The Thoughts of the Awakened Sinner Concerning It
His sleep has been broken. The voice of God has spoken to his inner ear, and the Spirit has been laid upon him in power. He is no longer at ease as heretofore. His iniquities have risen up before his face, and his soul is wounded within him.
Forgiveness now seems of all things the most desirable, the most absolutely necessary. To be without it even for another hour seems terrible. The pressure of God’s wrath is felt to be intolerable. “My punishment is greater than 1 can bear,” is the utterance of his overburdened spirit.
One who had passed through this dark defile thus describes his feelings. “I continued dull and thoughtful, nor could sights and songs divert my trouble. Though the sun shone beautifully, and the day was pleasant, it brought no comfort to me. I came to my house heavy and disconsolate, and would have prayed, but could not. My grief was too great, and increased night and day exceedingly... •.. When I was walking in the fields or roads, everything appeared so strange and wild, that I often resolved not to look up, and wished to fly to some solitary place, where I might dwell in a cave lying on the leaves of trees, and feeding on the natural fruits of the earth. Whosoever I met, I envied their happiness. Whatever I heard grieved me, and whatever I said or did so troubled me, that I repented that I stirred or broke silence. If I laughed at anything, my heart smote me immediately.... Often such a confusion of thought came over me in bed, that I was forced to rise and walk about the chamber. My sorrows were so multiplied, that I was even buried in affliction. Then was I weary of life, and often prayed that God would hide me in the grave; or at least suffer me to be mad, that I might not be sensible of my many misfortunes. The night was more burdensome than the day. I started at every thing that stirred in the dark, fancying I should see apparitions in the corners of the room, behind me, or in my way, and being continually afraid of meeting the devil. The more I was assured of a divine Ruler, by his repeated scourges, and the want of him in my heart, the &ore
Satan pressed me to believe myself quite forsaken; and when I looked up toward heaven, I said, ‘ All, I have no part there; the gate of that holy city is closed to every sinner, and no impure thing can enter therein.* Alas! what shall I do in the day of judgment! How shall I meet the Lord, when he shall come in flaming fire. Such clouds covered me that I stood still and fixed my heavy eyes on the trees, walls, and ground, amazed above measure, and often crying with a bitter cry, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ No temporal blessing could satisfy my craving soul, or make me wish to stay behind on the earthr a day. The shining of the sun, the beauty of the spring, the voice of singing, the melody of birds, the shade of trees, or the murmur of waters, afforded me no pleasure. No. All was strange, and dark, and gloomy, and desolate. All was vanity and vexation of spirit. All the earth seemed full of darkness; nor could meat, drink, or raiment give me any comfort. I wanted only to know if I had any part in the Lord Jesus.”1
When thus aroused, the sinner begins to bethink himself, and to ask, Is there any way of escape? He is told of the blood of Christ. But then he remembers that this is the very blood he has betrayed, and trodden on so long. He sees it to be precious blood. He sees it to be the blood of the Holy One. He is confounded. How can his contempt for it be forgiven?
Still he sees that it is through this blood alone that salvation can come to him, — that this is the only channel through which God can dispense forgiveness. But then perhaps its infinite purity and holiness alarm him. “What has an unholy 1 Life of Rev. John Cennick.
soul to do with blood so spotless blood of which he was one of the shedders. He would almost shrink from it, as Cain from the blood of Abel. Had it been less pure, he thinks it would have suited better one so impure as he.
But as the Holy Spirit opens his eyes, and lets in the light, he sees that it is just its purity that makes it so suitable; and that had it been less pure, it would not have done for him. Had one stain been found upon it, there could have been no hope for the guilty. And thus fixing his eye upon it, and seeing it in these two aspects, its purity and its preciousness, he is satisfied. His conscience is pacified. He feels what it is to have “peace through the blood of the cross.” For to see that blood, and to know what God thinks of it, is health and peace and consolation to the eoul.
It is not my looking to the blood in conjunction with my looking to my own act of seeing that brings this peace. It is my simple and direct looking to the blood. It is in looking that I am blest; not in thinking about my looking. To look to the blood is to be cleansed; to look away from the blood, to self, or to the world, or to sin, is to arrest the cleansing process and to neutralize the healing power. The more I see of the matchless value of that blood, and understand the substitution of life for life, which that blood proclaims, and to which it is ever pointing, the more will my peace be like a river.
Look at yon Israelite approaching the altar! His conscience is burdened. Guilt has cast its shadow over his soul. But he comes to the altar. He sees the blood that is sprinkled upon it, and streaming down
G its sides, and he is comforted. The burden rolls off. Peace takes possession of his soul. For, that which he saw in the blood dispelled his fears by showing him the wrath of God against his sin passing off to the substitute and exhausting itself on it. It is the sight of the blood alone that relieves his laden conscience. He does not first look at the blood and then at himself before he can take comfort. He does not imagine that he must couple together the sight of the blood and the reflection upon his own act of seeing before he can be unburdened. He does not thrust away the blessed light that is streaming in from that peace- speaking altar, till he has satisfied himself that he is looking aright. He does not say, Am I standing in the right position, — have I approached with becoming reverence, — have I fixed my eye properly upon the altar, — am I exercising my visual organs aright, — is my seeing of the right and genuine kind? No. He is so engrossed with the altar that he has no time nor heart to think about himself. He says in the gladness of his soul, “Yonder is the altar, and that is the lamb, and there is the blood streaming down; I am satisfied; this is all I need; the sight which my eyes now behold gives the full answer to all my doubts, and rebukes my saddening fears.,,
Or take the Israelite in his dwelling, when the destroying angel, with the sword of God, went abroad, smiting the first-born of Egypt. What preserved the Israelites! The blood. That was a defence which was impregnable. From it even the missioned angel must turn away. The blood stood sentinel at the gates of each Israelitish dwelling, and its inmates were secure.
What should we have thought of any son of Israel reasoning himself out of hi§ privilege by doubting the efficacy of the blood? What should we have thought of such an one standing trembling within his house, as if he could not reckon on safety? The lamb had been killed; but he is afraid it had not been killed aright! the blood had been sprinkled; but he is afraid that it has not been sprinkled aright. Both lintel and posts are streaming with it; but he fears his motives were not right, and his feelings were not what they ought to have been! Thus he stands troubled and trembling, not knowing but that the angel may break through and smite him. Should we not accuse such an one of sad and sinful unbelief? Should we not say, — the lamb has been slain, the blood has been sprinkled, the posts are all red with it; — is not this enough to quiet your fear? What would you have more? Would you slay another lamb to make up the deficiency?
Has not God told you that one is enough 1 If the blood be ineffectual, wipe it off and i*un the risk. Do you say “but I do not sec the blood, it is on the outside and therefore invisible to me.” “Well, but God sees it, and that is enough. The angel sees it, and that turns him away. Is it not written “when I see the blood, I will pass over you.”1
So with the anxious spirit. We bring it good news. The Lamb has been slain, the Lamb of God, as it is written, “it pleased the Lord to bruise him.”2 His blood has been shed and sprinkled and accepted; and that shed blood is for the remission of sin, and for reconciling us to God. That blood is intended to set us in the plaae of the innocent; to bring us nigh to God just as if we had never separated; to be our recommendation to God, so that, 1 Exodus xii. 8. 2 Isa. liii. 10.
8G THE THOUGHTS OF THE AWAKENED
coming with it as our plea, we may expect to be treated by God as he is treated whose blood we thus recognise and rest on.
Oh! what a message of peace should these words convey to the weary soul, — “when I see the blood.” Our seeing may
1 It is thus that a deep thinker of the present age addresses himself to such as you, “Do you rejoice when the atonement made by the Priest has removed the evil stain from your name, restored you to your privileges as a son of Abraham, and replaced you in the respect of your brethren? There is an atonement which takes away a deeper, worse stain, an eating cankerspot in the very heart of your personal being! This, to as many as receive it, gives the privilege to become sons of God (John i. 12); this will admit to the society of angels, and insure to you the rights of brotherhood with spirits made perfect! (Heb. xii. 22.) There is a sacrifice, a sin-offering, and a High Priest, who is indeed a mediator, who not in type or shadow but in very truth, and in his own right stands in the place of man to God, and of God to man.*’ — Coleridge — Aids to Reflection. be imperfect and dim, — but it is not on our seeing that we are called to rest. It is God’s seeing that is our security; and the knowledge of this is the expulsion of fear and doubt, the entrance of peace and joy.
Thus an old divine speaks: “What other religions seek, the Christian religion only finds, even a solid foundation for true peace and settlement of conscience. While the Jew seeks it in vain in the law, the Mahometan in his external observances, the Papist in his merits, the believer only finds in the blood of this great sacrifice. This and nothing less than this can pacify a distressed conscience, labouring under the weight of its own guilt. Conscience demands no less to satisfy it than God demands to satisfy him. The grand inquest of conscience is, ‘ Is God satisfied? If he be satisfied, I am satisfied.’ 1,1
1 Flavfel — * Works, vol. i. p. 149.
If then we are content to take this blood as our plea and recommendation, we may go to him with all confidence and glad anticipation of success. As sinners whose only introduction to Him is the blood, He is most willing to receive us. To come with any thing else than the blood as our introduction is most certainly to secure for ourselves rejection; but to come with it alone is to ensure that blessed welcome which the blood has never yet failed to obtain for the vilest sinner that ever went to God with it as his only plea.
The words which once gave peace to a convicted soul were these: “whom God hath set forth for a propitiation, through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins.” The good news which these words contain are for you as well as for him. He found in them 1 Col. Gardiner.
Comething whereon both to live and to die, — something which lifted off the burden of his guilt and became the spring of a godly and devoted life. And why should you turn away from the free love which that blood proclaims 21
1 “But, alas! some may object, and say, that their very faith, which must carry the rest of their filth to the fountain of Christ’s blood, is defiled. How, then, can they expect to be made clean? Answer. The blood of Jesus Christ is sufficiently able to wash all our filth away; and the filth of faith, as well as of other actions. Therefore, when faith, as a hand, is carrying the filth of the soul away to Christ to be washed in his blood, let the foul hand go with the foul handful; give Christ faith and all to wash.
“2. But what shall I do, when, notwithstanding of all this, my conscience shall still accuse me of uncleanness, and cry out against me as filthy and abominable? Answer. Take it away also to the blood of Jesus, that there it may be purged, Heb. ix. 14; and here alone will we ‘get our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.’ Heb. x. 22. The conscience must be steeped, so to speak, in the blood of J esus, and so it shall be clean. And taking our filthy hearts to this cleansing fountain to be washed, we will get them delivered and sprinkled from an evil cosncience, that it shall no more have ground of accusation against us. When we have it to say, that we have put our filthy souls in the hand of the great cleanser, Jesus Christ, and brought all our pollutions to his blood, what can conscience say to us? The Lord, it is true, may suffer our conscience still to bark upon us, and cast up our filthiness to us, that we may be the more humbled, and be put to lie more constantly at the fountain; yet when we have fled to Christ, and taken our filthiness to the open and appointed fountain, we can answer the accusations of conscience in law, and have peace,” — Brown — Christ the Way, the Truth, and the Life, pp. 178, 179.