within — and nothing therefore but exercise, steady 
 and deliberate exercise, can preserve them, much 
 less strengthen and consolidate them. And this 
 exercise is to be sought in Devotion — in specific 
 acts, at stated times, and with sustained attention. 
 For it is only by repeated acts that any general 
 habits (of mind as well as of body) can be either 
 formed or maintained. If our affections towards 
 God are weak and dull, it is by prayer that we must 
 quicken and invigorate them — prayer which brings 
 before our mind memorials of God's love to us, — 
 
DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES. 209 
 
 all that is winning, and awakening, and soul-subdu- 
 ing, in his character and in his dealings with us, — 
 and, as by a live-coal from the altar, kindles our af- 
 fections into flame. Its influence is like the turn- 
 ing up some touching token of a departed friend. 
 It stirs the heart as the single look of Jesus did the 
 heart of Peter, and unlocks the smothered spring of 
 life-restoring tears. 
 
 Again. The life of the spirit is a life of faith — 
 opposed to the life of sense and struggling against 
 it. It is oppressed and enfeebled every moment by 
 the rush of millions of unfriendly, though necessary, 
 thoughts of earth. Twelve, fourteen, sixteen hours 
 of each successive day it suffers violence from the 
 mighty current of external things, invading every 
 sense, and taking captive every thought and feel- 
 ing. How shall it rear its head against all this ? 
 how shall it be saved from being swept into obli- 
 vion, but by deliberate, habitual, persevering, exer- 
 cises of Devotion ? All that is low and evil in our 
 nature is nourished incessantly, even against our 
 will — we are immersed in its very atmosphere, and 
 every breath we draw is tainted with it. But all 
 that is high and holy must be nourished by our will, 
 and by laborious flight into a better atmosphere, 
 if ever we would have it breathe within us freely and 
 with vigour. From the high places of devotion we 
 must inhale new elasticity. On the wings of prayer 
 
 p 
 
210 THE NECESSITY OF 
 
 we must fly up into the presence of the Holy One, 
 and bathe our fainting spirit in that pure Light of 
 heaven, which is at the same time Life. 
 
 Devotion, therefore, is indispensable to the nou- 
 rishment of the Spiritual Life. Not as an indulgence 
 merely, when the mind ascends with freedom towards 
 its God ; but as a business, and a means of grace. 
 We must not only yield to pray erfuln ess, but we 
 must give ourselves to prayer, and set every sail to 
 catch the passing breath of spirituality : not only 
 vent the spontaneous feelings of our hearts, but 
 awaken, cherish, and detain those feelings : not 
 only, therefore, follow out a casual impulse, but by 
 rules of regular devotion, by setting apart of times 
 and places, and by the use of every rational help, 
 we must pursue the work of Spiritual Nourishment. 
 The sacred flame of piety is low and flickering ; 
 we must inclose and shelter it from the blasts of 
 earth. It too often sinks and slumbers ; we must 
 sedulously stir the dying embers. It is at best 
 but faint and feeble ; we must fan it into vigour. 
 " I put thee in remembrance," says St. Paul to 
 Timothy, " that thou stir up the gift of God which 
 is in thee." " For like as fire has need of fuel," 
 adds Theophylact, " so does the grace of the Holy 
 Spirit require our personal earnestness, and care, 
 and watchfulness, if we would have its genial 
 warmth abiding in us." 
 
 We see this in the case even of our blessed Lord. 
 
DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES. 211 
 
 Though filled with the Spirit, he nevertheless made 
 practice of devotion for the nourishment of that Spi- 
 rit. He did not merely breathe it forth spontane- 
 ously as occasion offered, but he used, of purpose, 
 means for cherishing it ; breaking off from his em- 
 ployments, and his friends, yea, and his charitable 
 offices, that he might refresh his wearied mind by 
 intercourse with God. " When he had sent the 
 multitudes away, he went up into a mountain to 
 pray," with the purpose and design of spending 
 time in prayer to God. And St. Mark informs us, 
 that " in the morning, rising up a great while be- 
 fore day," — breaking off his sleep with the deliberate 
 intent of engaging in devotion, — " he went out and 
 departed into a solitary place, and there prayed." 
 Nay, St. Luke records that Jesus " went up into a 
 mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer 
 to God." Here are instances of our Divine Master 
 setting himself to prayer as a general means of 
 nourishing Spiritual life. 
 
 But we see him, further, on particular occasions 
 seeking special strength by prayer. It was when 
 he was about to consecrate his twelve disciples to 
 the sacred office of Apostles, that he gave the 
 whole previous night to prayer. When he was 
 about to reveal to them his divine glory by his 
 Transfiguration, " he took Peter, and James, and 
 John, and went up into a mountain to pray" And 
 when he saw the hour of his agony at hand, he 
 
212 THE NECESSITY OF 
 
 sought for power for the dreadful struggle, and 
 drank in the Spirit by which he might sustain it, 
 in earnest, pleading, prayer, " Then cometh Jesus 
 with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, 
 and sailh unto them, Sit ye here, while I go and 
 pray yonder ; and being in an agony, he prayed the 
 more earnestly, and his sweat was as it were great 
 drops of blood falling down to the ground." 
 
 And if, then, Prayer was thus necessary for the 
 Holy Jesus, how much more is it necessary for his 
 people, who are hourly beset and defiled by Sin ! 
 No Christian ever lived without devotion. No man 
 can be a Christian without making a determined 
 business of devotion. Thus it was that the Apos- 
 tles and the Saints of old maintained their Spiritual 
 life. " They all continued with one accord in 
 prayer and supplication." " Peter and John went 
 up to the temple at the hour of prayer." " We 
 will give ourselves continually to the word of God 
 and prayer." " On the Sabbath day we went out 
 of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont 
 to be made." And hence we have so many exhort- 
 ations in the Bible to Prayer. " Commune with 
 your own heart, upon your bed, and be still." 
 " Men ought always to pray, and not to faint." 
 " Pray without ceasing ; in everything give thanks ; 
 quench not the Spirit." " Praying always with all 
 prayer and supplication in the spirit, and watching 
 thereunto with all perseverance." " Continue in 
 
DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES. 213 
 
 prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving." 
 And hence too we observe in all the lives of holy 
 men in every age, that a habit of devotion, and the 
 careful regularity without which such a habit cannot 
 exist, are prominent characteristics. And is there 
 any Christian who has followed these examples, 
 and obeyed those exhortations, who cannot testify 
 from his own experience how essential a part of his 
 existence is devotion, and how blessed are its influ- 
 ences on the Spiritual life ? Have you not often 
 gone to seek the face of God, oppressed in spirit 
 and cold in heart, and when, without the purpose of 
 devotion, and the determined execution of that pur- 
 pose, you would not have experienced one spon- 
 taneous aspiration of the mind towards Him, but 
 would have sunk from bad to worse, from luke- 
 warmness to sin, — have you not in such a frame 
 been obliged to press upon yourself as a sacred 
 duty what is in fact your highest privilege — and 
 yet, nevertheless, through God's most gracious be- 
 nediction on the effort, have you not returned from 
 his invigorating presence buoyant with recovered 
 energy, your very frame breathing a diviner life, and 
 your countenance, like the countenance of Moses 
 when he came down from the mount, all radiant 
 with the glory of your God ? " Blessed is the man 
 whom thou choosest, O God, and causest to approach 
 unto thee ! He shall be satisfied with the good- 
 ness of thy house, even of thy holy temple !" 
 
214 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 DEVOUT EXERCISES OF MIND. 
 
 When we endeavoured to trace the Develope- 
 ment of the Spiritual Life, we found that it approxi- 
 mates to its fullest form in proportion as we realize 
 the idea of God in all the exercises of our moral 
 nature — of mind, and heart, and will ; — in propor- 
 tion as His presence is recognized by us — His help 
 is confided in — and His will is made to regulate our 
 own. Devotion, therefore, as the nourishment of 
 this Life, must consist in the habitual use of all 
 those means by which this exercise of our highest 
 faculties may be made most ready and familiar, and 
 ultimately most natural, to the soul. 
 
 And of these means of nourishing the Spiritual 
 Life, the first and most important, as preparatory 
 to, and diffusing its influence over, all the rest, is 
 the training of the Mind to constant recognition and 
 enjoyment of the presence of God. Where by speak- 
 ing of the enjoyment of that presence, it will be per- 
 ceived that I mean something more by exercises 
 of the Mind than merely intellectual cogitations, 
 and speculative inquiry into divine things. I mean 
 
DEVOUT EXERCISES OF MIND. 215 
 
 all those states of the soul which have not in them 
 any of the fluctuations of hope and fear, nor of the 
 gradations of desire and determination, but which 
 nevertheless are full of interest, though a quiet 
 one ; of feeling, though a contemplative one. Those 
 conditions of the mind which are termed by some 
 the Sentiments — by others the Tastes — by others 
 the ^Esthetic perceptions — by others the Immediate 
 emotions,* and whose distinctive mark is that they 
 are occupied with the present — the either visibly 
 or ideally Present — without reference to Past, or 
 Future ; and with this Present, as an object not 
 of desire and pursuit, but simply of admiration, 
 and complacency, and love. There is a movement 
 in the mind, but it is not an onward movement. It 
 is dilation without progression. It is as the ex- 
 panding wavelets of the peaceful lake which is 
 
 * As by Dr. Brown, who adds — " They differ from the intel- 
 lectual states of mind, by that peculiar vividness of feeling which 
 every one understands, but which it is impossible to express by 
 any verbal definition, as truly impossible as to define sweetness 
 or bitterness, by any other way than by a statement of the circum- 
 stances in which they arise. There is no reason to fear, how- 
 ever, from this impossibility of verbal definition, that any one 
 who has tasted what is sweet or bitter, or enjoyed the pleasures 
 of melody and fragrance, will be at all in danger of confounding 
 these terms •, and as little reason is there to fear that our emo- 
 tions will be confounded with our intellectual states of mind, by 
 those who have simply remembered and compared, and have 
 also loved or hated." 
 
216 DEVOUT EXERCISES OF MIND. 
 
 complete within itself, not as the rushing current 
 of the river that hastens towards the distant 
 ocean. 
 
 And hence the perplexity, and perhaps the 
 scorn, which this subject of devotional exercises 
 must produce in every mind in which those 
 higher sentiments and totally un-selfish feelings 
 have been checked, or have been wounded and 
 destroyed, by intercourse with an unfeeling world. 
 The noblest states of the Pious mind are those, not 
 of intellect, nor of passion, but of quiet love ; and 
 what wonder, therefore, if the dry abstract rea- 
 soner, who lives in the region of mere words, or 
 the selfish worldling, who knows of no emotions but 
 those of hope and fear, advantage and disadvantage, 
 should look upon the feelings of devotion as the 
 effusions only of diseased imagination, and the fan- 
 tasies of enthusiasm. By the spiritual taste alone 
 can the things of the spirit be appreciated. The 
 sweetest harmony does but jar upon the ear of him 
 who has no music in his soul. The loveliest works 
 of nature, or of art, have no attraction but to the 
 eye of Taste. The grandest bursts of poetry or elo- 
 quence possess no charm but for the mind of genius. 
 The purest affections of friendship and love are un- 
 known, nay, inconceivable, to the sensual and sordid 
 heart. But just in the sphere of all these higher 
 states of mind does Piety lie, and Devotion exer- 
 
DEVOUT EXERCISES OF MIND. 217 
 
 cise itself. For Piety is, not indeed mere Taste, 
 nor Admiration, nor Affection, — but it is the ex- 
 perience of these feelings in relation to God — it is 
 the co-presence of His idea amidst them all, as the 
 Being in whom alone they find their full enjoyment. 
 And only, therefore, by reference to these feelings in 
 their lower exercise, can we -illustrate what we mean 
 by Piety,, and by Devotion, which is the breath of 
 Piety, towards God. " Would you know what the 
 affections are," it has been beautifully said, " ask 
 your heart when, sad or glad, it is touched by 
 thoughts of father, mother, brother, sister, friend, 
 and in its sadness or gladness still feels a serenity 
 as if belonging to the untroubled regions of the 
 skies. Fancy comes and goes like the rainbow — 
 passion like the storm — transiently beautifying or 
 subliming the clouds of life. But affection is a per- 
 manent light, without distinction of night and day, 
 which once risen never sets, and always, in mild 
 meridian, 
 
 " Seeming immortal in its depth of rest." 
 And to this " depth of rest" the Christian mind 
 attains by all those exercises of devotion which bring 
 God present to the consciousness and inweave his 
 Idea with all we see, and all we read of, and all we 
 share in with our fellow-men — by Meditation on 
 God's works and ways — by Study of his Truth, 
 — by Communion with his people. 
 
218 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 
 
 Meditation, not merely as a stated exercise, 
 but as a devout habit of connecting the Idea of 
 God with all we see around us, is a most important 
 means of nourishing the Spiritual life. Isaac exer- 
 cised it when he " went out to meditate in the 
 field, at even-tide." David, when he " considered 
 the heavens, the work of God's fingers, the moon 
 and the stars which he had ordained ;" and again, 
 when he exclaimed, st I remember the days of old, 
 I meditate on all thy works ; I muse on the works 
 of thy hands." John, when he was " in the Spirit 
 on the Lord's day." And Paul, when in holy musing 
 he was carried out of himself, and " caught up to 
 the third heaven." 
 
 Which meditative habit will find its food and 
 stimulant in Contemplation of the works and ways 
 of God. For in those works and ways he manifests 
 himself, and by them is he understood. Observa- 
 tion and reflection must furnish the occasions of 
 Devotion. Thought must precede feeling, though 
 feeling is much more than thought. For genuine 
 
DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 
 
 219 
 
 mental feeling is nothing but a certain state and 
 relation of the thoughts. And hence its perma- 
 nence when the fire of animal life is gone. Here- 
 by it becomes part of the soul itself, and partaker 
 of its immortality. States of sensation become 
 more feeble at every repetition, because they re- 
 sult from the excitement of animal powers which 
 are perishable. But states of mental feeling — 
 taste, affection, sentiment, — are strengthened and 
 matured by exercise, because they rise from, and 
 are re-produced by thoughts, which are enduring. 
 Not the most novel, but the most familiar, scenery ; 
 not the most strange, but the best known, melodies ; 
 not the newest, but the oldest friends ; not the most 
 startling, but the most intimate and inborn truths ; 
 are those which most delight the mind. 
 
 And therefore by frequent contemplation of 
 those works and ways of God, which repeat and 
 reflect upon us from every side his great Idea, 
 must we make the feeling of his presence intimate 
 and familiar. In all places of his dominion He is 
 present. Heaven and earth are full of his glory. 
 And, therefore, in all places of his dominion will 
 the meditative spirit recognize his presence and 
 adore his glory. The foundation of all true Reli- 
 gion is the grand truth of the Unity of God — of 
 the universal agency of one and the same great 
 Being in all events and things* And this unity is 
 
220 DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 
 
 not practically realized but in proportion as we see 
 God in all things and all things in God. " He 
 only," says Bishop Taylor, iC to whom all things are 
 One, who draweth all things to One, and seeth all 
 things in One, may enjoy true peace and rest of 
 spirit."* Whenever we contemplate powers at 
 work in Nature, or in Providence, or in Grace, 
 which we neglect to refer up to the One undivided 
 source of life, we are resting in something below 
 God, and breaking into fragments his Unity. Nay, 
 when we contemplate God too distinctly under dif- 
 ferent aspects, as sometimes the God of Nature, 
 and sometimes of Providence, and sometimes of 
 Grace, we are going far to make this same most 
 dangerous separation, and to set in opposition in 
 our minds the various attributes and workings of 
 the single One.f Who does not feel that men have 
 spoken and written as if the Jehovah of the Jews 
 had abandoned all the rest of the world to meaner 
 hands — and as if the miserable heathen were not 
 only " without God," through the blindness of their 
 own heart, but without his sovereign rule and 
 
 * Which sentence is borrowed from Thomas a. Kempis : — 
 " Cui omnia unum sunt, et omnia ad unum trahit, et omnia in 
 uno videt ; potest stabilis corde esse, et in Deo pacificusmanere." 
 
 De Imit. Christi, I. iii. 
 
 t It is a dull and obtuse mind that must divide in order to 
 distinguish. And in such we may contemplate the source of 
 superstition and idolatry. Coleridge. 
 
DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 221 
 
 fatherly care, — his "doing good and giving rain from 
 heaven and fruitful seasons ;" — nay, and as if the 
 God of the awakened penitent had not been also 
 the God of the previous prodigal, nor were the 
 God of those around him in " the world," who, 
 amidst all their ignorance and sinfulness, are never- 
 theless " made of one blood with him," and have 
 their common Father, " not far from every one of 
 them." It is the God of Nature who is also the 
 God of Revelation ; and the God of Providence 
 who is the God of Grace. God has not revealed 
 himself by one method exclusively, but by many ; 
 and God does not work in one domain exclusively, 
 but in all. And therefore we must have an eye for 
 all his revelations of himself, and our total impres- 
 sion of his character must be collected and com- 
 pounded from them all. Each is imperfect, taken 
 by itself, but each contributes something to the 
 grand and perfect whole. Let the man of observa- 
 tion, and the man of experiment, and the man of 
 science, and the man of history, and the man of the 
 bible, admire, each one in his particular sphere, the 
 marvellous revelations of divine power, and wisdom, 
 and goodness; — but let the man of large Devout- 
 ness, standing in the centre of a sphere which cir- 
 cumscribes them all, trace up (by faith, wherever 
 sight may fail him,) all these several rays of glory into 
 that stupendous BEING who is power, and wisdom, 
 
222 DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 
 
 and goodness, all in one, and whom he neverthe- 
 less, (amazing thought !) can call his Father and his 
 Friend, 
 
 See how St. Paul, in one short passage, (the first 
 and second chapters of the Epistle to the Romans,) 
 commemorates four different modes by which God 
 manifests himself to man. By the works of Nature, 
 which reveal his Majesty and Might. " For the 
 invisible things of God, — namely, his eternal power 
 and Godhead — are clearly seen, being understood 
 by the things that are made." By the laws of natu- 
 ral consequence, which reveal his righteous Displea- 
 sure against Sin, by annexing to it, nay, drawing 
 out from it, even as the fruit is developed from the 
 seed, (compare James i. 15.) its own appropriate 
 punishment. " For the wrath of God," says Paul, 
 " is revealed against all unrighteousness and un- 
 godliness of men;" and if we inquire How? we dis- 
 cover from the whole context of the passage, espe- 
 cially from verses 24, 26, and 28, that the Apostle 
 viewed this revelation as being made by God giv- 
 ing up the heathen to the brutalizing ignorance and 
 the vile affections which Idolatry fosters. By the 
 voice of inward Conscience, which reveals the Holy 
 Will of God ; for this " shows the essence of the 
 law written in their hearts, their conscience also 
 bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while 
 accusing or else excusing one another." And, 
 
DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 223 
 
 lastly, by the voice of Christ and the proclamations 
 of his Gospel, which reveal the pardoning Compas- 
 sion of God. " For therein is the righteousness of 
 God by faith revealed to faith," — his willingness to 
 pardon, and approve, and bless every returning 
 sinner, upon the simple ground of faith in his Com- 
 passion. 
 
 All things, therefore, are manifestations of God, 
 and from all things will the meditative Christian 
 pass on to God. He looks around upon the earth, 
 or upward to the heavens, and amidst the might 
 and loveliness of Nature he thinks of him who 
 made, and who sustains and blesses all. Nature is 
 to him but the symbol of his Maker — the contem- 
 plation of it, but the steps by which his feeble 
 powers are helped to climb the heights of Medita- 
 tion, and at last to reach the Lofty One that sits 
 supreme above his works. 
 
 Nor less devoutly does the Christian recognize 
 his heavenly Father in the close concatenation of 
 Events, and in all the ordinary, as well as the sur- 
 prising turns of Providence. History becomes to 
 him alive with indications of his God. And like 
 the sacred Historians, who never separate earth 
 from heaven ; events which are but products and 
 results, from the root and cause of them in the 
 will of the Supreme ; nor men, in all their various 
 purposes and works, from God, who uses and con- 
 
224 DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 
 
 trols them all — so also does the meditative Chris- 
 tian recognize in all occurrences an all-directing 
 God. " The fortune of Alexander," says Bishop 
 Newton, " is but another name for the providence 
 of God." And still more generally may we say, 
 The fortune of the world, in its innumerable parts 
 and its immeasurable whole, is but the ordination 
 of God. This is the clew which guides the devout 
 man safely through the labyrinth of events, tangled 
 with mazes and perplexed with errors, and by this 
 he walks in peace. He may not see, still less make 
 out, the objects round him. He may not be able to 
 tell the way he came, nor that which he is going, 
 nor what will be the next turn in his path. But 
 then he has the clew ! he holds fast the clew ! and 
 this, therefore — implicitly and confidently, — igno- 
 rantly if you will ; but with an intelligent ignorance 
 — blindly, if you please ; but not without inward 
 light — this he grasps, and this he follows, with a 
 quiet adoration. 
 
 But still more does he feel the unity of God's 
 unceasing agency in that history which is, beyond 
 all others, full of interest and instruction to him — 
 the history of Himself. Viewed in the light of 
 Faith and Love, how wondrous to him is the story 
 of his life ! Not a circumstance therein, but he 
 can either see in it the hand of God, or can believe 
 that it was there. Not a single tint of dark or 
 
DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 225 
 
 bright in all that many-coloured picture, but is 
 harmonized into one quiet whole, by the soften- 
 ing light of God's uplifted countenance shed 
 over all. 
 
 And then, especially in what are called the in- 
 fluences of his Grace ; (though all is Grace, through 
 nature, history, and providence, from first to last,) 
 in the truths and promises of his holy Word — the 
 work and invitations of his Son — the consolations of 
 his Spirit — and the thoughts that from these seve- 
 ral sources stream into the mind and fill it with a 
 peace, a hope, a vigour which no other revelations 
 can afford — O here it is, above all, that the devout 
 believer loves to recognize his God ! Here, to look 
 out with an elevating awe upon the wide-spread 
 ocean of his goodness, till contemplation breaks off 
 and loses itself in Wonder ; till all objects and all 
 thoughts find their confluence and their outburst 
 in one deep broad stream of Adoration, — " O the 
 depth of the riches both of the wisdom and know- 
 ledge of God ! how unsearchable are his judgments 
 and his ways past finding out ! For who hath known 
 the mind of the Lord ? or who hath been his coun- 
 sellor ? or who hath first given unto him that it 
 should be recompensed to him again ? For of him, 
 and through him, and to him, are all things : to 
 whom be glory for ever ! Amen !" 
 
 Thus, then, Adoration is the offspring of Contem- 
 
 Q 
 
226 DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 
 
 plative Devotion. We glide along the ever-deep- 
 ening tide of thought into a new world. Outward 
 objects vanish from the consciousness. Inward 
 thoughts subside into one vast wave of undistin- 
 guishable feeling which lifts the mind above itself. 
 The ideas of power, wisdom, love, unite, and blend 
 themselves in One great Being whose presence fills 
 the soul, and with whom we commune, as it were 
 instinctively, in unutterable prayer — the prayer, not 
 of understanding, but of Faith — the inward gather- 
 ing of the spirit into itself to offer itself up to God 
 — the gazing on his glory till new life flows from it 
 through the heart, and that life is felt to be the life 
 of God. Self is no longer thought of, nor the wants 
 of self. We lie passive in our Father's hands and 
 know no will but his. We are given up to his in- 
 fluences. We inhale his quickening Spirit. We 
 join with Angels and Archangels, and with all the 
 company of heaven, to laud and magnify his glori- 
 ous name ; evermore praising him, and saying, 
 Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts, heaven and 
 earth are full of thy glory ; Glory be to thee, O 
 Lord most High ! 
 
 Speak we here of things unknown, and feelings 
 set too high for man ? Nay, but we speak the lan- 
 guage, and express the feelings of our Common 
 prayer book, in its holiest office. And we give ut- 
 terance to thoughts which every pious heart au- 
 
DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 227 
 
 thenticates. And we touch a string, in unison with 
 which such hearts are strung, and therefore do they 
 vibrate with it, and swell the trembling prelude 
 into a sustained and full-voiced chant of Adora- 
 tion which rises, like a fragrant cloud of incense, 
 up to God. Thus felt and chanted one, who 
 now has joined the choir of heaven,* when he ex- 
 claimed before the Majesty of Nature — 
 
 " O dread and silent Mount ! I gazed upon thee, 
 Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, 
 Didst vanish from my thought : entranced in prayer, 
 I worshipped the Invisible alone." t 
 
 Thus felt another kindred spirit, when he sang of 
 one who, having gazed upon the loveliness of earth, 
 and sea, and sky, — 
 
 " His spirit drank 
 The spectacle : sensation, soul, and form, 
 All melted into him ; they swallow'd up 
 His animal being ; in them did he live 
 And by them did he live ; they were his life. 
 In such access of mind, in such high hour 
 Of visitation from the living God, 
 Thought was not j in enjoyment it expired. 
 No thanks he breathed, he proffered no request ; 
 Rapt into still communion that transcends 
 The imperfect offices of prayer and praise. 
 
 * " Multis ille bonis flebilis occidit, 
 
 Nulli flebilior quani mihi !" 
 t Coleridge. — Hymn before Mont Blanc. 
 
228 DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 
 
 His mind was a thanksgiving to the power 
 That made him ; it was blessedness and love." * 
 
 And need I add, that thus mused, and kindled, 
 and adored, a greater than all uninspired men, " the 
 man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the 
 God of Jacob, and the sweet Psalmist of Israel," 
 when " the Spirit of the Lord spake by him, and 
 His word was in his tongue." Take a single in- 
 stance in that glorious Hymn, the hundred and 
 fourth Psalm. He had begun, therein, with 
 Contemplation of the " honour and majesty" of 
 God ; — he had gazed upon the light with which he 
 clothed himself as with a garment, and the heavens 
 that he stretched out as a curtain — -he had looked 
 abroad upon the steadfast earth, the mighty deep, and 
 the refreshing streams ; — he had meditated on the 
 various provision which the Lord had made for the 
 sustenance of man, and beasts, and universal life ; — 
 but long before his survey is completed, out of Con- 
 templation springs forth devout Emotion — his soul 
 begins to expand, and to ascend, and press beyond 
 herself; the Spirit within him breathes forth to- 
 wards the Spirit of the Universe, and he exclaims 
 in short, re-iterated, broken bursts of Adoration — 
 " O Lord, how manifold are thy works ! in wisdom 
 hast thou made them all : the earth is full of thy 
 
 * Wordsworth. " The Excursion." 
 
DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 229 
 
 riches !" — " The glory of the Lord shall endure 
 for ever: the Lord shall rejoice in his works." — " I 
 will sing unto the Lord as long as I live ; I will 
 sing praise to my God while I have my being. 
 My meditation of Him shall be sweet: I will be glad 
 in the Lord I" — " Bless thou the Lord, O my soul. 
 Praise ye the Lord !" 
 
 Christian Reader, do we cultivate this spirit of holy 
 Meditation enough ? Do we not too often think more 
 of ourselves when we draw near to God in prayer, 
 than of Him in whose bright presence we stand ? 
 And do we not thus defeat one great purpose of 
 Devotion, which is to raise us out of self and its 
 anxieties, and above the world and its vexatious 
 occupations, and away from sense and its importu- 
 nate images, into the pure untroubled region of 
 the fair and good ? If we make Devotion merely 
 the enumeration of our wants, our fears, and our 
 hopes, — of our weaknesses, our sorrows, and our 
 sins, — we still are lingering amidst those wants and 
 fears and sorrows and sins ; we are looking only on 
 a reflected image of ourselves and of our circum- 
 stances ; we seem to be leaving the world beneath 
 us, yet, like a troubled ghost which cleaves still to 
 the flesh, we are only hovering around the spot 
 where its remains are laid. But, if we look forth 
 upon God, in self-forgetting Meditation, we are won 
 away unconsciously from all our lower wants and 
 
230 DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 
 
 fears ; and when we rise up from the vision of his 
 excellence and descend again to meet them, we are 
 astonished to perceive how insignificant they were ; 
 we behold them in a light shed down from heaven, 
 and we can bear our griefs, and set about our du- 
 ties, with a new and tranquil mind. Even as when 
 the distempered man has tossed all night upon a 
 sea of tumultuous dreams, and his soul is shattered 
 by them — he breaks away from the bewildering 
 trance, with morning's dawn ; looks out upon the 
 fresh and sparkling prospect ; drinks in the air of 
 heaven ; and is astonished at the very possibility of 
 being shaken, as he has been, by unreal phantoms of 
 the brain. be sure of this — the more we think 
 of God and realize his presence, the more shall we 
 become like God. We shall catch some faint re- 
 semblance of the features that we are familiar 
 with, and while we gaze upon his glory we shall be 
 changed into the same image from glory to glory, 
 by the Spirit of the Lord. 
 
231 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 DEVOTIONAL READING. 
 
 The Spiritual life is a mental life ; and by the exer- 
 cise of Mind, therefore, must it be nourished. But 
 Mind is exercised not only by Observation and Re- 
 flection, but by appropriation of the observation and 
 reflection of other men. And this appropriation is ac- 
 complished most effectually by Reading. Reading, 
 therefore, is an important means of nourishing the 
 Spiritual life ; — the devout perusal and self-applica- 
 tion of such writings as elevate the mind, refine the 
 moral sense, and rouse the slumbering energies. It 
 is not easy to originate our own states of mind. We 
 need not only occasions for thought, but the sug- 
 gestion of thought. We need not merely truths and 
 feelings stored up in ourselves, but the daily appli- 
 cation of some impulse from without to wake up and 
 bring out those truths, and exercise those feelings. 
 And for this God has vouchsafed, besides the voice 
 of our immediate friends in temporary intercourse, 
 the words of our fellow Christians of every age and 
 clime in permanent writings. Blessed be our all- 
 
2-32 DEVOTIONAL READING. 
 
 providing Father for such helps ! The Christian 
 will prize them, and will diligently use them — not 
 for the gratification of curiosity, not for the whiting 
 away an idle hour, not for the substitution of a me- 
 chanical operation in the place of a spiritual exercise, 
 not to make Attention stand proxy for Reflection ; 
 but that by Attention, Reflection maybe put in mo- 
 tion — by the borrowed spark the light of our own 
 spirit may be kindled. How often will the reading 
 of some pointed question open up a new view of 
 our spiritual state, and set us searching into our- 
 selves for days. How often will some one suggest- 
 ed Idea illuminate whole regions of the mind, and 
 make a thousand subjects, hitherto confused and 
 dark, at once and in a moment clear to us. And 
 how gently elevating is the quiet infusion of some 
 soothing or awakening feeling, which finds and 
 mixes with a thousand kindred emotions, and stirs 
 them all into full life ! It steals beneath our heavy 
 stranded mind, and before we are conscious of its 
 influence, floats it nearer to the haven where we 
 would be. It breathes softly on our slumbering 
 spirit like gentlest music, and insinuates itself 
 amidst our confused conceptions, and rouses each 
 successive train of feeling, till we find ourselves, we 
 know not how or why, awake, and alive, to God. 
 Let the Christian therefore never be discouraged 
 when his mind is dull and indevout, but turn to 
 
DEVOTIONAL READING. 233 
 
 some awakening volume, some favourite and influ- 
 ential passage, some suitable prayer, some spiritual 
 hymn, above all, some inspiring psalm or chapter of 
 the word of God, and wait in humble faith, — out of 
 which faith will steal a half-formed prayer — for the 
 revival of his spirit, the breathing into him a de- 
 vout and holy frame. It is the essence of wisdom, 
 if we cannot gain directly our object, to take a cir- 
 cuitous course for its attainment, to address ourselves 
 to some one intermediate means (however distant 
 from our ultimate end), by which it may at last be 
 reached. And it is the Christian's wisdom to do 
 this, as, generally, for the regulation of his mind, and 
 the formation of his character, so also for the sus- 
 tenance of the Spiritual Life. That life is, alas ! a 
 weak and sickly thing, and it must be fostered with 
 the most assiduous and much-contriving care ; — it 
 is a delicate emanation, a breath, — and it must be 
 fanned with gentlest solicitude. We can do no- 
 thing, and can be nothing, of ourselves ; but what 
 can we not do (through God's gracious blessing on 
 those susceptibilities which he himself has rendered 
 capable of such manifold influences) by the wise 
 and persevering use of various, minute, and in them- 
 selves most insignificant, means ! 
 
 But then these helps must be ever carefully used 
 as means. They must never be perverted to super- 
 sede the very end they are intended to promote. 
 
234 DEVOTIONAL READING. 
 
 The perusal of the page, the reading of the chapter, 
 the utterance of the form of prayer, the singing 
 of the hymn, must never be rested in as of them- 
 selves devotion, but only as the graciously provided 
 food and nourishment of devotion. No man can 
 rightly think and pray and feel for us ; — he can 
 only give us helps whereby we may think, and 
 pray, and feel for ourselves. Nothing is ours but 
 what we mentally appropriate. Nothing can bene^ 
 fit us but what we actually ourselves do. To our 
 own substance must all foreign aliment be assimi- 
 lated, if we would grow thereby. Through our own 
 veins must it propel accelerated life. We must 
 not only read, mark, and learn, but we must in- 
 wardly digest, whatever God in his good providence 
 has furnished for our spiritual food. 
 
 And how then shall we most effectually employ 
 Devotional Reading, for our Spiritual Nourishment ? 
 Let us suppose the word of God to be the means 
 that we would use towards this end, what method 
 shall we take? 
 
 That method must be determined by the par- 
 ticular object that we have in view. There are 
 various objects for which we may read the word of 
 God. For general information concerning the plans 
 and doings of God in his education of the human 
 race. For particular insight into the scheme of 
 Salvation which he has revealed and executed by 
 
DEVOTIONAL READING. 235 
 
 his dear Son. For getting our minds imbued with 
 the leading ideas of Christian doctrine, and the 
 governing principles of Christian practice — in short, 
 for all things necessary to a godly life, for doctrine, 
 for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righte- 
 ousness. And according to our object so must be 
 our method of perusal. For all true method must 
 be suited to, nay, take its rise from, the specific na- 
 ture of the subject we are treating. Whether our 
 perusal shall be cursory and continuous, or critical 
 and fragmentary — whether it shall collect and com- 
 bine various particulars, or trace steadily the deve- 
 lopement of some one truth — whether we shall pass- 
 ively yield up our attention to the sacred text, or 
 only take therefrom materials for active personal 
 reflection — all this will be regulated by the specific 
 end for which we open the holy book, at each par- 
 ticular time. This only must be constant : — that 
 we have some end ; some deliberate purpose present 
 to our consciousness when we consult the oracles of 
 God ; and that we do not take them up, glance over 
 them, and put them down again, with an unmean- 
 ing listlessness. 
 
 When, then, our object is the nourishment of the 
 Spiritual Life, this devotional end determines the 
 corresponding devotional method to be pursued. 
 We must bring to the bible such a spirit, and adopt 
 in reading it such a course, as may best conduce to 
 
236 DEVOTIONAL READING. 
 
 the strengthening of our sense of God's immediate 
 presence to our minds. 
 
 For this purpose we should meditate upon the 
 bible as conveying to us the Voice of God himself. 
 The Scriptures were written, it is true, by many 
 and various men, in many and various ages. They 
 were written by these men for the immediate use 
 and benefit of their contemporaries, and with refer- 
 ence to the circumstances which surrounded them. 
 But then those who thus wrote were partakers of the 
 Spirit of God. What they said and wrote as the Am- 
 bassadors of God, they said and wrote not from the 
 conclusions merely of their own limited understand- 
 ing, but from the secret inspirations of divine wisdom. 
 And it is the special mark of wisdom (which mark, 
 therefore, the divine wisdom possesses in perfec- 
 tion) that it so treats particulars as to bring them 
 under general principles ; and in the forms of the 
 local and the temporary, conveys the essence of what 
 is universal and eternal. And consequently the 
 Scriptures do not convey to us the voice of men 
 merely, (however shrewd, and experienced, and 
 devout they may have been,) solving the particular 
 questions, and directing the particular duties, of 
 their fellow men around them ; but they convey to 
 us, in and with this form of the revelation, — accom- 
 panying and sustaining each particular voice even 
 as a fundamental melody pervades and limits all the 
 
DEVOTIONAL READING. 237 
 
 variations of which it is susceptible, and may be 
 traced throughout them all — the voice of God him- 
 self, addressed to all men in all ages, and solving 
 the general questions, and directing the general 
 duties, which belong to man as man. 
 
 It is the wisdom, therefore, of the devout reader 
 of Scripture to discern this voice of God; to adore 
 the Sovereign King in the person of his Ambassa- 
 dors ; to recognize the Spirit pervading and actuat- 
 ing the living creatures which announce his pre- 
 sence, yea, breathing even in the wheels which are 
 the conductors of his influence ; and thus to make 
 the Unseen God as effectually present to us by the 
 forms of language and of thought which the bible 
 has preserved to us, as He was made present to 
 Adam and to the Patriarchs, and to the Prophets, 
 by the forms (for even to them by forms only could 
 he show himself) of bodily appearance, and of au- 
 dible sound. It is in the mind and heart that God's 
 presence must be realized, and it is only by the 
 mind and heart, — by what these bring to the con- 
 templation of his manifestations, and retain within 
 themselves of his communications, — that this real- 
 ization can be effected. There can be no other 
 perception of God, to a created being, but the per- 
 ception of his Idea in the consciousness ; and the 
 fulness, and the corresponding benefit, of that per- 
 ception will depend upon the frequency with which 
 
238 DEVOTIONAL READING. 
 
 that Idea is revived — the steadiness with which it 
 is sustained — and the intimacy and comprehensive- 
 ness of its connexion with all other ideas in the 
 mind. And therefore we are not to think our- 
 selves less privileged than the saints of old, be- 
 cause we have not extraordinary manifestations 
 of God. We, equally with them, have every op- 
 portunity of recognizing Him in the things around 
 us ; and, for the special revelation which came rare- 
 ly and transiently to the astonished ear of each par- 
 ticular man of God, we have, instead, the lasting re- 
 cord of all his revelations to all his prophets, placed 
 permanently in our hands, and accessible to our 
 daily meditation. In many an age " the word of 
 the Lord was precious/' that is, scarce ; " there 
 was no open vision." And even the Priests and 
 Prophets of God were obliged to " enquire at the 
 word of the Lord," from time to time, as they need- 
 ed counsel ; to consult the Urim and Thummim ; 
 to present themselves before the oracle. Whereas 
 we have now this word ever open to our view, nay, 
 stored up in our memories, and at all times and in 
 all places we may enter into the Sanctuary and com- 
 mune with our Father ; even as it is written, " I will 
 dwell in them and walk in them, and I will put my 
 laws into their mind and write them in their heart, 
 and they shall not teach every man his neighbour, 
 saying, Know the Lord, for all shall know me, from 
 
DEVOTIONAL READING. 239 
 
 the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith 
 the Lord." The only difference is, that God's voice 
 to us is not that of particular direction in particular 
 cases, but of general principles included in, and 
 illustrated by, those particular instances recorded 
 for our admonition ; and applicable, by the heaven - 
 directed judgment of the devoutly pondering Chris- 
 tian, to all cases as they arise. Wherein the dif- 
 ference is our advantage. We gain thereby a ge- 
 neral guide through all the paths of life ; and we 
 are raised, moreover, from the mere blind obedience 
 to specific laws, which may be yielded by a servant 
 or a child, to that intelligent following out of gene- 
 ral principles, which is the reasonable service of a 
 freely acting man. " We are delivered from the 
 law, being dead to that wherein we were held, that 
 we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the 
 oldness of the letter." It is the law of Spiritual 
 wisdom, no longer pealing trumpet-tongued amidst 
 the terrors of Sinai, but breathing forth its still 
 small voice into the hushed and meditative con- 
 science, which now directs our course. It is in the 
 sanctified judgment of the church of Christ that we 
 may now realize the prophetic promise, " Ye shall 
 hear a voice behind you saying, This is the way, 
 walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and 
 when ye turn to the left." " My son, keep thy 
 father's commandments, and forsake not the law of 
 
240 DEVOTIONAL READING. 
 
 thy mother; bind them continually upon thine heart, 
 and tie them about thy neck ; when thou goest it 
 shall lead thee, when thou sleepest it shall keep thee, 
 when thou awakest it shall talk with t/ieef" 
 
 Did the Lord God talk with Adam and Eve in 
 the garden, and they " heard his voice ?" Even 
 so will he talk with you, if you devoutly listen to 
 the echo of that voice, conveyed, — yea, and ten 
 thousand times reverberated, — in his sacred Scrip- 
 tures. Did the word of the Lord come to Abraham 
 in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abraham, I am thy 
 shield and thy exceeding great reward? In the 
 bible does that same word come to you, if walking 
 in the steps of Abraham's faith, and you may trust 
 in it as for you. Did God call to Samuel on his 
 bed, and this again and again, while yet the inex- 
 perienced youth was ignorant of the heavenly ori- 
 gin of the voice ? Just so does he call to you, and 
 O how patiently and perseveringly, waiting for the 
 moment when the Spirit shall be disengaged from 
 earthly sounds and hushed into attention, and in- 
 structed in the meaning of the sacred summons. 
 And therefore to that voice you may reply, — as 
 directly as did Samuel when thus taught to " know 
 the Lord," — with as intense a feeling of the divine 
 presence, — " Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth !" 
 Did God speak directly to Moses and the Israel- 
 ites, to Elijah and all the prophets, to Paul and the 
 
DEVOTIONAL READING. 241 
 
 Apostles ? The same God speaks, by their recorded 
 words to me and you, and we may cry with them, 
 " Behold, the Lord oar God hath showed us his 
 glory and his greatness !" 
 
 Take then the revelations of the bible as made, 
 in all their permanent essence, to yourself. Feel 
 that you have part and lot in all that God has 
 given to cheer and guide his ignorant and sinful 
 creatures ; remember that the very historical occur- 
 rences recorded " happened unto them for ensam- 
 ples, and are written for our admonition upon whom 
 the ends of the world are come ;" and throw your- 
 self back into the scenes and circumstances of the 
 olden time, not as a spectator merely, but as a deeply 
 interested partaker in the revelation made. Help 
 your sluggish conception by every accessory thought 
 that may give vividness and substance to the facts 
 recorded by the sacred writers. Place yourself, in 
 imagination, under the frowning precipice of Sinai. 
 Stand with Elijah in the entrance of that awful 
 cave when there swept by it the mysterious " still 
 small voice." Follow Jesus with the multitude who 
 " pressed upon him for to hear him." Sit with them 
 at his feet around the beautiful mount of the beati- 
 tudes near Capernaum. Enter with the disciples 
 into the upper chamber where they supped with 
 their affectionate Master and received his parting 
 exhortations. Lie prostrate by the side of Saul when 
 
242 * DEVOTIONAL READING. 
 
 he heard the voice from heaven, and trembling and 
 astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to 
 do ? Make thus the bible as familiar and inward 
 to your mind as the scenes of your boyhood, and 
 the dreams of your youth ; lose yourself in its reali- 
 ties, identify yourself with its occurrences; "pour 
 out," (as has been beautifully written,) " your whole 
 undivided heart before the oracles of God ; give 
 your enlarged spirit to the communion of his word ; 
 — when it blames be you blamed, when it exhorts 
 be you exhorted ; when it condescends to argument, 
 by its arguments be you convinced; be free to take all 
 its moods, and to catch all its inspirations :"* — and 
 you shall find it all transparent with the radiance of 
 present Deity and the glory of the Lord ; you shall 
 hear each page proclaiming to you the voice of the 
 Most High ; and you will receive its several com- 
 munications, " not as the word of men, but, as it is 
 in truth, the word of God, which effectually work- 
 eth in them that believe." 
 
 And thus consulting the word of God, you will 
 find it your guide, your counsellor, and your own fa- 
 miliar friend. You may bring to it your perplexities, 
 and find it furnishing satisfactory decisions of many 
 a harassing question; you may bring to it your heart, 
 and find it speaking home thereto direction, warning, 
 peace. Even as Abraham was permitted to com- 
 
 * Irving's Orations. 
 
DEVOTIONAL READING. 243 
 
 mune with the Lord about the doom of Sodom, and 
 though but dust and ashes, to inquire, " Shall not 
 the Judge of all the earth do right?" even as 
 Habakkuk the Prophet stood upon his watch and 
 set himself upon the tower to watch and see what 
 God would say unto him, and what he should an- 
 swer when he was reproved ; — so may the devout 
 man carry up all his difficulties to the word of God, 
 and derive from it the satisfactory decision, if not 
 the full solution, of the questions which the facts of 
 nature, the march of events, the history of man, the 
 complicated riddle of the world, may raise within 
 his mind. Not indeed that he will expect to under- 
 stand the ways of God, (for what child can under- 
 stand his Father ? what uninitiated man can pene- 
 trate the mystery of even the commonest art ?) but 
 that he will learn the principles on which they are 
 arranged. Still less that he will turn the sacred 
 page into a horoscope for forecasting private or po- 
 litical fortunes — or dip into the holy volume to dis- 
 cover what special answers , may turn up to special 
 questions about doctrine or practice — or bring to 
 it his selfish inquiries, in the hope of authoriz- 
 ing the bias of his will by obtaining some ora- 
 cular reply — or endeavour to transplant the re- 
 corded sentiments and actions proper to some men 
 on some occasions, root and branch into his own 
 bosom and his own conduct — all this would be only 
 
244 DEVOTIONAL READING. 
 
 playing over again the heathen game of Supersti- 
 tion, in a new field : — but that in the Wisdom of 
 God he will discover the seeds of things, the princi- 
 ples of the divine character, the examples of the 
 divine procedure, the declarations of the divine will 
 — guided by which he may adore and acquiesce in, 
 even when he cannot comprehend, the government 
 of God. These are to him far more than heathen 
 oracles — far better than philosophical speculation — 
 far surer than political cunning. " When they shall 
 say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar 
 spirits and unto wizards that peep and mutter, — 
 should not a people seek unto their God ? To the 
 law, and to the testimony ; if they speak not accord- 
 ing to this word, it is because there is no light in 
 them." " Thou through thy commandments hast 
 made me wiser than mine enemies, for they are 
 ever with me. I have more understanding than all 
 my teachers ; for thy testimonies are my medita- 
 tion. I understand more than the ancients, be- 
 cause I keep thy precepts. Through thy precepts 
 I get understanding ; therefore I hate every false 
 way." 
 
245 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 
 
 There is nothing more false, and more unjust to 
 true religion, than to imagine that it stunts the 
 growth of the human mind and withdraws it from 
 the genial atmosphere of social life, in which alone 
 it can blossom and expand, into the withering pri- 
 vacy of selfish pride or moody fancy. The fact is, 
 on the contrary, that pious sentiments, like all 
 others that are great and good, require social inter- 
 course for their due developement, press naturally 
 out to seek a kindred feeling in our fellow-men, and 
 find their full expression and enjoyment only when 
 re-echoed and intensified by sympathy. And there- 
 fore some of the most important and effectual exer- 
 cises of the pious mind, are those which are suppli- 
 ed by mutual interchange of thought, and blendipg 
 of emotion, in the friendly, family, and public, wor- 
 ship of Almighty God. Fellowship with others the 
 mind must have in order to its due developement — 
 this fellowship the world cannot supply — but in the 
 family of Christ it may be found. 
 
 It is important to consider this point, for if there 
 be one thing which specially characterizes Christi- 
 
246 DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 
 
 anity in its relation to mankind, above all other 
 forms of piety, it is its spirit of brotherly affection, 
 and its means and ordinances for mutual edification. 
 It is specially the religion of "the Spirit" — the mind 
 and reason ; and it supplies by its social organiza- 
 tion the only atmosphere in which the highest pro- 
 ducts of the mind and reason can be unfolded. 
 
 Remember, then, that the very first condition of 
 human improvement, and human happiness," is fel- 
 lowship with our kind. Without Society we should 
 not be men. With all our senses, faculties, and 
 susceptibilities, and with every opportunity in. ex- 
 ternal nature for their exercise, that exercise would 
 not take place to any extent, without the relations 
 of social life. It is on the mother's bosom, and in 
 the father's arms, that the infant begins to feel, be- 
 fore it is acquainted with, the best experiences of 
 its nature. It is in the family circle, the friendly 
 neighbourhood, the widening sphere of social sym- 
 pathies, that we learn to know ourselves, our wants, 
 our capacities, our joys, our hopes. And there- 
 fore no happy condition of mankind has ever been 
 imagined in which the idea of society and sociable- 
 ness was not a prominent one. The depth of all 
 conceivable misery is imaged by banishment to a 
 solitary rock, unknown, unpitied, unsympathized 
 with, where the craving heart eats inward and de- 
 vours itself. And the height of ail conceivable 
 
DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 247 
 
 happiness is imagined in the finding our own mind 
 reflected from the mind of multitudes around us, 
 our own thoughts reciprocated, our own sentiments 
 re-echoed, in some vast community actuated by one 
 will, and beating as with one pulse. Till Society 
 was furnished, Paradise itself was insufficient for 
 human happiness. " The Lord God said, It is not 
 good that the man should be alone ; I will make 
 him an help meet for him." And in the full per- 
 fection of Society consists the blessedness of the 
 predicted kingdom of Christ. It is when the mysti- 
 cal body of the second Adam is completed, and the 
 Fulness of the Deity — the sphere of the holy ones 
 in light, in which He dwells and through which he 
 diffuses his especial presence — is perfected by the 
 re-union of the whole family in heaven and earth ; 
 it is when thus " in the dispensation of the fulness 
 of times he shall have gathered together in one all 
 things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and 
 which are on earth ;" that " the tabernacle of God 
 shall be with men, and he will dwell with them and 
 they shall be his people, and God himself shall be 
 with them and be their God." Out of many to 
 make one ; out of infinitely various parts to form a 
 full harmonious whole ; — this is the grand design 
 of God, this is the happiness to which he destines 
 man. Everything that is separate, and separately 
 exercised, shall pass away, but the communion of 
 
248 DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 
 
 love shall be eternal. Prophecies shall fail — 
 tongues shall cease — knowledge shall vanish away 
 — but Charity never faileth. 
 
 But forget not that such union and communion 
 can never be supplied by the common intercourse 
 of an irreligious world. I know that it is in the 
 world that this developement of mind and heart is 
 specially sought. I know that it is because of this, 
 and of the gratification which accompanies it, that 
 this world is, especially by the young and ardent, 
 so diligently worshipped. And I grant, moreover, 
 that such intercourse does bring out the buds of 
 feeling — that its influence on the mind is such as 
 for a time to seem all-sufficient for its growth and 
 happiness. An almost universal welcome greets 
 the new guest in the halls of social pleasure, and 
 winning sympathy comes forth to meet his timid 
 thoughts and solicit them into full developement. 
 Every countenance smiles upon him. Every hand 
 is extended to him. It is the spring-time — the 
 cool, fresh, early, spring-time — of his being, and 
 truly does he find 
 
 " The genial season hath such power, 
 His very heart seems blossoming, 
 Each thought a fragrant flower." 
 
 But who has ever found this spring eternal ? 
 Whose heart has not shrunk and withered under 
 the chilling blasts which soon begin to sweep across 
 
DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 249 
 
 it? Who has given his youthful confidence to a 
 much-promising world, and has not been fooled 
 and disappointed — yea betrayed, — yea mocked, 
 perhaps, for his simplicity ? Society is a necessity 
 of our nature. Not a mere gathering together of 
 multitudes, an aggregation of persons — but an in- 
 terchange of thought, an assimilation of minds. 
 Such society this world boasts to be possessed of, 
 and professes to throw open to the inexperienced 
 youth. But such society it does not give. There 
 is union without unity — association without assort- 
 ment — connexion without conjunction — a seeming 
 whole composed of incongruous parts — straw in am- 
 ber — iron and clay ; — and they " cannot cleave one 
 to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay." 
 The attractive power of the social principle is more 
 than balanced by the repulsive power of the selfish 
 principle. Each man, while he seems to lose him- 
 self in others, is at the same time carefully pursu- 
 ing his own particular end ; and he unites with 
 those around him, not to adopt their ends and fur- 
 ther them, (which is the idea of true benevolence,) 
 but to use them for his own end, and subordinate 
 them to himself. 
 
 And O the blight which settles on the opening 
 mind, and dries it up into a stubborn misanthropy, 
 when this true character of worldly intercourse be- 
 comes unveiled ! Life becomes a blank. Expect- 
 
250 
 
 DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 
 
 ation dies away. The heart gets seared. Disap- 
 pointment produces indignation. And indignation 
 (like all intense emotion) argues from the particular 
 to the universal, and pronounces all creation barren, 
 all hope a mockery, all the best affections an unreal 
 show. Men find their hearts befooled by a deceitful 
 world, and they go on to shut and bar them against 
 God himself. They have no susceptibility for his 
 tenderness, no ear for his invitations of compassion 
 by Jesus Christ — the whole head is sick, and the 
 whole heart is faint. And the solitariness which 
 they find amidst a crowded world is increased a 
 thousand-fold by the solitariness of their own hearts. 
 They have no home within, to which to fly from 
 the neglects of outward life. They have no friend 
 in the bosom into whose ear to pour their plaints. 
 Despoiled of confidence in man, and ignorant of 
 confidence in God, empty, desolate, alone — O what 
 shall the poor baffled spirit do to reach its proper 
 destination? How shall it be saved from moral 
 death, and everlasting barrenness ? Where shall it 
 find its proper nourishment, and expand into its 
 proper magnitude? 
 
 Where but in the bosom of the church of Christ? 
 How but by the infusion of the new-creating Spirit 
 of Life ? By what appliances but by immersion in 
 that atmosphere of the Spirit which is formed around 
 the sacred circles of friendly, and family, and pub- 
 
DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 251 
 
 lie prayer ? From intercourse with Christian men 
 will he catch the Spirit of that intercourse. Some 
 one thought will be awakened; some one feeling, 
 melted by the warm breath of a generous sympa- 
 thy, will begin again to flow. Imaginations long 
 dead, desires long smothered, hopes long scorned, 
 will once more lift their head. He will listen like 
 an exile to the long-forgotten sounds of his mother 
 tongue. He will feel that he is still a man, and that 
 in humanity there lies enveloped something more 
 than human, which may still be cherished into life. 
 The avenues to his interior soul will once again be 
 opened, and " when the full tide of devotion has 
 entered the channel thus prepared for it, he will hail 
 its coming with joy, and bathe his whole spirit in 
 those purifying and strengthening waters."* 
 
 In the church of Christ, then — the holy family of 
 God — is there full provision made for the develope- 
 ment of the social principle in human nature, and 
 thereby for the raising it to all the excellence and 
 happiness for which it was destined. The social 
 exercises of religion are the effectual means of 
 awakening, nourishing, and diffusing abroad the 
 Spiritual life. And to promote these exercises 
 Christians have been formed by their divine Master 
 into a religious community associated for a common 
 purpose, animated in its pursuit by a common feel- 
 ing, and contributing to its attainment a common 
 * H. J. Rose. 
 
252 DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 
 
 help. Jesus knew the pressing necessities of the 
 human mind, when he called men, not from bro- 
 therhood to loneliness, not from fulness into vanity, 
 but from the community of darkness and disappoint- 
 ment to another community which dwells in light 
 and breathes throughout its members love and joy. 
 Of this community he formed the rudiments when he 
 selected from the multitude twelve men who should 
 be with him constantly and imbibe his Spirit, and 
 become by it assimilated to him and to each other. 
 And the unity of this society he solemnly enjoined 
 them to preserve when he said, " By this shall all 
 men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love 
 one to another." This unity he provided for when 
 he said to the Father, " the glory that thou gavest 
 me I have given them, that they may be one, even 
 as we are one ; I in them, and thou in me, that 
 they may be made perfect in one." For the main- 
 tenance of this unity, even in the fullest enlarge- 
 ment of the church, and the comprehension therein 
 of all sorts and conditions of men, he interceded 
 when he said, " Neither pray I for these alone, but 
 for them also that shall believe on me through their 
 word, that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art 
 in me and I in thee, that they also may be one 
 in us." 
 
 And accordingly we find that the personal re- 
 moval of their Head did not dissolve the Society 
 
DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 253 
 
 which he had formed. The disciples were all " as- 
 sembled together" on the first day of tjie week, when 
 Jesus appeared among them, and said, Peace be 
 unto you. After his ascension, moreover, they 
 " continued all with one accord in prayer and suppli- 
 cation with the women and with the brethren." And 
 when subsequently there were added to the church 
 three thousand souls, we find this enlarged commu- 
 nity "continuing steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine 
 and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in 
 prayers ; and all that believed were together, and 
 had all things common, and they continuing daily 
 with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread 
 from house to house, did eat their meat with glad- 
 ness and singleness of heart, praising God, and 
 having favour with all the people." 
 
 Nor need I add how frequently St. Paul refers to 
 this grand principle of social unity, and presses it 
 on those to whom he writes. Even when the 
 church was enlarged to the very boundaries of the 
 then civilized world, — even when it comprised per- 
 sons of every country and of every rank in life, 
 and was composed of such discordant elements as 
 Jews and Gentiles, Greeks and Barbarians, slaves 
 and freemen, — still this is the law of its being and 
 the condition of its growth, that it shall " keep the 
 unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace," and come 
 thereby, " in the unity of the faith and of the 
 
254 DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 
 
 knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, 
 unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of 
 Christ." The very sacraments of the Church sym- 
 bolize this Spiritual Union. The very ordinances 
 by which men are received into the body, and from 
 time to time proclaim their connexion with it, de- 
 clare, as fully, conjunction and communication with 
 the members of this community as with its sacred 
 Head. " As many of you as have been baptized 
 into Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither 
 Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, 
 there is neither male nor female ; for ye are all one 
 in Christ Jesus." " For by one Spirit are we all bap- 
 tized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gen- 
 tiles, whether we be bond or free ; and have been 
 all made to drink into one Spirit." O the full pro- 
 vision for the noblest exercises of the mind which 
 is afforded by the Church of Christ ! O the blessed 
 interchange of thought, and feeling, and enjoyment, 
 by which the Spiritual life expands and grows ! 
 There is such a thing as Christian fellowship and 
 love — as merging the particular will in the general 
 will — as looking, not at our own interests, but at the 
 interests of others — as rejoicing with them that re- 
 joice, and weeping with them that weep ; and there 
 is more essential fellowship in the most imperfect 
 intercourse of Spiritual Christians, than in all the 
 closest oath-bound combinations of the world. 
 
DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 255 
 
 Let the Christian, therefore, diligently cultivate 
 this important means of grace, in all its parts — in 
 the private sphere of his Family and Friends, and 
 in the public sphere of the Congregation. 
 
 For with his Family, and among his Friends, is 
 the Christian bound to share, and by sharing to in- 
 crease, his devout affections. The whole amount 
 of Spiritual life existing in the church of Christ is 
 given and held for diffusion and reciprocation. 
 Even as the Apostle tells the Corinthians, touch- 
 ing their temporal treasures, that he wishes an 
 equality, that their abundance may supply the 
 want of others, and the abundance of others may 
 be reciprocally a supply for them ; as it is written, 
 He that gathered much had nothing over, and he 
 that gathered little had no lack : — so, much more, 
 should it be with those Spiritual treasures which 
 we receive from our common Head. There are 
 innumerable degrees of life among the members of 
 the Lord. There are all the stages from simple 
 consecration to him, to the fullest union. And to 
 be helpers of each other's faith throughout these 
 several stages, to become by mutual communica- 
 tion joint partakers of one common Spirit, is one of 
 the most effectual means of Spiritual growth. He 
 that watereth is watered himself. He that dili- 
 gently instructs his children and servants in the 
 word of God, and with them approaches day by day 
 
256 DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 
 
 to the throne of God in prayer ; — he that deter- 
 mines with the courageous Joshua, " as for me and 
 my house we will serve the Lord ;" — he that, like 
 the devout Cornelius, " calls together his kinsmen 
 and near friends," reminding them that they are 
 " present before God to hear all things that are 
 commanded them of God ;" — his spirit becomes 
 twice blessed — his principles are strengthened by 
 reflection from the mind of other men — his consci- 
 ence made more bold and powerful by the echoing 
 of its dictates — his heart warmed and animated 
 by sympathy with its emotions— and his ties and 
 obligations to consistency and watchfulness in- 
 creased a thousand-fold. A mutual encouragement 
 is unconsciously afforded, a mutual check is un- 
 consciously established, and we get the habit of 
 considering, in every temptation to weakness or in- 
 dulgence, How will this harmonize with the pub- 
 licly expressed devotion of the morning family 
 prayer? — or how will the remembrance of it in- 
 crease the shame and the compunction of the even- 
 ing confession? — how should we speak and act 
 in all the business of life towards those with whom 
 we have taken sweet counsel together in its devout 
 refreshments ? how shall we take care that the cha- 
 racter which we have mutually considered and im- 
 plored as worthy of a Christian man, shall be found 
 not altogether forgotten, yea steadily exhibited, in 
 
DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 257 
 
 our daily spirit and conduct? God knoweth, we 
 need every sort of help, we want manifold and com- 
 plicated motives, for growing in grace and adorning 
 the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things ! 
 
 And how then shall we praise God enough for 
 those further helps which he has afforded to our 
 growth in spirituality, in the public sphere of the 
 Congregation ! Who can recall, however faintly, to 
 his recollection, all that his mind owes to the ordi- 
 nances of the Sanctuary, and not adore that graci- 
 ous Master who has provided such means of grace, 
 and love that Church which has administered them 
 to him ? It almost startles us, when we attempt to 
 trace the process of formation of our present mind, 
 to see how gradually, how secretly, and by what 
 various helps, it has been fashioned up to what 
 it now is ; and of this process, how very much we 
 may refer to the public prayers, the public instruc- 
 tions, and the public sympathies of the Church in 
 which we have been brought up. Some religious 
 sentiments, indeed, we get from parents, friends, 
 and public opinion ; some are sown in us by books ; 
 some spring up of themselves from reflection, and 
 are matured by the events of life. But still, were 
 it possible to analyze minutely so complicated a 
 production as the human mind, how large a part of 
 its best principles and feelings would have to be re- 
 ferred to the public ministrations which have been 
 
258 DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 
 
 afforded to us in the house of God. Even with re- 
 spect to the Bible itself — that great source of all 
 religious truth — where was our interest for it ex- 
 cited ? where were our inquiries into it assisted ? 
 our perplexities concerning it relieved ? where, 
 above all, was the personal application of it to our 
 heart and soul effected but in the house of God ? 
 There have its truths and principles, well known 
 perhaps before, become transformed from a dead 
 letter into lively oracles, and set home with demon- 
 stration of the Spirit and of power. There, have 
 we found God himself speaking to us by the voice 
 of his Ambassadors, and their words have fallen like 
 living sparks upon our mind, and kindled in it faith, 
 and love, and adoration. And there, too, what 
 clearness and vigour have been communicated to 
 our thoughts which were obscure, and our feelings 
 which were weak and inefficient ! What new force 
 infused into our oldest conceptions ; what new tracks 
 opened out for the after course of our private me- 
 ditations ; what energy communicated to the inner 
 man ! We have seen as with a new understand- 
 ing, we have felt as with a new heart, we have 
 purposed and attempted as with a new will. Our 
 own soul has become partaker of the life that 
 breathed forth from the souls of others. We have 
 been absorbed into the swelling stream of kindred 
 minds, and we have felt that there is but " one 
 
DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 259 
 
 body and one spirit, even as we are called in one 
 hope of our calling ; one Lord, one faith, one bap- 
 tism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, 
 and through all, and in us all." 
 
 In public worship therefore must we cherish 
 what in public worship has been awakened. By 
 regular conscientious attendance on the prayers, 
 the sermons, and the Sacrament of the Lord's Sup- 
 per, shall we best exercise and strengthen the 
 Spiritual life. Nay, this life cannot but seek the 
 opportunities of public devotion ; it finds its full 
 enjoyment chiefly there. That awful sense of the 
 Divine Majesty, and that filial confidence in the 
 Divine Mercy, which form the primary elements 
 of Piety, — where are they experienced so richly as 
 in the congregation of the Saints ? For, each child 
 of God possesses these emotions as the characteris- 
 tics of his renewed mind. And each child of God, 
 therefore, brings with him these emotions to the 
 house of God, longing to find therein companions 
 in their blessedness, and to increase their force and 
 their enjoyment by mutual communication. Public 
 devotion is the out-burst and diffusion of private 
 devoutness. It is one heart summoning another to 
 its aid. It results from feeling the impossibility of 
 expressing, as we wish, our feelings, and therefore 
 calling upon others to help us out in that expres- 
 sion. It is the bringing the faint, quivering, fitful 
 
260 DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 
 
 spark of piet}^ which lies smouldering in our own 
 hearts, that it may catch new vigour from the 
 similar spark in others, and together burst into the 
 steady flame of grateful sacrifice ascending straight 
 and strong to heaven. That spirit, therefore, which 
 forms the essence of the parts will form the essence 
 of the whole. That which breathes, however faintly, 
 in the bosom of the individual Christian, will breathe 
 in all its vigour through the body of the faithful. 
 
 Is it not so specially in the service of the Church 
 of Erjgland? Do not that mingled Reverence and 
 Confidence, which form the essence of Piety, 
 breathe through all her forms of Prayer? We ap- 
 proach God as his people, — consecrated to him in 
 Christ — baptized into his holy family — and there- 
 fore privileged to pour out our hearts before him as 
 our Father. Yet we come as men who have, alas ! 
 abused those privileges, — forgotten this relation — 
 dishonoured this family — and breathing therefore 
 the most touching feelings of humiliation that any 
 human composition can give utterance to. Witness 
 the " general Confession to be said of the whole 
 Congregation, all kneeling ;" and still more that to 
 which we are called before the table of the Lord, 
 " meekly kneeling on our knees." Nothing in them 
 is forced, nothing affected, nothing grovelling and 
 mean, nothing outraging the decencies due to hu- 
 man nature even in its degradation ; — and yet r O 
 how full, how deep, how well adapted to indicate, at 
 
DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 261 
 
 least, if it cannot express, the most intense com- 
 punction of the penitent heart ! 
 
 Thus, then, does our service begin : — with giving 
 utterance to, and thus increasing, the penitential 
 Awe with which the sinful child should come before 
 his Holy Father. But then a change comes gra- 
 dually on. The strain of sorrow is relieved by 
 occasional notes of hope ; and there are sounds of 
 pardon and absolving grace commingled with it ; 
 and from these steal forth the cheering suppli- 
 cation, — " Our Father which art in heaven ;" and 
 then comes the Sprayer of hopeful dependence — 
 " O Lord, open thou our lips ;"— till at last the very 
 soul of Confidence is wakened up, and bursts aloud 
 into the chant of unchecked adoration — " Glory 
 be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy 
 Ghost !" — " Praise ye the Lord ! The Lord's name 
 be praised !" And then the sister feelings, each 
 now set free to run its course, go on together in 
 linked harmony, intertwining all their notes — now 
 one prevailing now another, — now soft, now loud, 
 now quick, now slow, — but the theme — the blessed 
 theme ! — of Christian Devoutness still preserved 
 throughout, and every string within the heart awak- 
 ened, and every feeling touched through all its 
 chords, till there is felt 
 
 " One life within us and around us, 
 Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere." 
 
262 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 
 
 By the heart, in this connexion, I mean the seat 
 of those emotions which are stirred within us by 
 the sense of personal interest and well-being ; — the 
 pleasure of possessing, and the pain of being with- 
 out, a seeming good ; the hopes and fears of future 
 advantage or disadvantage, and all the joys and 
 sorrows which accompany their excitement. These 
 emotions, in the irreligious man, are vivid and un- 
 ruly in proportion to the natural temperament, and 
 they exhaust the energies on the unsatisfactory and 
 ever-changing objects of a transitory world. But 
 it is the privilege of the Christian to reduce all 
 their fluctuations under the moderating influence 
 of faith in God. It is one great mark of Piety 
 to exercise Dependence on our Father's care, 
 and by recognition of his all-pervading and con- 
 trolling hand to possess our souls in patience. And 
 this essential element of the Spiritual life must be 
 nourished by that " prayer and supplication with 
 thanksgiving" which stills the beatings of the foolish 
 heart by " making known our requests to God," 
 
DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 263 
 
 and leaving them with him to be disposed of ac- 
 cording to his will — which consists, therefore, not 
 merely in a meditative recognition and enjoyment 
 of His presence, but in a habit of referring all 
 things up to his disposal, and of waiting on him 
 daily with a child-like trust. 
 
 Now, of all the pure fresh feelings of early youth, 
 which make us love to look upon it, and which sus- 
 tain our reverence and affection for human nature, 
 notwithstanding its corruption, the most marked 
 and lovely is that simplicity of Trust, that ready 
 unreflecting Dependence, which we see a child re- 
 pose upon a Parent's love and a Parent's care. To 
 feel a sorrow and to communicate that sorrow to 
 its Father's ear, to experience a want, and to bring 
 that want to be relieved by its Father's hand, are, 
 to the simple child, simultaneous movements of the 
 heart. It knows itself, only in connexion with its 
 Father — it has no experience of pain or pleasure 
 that does not fall back upon him — it looks up to 
 him for explanation of every difficulty — flies to him 
 in every danger — rests on him with quiet confi- 
 dence in his power to protect — and, folded in his 
 arms, can look round with a steady eye upon a 
 threatening world. 
 
 But as a little child towards its Father, so is the 
 Christian privileged to feel towards God. " Piety," 
 observes the Swiss Reformer, Zwingle, " is a. word 
 
264 DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 
 
 applied as well between parents and their children 
 as between God and man And that adher- 
 ence of the heart, by which a man relies without 
 wavering on God as the only good — who alone can 
 soothe his sorrows, alone avert from him all evils or 
 turn them to his good — and thus regards him as a 
 Father; this is piety; this is religion." And Prayer, 
 therefore, as the exercise, and thereby the nourish- 
 ment, of Piety, consists, in the first place, in refer- 
 ring zip to God all our existing sorrows and joys. 
 
 For the essence of Devoutness consists in recog- 
 nizing God as working all in all. Not only as pre- 
 sent with all things, and the ground of their being ; 
 nor as merely actuating all things by his universal 
 life ; but as the Ordainer and Controller, the sove- 
 reign Disposer of every event. Nothing, we are 
 sure, can happen, any more than it can exist, but 
 by his permission and appointment — not a sparrow 
 falleth to the ground without our Father. And con- 
 sequently whatever be the various appearances of 
 things to the human eye, they are all essentially wise 
 and good ; the rays of light may take a thousand 
 colours and shades of colour, from the surfaces 
 they fall upon ; but they are all alike pure colour- 
 less emanations from the bounteous Sun. True, 
 this is a mysterious fact. But the child of God 
 has learned to live by faith, and not by sight, and 
 therefore he is satisfied with knowing that so it is. 
 
DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 265 
 
 And it is practically necessary to him that he 
 should believe this. He cannot do without it. The 
 doctrines of a God and of Providence are nothing to 
 his peace without this. He must refer every event 
 to God's appointment, or he cannot escape despon- 
 dency in trouble, and presumption in prosperity. 
 If from any other source than from my Father 
 comes the calamity which pains me, I must crouch 
 down under it in despair. If from any other source 
 than from my Father comes the prosperity which 
 exhilarates me, I shall give back to that source the 
 homage of my praise. If there is more than one 
 ultimate cause of all events, then is there more than 
 one independent being ; and to more than one the 
 hopes and fears of a dependent creature must direct 
 themselves. But the Christian has turned from idols 
 to serve the living and true God — he has ceased 
 to stop at secondary causes, because he has had re- 
 vealed to him the Great First Cause — to him there 
 is but One God the Father, of whom are all things, 
 and we in him — and therefore he receives his sorrow 
 and his joy as sent by Him, and Him alone. 
 
 And hence his warrant for praise, and for peti- 
 tion. All supplicatory prayer has no basis but the 
 fact of the particular, immediate, all-directing and 
 controlling Providence of God. Only as we recog- 
 nize the hand of God shall we lay hold of it. Only 
 as we see Him everywhere shall we depend upon 
 
266 DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 
 
 him everywhere — and rejoice in him everywhere. 
 The mode of his presence and control is indeed, 
 and ever must be, far beyond our ken, but the fact 
 of it we must believe ; or prayer is a delusion, and 
 thanksgiving but an empty form. 
 
 Does, then, seeming evil press upon the Chris- 
 tian ? He recognizes it as coming from his Father, 
 and therefore he believes it to be real good. He 
 learns from Jeremiah that " out of the mouth of 
 the Most High proceedeth both evil and good ;" and 
 from Isaiah that " He forms the light and creates 
 darkness, he makes peace and creates evil, he, the 
 Lord, doeth all these things." He asks, with Job, 
 " Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and 
 shall we not receive evil ?" And therefore he ex- 
 claims like him, " The Lord gave and the Lord 
 hath taken away — blessed be the name of the 
 Lord !" Even as the tempest and the earthquake 
 and the thunderbolt are witnesses of God, as much 
 as are the fruitful seasons and the rain from heaven 
 which fill our hearts with food and gladness ; — even 
 as the cloudy pillar, as well as the light of fire, was 
 a symbol of his presence ; so through the darkest 
 equally as the brightest atmosphere it is the Chris- 
 tian's privilege to behold his guiding and guarding 
 God. And thus Prayer becomes the utterance of 
 implicit acquiescence ; and its language is that of 
 the divine sufferer — " The cup which my Father 
 hath given me, shall I not drink it ?" 
 
DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 267 
 
 On the other hand, does Prosperity dilate the 
 heart with joy ? That heart expands towards God 
 — that joy breathes forth the incense of its adora- 
 tion before the mercy seat. The Christian rises 
 from admiration of the gift, to gratitude towards 
 the Giver. He passes through all secondary causes 
 till his full heart reaches Him who has disposed 
 and actuated all, and he exclaims, " The Lord 
 hath done great things for us, whereof we are 
 glad !" " Second causes," says Zwingle, " are ra- 
 ther means and instruments, than properly speaking 
 causes. It is not really the earth that brings forth, 
 or the water that nourishes, the air that fertilizes, 
 or the fire that warms, or the sun that animates ; 
 but it is HE that is the source, the life, and the 
 support of all things, who uses these various instru- 
 ments and by them works their several effects. He 
 feeds the varied fruits of the earth by the element 
 of water ; refreshes, fills, and makes them grow, 
 by the air ; ripens and gives them beauty, mellows 
 and perfects them, by the sun. — When therefore 
 we see the parent earth putting forth her corn, the 
 tree bearing his fruit, the sun shedding light and 
 warmth around, let us as much realize the hand of 
 God ministering all these things to us, as we do 
 that of a kind Father when we see him give a clus- 
 ter of grapes to his beloved child." 
 
 But not only so. Not only does the prayerful 
 
268 DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 
 
 heart acquiesce in all its trials, as God's appoint- 
 ment, and rejoice in all its blessings, as God's gifts ; 
 but along with and in each passing feeling of sor- 
 row or of joy it maintains a sober waiting upon God, 
 as unchangeably the same amidst the various vicis- 
 situdes of life. The particular emotion, be it plea- 
 surable or painful, is almost merged — at least it is 
 much modified — in the sense of general dependence 
 on the never-failing providence of God, Our feel- 
 ings may vary, but our convictions are constant. 
 The lower heavens may be clear or may be cloudy, 
 and we must necessarily feel the difference; but 
 the upper are eternally serene. The light of the 
 Sun may be withdrawn — and then a gloom comes 
 over us ; or it may shine forth brilliantly — and then 
 we are full of joy ; but still, the life of the Sun, the 
 vital warmth which streams from him unseen, re- 
 mains enough for our existence, in the darkest 
 midnight even as in the brightest noon- day glory. 
 Christian, Forget not this ; — think not that God is 
 gone from you because he is shrouded from your 
 sight. Rejoice, indeed, in his appearance, as an 
 added blessing ; but despond not at his seeming 
 absence, for in Him you still do live and move. 
 All events are transient and changeable as the 
 hues of heaven, — one moment there is brightness, 
 and another gloom : and therefore be not greatly 
 lifted up in the moment of prosperity, nor cast 
 
DEVOUT EXERCISES OE HEART. 269 
 
 down in the hour of adversity ; but in both alike 
 remember whence result the shadows as well as the 
 lights which are so variously flung on every object ; 
 and wait on Him who is "the Father of lights, 
 with whom is no variableness neither shadow of 
 turning." 
 
 But dependent Prayer consists, secondly, in lay- 
 ing before God our fears and hopes. For it refers to 
 God the future as well as the present. Our antici- 
 pated pains and pleasures, as well as our actually 
 experienced ones, it moderates and sanctifies by the 
 thought of God. We cannot but look onward to 
 the future with various emotions. It is the prero- 
 gative of mind to look before as well as after — to 
 crowd the present with conceptions of the future 
 as well as of the past — to try and sum the series of 
 coming events. But those events can never be 
 correctly calculated. We know not the law of their 
 progression— we can only conjecture from existing 
 causes probable results — we can but hope, or fear. 
 And O how miserable is that mind which has to 
 bear and balance these conflicting, and continually 
 fluctuating feelings, by itself alone ! which is ever 
 wandering in the uncertain region of the probable, 
 and according to its present tinge of feeling, looks 
 out with sanguine expectation, or with gloomy 
 dread, upon the dim expanse of things to come ! 
 We may seem to see the future stretching out 
 
270 DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 
 
 before us, — but who can trust in his ability to direct 
 his course therein aright ? We are hurrying on- 
 ward down the current of events, and launching 
 out into an unknown sea without a pilot and with- 
 out a chart. And what then can men do without 
 a spirit of dependence upon God ! How can they 
 brave, with nothing but their own shortsighted 
 plans and puny power, the dangers of that untried 
 ocean ! I do confess I cannot understand how 
 peace can be maintained a moment without that 
 waiting upon God, that simple leaving matters in 
 his hands, which is exercised and nourished in de- 
 pendent Prayer. Prayer takes the several antici- 
 pations which agitate us, and tells them out to 
 God. Prayer goes up to his presence, as Hezekiah 
 went into the temple with the threatenings of 
 Sennacherib, and spreads them before the Lord. 
 And thus Prayer devolves our burden upon God, 
 in the certain confidence that he will sustain it. It 
 is both the privilege and the duty of the Christian 
 thus to leave things to his Father. " Take no 
 thought for the morrow," says our Divine Master, 
 " for the morrow shall take thought for the things 
 of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil there- 
 of." For our duties, indeed, prospective as well as 
 immediate, we should be continually taking thought, 
 (for virtue is deliberation, and is made up of cir- 
 cumspection and foresight,) but not for all the pos- 
 
DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 271 
 
 sible events which our teeming imagination may 
 bring before us. Duties are ours, and therefore 
 we must consider and provide for them. But 
 events are God's, and therefore we may thankfully 
 leave them in his hands. 
 
 And Prayer enables us to do this. It makes 
 man and things recede, and it brings forward God. 
 It changes the alarmed inquiry, What shall I do 
 hereafter ? into the submissive question, What wilt 
 Thou have me to do now ? It turns our thoughts 
 from wearying conjecture to hopeful action. It 
 draws the curtain over the undistinguishable pro- 
 spect, and brings us to sit down quietly and wait for 
 its clearing up — wait peacefully, because it is not 
 chance which is at work, but God — wait patiently, 
 because his work he will accomplish in his time. 
 He will make all things work together for good to 
 them that love him. He will bring the blind by a 
 way they have not known. He will make darkness 
 light before them, and crooked things straight. 
 Christian reader, be not curious about the future, 
 but commit your way unto the Lord, and he shall 
 bring it to pass. Trust him for whatever interests 
 you — your health, your comfort, your support, your 
 family, your friends, your reputation, and your life. 
 Be not dismayed by the shadows of coming evil. 
 Even what seems to you unavoidable is but a small 
 part (O how inconceivably small !) of God's whole 
 
272 DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 
 
 purpose towards you. You look out only on the/, 
 immediate future ; and you forget the infinite fu- 
 tures which stretch out behind that future. You 
 see before you, perhaps, necessary effects of now 
 existing causes; but you consider not that those 
 effects will in their turn become causes of still 
 subsequent effects which may be altogether of a 
 different character. Events must never be esti- 
 mated in themselves alone, but in their rela- 
 tions — their innumerable ramifications — their 
 interminable sequences. But those relations are 
 every moment changing. God is every instant mo- 
 difying them. And therefore an occurrence which 
 to-day lours upon us as an evil, we may see to- 
 morrow brightening up into a good. Out of the 
 bitter root will spring the medicinal leaf, or fra- 
 grant blossom. From the gloomy cloud may fall 
 the fructifying shower, and this again give place 
 to the enlivening Sun. Besides — suppose certain 
 sequences of things to be indeed inevitable — sup- 
 pose that pious wisdom right!}'' calculates concern- 
 ing them, and that they will come. They will not, 
 and they cannot, come exactly as they now present 
 themselves to our imagination. We are looking only 
 on one class of objects, — all modified and coloured, 
 by our present humour ; but they will be surround- 
 ed, when they come, and thereby be modified, by 
 unimaginable other objects. We calculate on meet- 
 
DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 273 
 
 ing them with the mind and feeling which oppresses 
 us at present ; but we forget that we ourselves are 
 changeable, and that our state of mind in actual 
 contact with the future, may be altogether differ- 
 ent from that with which we are now anticipating 
 it. Above all, we are looking at them as distinct 
 from God — let loose to work their fury on us, at 
 their will — careering in the untamed wildness of 
 tumultuous chance ; — but what does faith assure to 
 us ? what will prayer enable us to feel ? what will 
 the spirit of a trustful and a hopeful child be satis- 
 fied of? That, when they do come, God also will 
 come with them — will grasp them in his mighty 
 hand — adjust them by his wisdom — turn them at 
 his gracious will — ride on the whirlwind and direct 
 the storm ! 
 
 And therefore, thirdly, a yet higher spirit of de- 
 pendent prayer will be the general commendation of 
 ourselves into the hands of God. All reference to 
 him of our occasional joys or sorrows, all taking up 
 to him particular hopes or fears, will merge them- 
 selves in an habitual sense of being not alone, for 
 our Father is with us — an habitual conviction, (and 
 O how marvellous a truth it is !) 
 
 that we and our affairs 
 
 Are part of a Jehovah's cares." 
 For there are many moods of mind in which both 
 pleasure and pain, and fear and hope, exert but 
 
 T 
 
274} DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 
 
 little influence on us ; in which the spirit inclines 
 but little towards the past or future, but seems 
 balanced in itself; in which we feel with David, 
 " Whom have I ' in heaven but thee, and there is 
 none upon earth that I desire in comparison with 
 thee !" — " The Lord is my portion, saith my soul !" 
 This feeling, in proportion as it becomes habitual 
 to us, affords not only a remedy but a preventive of 
 anxiety. It does not merely restore, it preserves 
 the balance of the mind. Just as we are conscious 
 of reliance on a friend, even when not obliged to 
 ask his help — just as we turn instinctively to him 
 at the first glimpse of necessity, and thus the ear- 
 liest movements of alarm are quelled ; — so the 
 thought of God our Father affords to the habitually 
 dependent mind the gravitating influence which 
 retains the struggling imaginations in their proper 
 orbit, and prevents their rushing onwards through 
 infinity. This is to " pray without ceasing." This 
 is what St. Paul refers to, as the Christian's grand 
 support in that perplexed condition of mind, in which 
 desire and supplication, hope and fear, are silenced 
 by the very impossibility of conjecturing what may 
 be the will of God, — when he tells the Romans, 
 " The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know 
 not what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit it- 
 self maketh intercession for us with groanings which 
 cannot be uttered," — that is, with secret, undeve- 
 
DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 275 
 
 loped aspirations— with thoughts too deep for words. 
 When conception fails us, and mental life does not 
 express itself in verbal forms — when the spirit re- 
 tires from the images of sense, and the creations of 
 fancy, and all the hurried workings of the under- 
 standing, deep into itself — has nothing specific to 
 ask, because it feels its utter inability to form a de- 
 finite wish — lies passive in those everlasting arms 
 which it is sensible are underneath it — and breathes 
 out simply, " Into thy hands I commend my spirit, 
 for thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, thou God of 
 truth !" — O this is the sabbath of the soul — this is 
 " waiting on the God of our salvation all the day !" 
 This is Faith — Faith in its highest power and no- 
 blest exercise — which asks not a disclosure of the 
 future, but is satisfied with having no one object 
 visible but God — which desires no clearer vision 
 of the distant shore, but looks forth on the vast 
 unvaried ocean of futurity, calm and hopeful, though 
 not a speck may be distinguished on it — nay, though 
 clouds and darkness rest upon it — assured that over 
 the abyss the Spirit of love and life sits brooding. 
 O for this sacred calm of soul ! this holy hush of 
 the collected mind ! this losing of our petty self in 
 the immensity of being, and reclining on the bosom 
 of the Infinite with this one single feeling, " I wait 
 upon the Lord, — my soul doth wait !" 
 
276 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 
 
 We have seen already that there can be no true 
 Piety which does not affect the Will, nay, have its 
 seat and throne in the Will, renewing it into con- 
 formity with the will of God. We cannot conceive 
 a child of God having a will at variance with his 
 Father's will, or even indifferent thereto. There 
 can be no true delight in God's presence, nor de- 
 pendence on his help, where there is not also devo- 
 tion to his service. He that has received the spirit 
 of adoption at all, must have received it, however 
 feeble in degree, yet complete in kind. He must 
 possess therefore, with whatever fluctuations, a ge- 
 neral desire and purpose to honour God's name, to 
 walk worthy of Him who has called him to his 
 kingdom and glory, and to become perfect as his 
 Father which is in heaven is perfect. In a word, 
 to use the expression of our Lord concerning his 
 Apostles, (Matt. xxvi. 41.) " his spirit must be will- 
 ing" — his purposes must cordially harmonize with 
 
DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 277 
 
 those of God, and he must be ready to do his will. 
 It was so with those Disciples even amidst their 
 heedlessness, their rashness, their ignorance of 
 themselves, and their dulness towards the warnings 
 of their Master. They had no treachery of heart 
 towards him (as, alas ! the absent Judas had) ; but 
 felt and meant all that they said when they ex- 
 claimed, " Though we should die with thee, yet will 
 we not deny thee." And so will it be with all who 
 are " transformed by the renewing of their mind, 
 that they may prove what is the good and accept- 
 able and perfect will of God." 
 
 But then, with this " spirit which is willing," 
 there is still about the Christian " the flesh which 
 is weak ;" — the prejudices, preferences, appetites, 
 and passions of his lower and original nature ; and 
 these are continually opposing his new and higher 
 purpose, seeking to mislead it, to enfeeble it, or at 
 least to clog its efforts. We see this in those same 
 Disciples. The very men who were at one moment 
 full of generous zeal for their Divine Master, are 
 soon found " sleeping, for their eyes were heavy !" 
 The very Apostle who now is ready to go with his 
 Lord to prison and to death is within the hour for- 
 saking him and flying — nay, shrinking from the men- 
 tion of his name — nay, protesting with an oath, " I 
 do not know the man !" The best intentions are 
 forgotten ; the most expanded zeal collapses to a 
 
2/e DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 
 
 point ; the most resolute determinations have slunk 
 away ; the spirit was willing, but the flesh is weak. 
 And who does not confess that so it is with every 
 Christian man ? Who is not compelled to cry con- 
 tinually with bitter self-reproach, ." The things that 
 I would I do not, and the things that I would not, 
 those I do !" 
 
 Here, therefore, we perceive the strong necessity 
 of Prayer as a means of exercising, and thereby 
 strengthening, the Will. It was to this that Jesus 
 directed his Disciples as their great preservative 
 in the coming trial — " Watch, and pray, that ye 
 enter not into temptation." He knew their willing 
 spirit, and he loved them. But he knew too their 
 weaker flesh, and he was fearful for them. He en- 
 deavours, therefore, to arouse them to a sense of 
 their spiritual danger, and to the earnest seeking 
 of that divine strength without which they must 
 fall. And herein does he teach us that in Prayer 
 must lie our strength — by constant bringing of our 
 will under the eye and influence of God must we 
 reduce it into harmony with His. 
 
 And this, Prayer enables us to do, by settling our 
 judgment of what is the will of God in each parti- 
 cular case. However honest our desire to please 
 our heavenly Father, we are continually in danger 
 of mistake concerning what will please him. The 
 general principles of God's will are, it is true, set 
 
DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 279 
 
 forth by him in his Holy Word, and enforced by the 
 responsive voice of his Spirit in the heart. But when 
 we come to act out the details of duty, we are in 
 danger either of forgetting those principles, through 
 the prevalence of a crowd of selfish, worldly maxims 
 of the Understanding, which judges, not according 
 to the grand ideas of Faith, but according to the 
 mean suggestions of Sense ; not according to the 
 Distant and Unseen, but according to the Visible 
 and Immediate ; — or of misapplying those princi- 
 ples, through the perplexity and ignorance of this 
 same Understanding which can only judge accord- 
 ing to the evidence — obscure and meagre, nay, con- 
 flicting, though it be — which may be brought be- 
 fore it ; and which therefore leads us into many an 
 evil path, and involves us in a thousand errors, be- 
 fore we are aware. It is, therefore, one thing to 
 have a will for God, and quite another to have this 
 will sufficiently predominant above all other wills, 
 and sufficiently enlightened, when predominant, to 
 direct our steps aright. 
 
 Now here our remedy is Prayer. Prayer, which 
 does not merely seek for strength to execute our 
 judgment, — for that judgment may be wrong, — but 
 lays out that judgment before God, that in his pre- 
 sence, and in dependence on his promised guidance, 
 we may consider and decide it. We are in danger 
 of being hurried along by the conclusions — the 
 
280 DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 
 
 rash, perhaps, nay, passionate conclusions^— of the 
 Understanding. Prayer brings us to a pause, that 
 we may recollect, What saith the Lord? We are 
 tossed, perhaps, upon a sea of troubles — our pro- 
 spect overcast, our land-marks gone, our reckoning 
 at fault. Prayer runs to the compass and the chart 
 which God has given us, to find in what direction 
 we must steer. We are wavering between diver- 
 gent trains of thought, each carrying us in turn 
 along its course. Prayer discloses some new object 
 which at once decides their relative correctness. 
 Prayer saves us from the judgment of our solitary 
 and exclusive self, by reminding us of another 
 than ourself, and of the judgment of that other, 
 to modify our own. Who has not experienced the 
 advantage of considering, in cases of perplexity, 
 What would such or such an honoured Friend think 
 of this matter ? How would his mind, untroubled 
 by the personal considerations which disturb my 
 judgment, decide ? — And what then is the privilege 
 of thus referring to the mind of God ! of waiting, 
 with a growing sense of his immediate presence, 
 for that calm serenity in which the slightest whis- 
 per of the conscience may be heard ! In the very 
 act of such re- arguing the case before the quiet 
 glance of his piercing eye, our mind is gradually 
 purifying ; all that is earthly sinks away — all that 
 is heavenly streams into the consciousness, — our 
 
DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 281 
 
 subtle lusts slink off like unclean spirits at the com- 
 ing dawn — our holier principles start up from their 
 sleep — we find ourselves impelled against ourselves 
 into another judgment — and yet are conscious and 
 assured that this other is a better, and the right 
 one. We have passed from the twilight of the 
 Understanding into the noon of Reason, and Rea- 
 son we feel is none other than* the light of God. 
 
 " Whene'er the mist that stands 'twixt God and thee 
 Defecates to a pure transparency, 
 That intercepts no light, and adds no stain — 
 There Reason is, and then begins her reign !" 
 
 Nay, more than this. Prayer is not only medi- 
 tation on our purposes under God's all-purifying 
 glance — it is communication to him of our inmost 
 mind — spreading before him all our circumstances, 
 recapitulating our reasonings, discoursing with him 
 on our plans. And who knows not the value of dis- 
 course, to modify what was crude and arbitrary, to 
 clear up what was confused, to bring out our con- 
 clusions clean and sharp ? " Whosoever," says 
 Lord Bacon, " hath his mind fraught with many 
 thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify 
 and break up in the communicating and discours- 
 ing with another. He tosseth his thoughts more 
 easily, he marshalleth them more orderly, he seeth 
 how they look when they are turned into words, 
 and he waxeth wiser than himself, often more by 
 
282 DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 
 
 an hour's discourse than by a day's meditation. 
 Dear Christian Reader, would you wax wiser than 
 yourself from day to day? Discourse with God 
 in prayer ! Submit to him your decisions. Talk 
 with him of your purposes. Pray that by the 
 influences of his Spirit you may have " a right 
 judgment in all things." Beseech him so to " cleanse 
 the thoughts of your heart by the inspiration of 
 His Holy Spirit that you may perfectly love him 
 and worthily magnify his holy name." Intreat that 
 you may be " filled with the knowledge of his will 
 in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you 
 may walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, 
 being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in 
 the knowledge of God." 
 
 But Prayer influences the Will, further, by 
 strengthening our determination to do the will of 
 God, when known. The willing spirit may exist, 
 but it may be dull and languid. It may clearly see 
 its path, but it may not be alert to enter vigor- 
 ously upon that path. It requires to be roused and 
 animated and propelled— to pass from being well 
 inclined, to being resolutely determined, to the ser- 
 vice of God. 
 
 And this determination it obtains in Prayer. For 
 Prayer not only brings the will of God distinct and 
 full before the mind, but it stimulates the heart to 
 embrace that will, and devote itself to its accom- 
 
DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 283 
 
 plishment. For who can look on sin without ab- 
 horrence, when he views it in the light of God's 
 own countenance? Who can look on holiness 
 without a yearning for its full possession, and a 
 deep resolve for its pursuit, when he gazes steadily 
 on its surpassing beauty? We cannot purpose 
 evil, we cannot but resolve for good, when we be- 
 hold them as they are in prayer. And hence the 
 saying of the old divines that Prayer will make men 
 give over sinning, or sinning will make them give 
 over prayer. The two states of mind — as prolonged 
 and settled states — are incompatible. We cannot 
 " think upon" the things that are true, and comely, 
 and just, and pure, and lovely, and of good report, 
 without being won and carried away by them. The 
 glow of admiration kindles into love, and love bursts 
 forth into determination, and we go forth from the 
 presence of the Lord instinct with vigour in His 
 cause. Look only at the contrast between those 
 poor disciples, who, with all their willingness of 
 spirit, neglected the admonition of their Lord, and 
 did not give themselves to Prayer, and the Holy 
 Jesus who sought therein the life and power of 
 God. As the last great trial drew nearer to him, 
 he drew nearer to his Father. Once, and twice, 
 and thrice, he brought the fluctuating emotions of 
 humanity under the assuaging influence of the Idea 
 which formed the living principle of his existence, 
 
284 DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 
 
 and renewed and re-invigorated that Idea by imme- 
 diate communing with God, till God's will alone pos- 
 sessed his soul — God's will breathed and burned in 
 the very centre of his consciousness, subordinated 
 every other thought into entire harmony of action 
 with itself, and brought him back in calm, untrou- 
 bled majesty — in himself collected — saying to his 
 astonished disciples, " Rise, let us be going ; behold, 
 he is at hand that doth betray me." 
 
 And this — something, at least, like this — is the 
 effect of Prayer upon the will of those who bring it 
 in its weakness to be inspired with power from hea- 
 ven. What we have not in ourselves the Spirit of 
 God supplies : and we gain more strength from 
 prostrate supplication than from all the arguments 
 and efforts that human ingenuity can devise. By 
 the thoughts awakened in the mind, and the feel- 
 ings stirred within the heart, amidst the awfulness 
 of Prayer, the Holy Ghost descends into the will 
 and turns it whithersoever it should go, and nerves 
 it to high purposes and noble deeds. We become 
 strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. 
 We are strengthened with all might by his Spirit 
 in the inner man. We find him doing exceeding 
 abundantly above all that we ask or think, by His 
 power working in us. We labour, striving according 
 to his working which worketh in us mightily. We 
 can do all things through Christ which strength- 
 
DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 285 
 
 eneth us. It is in Spirit that all power resides, 
 throughout the Universe. Matter is weak, inert, 
 passive, instrumental only — Spirit alone originates 
 all change, is active, mighty, causative. And what 
 then is the power of The Spirit ! What the 
 strength to be derived into our will from His holy 
 inspiration ! Is it not as a cordial circulating 
 through the frame ? Brings it not secret refresh- 
 ings which repair the strength, and fainting spirits 
 uphold ? Do we not awake by it, as one out of 
 sleep, and like a giant refreshed with wine ? With 
 our purpose clear before us, and our heart set firm- 
 ly on that purpose, what can we not achieve for 
 Him who loveth us, and whom we love ? 
 
 We see what such a spirit can achieve when 
 it enabled Abraham to offer up his only son — and 
 Moses to brave the wrath of Pharaoh — and Elijah 
 to present himself before the cruel Ahab — and 
 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, to refuse to 
 worship the golden image — and Daniel to continue 
 kneeling on his knees, giving thanks to God and 
 praying as aforetime. We see what it could do for 
 Peter and John when they declared " We cannot 
 but speak the things which we have seen and 
 heard" — and for Paul, when he exclaimed to the 
 brethren, «< I am ready not to be bound only but 
 to die for the name of the Lord Jesus," — and when 
 at his first answer before Caesar " no man stood 
 
286 DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 
 
 with him, but all men forsook him ; notwithstanding 
 the Lord stood with him and strengthened him'' 
 We see it in the glorious company of the Apostles, 
 and the goodly fellowship of the Prophets, and the 
 noble army of Martyrs, — in " Gideon and Barak, and 
 Samson, and Jephtha ; in David also, and Samuel 
 — who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought 
 righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the 
 mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, 
 escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness 
 were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, put to 
 flight the armies of the aliens." God's strength 
 perfected in human weakness — this has been the 
 wondrous fact exhibited in every age, in all who 
 have sought the grace of God in prayer. If we 
 drink in thereby the Spirit of God we cannot but do 
 the things of God ; for that Spirit is quick and ac- 
 tive, and must work — that Spirit is holy, and must 
 work holily — that Spirit is mighty, and must work 
 mightily. " He that is devout," says Bishop Tay- 
 lor, "besides that he prays frequently, he delights 
 in it as it is a conversation with God; he rejoices 
 in God, and esteems him the light of his eyes, and 
 the support of his confidence, the object of his 
 love, and the desire of his heart ; the man is un- 
 easy but when he does God service ; and his soul is 
 at peace and rest when he does what may be ac- 
 cepted. — And therefore, if you can but once obtain 
 
DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 287 
 
 delight in prayer, and to long for the time of com- 
 munion, and to be pleased with holy meditation, 
 and to desire God's grace with great passion ; — if 
 you can delight in God's love, and consider con- 
 cerning his providence, and busy yourselves in the 
 pursuit of the affairs of his kingdom, then you have 
 the grace of devotion, and your evil nature shall he 
 cured." 
 
 Thus, then, we have seen the benefit of Prayer 
 in the widest meaning of the term, as the means 
 of exercising all the powers of the soul, and there- 
 by nourishing the Spiritual Life, — as enabling the 
 Mind to realize and enjoy the presence of God — 
 the Heart to depend on him in every change — and 
 the Will to co-incide and co-operate with his. 
 Prayer imbues our own thoughts with the thought 
 of God. It delivers us from all anxiety about the 
 absence of a seeming good, or the presence of a 
 seeming evil. It gives us courage to bear the want 
 of what our Father has withheld from us, and to 
 suffer what our Father puts upon us. It raises us 
 above the fluctuations of human fear and human 
 longing. It subdues our will into conformity with 
 God's will. It developes in us powers that are di- 
 vine. It strengthens us to act on every occasion as 
 becometh those on whom the eye of God is fixed 
 and to whom the honour of the Highest is entrusted. 
 
288 DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 
 
 To think of God as the Creator amidst all our ad- 
 miration of the universe — to confide in him as the 
 Sovereign Ruler amidst all the changes of the 
 world — to follow him as the only Guide amidst all 
 the allurements of earth — in prosperity to praise 
 Him, in adversity to trust in Him — amidst our dili- 
 gence to glorify him for his help, and in our weak- 
 ness to believe that he can fulfil in us all the plea- 
 sure of his goodness — this is to live in Prayer, to 
 grow by Prayer, to become transformed by Prayer 
 into our Father's image, till at last we shall be fully 
 like him and shall see him as he is. O Thou Author 
 of all godliness, without whom nothing is strong, no- 
 thing is holy, work Thou this transformation in our 
 hearts ! Use Thou this book for the purposes of 
 thy grace ! Communicate, awaken, nourish by it, 
 the divine life in many a soul — and thus stablish 
 our hearts unblameable in holiness before Thee our 
 Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ 
 with all his Saints ! 
 
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