A Little Arles as Well as Much
Ur old English word ‘earnest’ goes back to our old Scottish word ‘ arles.’ And our old Scottish word arles goes back first to a Latin root, and then to a Greek root, and then to a Hebrew root. And in all these five languages both the word earnest and the word arles mean exactly the same thing. An earnest and an arles in all these five languages mean an instalment: that is to say, a small part of something given now in sure pledge of future full possession. In old days the men of business who made arrangements for the sale and the transfer of an estate were wont to take the buyer to the property for sale, where they dug a spadeful of the best soil, and gave it to him: or they plucked a head of the best corn and gave it to him; or they gathered a handful of the best fruit and gave it to him: they always gave him home with him a little of something that grew on the estate; something of the same kind as the estate that he was afterwards to possess. And that ceremony, so the lawyers said, gave the buyer an incontestable right and an indisputable title to the whole promised property. And the reader of the Old Testament will remember that a bunch of grapes, which it took two men to carry, was brought to Moses from the vineyards of Eschol, as an earnest and an aides and an instalment of the full vintage of the Promised Land.
Now, I have been led into this vein of thought from having frequently come on this homely expression of an arles in the Memoirs of Fraser of Brea. For, comforting his own often dejected soul, and comforting the often dejected soul of his trusty correspondent, Thomas Ross of Tain, Fraser says, and he says it over and over and over again: ‘ A little,’ he says, ‘ arles as well as much.’ A single haunch of venison, he says, arles as well as ten head of highland deer. And a single cut of salmon arles as well as a mile of a Ross-shire river full of the same darting and glancing fish. And then the laird of Brea goes on to make the most evangelical and comforting application of this homely proverb to the waiting and expecting people of God. As I shall now try to do in far-off imitation of that much-experienced man of God, and great Gospel preacher.
Well, to begin with, and to begin at the very beginning: teach your son his English alphabet, and in that you have already given him an arles of the whole of our rich English literature. Present him with a copy of the Pilgrwi’s Progi’ess on his birthday, and he has in that exquisite little gem an earnest and an arles of all the great English classics of grace and truth. Once truly and intelligently interest him in his Shorter Catechism, and you have already apprenticed him to Augustine, and to Luther, and to Calvin, and to Goodwin, and to Edwards, and to Chalmers. And so on: through the first instalments of all truth and all grace: all noblest literature, and all genuine evangelical religion.
Now, on the same significant and suggestive principle of a little of something being a sure earnest and arles of more to come of the same kind, let me proceed to apply that homely proverb to the first beginnings of the life of grace in the renewed heart. And to begin with, I will take prayer. And I take prayer first because it is the most genuine earnest and the surest arles of the whole coming life of communion with God, both in grace and in glory. ‘Behold, he prayeth!’ was the first sign of his coming salvation in the case of the apostle Paul. And those first beginnings of secret prayer in his lodgings at Damascus were the earnest and the arles of a life of prayer the like of which the Church of Christ has never again seen. The heavenly richness and the surpassing splendour of Paul’s apostolic prayers make them the completion and the crown of his incomparable apostolic preaching. The truth is Paul’s magnificent doctrines of redemption and salvation come to all their fulness, and to all their finality, only in his glorious prayers for the Churches to which he wrote his greatest epistles. And that never-to-be-forgotten night of fasting and prayer after his arrest at the gate of Damascus; that night at the mercy-seat was the true arles and the sure earnest of all that wonderful life of preaching and prayer which laid the foundations and built up the walls of the New Testament Church. And let the same thing once be said concerning any man among ourselves: let it once be said concerning him: ‘ Behold, he prayeth! ’ and no limit can be set to what that man will yet attain in the victories, and in the experiences, and in the services of the Christian life.
‘ Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of a tear.
The upward glancing of an eye.
When none but God is near.’
A very little faith also; a very little Scriptural faith earnests and arles a full and a fruitful life of faith. A very little realisation; a very little apprehension of what we read, or of what is read to us of the Word of God; a very little opening of the eye of the soul upon the great realities of the spiritual and eternal world; a very little upgoing of the soul to Jesus Christ in true trust and in true love; even a sinofle mustard seed of such faith if it is quickened and watered and shone upon by the Holy Ghost, will in the end become a widespreading tree of life, bearing all the fruits of the Spirit in their season. Even one recollection concerning Jesus Christ in a day; even one glance of the eye in His direction in a day; even one ejaculation in a day, shot up towards Him who is not seen as yet; little as all that looks, little as all that is, at the same time despise it not, for eternal life is in it.
No. Despise it not, nor despair of it. For it is the earnest and the arles of a faith that will yet both justify the ungodly and sanctify the sinful; and once born, it will never die, till it ends in eternal life. No. Emphatically no! Despise it not, and despair not of it. For as the oak-tree is hidden in the acorn, and as the full-grown man is hidden in the new-born babe, so is all the life of grace here and all the life of glory hereafter hidden in the smallest arles of that faith which is the gift of God and the operation of the Holy Ghost.
But this homely little proverb is almost more true of the first awakenings of love toward God and our neighbour. Self-love, as we well remember, to our shame and pain, at one time swallowed up every thought, and every desire, and every affection of our unrenewed hearts. But on the other hand we are divinely assured that the faintest stirring of a self-forgetting and a self-denying love to God, and much more to any of our everyday neighbours, is a sure token that God Himself is beginning to take up His abode in our souls. For ‘ God is love: and he that loveth dwelleth in God, and God in him.’ A little humility, then; a little meekness; a little lowly-mindedness; a little self-denial; a little self¬ surrender; a little patience; a little forbearance; a little silence to let another man speak; a little deference to another man’s mind; a little honour to another man’s good name; despise it not; destroy it not; for, small and despised as it is, very God Himself is in it and is at the root of it. And thus it was that our Lord made so much of the widow’s mite of love at the church door, and of the cottager’s cup of love to a thirsty passer-by.
And, then, take that peace with God which your guilty conscience cries for so much, and seeks after so much. Now is not this a fact of your everyday experience that you no sooner again read or hear of Christ as your peace with God that your conscience is not quieted somewhat and your heart is not somewhat comforted? You never once kneel down before God in the name of Christ that you do not enter, on the spot, a little into peace and acceptance. And even a little quieting of a fearful heart; even a momentary pacification of an always accusing conscience; even a gentle whisper of that peace which passes all understanding is a sure earnest and a sufficient aides of that day when you shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted and accepted in the Beloved. Even a drop a day, so to say, of the peace-speaking blood of Christ will speak a sufficient peace to enable you to lift up your head somewhat, from day to day, and from hour to hour, till your purchased redemption is fully accomplished in you. And till you shall be ushered into your assured inheritance of joy and peace; an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, which is reserved, in heaven for you. Yes, reserved in heaven for you!
But my brethren to tell you the truth, the apostle’s doctrine concerning the earnest of our inheritance is such a high doctrine, it is such a holy and heavenly doctrine, that I shrink back from preaching it fully to you; just as you will shrink back from fully hearing it, and from fully accepting it. I preach, and you hear; and, in a way, we all follow after prayer, and faith, and love, and peace with God; but who among us is ready to receive home into his heart the very Holy Ghost Himself? And yet that, and nothing less than that, is the full Gospel of our salvation, as our salvation is set before us in this sweetest and sublimest of all Paul’s epistles. My brethren, as I have said, this ‘ earnest ’ of our future inheritance is so great; I will even say it is so awful; I will even say it is so terrible, almost, to such earthly-minded, carnal-minded, mean-minded, and un¬ spiritual men as we are, and are to the end, that we shrink back from the very thought of it. And, yet, so it is, and so it must be. And less it cannot be. For after Paul has preached it and after we have well reflected on it we are compelled to confess that nothing other, and nothing less, than God, the Holy Ghost Himself, dwelling in our souls, can be a real, and a sure, and a sufficient earnest of such an inheritance as heaven is to be.
For, take prayer, take faith, take love, take peace with God and our neighbour, take all the holiness that even Paul himself ever attained to, and after all they are only real and sure earnests of heaven so far as the Holy Ghost Himself is in us and in them. ‘They are all but the result of His operations in our souls, and He does not operate but where He first dwells. Fie does not operate in our souls in His own absence from our souls. Take an instance or two so as to make this clear. Does the reading of the Holy Scriptures captivate our hearts and carry us up to heaven as often as we open them? Yes. But then what are the Holy Scriptures, and whence came they, and whence comes their captivating and sanctifying power? All this is so because the Holy Scriptures are the workmanship of the Holy Ghost, and because he enters our hearts, and operates in our hearts, as often as we open the Word of God. Again, what is the Sabbath day but a sanctified spot of our secular time, marked off and circumscribed by the Holy Ghost, and made an earnest of the rest that remaineth to all them who in the Spirit remember the Day of their Lord’s Resurrection to keep it holy for His sake and for His service? And what is the Lord’s Supper, to which ordinance we are again looking forward, what is it but an earnest and a foretaste of the marriage supper of the Lamb when the Holy Ghost shall come forward and present the Lamb’s wife to her Flusband, holy and without blemish, as His finished indwelling and finished workmanship?
No! do not shrink back from the New Testament doctrine and offer of the Holy Ghost. Do not be afraid to receive such a heavenly Dweller into your deepest hearts. For He comes not to do you any damage. He comes to renew you. He comes to quicken you. He comes to sanctify you. He comes to comfort you. He conies to make you meet for your heavenly inheritance. He comes to be in you and to you ‘ the sure and certain earnest of your inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession.’
Now, you will allow me a reflection or two upon all this, and then I will close. And my first and my best reflection upon all this concerns our Blessed Lord Himself. We know, and we never forget, that our Blessed Lord, all His days on earth, lived by prayer, and by faith, and by hope, and by love to God and man, and by all holy obedience, and by continual communion with His Father. But. all that was to Him only the earnest and the aides of the fulness of the heavenly life which awaited Him in heaven when His work on earth was finished. Every sin He pardoned; every disease He healed; every disciple He restored; every devil he cast out — what were all those mighty works of His but so many earnests and arles of that coming Day when all power in heaven and on earth would be put into His hands Even in His most successful sermons He had but one convert here, and another there. Nathanael under the fig-tree; Nicodemus by night; the woman at the well; Zacchasus the publican; Mary Magdalene; the Syrophoenician woman; the thief on the cross; one of a city, and two of a family. ‘ Then I said: I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain. But thus saith the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, to Him whom man despiseth. In an acceptable time have I heard Thee; and in a day of salvation shall I help Thee; and I will preserve Thee, and will give Thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, and to cause to inherit the desolate heritages. Behold, these shall come from far; and, lo, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim.’ But, all the same, all His earthly life He had to content Himself with one disciple here, and another there; till, now, they are a multitude that no man can number.
And here let all faithful Gospel preachers take heart of faith and hope. Let them not mourn too much and blame themselves too much, and say, Who hath believed our report? Let them rather say: All that the Father giveth them shall come to them. And, meantime, let them say: It is enough that the disciple be as his Master, and the servant as his Lord. It is enough that it be as God wills it to be. A sinner converted here, and a saint comforted there; a mind enlightened here, and a conscience cleansed there; a child taught the first elements of the faith here, and a dying believer assisted over the Jordan there; that, and even less than that, is the whole earnest and the sole arles of many a true preacher of Jesus Christ. Like his Master, many a minister, many a missionary, many a Sabbath-School teacher, many a heart-burdened parent, who sows in tears, shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall, doubtless, come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
And a special reflection for all godly parents comes in here, and it is this. When you see any¬ thing in any child of yours, or of your neighbour’s, that seems to you to arle him for the heavenly inheritance, rejoice over that; with a holy and a heavenly joy rejoice over that. It may not be much as yet. It cannot, in the nature of things, be very much as yet. But ‘ a little arles as well as much.’ A little, if it grows, and if you see it growing, arles as well as much. A little true reverence and honour toward yourself, little as you feel you deserve it; a little and a growing teachableness, and, especially, in divine truth; a little love for good books, and for the best of all books; a little, and an ever-growing interest in the Church of Christ, and in the Kingdom of God; a little feature here, and another little feature there, of the divine family; dwell much, and with much secret prayer and praise on these first beginnings of the everlasting life in your child. And seek above all other seeking in his behalf, seek that these earnests and arles of the Kingdom of Heaven may be multiplied upon him. Copy Paul’s prayer for the parents and the children of Ephesus, and make it your constant prayer for yourself, and for all your children: ‘ I cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that you and your children with you may all be sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession.’
And, then, take home with you this reflection for your individual selves. If your earnests and arles of heaven — that is to say, if your spiritual holiness of heart and life is so sinfully small as to seem to be no earnests and no arles at all — take this comfort from John Calvin which has been the comfort of so many. The great evangelical reformer always said that a true desire to be holy is our best and our fullest holiness here. Now, you have that true desire, have you not? Yes, I am sure you have! For, were you to be told from heaven, and where you now sit, to ask one thing for yourself this Sabbath evening, it would be to be holy as your Father in heaven is holy; it would be to be holy as His best saints on earth and in heaven are holy. You would subscribe to Thomas Boston’s protestation that the Holy Spirit is welcome to make a clean sweep — a bonfire, I think, he calls it — of all your sins of body, and soul, and spirit; and that, this very night, if He sees that to be best for the glory of God, and for your full and final salvation. Well, take a true desire to be holy along with Paul, and with Calvin, and with Boston; take a true desire after holiness to be a sure earnest and a true arles in your souls, until the redemption of your purchased possession; which redemption, to not a few of you, is at your very door!