A Pilgrim's Progress
So foolish zipas I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee. Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden vie by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy cou7isel, and afterward receive me to glory.” — Psalm lxxiii. 22-24.
HIS psalm, like Romans vii., is the autobiography of a sinner saved. It records the progress of a pilgrim from the City of Destruction to the City of God. Midway on his course, the traveller has ascended a mountain, whence he looks alternately back on Egypt and the wilderness, and forward over Jordan, to the promised, provided rest. From this self-history of a soul we cut out a page at the crisis. This text tells about the turning-point, whether of first conversion or subsequent revival. If we understand this part aright, we shall soon be able to comprehend the whole; if on the track of the pilgrim we personally march over this portion of the journey, we shall reach in due time its happy terminus.
Giving parallel and equal attention to the exposition and the application of the lesson, let us trace the steps of the pilgrimage, five in number, that are marked on the selected text.
I. TJie cJiaractcr and condition of this man at first, and before he was turned to the Lord: “So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee.” — There is a remarkable heartiness and thoroughness in this confession. It rings out clean and clear. This sound does not issue from an instrument that is either cracked or covered with clay. I do not know whether the first confession of this soul was so frank or so full, — I suspect it was neither. As long as the hope of pardon is obscured, the sound of confession is muffled and hesitating. Men never accurately measure the depth of the pit they lay in, until they are out of it. It is when their feet are set upon a rock, and their goings established there, that they take an effectual survey of their former state.
The born blind do not know what blindness is, until they obtain sight. The foolish and ignorant soul cannot fully fathom its own folly and ignorance, until the wisdom from above has begun to shine in. Thorough confession of sin is evidence of begun deliverance from it. The wretched captive dare not proclaim the baseness and tyranny of his oppressor, until he has escaped from his hands. “All our righteousnesses,” exclaimed the penitent prophet, “are as filthy rags.” But I suspect he did not think so meanly of that robe, while he had no other. He had got, or at least got sight of, a fairer covering, ere Ke caftne out so strongly in contempt of his cast-off righteousness. Never was the thorough foulness of the old thoroughly seen, until the whiteness of the new revealed it.
There is a very great difference between one confession of sin and another. One makes his sins as slight as possible; another delights in showing their greatness. It is a law, whose seat lies deeper than our members, that he who expects to bear the burden himself, does all he can to make it smaller. It is when he knows that it will be wholly borne by the Mighty to save, that he stands back and allows all its vastness to be seen.
Foolish and ignorant!’ — These are linked together by a bond which the wise of this world can neither see nor break. He acted the fool because he did not know the truth, and he missed the truth because he acted the fool. Sin, as well as righteousness, goes round in a circle. The wicked are like the troubled. sea when it cannot rest; and each individual is like one specific whirlpool in the great sea, which as it circulates, and by reason of its circulation, tends continually inward and downward. Each portion is at once cause and effect, pressing what is before and pressed by what is behind. It cannot rest. The foolish acting of an unreconciled man causes spiritual ignorance; and spiritual ignorance causes foolish acting. There the two chase each other, and will chase each other into the abyss, unless the Lord’s hand be stretched out to save.
‘’ Tgnorantr — lie did not know; did not know his soul’s worth — his soul’s loss; did not know the goodness of God, and its power to lead to repentance. This lack of knowledge led to a foolish course. The man who carries a treasure whose worth he does not know, gives it away to the first sharper who tempts him with a toy. He sells his soul for nought. Oh the vile stuff for which immortal creatures sell themselves! Again: the man who does not know the loss of the soul by sin, lightly esteems the redemption and the price at which it was bought. He who does not know the death that sin inflicts, makes light of the life that Jesus offers. He who does not know God, neglects to seek his favour, until he stumble on his throne. This foolish course of action makes deeper the darkness of ignorance whence it sprang. In the deepened darkness of his mind the fool runs more greedily after his folly. He is whirled, like water, more and more fiercely round, drawn more and more closely in, and sinks more and more deeply down towards the blackness of darkness for ever.
But besides the general description of his state and character, the penitent here introduces a particular comparison, to make the matter more precise and clear: “/ zuas as a beast before thee!’ And what does that word mean y A life of flagrant wickedness y No. We fall into a mistake when we say that very wicked men are like beasts. The imputation is a libel on those creatures of God, which continue to fulfil the part that he assigned them. The brute creatures serve much more nearly than man the end of their being. You do not find in them the abnormal excesses into which human sinners run. Their chief characteristic is a life all for the present — a life steadily devoted to the immediate satisfaction of the appetites, without a thought sent up to heaven, or sent forward into the morrow.
See the cattle browsing- on the grass. They enjoy life. They have no hope and no fear beyond the present moment. It is well. Such they were made; and as they were made, they remain. Their spirit goeth downward at the end, and cannot go upward — need not go upward during the course of their life. It is no shame to them to be beasts; but it is a shame for a man to be as a beast, for he was made in God’s image. The beast never, had a soul; and I have quenched the life of mine — put out its light. I was like a beast in having a body and life and appetites, and stopping short with these, as if these were all! They knew not a God to live for; and I lived without God. Being a man, I became as a beast.
This is the soul of sin; and this is, accordingly, the chief ingredient in the confession when quickening has begun. The overt acts of evil, whether small or great, are branches springing from this hidden root. The essence and fountain of all sin is uncrodliness, — to be all for self, and the earth, and the present, neglecting eternity, the soul, and the Saviour, as if they did not exist. It is evidence of a thorough repentance, when the confession goes to the bottom, and tears up and exhibits openly this deepest, deadliest thing.
II. After describing his former alienation, the penitent next proclaims Jiis preSent nearness and peace: “Nevertheless I am continually with thee.” The form of expression here indicates a sudden triumph. There is a clear, conscious boasting in God, in place of former distance and lowness. All these things were against me; nevertheless, and in spite of them, my deliverance is complete.
Who can bring back a planet world after it has burst away from its orbit and plunged into the unlighted infinite.’* Its going away to-day makes it go further and faster away to-morrow. That world, once bright and fruitful, is now dark and cold; it feels no longer the grasp of the sun’s gravity, basks no more in the sun’s light beams. As it spins away on its devious course, who shall dare to hope that it can be arrested and reduced into the family of bright, warm worlds y Nevertheless, that outcast has returned, and smiles again in the sunlight. It is a great, unexpected, miraculous restoration. Such is the triumphing of this once alienated and darkened soul, when, by the outgoing of infinite mercy, and the drawing of infinite love, it is placed again among the children.
“I was as a beast; but I am with thee.” Species do not interchange. The surest fact in all natural history is that creatures do not pass the line that separates species from species. But the transformations which are unknown in the sphere of nature, are accomplished in the region of grace. The man has become new. His soul had been in abeyance: he had been as a beast, in relation to God. But his original nature has beei! restored: the image of his Maker has been re-impressed upon his being. The enmity has been taken away, and peace established. The soul is recalled: its quenched spark has been kindled again. Loving, living communion, has recommenced between the offspring man and his Father God. “I was as a beast; but I am with thee.”
Mark how the change is described by its one essential feature. It is not written, I was ignorant, but now I have attained the wisdom from above; I was foolish, but now I walk circumspectly. These, and more than these, were included in the change; but the only thing recorded regarding it is, I am with tJiccr Then, as now, reconciliation was the main thing. The distinguishing characteristic of God’s people under the old covenant was, that they were “a people near unto him.” In New Testament language, and under New Testament light, the saved are made nigh through the blood of Christ. He is our peace.
And when a prodigal has been thus reconciled and admitted, it is, once near, always near. He goes no more out. “I am contiimally with thee.” Nothing is constant except that which is under the natural laws. The help that we can render, or the course that we can follow, is fitful, changeful; but the beating of our hearts is constant. That process is not left depending on our memory or zeal, but set in the machinery of nature, beyond the reach of children, who would meddle with it at one time and forget it at another. Such is the arrangement in the kingdom of spirit for keeping the reconciled near: deep in the being of the regenerated Hes a law that by a necessity of nature gravitates toward God.
*’ What time soever I awake,
I ever am with thee.” (Ps. cxxxix. 18.)
Before we part from this second topic, mark again the connection between it and the first. The one is confession of former estrangement: the other, rejoicing in present peace. While he was distant, he did not complain of his distance: when he began to complain of distance, it was a symptom that he was creeping near. When he was as a beast, he uttered no cry of horror over his wretchedness: as long as he was as a beast he was dumb. The confession is not, I am a beast, but, I was one. The complaint about his earthliness and alienation from God was the breathing of a new spirit in his breast. The risen Lazarus groans as he shakes the cerements of the grave from his stiffened limbs. The living cry, but the dead are silent.
III. Consider now the cause and uianner of this great deliverance: “Thou hast holden me by my right hand.” — On this subject observe, first, that he ascribes his deliverance all to God. The confession began in the first person, but here it suddenly changes to the second. At the beginning it was /, but here it becomes Thou. The fall was his own, but the rising again was accomplished by the power of God. I was foolish, I was ignorant, I was as a beast; but thou hast holden me, and the consequence is that I am and ever shall be near. The restoration has no Fs in it. It is not, — I took thought, I arose, I returned and amended; it is not / at all, it is only TIiou. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.
“Thou hast Jioldcn me.” — He knows now that he was sinking by a law: the law was sin: under the pressure of a law in his being, his distance from God was doubling every day. What no law could do, God did — did for his people in the days of old, and now declares how he does it, by sending his Son. He sent from above to take me: he drew me out of many waters: he took me from a horrible pit and from the miry clay.
The Spirit in the prophets gives the same account of the transaction that this saved man inserts in his own biography: “I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee.” The incarnation is the act whereby God bowed down to take the prodigal by the hand, and lead him home. The work was done in the days of old, but the manner in which it is done has been revealed by Christ.
Nor is it merely the forth-putting of almighty power to bring the distant nigh. Above, there is indeed an everlasting arm outstretched; but below, a willing people gladly grasp it. The power of the Spirit is exerted on the will to make it new. “Draw me: we will run after thee.” These two sides of one transaction are successively represented in the parables of the lost sheep and the prodigal. The lost sheep corresponds to “draw me;” the prodigal, to “I will run after thee.” These are the two associated features which constitute the transaction. God by his cords of love draws the man: the man, obeying the impulse of a renewed nature, freely runs after God. It is love that draws; and love draws by a bond that is not felt to be a bond: “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
Here the conception is indicated, in the pictorial style of the Old Testament, by the expression, *’ Thou hast holden me by my right Jiandr The picture represents a father leading his strayed child home. The child is not dragged; he is led. He has not been seized in anger; he has grasped the hand held out in fatherly love. The child is looking up in the father’s face, running by the father’s side, and leaning on the father’s strong arm. This is not the capture of a thief or a deserter — they are dragged back unwilling, by force; they are shackled to their captors by links of locked iron. This is the return of a child, lovingly led by his father’s hand.
Prodigal children! babes lost in this wood! the Father is out in search of his wanderers. He invites all; will accept any; but he carries none home unwilling. “Whosoever will, let him come.”
IV. The course tJn-ough life luhich the penitent now expects to keep: “Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel.” — In this man’s esteem salvation implies holiness. Elsewhere he has linked these two together: “I have hoped for thy salvation, and done thy commandments.” Still more explicit is the expression of the same union in the New Testament: “Ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God.”
1. Deliverance from condemnation carries with it turning from sin. As the new-born child seeks its natural food, the regenerated count it their meat to do the Father’s will.” Let not sin therefore reign in your
mortal bodies; for ye are not under the law, but
under grace” (Rom. vi. 12, 14). “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world” (Titus ii. II, 12).
2. The rule of life for the reconciled is the Word of God. “TJiy counsell’” It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” The heir of heaven, while he sojourns in this dark, rough world, needs and gets ‘* a lamp to his feet and a light to his path.” The Word of the Lord is his light. By that light he discerns his path, and follows it. “Thy word I have hid in my heart, that I should not offend against thee.” “O send forth thy light and thy truth.”
3. Reconciled and renewed though he be, and walking in the light, he cannot yet be left to himself. “TJioii, sJialt guide viel’ It is not enough that he has. been held up and brought nigh once for all: he needs and gets the present, permanent, personal care of the Father, at every stage, every step of his pilgrimage. His trust is not in himself; his trust is not even in God’s truth; it is in God. “Thou shalt guide me.” Whether it be the first arresting of the distant dead, or the continued direction of the returned and living, still the word is Thou, not /. It is not even the Bible, but God by the Bible, that leads the saved over the track of time, and into the eternal rest. Not “Thy counsel,” but, “Thou, by thy counsel;” and thus the Lord’s own prayer, “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.”
“Counsel:’’ we all need it; we all get it; we all take it. No human being is entirely self-contained. Autocrat is indeed a word in our dictionaries, but the thing which the word signifies is not in this world. It is applied to those princes who rule without the advice of a parliament; but they do not rule without advice. Those who are termed self-rulers are more swayed by counsel than other men. None are exempt: humanity does and must take counsel. Counsel, what and whence.’’ Many blind guides are going, within and without. Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, careering quick and manifold like clouds before the wind, drawing the life after them; and among our fellows the least wise are ever readiest to offer their advice and take the direction. A king of Israel once bluntly confessed that he hated a prophet of the Lord, because his words were not courtly flattery. He swallowed sugared lies that pleased his palate, and perished by his choice. There are some people here, both young and old, that are kingly in their notions and ways. Disliking the counsel that runs counter to their pleasures, they follow the counsel that pleases them, and so
perish.
Brothers! God condescends to counsel, to advise you. Hear, and your souls shall live.
V. The issue of all in eternity: “And afterward receive me to glory.” — We must beware lest we mistake our province in the exposition of this head. We cannot rend the veil and display before curious eyes the blessedness of the saints made perfect. Eye hath not seen it; ear hath not heard it. Some books, written by rash hands, and eagerly scanned by curious eyes, pretend to describe with wonderful minuteness the condition and the occupation of heaven’s inhabitants. The result is a coarse caricature. Nay, those who cleave still in heart and life to the dust cannot profitably paint the scenes and incidents of heaven; and those who have been in some measure refined and sanctified in the body will certainly not try. You cannot have in printed books these particulars of the unseen world: for those who venture to sketch them prove by the very fact their own unfitness; and those who through the Spirit have attained some measure of fitness, know so well their own unfitness that they hold their peace, while they contemplate the promises of God. Nothing can be more repulsive to the refined and Christianized sense than long particular stories of what the saints in glory say and do, — hard, coarse, cold speculations, rattling against each other like dry bones, wherewith one man, for notoriety or gain, would practise upon the weakness of humanity, — the appetite for prying into the secrets of the unseen.
This text tells not what the glory is: it tells only that the saved will be admitted into it. It reveals not what they will get, but where they shall be. Our part here, accordingly, is not to strain, as though by straining we could see through the dark portal of death, and describe the things that are at God’s right hand. Our part rather is to mark well the nature, the ground, and the effects of a thing that lies within our reach, — namely, the hope of glo7y that now animates the heart of a saved man.
The key-note is maintained throughout this anthem: from first to last it is the salvation of God. Alike in regard to guiding through grace here and entrance into glory yonder, it is Thon not /. “Thou shalt receive me.” How much of the present, personal God, is in that religion which really supports a soul in the evil day! “I will not fear; for thou art with me.”
The glory is a thing future and invisible; but the hope of it in a believer’s heart is present and felt. The only link by which we can connect ourselves with the glory to be revealed, is present reconciliation to God through his grace. The full form of this precious thing is written in the New Testament, — which is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
It is not, I shall make my way in; but, “Thou shalt receive me.” It does not imply any preternatural knowledge of heaven, but a spiritual communion with the
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Friend of sinners, who is already there. God with us, is in heaven God for us. “Lord, Lord, open to us!” But will he receive me then t That question must be answered by another, — Do you receive him now? If Christ knocks in vain at the door of your heart, you will knock in vain at the door of his heaven. Unless the kingdom of God be within you here, you shall not be within the kingdom of God yonder.
Look yet for a moment, ere we close, to the last three points, that we may mark their order and their relations.
1. Salvation accomplished by almighty grace: “Thou hast holden me.”
2. New obedience now, according to the Word of God: ‘* Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel.”
3. Hope of glory afterward: “Thou shalt receive me.” In the middle is the actual holiness, — the new obedience
of the saved man, and on either side a strong one on whom it may lean. On the one side is salvation already accomplished; on the other is the hope of glory yet to come. The best, the only way of sustaining an obedient life, is to look unto Jesus. Faith, while it fights here, looks alternately backward and forward for support, — backward to Christ come, forward to Christ coming. Actual holiness in a human life cannot stand unless it have both to lean upon. He treads steadiest who leans at once on both as he goes up through the wilderness. These two, the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow, the angels, who are servants, desire to look into; but the children, who are heirs, possess and enjoy. All things are yours when ye are Christ’s. The Christian life is sustained between Christ come and Christ coming, — between his sacrifice for sin and his glorious appearing.
The same experience was otherwise conceived and expressed by the faithful of a former age. On the one side, looking back, it is, “Thou hast holden me;” on the other side, looking forward, it is, “Thou shalt receive me;” and now, in the middle, it is, “I shall be guided in the right way by thy counsel.”
In this brief portion of the Word, and within the range of one soul’s experience, the two opposite extremes meet. It is from “a beast” to “glory” at a bound; from a piece of brutish animated flesh to an angel-flame of fire; from a creature whose soul has been blotted out, to a creature who is the habitation of God through the Spirit. How could any one in the body traverse the distance between these two extremes y The way is short and simple. Christ crucified reveals the mystery. Both extremes meet in him. From the glory of the Godhead he bowed down, — down to a depth of humiliation which we can neither describe nor conceive; lower than the lowest of the lost whom he came to save. The sorrows, the sins of his people, whatever these may be, — unnumbered, unmeasured, like the stars of heaven, — he took upon himself and bore. Beneath all he bowed down, that on him they might be laid. Those who have part in his death have part also in his resurrection. Those who become one with Christ crucified remain one with Christ glorified. /// Christ when he suffers, tvith him when he reigns. Permit him to hold you this day, and he will receive you on that day. Now say to him who meekly knocks, “Come into this heart and dwell;” — he will say to you, when he judges the world in righteousness, “Come, ye blessed of my Father.”