The Christian's Great Interest

There are few subjects or exercises more deeply important to professing Christians, than that which forms the principal topic in the following admirable Treatise — the work of self-examination. But self-examination is a work of great difficulty, and is accordingly shrunk from, or altogether declined by the great body of professing Christians. It is more the habitual style of the mind’s contemplationsto look at that which is without, than at that which is within — and it is far easier to read the epistles of the written Record, than to read the tablet of one’s own heart, and so to ascertain whether it be indeed a living epistle of Christ Jesus our Lord. There is something so shadowy and evanescent in the phases of the human spirit — such a want of the distinct and of the tangible, in its various characteristics — such a turmoil, and confusion, and apparent incoherence in the rapid succession of those thoughts, and impulses, and emotions, which find their way through the avenues of the inner man — that men, as if lost in the mazes of a labyrinth, deem the world which is within to be the most hopeless and impracticable of all mysteries — nor in the whole range of their varied speculations, do they meet with that which more baffles their endeavours to seize upon, than the busy principle that is lodged within them, and has taken up its residence in the familiar intimacies of their own bosom.

The difficulty of knowing our own heart is much enhanced, if we are in quest of some character or some lineament which is but faintly engraven thereupon. When the tiling that we are seeking for is so very dim, or so very minute, as to be almost indiscernible, this makes it a far more fatiguing exercise — and, it may be, an altogether fruitless one. Should then the features of our personal Christianity be yet slightly or obscurely formed, it will need a more intense and laborious scrutiny ere we can possibly recognise them. Should there be a languor in our love to God — should there be a frailty in our purposes of obedience — should there be a trembling indecision of principle, and the weakness or the wavering of a mind that is scarcely made up on the question of a preference for time or for eternity, let us not marvel, though all disguised as these seeds and elements of regeneration within us may be, amid the vio-orous strufffjles of the old man, and the remaining urgencies of a nature which will not receive its death’blow but with the same stroke that brings our bodies to the dust — let us not marvel, if in these circumstances, the hardships of the search should deter many from undertaking it — and though after months, or even years of earnestness in religion, the disciple may still be in ignorance of himself, as if bhndfolded from the view of his own character; or, if arrested at the threshold by a sense of its many difficulties, the work of self-examination has not yet been entered on.

It is thus that the dark and unsearchable nature of the subject operates insensibly but powerfully as a restraint on self-examination — and certainly there would be encouragement felt to begin this exercise, were it made to appear in the light of a more practicable exercise, that could really and successfully be gone through. It is just as if set upon the task of searching for some minute article on the floor of an apartment, of which the windows had been partially closed — a weary and a hopeless undertaking, till the sun has fully arisen, and the shutters have been altogether unfolded, and the greatest possible supply of light has been admitted into the room. Then the search might be entered upon with vigour, and just because now it could be entered upon with the alacrity of a comfortable expectation. The work is less repulsive, because easier — and now might the whole surface of this trial for a discovery be patiently explored, just because now a greater visibility had been poured over it.

This leads to a remark, which though a mere prehminary to the subject of self-examination, we nevertheless deem to be one of great practical importance. We think that however inscrutable at this moment our mind may be, and however faintly the marks and the characteristics of our Christianity are delineated thereupon, yet that even now the inward survey ought to be commenced, and renewed at frequent intervals, and daily persevered in. But, meanwhile, and to facilitate the search, we should do the very thing that is done in the case of a dark apartment. There should be as much light as possible thrown upon the subject from without.

If the lineaments of grace within us be faint, that ought instantly to be done which might have the effect of brightening them into a more lucid distinctness, and so making the work of discovery easier than before. If the love, and the joy, and the grateful devotedness to his Saviour’s will, wherewith the heart of a believer is animated, be hardly discernible in his efforts to ascertain them, this is the very reason why all those direct expedients should forthwith be resorted to for stirring up the love, and for exciting the joy, and for fixing in the bosom that grateful devotedness which he is now going so fruitlessly in quest of, and which, if they exist at all, are so shrunken in magnitude, or so enveloped inheir own ‘dimness, that they have hitherto eluded all his endeavours to seek after them, if haply he may find them. Now it is not by continuing to pore inwardly that we will shed a greater lustre over the tablet of our own character, any more than we can enlighten the room in which we sit by the straining of our eyes towards the various articles which are therein distributed. In the one case, ‘we take help from the window, and through it from the sun of nature — and this not to supersede the proposed investigation on our part, but altogether to aid and encourage us in that investigation. And in the other case, that the eye of the mind may look with advantage upon itself inwardly, should it often look outwardly to those luminaries which are suspended from the canopy of that revelation which is from above — we should throw widely open the portal of faith, and this is the way by which light is admitted into the chambers of experience — in defect of

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a manifest love, and a manifest loyalty, and a manifest sacredness of heart, which we have been seeking for in vain amongst the ambiguities of the inner man, we should expose the whole of this mysterious territory to the influences of the Sun of righteousness, and this is done by gazing upon him with a believer’s eye. It is by regarding the love wherewith God in Christ hath loved us, that the before cold and sluggish heart is roused into the respondency of love back again. That the work of reading be made more easy, the character must be made more legible. That Christianity be clearly reflected from our own bosom, all must be laid open to the Christianity of the Record. If we derive no good from the work of self-examination, because we find that all is confusion and mistiness within, then let us go forth upon the truths which are without, and these will pour a flood of light into all the mazes and intricacies of the soul, and, at length, render that work easy, which before was impracticable. No doubt, it is by looking inwardly that we discover what is in the mind — but it is by looking outwardiv that we so brighten and bring out its characteristics, as to make these discernible. The gratitude that was before unfelt, because it lay dormant, let us awaken it by the sight of him who was lifted upon the cross for our offences, and then will it meet the observation. The filial affection for our Father in heaven, which before was dead, let us quicken it into a felt and gracious sensibility, by looking unto him in his revealed attitude of graciousness, and at our next exercise of self-inspection, we will be A3 sure to find it. To revive the power of a life that is to conic, which the despair of guilt had utterly extinguished in the soul, let us cast our believing regard on the promises of the gospel — and this will set it up again, and then will we more readily ascertain, that our happiness in time is less dear to us than our hopes for eternity. It is thus that by the contemplation of that which is without, we brighten the consciousness of that which is within — and the more manifest the things of revelation are to the eye of faith, the more manifest will the things of experience be to the eye of conscience — and the more distinctly we can view the epistles of Christ in the written Record, the more discernible will its counterpart be in that epistle which is written not with pen and ink, but by the Spirit of God, on the fleshly tablets of our own heart. And so the work of faith, instead of being proposed by us as a substitute, we should propose as the readiest help, and far the best preparative for the work of self-examination.

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