The Inwardness of True Religion

“Did not he that made that which is without, make that which is within also?”

These words draw our attention to religion as something inward and spiritual. In this they resemble the rest of Christ’s instructions, which were intended to bring men to a service of mind and heart, rather than of outward observance. The piety of the Pharisees was altogether external. Hence they were shocked when this new teacher disregarded all their forms. One of their sect, who on this occasion was the host of Jesus, wondered at his approaching the repast without the prescribed rite of baptism.” And the Lord said unto him. Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full New York, April 9, 1854.

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of ravening and wickedness. Ye fools, did not he that made that which is without, make that which is within also?” That is, You forget that it is God with whom you have to do; God, who sees the heart; God, who created the spiritual part; God, who is a Spirit, and demands a spiritual worship. My single theme is. Religion AS AN INWARD WORK.

In attempting to exhibit the greatness of the work within, I shall observe the following order: 1. The value of single holy sentiments and emotions, especially in their bearing on the eternal state. 2. The consequent importance of the hidden life, made up of such thoughts and exercises, and the greatness of the Spirit’s work in sustaining such life under the Gospel. 3. The unspeakable grandeur of the regeneratiug act, as the source of this life, and these emotions.

I. God’s scale of measurement is very different from ours. He accounts that small which seems gigantic to us; and often esteems that great which we despise. Instances might be brought from things tangible and visible, though these are not to detain us. For example, the structure of a violet or the wing of a fly is more complex and wonderful than the steam-engine or the telegraph. When we seek for grandeur, we generally think of size or of multitude; being governed very much by our own organs, or the petty objects around us. Especially are we prone to err, when we compare things material with things moral. The two belong not so much to different classes as to different worlds. We cannot measure a good man against a mountain or a planet. We cannot adjust our balance and put a generous thought into one scale, and a thousand talents into the other. I may add, we are perpetually making this absurd attempt, and weighing spiritual realities in our earthly balance. The evil cleaves to us, even when we deHberately pass over into the domain of moral and religious truth. In estimating the results of pious endeavour, for instance, we are governed in a great degree by the eclat of the triumph, the pubhcity of the benefit, and the tabular show of statistical enumeration. The day of final revelation may bring into focal light and glory some objects which the world has not paused to look at. A poor widow cast into the treasury-box two mites, which make a farthing. The coin was base and trifling, and the act apparently insignificant. But the deed attracted the eye of infinite Wisdom, which penetrated beyond the ring of the paltry pieces, beyond the trembhng wrinkled hand which timidly let them drop, behind the care-worn face of poverty and devotion, to the inward sentiment in that widow’s heart. This it -was which gave value to the donation. This it was which God regarded; setting on it a value above all the costly munificence of the opulent, above all the splendours of architecture in the temple, above all the glories of Moriah and the holy city, nay — for all that we know — above all the material excellencies of this great globe itself. Yet this inward sentiment was invisible, imponderable, inappreciable. When visitors were once admiring the library of a great prelate, lie said, “One thought of devotion outweighs them all.” It was well said, and in a spirit belonging to our subject; but who can bring forth the scales to verify the conclusion? The holy thought is too ethereal to await our tests. It may be evanescent, lasting but a moment; yet there it is; it is known of God; it is the product of his Spirit; it stands forever recorded with his approval. Let us freely confess, that in our common estimates we misjudge with regard to the greatness of that which is mental and moral, especially where it is accompanied with no extension in time and space. “Perform the duty of this single moment,” said the eccentric but pious Lavater, “and thou hast done a good deed for all eternity.” One holy act, one heavenly thought, one upward wish of an infant soul, may be precious in the view of God. Our notion of greatness is different; we should say to a man. Go raise an army, subdue a kingdom, build a pyramid. There is a sublimity in moral rectitude, or conformity to the will of God, which we are ill qualified to measure, in our present state, where every thing is referred to physical laws. These laws, in their grandest manifestations, as those of orbs moving in harmonious silence through the astronomic spaces, are only as lasting as perishable matter. The hour may come when the attraction of gravitation shall no longer be as the squares of the distances; but the hour shall never come, when faith, and love, and the image of God shall not be infinitely excellent.

Does it not follow from this, that we are in danger every moment of miderrating those operations and exercises which take place in the secrecy of the human bosom? Even when we make them objects of attention, which is seldom, we rate them by the visible results of the acts which they produce. But their moral quality has a value, independent of all overt effects, a quahty which confers on these effects all their excellence. It is a solemn consideration, that the very emotion which this moment is bubbhng to the surface of our internal fountain, may have a world of importance, may be intensely sinful or intensely holy. And on this estimate, so much beyond our reach, may be founded some of God’s awful determinations respecting the acts of creatures in this state of trial. Of one thing we may be certain; the infinitely holy and omniscient Judge takes cognizance of what passes in human minds. He cannot look with indifference on the thoughts, imaginations, wishes, purposes, choices and habits of our souls. Shghtly as we regard them, each has its moral estimate in God’s account. And this gives a serious importance to inward things, which, if duly pondered, might modify our whole view of life. Now it should be observed, that all these rapid transactions of the immaterial nature within us are absolutely hidden from the gaze of others. Man looketh at the outward appearance. The subject of these sentiments or emotions may be a recluse, the tenant of a deserted isle. Nevertheless he is a soul, spiritual and immortal, and there is that going on within him which may outstretch in its greatness the boundaries of the vastest monarchies. Your Hues of measurement by inches, leagues, or semidiameters of orbits, cannot be appHed to spirit. That soul, on God’s scale, may be longer and wider and higher and deeper than the whole material universe. Its acts and fluctuations have a relation to God’s law, to God’s image, and to immortahty. Hence the great work of God is expended, not on the mundane fabric, which is to perish, but on the soul, which is to last eternally.

To approach a juster valuing of inward things, pause with me a moment or two on this last thought. Man looks forward to an interminable existence. The continuity of his being is unbroken. His conscious identity is to suffer no rupture or suspension. We naturally suppose that his knowledge will increase, and with it his capacity of emotion. Now the grand truth of our system is, that our immortal condition is to be fixed here. Happy or miserable are we to be, according to what we are in this world; and happy or miserable in degrees apportioned to our soul’s state here. The character, though not the amount of holiness, is settled before death. The entire series of our experience below is a preparation for what awaits us above. There is not a purpose, a desire, or a state of mind, in this our pilgrimage, which has not its bearing on the eternal career. What importance does this confer on even the most transient exercises of the soul! Each is the seed which embosoms in itself a fruitfulness of immortal joy or woe. Let no man, then, think lightly of what is passing in those darkened chambers. Angels — if angels see aught of hmnan hearts — hang. with unutterable interest over the struggles of the spirit, as now it wrestles with a strong temptation, and now emerges into light and love. Man beholds it not, save by some faint infrequent indications; but all these workings are naked to the eye of God.

II. The importance of the inward life, made up of such thoughts and exercises, is obvious. Reflection on so much as has been offered, will lead us to reconsider some of our hasty judgments as to the importance of that invisible work which is going on behind the curtains of every undying soul. To the gifted eye there is revealed a battlefield, over which principahties and powers hover, with a wistful interest, and in comparison with which the conflicts of a Pharsalia or a Waterloo — if we leave out the consideration that each combatant is, after all, an immortal creature — must dwindle to a mere contest of insects. In a sense higher than they ever dreamed themselves, is the saying of the ancients true, that the soul is a microcosm, a little world. It has its periods, its convulsions, its wars, its deluges, its revolutions and its conflagrations. To each of us, individually, it is more than the universe itself, being his all; and this it is, silently, secretly, and without respect to other creatures. Each soul has that to transact, in God’s sight and with God, which throws into the rank of things indifferent the shock of nature and the crash of worlds. The eternity beyond is made to depend on the character this side of death, as holy, or the reverse. Who can refrain from reiterating the exclamation of our Lord, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”

A reigning error among all those who profess Christianity, is, that we care more for that which is without, than that which is within. And even when we seem to seek inward reformation, we begin too frequently with the stream instead of the fountain, the external rather than the internal. It is a great moment in any Christian’s life, when he awakes to the conviction, that of all the works he has to perform, the greatest is within his own breast. Even if it had no fruit outwardly, this culture would be momentous in regard to eternity; but indeed it is the very germ of all fruitfulness. “Keep thy heart with all diQigence,” etc. Miaisters and people may give themselves too exclusively to visible activity, and then the lamentation is in place, “They made me keeper of the vineyards, but mine own vineyard have I not kept.” This arises from low thoughts of the work of God within the soul. “Did not he that made that which is without, make that which is within also? “Nay, did he not rather make that which is within? Is it not this, on which his eye is chiefly fixed? The humblest thoughts of ourselves are consistent with a profound reverence for the spiritual influence in our bosoms. It is a great and awful fact, that the Holy Spirit inhabits the believer.” What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost? “If this internal work be neglected, poverty will come upon all our Christian life. The noise and bustling vanity of the age tend directly toward such disregard. It must be opposed by renewed dihgence in cultivating deep, inward, spiritual religion. We must not measure our attainments in piety, by palpable usefulness, or the stir of beneficent action, however much this is our duty. The grand afiair of life is the building up of the spiritual temple. We may disparage the power that is operating within. It is the common mistake of retired and suffering Christians. Because they are not called to pubHc manifestations, they think there is no advancement. But knowledge may be rising in a compact and soHd structure. Faith may be diffusing its mighty influence on every side. Holy devotion may be sending up clouds of incense, acceptable to God. Intercessory prayer may be stretching its arms of love, to take in all the brotherhood of Christ and all the family of man. Appetite and passion may be dying, by repeated blows. Purity, like that of Jesus, may be arising as a picture on the soul’s tablet, dim perhaps, but brightening. Patience may be approaching to its perfect work. Submission to God’s chastising hand may be gaining strength in the furnace. The world may be waning, and the attraction of heaven waxing more luminous. Joy in the Lord may be like the” fragrance of a field which God hatn blessed. And gentle humility, the ornament and preservative of all graces, may be growing more constant. Is all this nothing? Is it not the veryprocess to which our Master calls us? It is he that maketh that which is within. Such reflections are needful for many a sohtary believer, who sighs to think that no opportunity is given for great deeds in God’s behalf. “They also serve, who only stand and wait.” There is growth in the world of vegetable nature, not only during sunshine, but in the night. There may be progress, even where there is no joy. The roots may be striking downwards into the soil, and the vital juices of the stock may be maturing, while the late coloured flowers are folded in pensive weakness and weeping with night-dews. Inward, inward must we go, for the true elaboration of gracious virtues. Let this be strongly impressed on those whose circle is bounded by the walls of a narrow home. Let the poor mother, whose dependant charge binds her all day long to the humblest domestic service; let the widow, who cherishes her

faith amidst complete insulation; let the bereaved lonely one, whom the world has dropped from its catalogue; let the invalid, who is cut off from all social labour; let the aged, who wonders why a useless life is lengthened out, know and believe, that to them also it is granted to glorify God as truly as to the king or the apostle. Let them cease to measure the work of grace by the external standards of a human activity. Did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also?

The same reasoning may be applied to another class of instances, about which there is frequent misapprehension in the churches and even in the minds of the ministry. We too much measure the work of God among men by the single criterion of the number of souls converted. This, it need scarcely be said, is a glorious work. But the Spirit of God has other operations besides the conversion of sinners. It is not for us to bring the two into comparison. Of the influences of the Spirit mentioned in Scripture, the great majority concern the inward work on souls already renewed. The apostoHcal writings are almost exclusively addressed to those who are called saints. Sheep must not only be gathered into the fold, but led to pasture. We might, by carrying out the false view now censured, lay thousands of foundations, without rearing any edifice. Or rather, we might seek to lay them; for it is ordinarily found, that where gracious experience in believers becomes shallow, there are few conversions. Now the truth to be considered is, that in every renewed soul, God is carrying forward an invisible work, more important than the administration of a kingdom. How the apostle Paul yearned for the advancement of this, in churches and individuals I How he laboured and prayed for it! I find nothing similar, in the experience of brethren, or my own. “I would,’’ says he to the Colossians, “that ye knew what great conflict I have for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh; that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ.”

A wise Christian will watch for the blooming of a single grace in the garden of the Lord, with as real an expectation, (but O how much loftier!) as that with which the tasteful maiden looks for the opening of some cherished flower in her conservatory. A single grace, that buds and blows, comes from God, and is a thing of beauty in the esteem of Christ, purchased by his sorrows, and part of his immortal wreath. With what intense anxiety will the devoted florist attend the opening of some rare and extraordinary flower, as of the Victoria Regina, or the Night-blooming Cereus! Let us not be less awakened when a Christian soul bursts forth into the manifestation of faith, hope or charity. A believer, we will suppose, long infected by an unrelenting malice, at length ‘comes to the point of exercising a free and full forgiveness of the offender, even as God for Christ’s sake forgave him. It is an inward work; but how lovely in the sight of heaven! What an epoch does it mark in the soul’s history! Call not those labours unfruitful, which are blessed to one such result. Or a formal, worldly, lingering disciple, is brought at length to an entire and absolute dedication to God of all the heart so long withheld. Or, some mountain of avarice is heaved off”; and the believer henceforth holds his possessions as a steward for Christ. Or, a suffbrer is made to give up his own will, and bow with loving resignation to the will of God. Or, hope suddenly becomes assurance, and the fear of death is taken away. These are God’s daily works in the church, and we’ offend against Sovereign grace if we despise them. Because they are inward, they can be detailed in no report of successes; but they are not the less to the praise of almighty love. When such flowers are blooming in the garden of the Lord, we must not complain that all is winter, or speak as we hastily do, of the absence of the Spirit.

ILL But lest any should misunderstand me, I now acknowledge, that the greatest of God’s inward works is the work of Regeneration. It is this which is the root of all subsequent growth. To this our Lord remands the Pharisees instead of all cleansing of the “outside of the cup and the platter,” saying, “Make the tree good.” No change from better to better can be compared mth the change from darkness to light. No point in the history of a soul has such importance as its new birth. At this moment only it begins to live, in a spiritual sense. The very transition into heaven is not so critical; for this is but the continuance of a life already begun. There is joy in the presence of the angels of God, at every such transformation. We may talk of great junctures in human life; but it were trifling to compare any of them with the translation from being an heir of wrath to being a member of Christ. AU distinctions of rank disappear when such a boon as this is conferred. It is to be feared that few kings are made children of God; but suppose such a case. Let him be the greatest monarch on earth, and at the most high and palmy state of dominion and glory. Yet the day and the hour in which he is called to newness of life, he is exalted beyond all the pomp of earth. Or take the case of some Lazarus of the street, ulcerous and forlorn. The Spirit of God touches him, and straightway he is richer than all the thousands in purple and fine linen. God has wrought on him the great inward work. When some infant soul is savingly affected by regenerating grace, it is more glorious than the creation of a new world. The same is true of the veriest slave, the Hottentot, Caffre or Cannibal, who is made a new creature. Is it so then, that we are living in a world (the only one) where such wonders of regenerating power are transacted every day? Have we on every hand those who are still ignorant of this mighty operation? Is there in our possession the instrumentality by which God is pleased to bring the dead to life? And is our period for applying it, and seeking the salvation of men, exceedingly short? Then, brethren, it is high time for us to start from our stupor, and begin to long and labour for the renewal of the sinner. I have not undervalued other modes of usefulness; but unless this is gained, all is lost! To be the means in God’s hand of converting a sinner from the error of his way, is the greatest honour of which we have any knowledge. Most of us would rejoice to save the life of a fellow-THE mWAKDNESS OF TRUE RELIGION. £59

creature; what ought we not readily do or sacrifice to rescue an immortal soul!

How far have we advanced in our proposed inquiry? We have seen, first, the value of single graces, in an immortal soul; next, the value of an inward life, comprehensive of these graces; and lastly, the momentous greatness of regeneration, which confers and establishes this life. Such is ReHgion, as an inward work.

The whole current of reflections tends naturally towards an application to ourselves. The Lord our Sovereign is the creator of the inner as well as the outer man. He demands the homage and service of the spiritual part. On this his glance of scrutiny is imchangeably fixed. In this he finds the subject of his greatest transformations and triumphs. There must be change here, within, or all is ruin for eternity. How vain the attempt to satisfy his righteous claim, by the tender of an external comphance! Yet this is the attempt which besotted men are perpetually repeating. The particular mode of observance may vary with age and country, but the rehance is still on something which is not the heart. It may be the cleansing the outside of the cup and the platter; or the paying of tithes, ablutions, ceremonial sanctity. It may be alms, the repetition of prayers, the attendance on rites and forms. It may go further, and be the profession of the true religion, and the rendering of an unblemished outward morahty. Yet in all this the principal thing is unprovided. Nothing has yet reached “the hidden man of the heart.” There has been no

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work of God upon the secret motive principle. The nature is unchanged. All is unregenerate. How can we speak and hear these things, without sending forth the anxious inquiry, “Have we experienced this transformation? “What avails our external activity or our high profession, if the heart remains untouched? One may be pure before men, and yet may hear Christ saying to him,” Your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness.” Outward obedience is invaluable, when it is the fruit of a holy heart; but all the teaching of our Lord shows that the work must begin within. Obedience is the child of Love. Prophecy, alms and martyrdom are nothing without this inward principle. ‘* Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.” Has there been a change within? Does it reveal itself by new views, tempers, desires, joys and acts? Ah, beloved brethren, how much better are most of us outwardly than inwardly! How much higher is the esteem of others for us, than our judgment of ourselves! And yet we know ourselves but in part. If all those points of our external behaviour could be abstracted, which are produced by a reference to human opinion; by a fear of losing reputation as Christians; by regard for consistency of character; by vanity; by custom; by fear; by shame; how much would remain of genuine vitality, of regard for God’s law, of holy operative love? If nothing, then are We but as whited sepulchres; and the great hidden work has yet to be begun. No perfection of exterior service can make up for a want of the life of God in the soul. The reformation of things outward, and the performance of good acts, unless from a principle of regard to God, are only like hanging fruits on the branches of a sapless tree, dead to the very root. So Christ taught. So the gospel everywhere affirms. Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. If those who hear me, in conscious impenitence, would but lay this to their hearts, it would have an awakening power. The medicine is very bitter; but it is for your lives. The process of return to God is humbling and paiafol, and involves many despairing thoughts of your own condition. For this reason, multitudes are deterred. But is it not better to come to this reckoning in time, than in eternity? A great step is taken, when the soul is convinced that there really is such a thing as inward renovation, and that this has yet to be experienced. Shrink not from the revelation of yourself to yourself. Use no profane forces, to drive away the impression which half awakens you to say, “I will arise and go to my Father!” That whispered suggestion is from above. Such stirrings are sometimes the heavings of lungs to receive the first vital breath. God grant you this inward work of almighty power!