A Fervent Spirit
The description of work which a man performs wiJl depend very much on the master whom he serves; but the amount and quality of that work will depend as much on the mood of mind in which he does it. The master may be good, and the things which he commands may be good; but unless the servant have an eager willing mind, little work may be done, and that little may not be well done. This is the glory of the gospel. It not only invites you to be the disciples of a Saviour, whose requirements are as worthy of your most strenuous obedience as he himself is worthy of your warmest love; but it undertakes to give you the energy and enterprise which the service of such a master
m demands. Besides assigning a good and honourable work for your “business,” and him whom principalities and powers adore for your master, the gospel offers you the zealous mind which such a work requires, and which such a master loves.
But what is a fervent spirit?
1. It is a believing spirit. Few men have faith. There are few to whom the word of God is sohd; to whom “the things hoped for” are substantial, or “the things unseen” evident. There are few who regard the Lord Jesus as livmg now, or as taking a real and affectionate charge of his people here on earth. There are few who yet expect to see him, and who are laying their account with standing before his great white throne. But the believer has got an open eye. He has looked within the veil. He knows that the things seen are temporal, and the things unseen are eternal. He knows that the Lord Jesus lives, and that though unseen he is ever near. He may often forget, but he never doubts his promise: “Lo! I am with you always.” This assurance of his ascending Saviour, every time he recals it, infuses alacrity, animation, earnestness. The faith of this is fervour. “Yes, blessed Saviour! art thou present now? And seest thou thy disciple trifling thus? Is the Book of Remembrance filling- up, and are these idle words and wasted hours to be registered there? And art thou coming quickly and bringing thy reward, to give each servant as his work shall be? And is this my Mvork?’ Lord, help mine unbelief. Dispel my drowsiness. Supplant my sloth, and perfect thy strength in me.”
2. A fervent spirit is an afiectionate spirit. It is one which cries Abba, Father. It is full of confidence and love. Peter had a fervent spirit, but it would be hard to say whether most of his fervour flowed through the outlet of adoration or activity. You remember with what a burst of praise his first epistle begins, and how soon he passes on to practical matters. “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 by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away.” “Wherefore, laying aside all malice, and all guile and hypocrisies, and all evil speakings, as new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.” “Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands.” “The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder.” And as in his epistle, so in his living character. His full heart put force and promptitude into every movement. Is his master encompassed by fierce ruffians? Peter’s ardour flashes in his ready sword, and converts the Galilean boatman into the soldier instantaneous. Is there a rumour of a resurrection from Joseph’s tomb? John’s nimbler foot distances his older friend, but Peter’s eagerness outruns the serener love of John, and, past the gazing disciple, he bolts breathless into the vacant sepulchre. Is the risen Saviour on the strand? His comrades secure the net, and turn the vessel’s head for shore; but Peter plunges over the vessel’s side, and, struggling through the waves, in his dripping coat falls down at his Master’s feet. Does Jesus say, “Bring of the fish ye have caught?” Ere any one could anticipate the word, Peter’s brawny arm is lugging the weltering net with its glittering spoil ashore; and every eager movement is answering beforehand the question of his Lord, “Simon, iovest thou me?” And that fervour is the best, which, like Peter’s, and as occasion requires, can ascend in ecstatic ascriptions of adoration and praise, or follow Christ to prison and to death; which can concentrate itself on feats of heroic devotion, or distribute itself in the affectionate assiduities of a miscellaneous industry.
3. A fervent spirit is a healthy spirit. When a strong spring gushes up in a stagnant pool, it makes some commotion at the first; and looking at the murky stream with its flotilla of duckweed tumbling down the declivity, and the expatriated newts and horseleeches crawling through the grass; and inhaling the miasma from the inky runnel, you may question whether the irruption of this powerful current has made matters any better. But come anon, when the living water has floated out the stagnant elements, and when, instead of mephitic mud, skinned over with a film of treacherous verdure, the bright fountain gladdens its mirrored edge with its leaping fulness, then trips away on its merrypath, the benefactor of thirsty beasts and parched fields. So the first manifestations of the new and the spiritual element in a carnal mind are of a mingled sort. The pellicle of decency, the floating duckweed of surfaceseemliness, which once spread over the character, is broken up; and accomphshments and amusing qualities, which made the man very companionable and agreeable, have, for the present, disappeared. There is a great breakup; and it is the passing away of the old things which is at first more conspicuous and less pleasing than the appearance of the new. In these earlier stages of regenerate history, the contrition and self-reproach of the penitent often assume the form of an artificial demureness and voluntary humility; and in the general disturbance of those elements which have long Iain in their specious stagnation, defects of character, formerly hidden, are perceived sooner than the beauties of a holiness scarce yet developed. But “Spring up, O well! sing ye unto it.” If this incursive proces;s go freely on — if the living water spring up fast enough to clear out the sedimentary selfishness of the natural mind, with its reptile inmates — if the inflowings of heavenly life be copious enough to impart a truly “fervent spirit” — come again. Survey that character when the love of God has become its second nature. In place of the mean and sordid motives which once fermented there, view the simplicity and godly sincerity — the light-welcoming transparency, which reflects the Sun of Righteousness above it, and the forms of truth around it; and instead of the fastevaporating scantiness of its former selfishness, follow its track of diflusive freshness through the green pastures which it gladdens, and beneath those branches which gratefully sing over it. Like a sweet fountain, a fervent spirit is beneficent; its very health is heahng; its peace with God and joy from God are doing constant good; the gospel of its smihng aspect impresses strangers and comforts saints. And besides this unconscious and incidental usefulness, its active outpourings are a benefit as wide as its waters run. A Christian who is both active and fervent is doing perpetual good, and good in the most benignant way. The substantial service he does is doubly blessed by the joyful, loving, and hopeful spirit in which he does it; and though it were only by the gladness which skirts its course, and the amenities which bloom wherever it overflows, beholders might judge how “living,” how hfe-a wakening that water is, which Jesus gives to them that believe in him.
The best, the healthiest, is that calm and constant fervour we have now described; but just as there are intermitting springs which take long time to fill, and then exhaust their fulness in a single overflow — and as there are geysers which jet their vociferous waters high in air, and then are silent for long together — so there are Christians who do not lack fervour, but it comes in fits. They are intermitting springs; they take long to fill, and are emptied in a single gush. Or they are geysers. Some years ago they went up in an explosion of zeal — a smoking whirlspout of fervour — but all is cold and silent now. The water is living, but the well is peculiar; it is
A FERVENT SPIRIT. Tl
only periodically filkd; ii seldom overflows. But just as you would not like to depend on an intermitting fountain for your cup of daily water, nor to owe the irrigation of your fields to the precarious bounty of a boiling spring — as the well near which you pitch your tent or build your house, is the EHm whose bulging fulness inntes you to plunge your pitcher at any hour, and whose deep-fed copiousness is constantly wimpling oft’ in fertilizing streams — so you may be happy to perceive the incidental usefulness even of that zeal which comes fitfully; but you would select as the benefactor of the church and as your own resort, the full heart to which you never can come wrong, and whose perennial redundance bespeaks a secret feeding from the river which makes glad the city of our God.
4. A fervent spirit is a happy spirit. Health is happiness. Peace with God is the Jife of the soul, and joy in God is its health. That assured and elevated believer who enjoys every thing in God and God in every thing, must needs be fervent. His inward blessedness makes him bountiful, and to do good and to communicate are things which, in his happy mood of mind, he cannot help. Some Christians are too dejected. They get under the covert of a peculiar theology, or ensconce themselves in shadowy caves of wilfulness, or pertinacity, or unbelief; and then complain that they cannot see the Sun of Righteousness. He lightens the world. Let them come out beneath his beams, and at once they will feel the fire. Their shivering faith, which with them is rather the reminiscence of heat than a resorting to its unfailing source, will soon mount up to fervour. To look to Jesus is to come to God, and to come home to God is to be happy. An estranged or suspicious spirit cannot be fervent.
Then some Christians are not fervent because they are cumbered with so many things. They carry all their own burdens, and from their sympathizing disposition they have charged themselves with many burdens of their brethren also; but instead of devolving these personal and relative solicitudes on an all-sufficient Saviour, they carry the whole melancholv load themselves. A fearful or a fretful spirit cannot b<’ fervent; but there is no need for a believer in Jesus to be troubled or afraid. Let him deposit all his anxieties in that ear which is gracious enough to attend to the most trivial, and leave them in that hand which is mighty enough to disperse the most tremendous; and reheved of this incubus, his spirit will acquire an elasticity equal to the most arduous and most multifarious toils. Some believers arc not sufficiently fervent, from being straitened in themselves. They do not open their souls to those felicitating influences with which a God of love surrounds them on every side. There is as much comfort in the Word of God, and as much beauty in his works, and as much kindness in his dispensations, as, admitted into the soul, would inundate it with ecstasy. But many hearts are perverse; they let gloomy thoughts and bitter fancies flow freely in, and are almost jealous lest a drop of strong consolation should trickle through, on this deluge of Marah.
It depends on which floodgate you open,
whether you be drowned in a tide of joy or
of sorrow. It depends on whether your
well-springs are above or beneath, whether
7 your consolation or your grief abounds. If you listen to what the Amen, the Faithful Witness, is saying,* and what God the Father is saying,! and what the Spirit and the Bride are saying,:]: and what a glorious universe is saying,§ and what the gracious events in your daily history are saying,|| your murmurings will subside into silence, and your vexing thoughts will be drowned in gratitude. Think much of God’s chief mercy, and take thankful note of his lesser gifts. And when you have put on this girdle of gladness, your glory will sing and your gratitude will dance. Your soul will be happy, and your joy will find outlets of adoring praise and vigorous industry.
5. A fervent spirit is one filled with the Spirit of God. When Jesus cried, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink,” and promised that rivers of living water should flow through the heart of the believer,
* John xiv — xvi. t Matt. iii. 17.
X Rev. xxii. 17.
Ps. viii. xix. civ.
II Ps. cvii. Isa. xxxviii. 19. Gen. xxxv. 3.
V Ps. XXX. 11, 12.
he spake of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive.” The Holy Spirit is actually bestowed on the people of Grod. He is to them a better Spirit, restraining and superseding their own. He is the author of that athletic self-denial and fleshconquering fervour of which they are conscious from time to time. It is he who gives such delight in drawing near to God, that the believer at seasons could “pray and never cease;” and it is he who gives that transforming affection to the person of Christ, and that heroic ardour in the service of Christ, to which inactivity is irksome, and silence oppressive. And whosoever would enjoy the gentle manuduction jvhich leads into all truth and all duty — whosoever would persevere in the placid discharge of allotted labour, and maintain amidst it all a calm and thankful walk with God, must put himself at the disposal of this heavenly visitant. The heart is “dry as summer’s dust” from which the Spirit of Grod departs; and that is the believing, loving, happy, and energetic heart in which the Holy Spirit dwells.
6. A fervent spirit is a prayerful spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the New Testament gift most absolutely promised in answer to prayer ;* and though, perhaps, the gift whose bestowment is least the matter of a lively consciousness to the recipient at the moment, the gift from which, in the long-run of life, the largest and most important results are evolved; and the gift which, in the retrospect of eternity, the believer may find that he enjoyed more abundantly and more constantly than he himself ever imagined. As it is, there are times when the presence of this Almighty Comforter is easily realized. When the soul is lifted far above its natural sielfishness, so that it can make vast sacrifices without any misgiving; when fortified against its natural timidity, so that it can face frightful perils without any trepidation; and when invigorated with such unwonted ardour as to forget its natural indolence and not feel its inherent weakness, the soul can readily understand that this mighty strengthening inwardly is the work of the Holy Spirit. And it is this persuasion which brings the believer strength in weakness. Conscious of lethargy * Luke xi. 13. John xiv. 14, 16; xvi. 24.
creeping over him; alarmed at the declension of his zeal, and the waning of his love; fearful to what his present apathy may grow, and remembering how different were the days of old, he breathes a prayer, at first faint and desponding, but still a prayer: “Wilt thou not revive us again? Awake, O north wind; come thou south.” And, whilst he is yet speaking, he begins to revive. As if the clear weather were brightening the atmosphere, the great reahties grow distinct and near. The things eternal are seen again, and the powers of the coming world are felt. His soul is restored. Or a great work is given him to do, and his strength is small. O Lord, with thee is the fountain of life. Lord, pity me, for I am weak.” And the Lord pities him, and sends forth his quickening Spirit; and the difficulty is surmounted and the work is done: and, without so much as feeling the fire and water which lay between, he gains the wealthy pkce.
7. A fervent spirit is one which easily sunders a man from selfishness and sloth and other besetting sins. On a winter’s day I have noticed a row of cottages, with a deep layer of snow on their several roofs; but, as the day wore on, large fragments began to tumble from the eaves of this one and that other, till, by and by, there was a simultaneous avalanche, and the whole heap shd over, in powdery ruin, on the pavement; and before the sun went down, you saw each roof as clear and dry as on a summer’s eve. But here and there you would observe one with its snow-mantle unbroken, and a ruff of stiff icicles round it. What made the difference? The difference was to be found within. Some of these huts were empty, or the lonely inhabitants cowered over a scanty fire; whilst the peopled hearth and the high-blazing fagots of the rest created such an inward warmth that grim winter relaxed his earnest gripe, and the loosened mass folded off and tumbled over on the miry street. It is possible by some outside process to push the main volume of snow from the frosty roof, or chip off the icicles one by one. But they-^ will form again, and it needs an inward heat to create a total thaw. And so, by sundry processes, you may clear off from a man’s conduct the dead weight of conspicuous sins; but it needs a hidden heat, a vital warinth within, to produce such a separation between the soul and its besetting iniquities, that the whole wintry incubus, the entire body of sin, will come spontaneously away. That vital warmth is the love of God abundantly shed abroad — the kindly glow which the Comforter diffuses in the soul which he makes his home. His genial inhabitation thaws that soul and its favourite sins asunder, and makes the indolence and self-indulgence and indevotion fall off from their old resting-place on that dissolving heart. The easiest form of self-mortification is a fervent spirit.
8. And a fervent spirit is the most abundant source of an active life. In heaven there is a perfect activity, because in heaven there is a perfect fervour. They are all happy there. They have a sufficient end in all they do. There is no wearying in their work, for there is no waning in their love. The want of a sufficient object would make any mr.n i’!le. A friend once found the author of “The Seasons” in bed long after noon; and upbraiding him for his indolence, the poet remarked, that he just lay still because, if he were up, he would have nothing to do. But, even in this sluggish world, there are those whose hearty relish of their work and sense of its importance so inspire them, that they are very loath when slumber constrains them to quit it, and often prevent the dawning in order to resume it. It was mathematical fervour which kept Newton poring on his problems till the midnight wind swept over his papers the ashes from his long-extinguished fire. It was artistic fervour which kept Reynolds with the pencil in his glowing hand for thirty-six hours together, evoking from the canvas forms of beauty that seemed glad to come. It was poetic fervour which sustained Dryden in a fortnight’s frenzy, when composing his Ode on St. Ceciha’s day, heedless of privations which he did not so much as perceive. It was classical fervour which, for six successive months, constrained the German scholar, Heyne, to allow himself no more than two nights of weekly rest, that he might complete his perusal if the old Greek authors. And it was scientific fervour which dragged the lazy but eloquent French naturalist, Buffon, from beloved slumbers to his still more beloved studies, for many years together. There is no department of human distinction which cannot record its feats of fervour. But shall science, with its corruptible crowns, and the world, with its vanities, monopolize this enthusiasm? If not, let each one consider. What is the greatest self-denial to which a godly zeal has prompted me? Which is the largest or the greatest work through which a holy fervour has ever carried me ?*
* It would have been right, had there been room, to mention some things which are detrimental or fatal to fervour of spirit. 1. Guilt on the conscience. 2. Debt and worldly entanglements. 3. Sabbaths not sanctified. 4. Late and frequent visiting. 5. Indulgence in frivolous literature. 6- Restraining prayer. 7. A wrong theology.