The Spirit a Comforter
The Broken Heart Bound Up
The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost.” — John xiv. 26.
In several parts of this work, we had occasion to touch upon the sanctifying tendency of the discipline of the covenant. We were led to trace the goodness, and to justify the wisdom of God, and to mark some of the blessed results in his appointing the suffering state to be the peculiar allotment of his children. But there is one important view of the subject yet reserved. It is this: That in no one aspect does the happy tendency, and we may add, the indispensable necessity, of that discipline more manifestly appear, than that through this channel mainly, is the believer brought into communion with, and into enjoyment of, the tenderness and sympathy of the Spirit. The wisdom, the faithfulness, and the power of the Spirit, the soul has been brought to acknowledge and experience in conversion; but to know the Spirit as the Comforter — to experience his tenderness and sympathy, his kindness and gentleness, we must be placed in those peculiar circumstances that call it into exercise. In a word, we must know what sorrow is, to know what comfort is: and to know what true comfort is, we must
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receive it from the blessed and eternal Spirit, the Comforter of the church.
The God and Father of his people foreknew all their circumstances. He knew that he had chosen them in the furnace of affliction, that this was the peculiar path in which they should all walk. As he foreknew, so he also fore-arranged for all those circumstances. In the eternal purposes of his wisdom, grace, and love, he went before his church, planning its history, allotting its path, and providing for every possible position in which it could be placed; so that we cannot imagine an exigency, a trial, a difficulty, or a conflict, but is amply provided for in the covenant of grace. Such is the wisdom, and such the goodness of God towards his covenant family!
The great provision for the suffering state of the believer, is the Holy Spirit, the special, the personal, and abiding Comforter of the church. It was to this truth our dear Lord directed the sorrowing hearts of his disciples, when on the eve of his return to his kingdom. He was about to withdraw his bodily presence from them. His mission on earth was fulfilled, his work was done, and he was about to return to his Father and to their Father, to his God and to their God. The prospect of separation absorbed them in grief. Thus did Jesus mark, and thus, too, he consoled it. “But now I go my way to him that sent me; and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou? But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth; it is expedient to you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.*’ John xvi. 5 — 7. Mark the circumstances of the disciples — it was a season of deep sorrow. Then observe, how Jesus mitigated that sorrow, and chased away the dark cloud of their grief — by the promise of the Spirit as a Comforter, — assuring them that the presence and abiding of the Spirit as a Comforter, would more than recompense the loss of his bodily presence. What the Spirit then was to the sorrowing disciples, he has been in every successive age, is at the present moment, and will continue to be to the end of time, — the personal and abiding Comforter of the afflicted family of God. May he now sanctify and comfort our hearts, by leading us into the consideration of this great and most precious doctrine.
Upon the subject of comfort, great stress is laid in the sacred word. It is clearly God’s revealed will that his people should be comforted. The fulness of Christ, the exceedingly great and precious promises of the word, the covenant of grace, and all the dealings of God, bear upon this one point, the comfort and consolation of the saints. A brief reference to the Divine word will convince us of this. This is the very character he himself bears, and this is the blessed work he accomplishes. Thus, “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.” 2 Cor. i. 3, 4. Kindred to this, are those striking words in Isaiah lx. 1, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.” This was God’s command to the prophet. It was his declared will, that his people should be comforted, even though they dwelt in Jerusalem, the city which was to witness the crucifixion of the Lord of life and glory. What an unfolding does this 22 *
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give us of him who is the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation, and that, too, in every place!
To comfort the saints, is one important end of the Scriptures: “Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.” Rom. xv. 4. And thus the exhortation runs — “Comfort the feeble minded.” “Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.” “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” Thus hath the Holy Ghost testified to this subject. Thus it is clear that it is the will, and that it is in the heart of God, that his people should be comforted.
The necessity of comfort springs from the existence of sorrow in some one or more of its varied and multiplied forms. For each and every kind of sorrow the blessed Spirit is the Comforter; but as he comforts in various ways, according to the nature of the sorrow, we would select a few of the prominent sources of grief, common alike to all the Lord’s people, and show how he binds up, heals, and comforts.
With regard to the spiritual sorrows of a child of God — those peculiar only to a believer in Jesus, — we believe that a revelation of Jesus is the great source of comfort to which the Spirit leads the soul. He comforts all the spiritual grief of a believer, dries up all his spiritual tears, by testifying of Christ, and that, according to the peculiar feature of the case. Our Lord told his sorrowing disciples this: “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.” John xv. 26. Mark, he was to comfort their hearts by testifying of Jesus. Here is the true source of comfort. What higher comfort need we? What more can we have? This is enough to heal every wound, to dry up every tear, to assuage every grief, to lighten every cross, to fringe with brightness every dark cloud, and to make the roughest place smooth, — that a believing soul has Jesus. Having Jesus, what has a believer!
He has the entire blotting out of all his sins. Is not this a comfort? Tell us what can give comfort to a child of God apart from this! If this fail, where can he look? Will you tell him of the world — of its many schemes of enjoyment — of its plans for the accumulation of wealth — of its domestic happiness? Wretched sources of comfort to an awakened soul! Poor empty channels to a man made acquainted with the inward plague. That which he wanteth to know is, the sure payment of the ten thousand talents — the entire cancelling of the bond held against him by stern justice — the complete blotting out, as a thick cloud, of all his iniquity. And, until this great fact is made sure and certain to his conscience, all other comfort is but as a dream of boyhood, a shadow that vanisheth, a vapour that melteth away. But the Holy Ghost comforts the believer by leading him to this blessed truth — the full pardon of sin. This is the great controversy which Satan has with the believer. To bring him to doubt the pardon of sin, to unhinge the mind from this great fact, is the constant effort of this arch-enemy. And, when unbelief is powerful, and inbred sin powerful, and outward trials are many and sore, and, in
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the midst of it all, the single eye is removed from Christ, then is the hour of Satan to charge home upon the conscience of the believer all the iniquity he ever committed. And how does the blessed Spirit comfort at that moment? By unfolding the greatness, perfection, and efficacy of the one offering by which Jesus hath for ever blotted out the sins of his people, and perfected them that are sanctified. 0 what comfort does this truth speak to a fearful, troubled, anxious believer, when, the Spirit working faith in his heart, he can look up, and see all his sins laid upon Jesus in the solemn hour of atonement, and no condemnation remaining! Dear child of God! poor, worthless as you feel yourself to be, this truth is even for you. 0 rise to it, welcome it, embrace it, think it not
too costly for one so unworthy. It comes from the heart of Jesus, and cannot be more free. “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” Having Jesus, what has the believer more?
He possesses a righteousness in which Grod views him complete and accepted, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. Is not this a comfort? To stand “complete in him,” — in the midst of many and conscious imperfections, infirmities, flaws, and proneness to wander — yet, for the sorrowing and trembling heart to turn and take? up its rest in this truth, “that he that believeth is justified from all things,” and stands accepted in the Beloved, to the praise of the glory of Divine grace, what a comfort! That God beholds him in Jesus without a spot, because he beholds his Son, in whom he is well pleased, and viewing the believing soul in him, can say, “Thou art all fair, my love: there is no spot in thee!” The blessed Comforter breaks up this truth to the troubled soul, brings it to take up its rest in it; and, as the believer realises his full acceptance in the righteousness of Christ, and rejoices in the truth, he weeps as he never wept, and mourns as he never mourned, over the perpetual bias of his heart to wander from a God that has so loved him. The very comfort poured into his soul from this truth, lays him in the dust, and draws out the heart in ardent breathings for holiness.
And what a Comforter is the Spirit in seasons of temptation! Few of the children of God are ignorant, more or less, of Satan’s devices. But few are exempted from the ‘ fiery darts’ of the adversary. Our Lord himself was not. Many, peculiar, and great are his temptations. They are often those which touch the very vitals of the gospel, which go to undermine the believer’s faith in the fundamentals of Christianity, and which affect his own personal interest in the covenant of grace. Satan is the sworn enemy of the believer; his constant, unwearied foe. There is, too, a subtlety, a malignity, which marks not the other and numerous enemies of the soul. The Holy Ghost, in Rev. ii. 24, speaks of the “depths of Satan.” There are i depths’ in his malice, in his subtlety, in his sagacity, which many of the beloved of the Lord are made in some degree to fathom. The Lord may allow them to go down into those 6 depths,’ just to convince them that there are depths in his wisdom, love, power, and grace, which can outfathom the “depths of Satan.”
But what are some of the devices of the wicked one? What are some of his fiery darts? Sometimes he fills the mind of the believer with the most blasphemous and atheistical thoughts, threatening the utter destruction of his peace and confidence. Sometimes he takes advantage of periods of weakness, and trial, and perplexity,
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to stir up the corruptions of his nature, bringing the soul back as into captivity to the law of sin and death. Sometimes he suggests unbelieving doubts respecting his adoption, beguiling him into the belief that his professed conversion is all a delusion, that his religion is all hypocrisy, and that what he had thought was the work of grace is but the work of nature. But by far the greatest and most general controversy which Satan has with the saint of God, is, to lead him to doubt the ability and the willingness of Christ to save a poor sinner. The anchor of his soul removed from this truth, he is driven out upon the rough sea of doubt and anguish, and is at the mercy of every wind of doctrine, and every billow of unbelief, that may assail his storm-tossed bark. But in the midst of it all, whence flow the comfort and the victory of the tempted believer? From the promise which assures him that “when the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him. ,, Isaiah lix. 19. And what is the standard which the Spirit, the Comforter, lifts up to stem this flood? The dying, risen, ascended, exalted, and ever-living Saviour! This is the standard that strikes terror into the foe; this is the gate that shuts out the flood. So the disciples proved. This is their testimony: “And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name* 9 Luke x. 17. Immanuel is that name which puts to flight every spiritual foe. And the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, leads the tempted soul to this name, to shelter itself beneath it, to plead it with God, and to battle wilh it against the enemy. Dear reader, are you a mark against which the fiery darts of the devil are levelled? Are you sorely tempted? Be not astonished as though some strange thing had happened unto you. The holiest of God’s saints have suffered as you are now suffering; yea, even your blessed Lord, your Master, your Pattern, your Example, and he in whose name you shall be more than a conqueror, was once assailed as you are, and by the same enemy. And let the reflection console you, that temptations only leave the traces of guilt upon the conscience, and are only regarded as sins by God, as they are yielded to. The mere suggestion of the adversary, the mere presentation of a temptation, is no sin, so long as, in the strength that is in Christ Jesus, the believer firmly and resolutely resists it. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” “Above all, take the shield of faith, whereby ye may be able to quench the fiery darts of the devil.” Jesus has already fought and conquered for you. He knew well what the conflict with Satan was. And he remembers too what it is. Lift up your head, dear tempted soul! You shall obtain the victory. The seed of the woman has bruised the serpent’s head, yea, has crushed him never to obtain his supremacy over you again. He may harass, annoy, and distress you; but pluck you from the hollow of the hand that was pierced for you, he never can.
But, in seasons of trial and affliction, the Spirit especially shows himself the Comforter of his people. It was under circumstances of peculiar and keen trial, that Jesus promised the Spirit as a Comforter. Nor is he confined to any peculiar trial. Whatever is a cause of depression to the believer, whatever grieves his heart, wounds his spirit, or casts him down, is a trial. If it is but a cold look from the eye that once beamed with love, it is yet a trial. If it is but an unkind word from the tongue that once flowed with affection, it is yet a trial;
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and, in proportion to the heart’s tenderness, is the keenness of the trial felt.
There is a painful forgetfulness among many of the saints of God, of the appointed path of believers through the world. It is forgotten that that path is to be one of tribulation; that, so far from being a smooth, a flowery, and an easy path, it is rough, thorny, and difficult. The believer often expects all his heaven on earth. He forgets that, whatever spiritual enjoyment there may be here, kindred in its nature to the joys of the glorified, — and too much of this he cannot expect, — yet the present is but the wilderness state of the church, and the life that now is, is but that of a pilgrimage and a sojourning. Kind was our Lord’s admonition, “in the world ye shall have tribulation and equally so that of the apostle, “we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom.” Affliction, in some of its many and varied forms, is the allotment of all the Lord’s people. If we have it not, we lack the evidence of our true sonship, for the Father “scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” But whatever the trial or affliction is, the Spirit is the Comforter. And how does he comfort the afflicted soul? In this way, —
He unfolds the love of his God and Father in the trial. He shows the believer that his sorrow, so far from being the result of anger, is the fruit of love; that it comes from the heart of God, sent to draw the soul nearer to himself, and to unfold the depths of his own grace and tenderness; that “whom he loveth he rebukcth.” And oh, how immense the comfort that flows into a wounded spirit, when love, — deep, unchangeable, covenant love, is seen in the hand that has stricken; when the affliction is traced to the covenant, and through the covenant, to the heart of a covenant God.
He comforts by revealing the end wherefore the affliction is sent. He convinces the believer that the discipline, though painful, was yet needed; that the world was, perhaps, making inroads upon the soul, or creature love was shutting out Jesus; some indulged sin was, perhaps, crucifying him afresh, or some known spiritual duty was neglected. The Comforter opens his ears to hear the voice of the rod, and him who hath appointed it. He begins to see wherefore the Lord has smitten, why he has caused his rough wind and his east wind to blow, why he has blasted, why he has wounded. And now, the Achan is discovered; cast out, and stoned. The heart, disciplined, returns from its wanderings, and, wounded, bleeding, suffering, seeks more fondly than ever, a wounded, bleeding, suffering Saviour. Who can fully estimate the comfort which flows from the sanctified discipline of the covenant?. When the end for which the trial was sent is accomplished, it may be in the discovery of some departure, in the removal of an obstruction to the growth of grace, of some object that obscured the glory of Jesus, and that suspended his visits of love to the soul. “Blessed discipline,” he may exclaim, “that has wrought so much good — gentle chastisement that has corrected so much evil - — sweet medicine that has produced so much health!”
But in unfolding the tenderness and sympathy of Jesus, the Spirit most effectually restores comfort to the tried, tempted, and afflicted soul. He testifies of Christ especially in the sympathy of his manhood. There can be no question that, in his assumption of our nature, Jesus had in view, as one important end, a closer affinity 23
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with the suffering state of his people, with a view to their more immediate comfort and support. The great end of his incarnation, we $re well assured, was, obedience to the law in its precept, and the suffering of its penalty. But, connected with, and resulting from this, is the channel that thus is open for the outftowings of that tenderness and sympathy of which the saints of God so constantly stand in need, and as constantly receive. Jesus is the “brother born for adversity” — “it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful High-priest,” — “in that he himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted,” — “we have not an High-priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”
Here is opened the true and blessed source of comfort in the hour and the circumstance of sorrow. The Lord’s people are a tried people: — Jesus was a tried Saviour. The Lord’s people are an afflicted people — Jesus drank deep of its bitter cup. The Lord’s people are a sorrowing family — Jesus was a “man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” He brought himself down to a level with the circumstances of his people. He completely identified himself with them. We are not however to suppose that in every peculiarity of trial there is an identity with our dear Lord. There are trials growing out of peculiar circumstances and relations in life, to which he was a stranger. But Jesus took upon him pure humanity in its suffering form, was deeply acquainted with sorrow as sorrow; and, from these two circumstances, became fitted in all points to succour, to sustain, and to sympathise with his afflicted, sorrowing
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people, whatever the cause of that affliction or sorrow might be. It is enough for us that he was “bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh.” It is enough for us that his heart was composed of all the tenderness, and sympathy, and gentleness of our nature, and that, too, freed from every thing growing out of the infirmity of sin, that could weaken, and impair, and blunt the sensibilities. It is enough for us that sorrow was no stranger to his heart, that affliction had deeply furrowed his soul, and that grief had left its traces upon every line of his countenance. What more do we require? What more can we ask? Our nature? — he took it. Our sicknesses? — he bore them. Our sorrows? — he felt them. Our crosses? — he carried them. Our sins? — he pardoned them. He went before his suffering people: trod out the path; left his foot-print; and now invites them to walk in no way, and to sustain no sorrow, and to bear no burden, and to drink no cup, in which he has not himself gone before. It is enough for him that thou art a child of grief that sorrow is the bitter cup thou art drinking. He asks no more. A chord is in a moment touched in his heart, which vibrates to that touched in yours, whether its note be a pleasing or a mournful one. For, let it be ever remembered that Jesus has sympathy for the joys, as for the sorrows of his people. He rejoices with those that rejoice, and he weeps with those that weep. But how does Jesus sympathise? Not in the sense in which some may suppose, — that when we weep he actually weeps, and that when we suffer he actually suffers. This may once have been so, but we no more know Christ in the flesh, as he was once known. Ah! there was a period when “Jesus wept!” There was a period when his heart wrung with anguish, and
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when his body agonised in pain. That period is no more. There yet is a sense, and an important one, in which Jesus feels sympathy. When the believer suffers, the tenderness of Jesus is drawn forth. His sustaining strength, and sanctifying grace, and comforting love, are all unfolded in the experience of his child, while passing through the furnace. The Son of God is with him in the flames. Jesus of Nazareth is walking with him on the billows. He has the heart of Christ. And this is sympathy — this is fellowship — this is to be one with Christ Jesus.
Come, dear reader, what is thy sorrow? Has the hand of death smitten? Is the beloved one removed? Has he taken away the desire of thine eyes with a stroke? But who has done it? Jesus hath done it. Death was but his messenger. Thy Jesus hath done it. The Lord hath taken away. And what hath he removed? — Thy wife? Ah, Jesus hath all the tenderness that ever thy wife had. Hers was but a drop from the ocean that is in his heart. Is it thy husband? Jesus is better to thee than ten husbands. Is it thy parent, thy child, thy friend, thy all of earthly bliss? Is the cistern broken? Is the earthen vessel dashed to pieces? Are all thy streams dry? Jesus is yet enough. He has not taken himself from thee, and never, never will. Take your bereaved, stricken, and bleeding heart to him, and repose it upon’ his, once bereaved, stricken, and bleeding, too; for he knoweth how to bind up the broken heart, to heal the wounded spirit, and to comfort those that mourn.
What is thy sorrow? Has health failed thee? Has property forsaken thee? Have friends turned against thee? Art thou tried in thy circumstances? Perplexed in thy path? Are providences thickening and darkening around thee? Art thou anticipating seasons of approaching trial? Art thou walking in darkness having no light? Go simply to Jems. He is the door ever open. The tender, loving, faithful friend, ever near. He is the brother born for thy adversity. His grace and sympathy are sufficient for thee. The life thou art called to live is that of faith; — with that of sense, thou hast done. Thou art now to walk by faith, and not by sight. This,. then, is the great secret of a life of faith: to hang upon Jesus daily, — to go to him in every trial, — to cast upon him every burden, — to take the infirmity, the corruption, the cross as it rises, simply and immediately to Jesus. Thou art to set Christ before thee as thy Example to imitate; as thy Fountain to wash in; as thy Foundation to build upon; as thy Fulness to draw from; as thy tender, loving, and confiding Brother and Friend, to go to at all times and under all circumstances. To do this daily, constitutes the life of faith. 0 to be enabled with Paul to say, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” 0 holy, happy life! 0 unearthly, heavenly life! The
life Jesus himself lived when below, the life all the patriarchs, and prophets, and apostles, and martyrs, and the spirits of just men made perfect once lived, and the life every true-born child of God is called and privileged to live, while yet a stranger and pilgrim on the earth.
There are three important aspects in which a believer should never fail to view his present allotment. The first is, to remember that the present is y by the appointment of God, the afflicted state of the believer. It is God’s ordained, revealed will, that his covenant children 23 *
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here should be in an afflicted condition. When called by grace, they should never take into their account any other state. They become the disciples of the religion of the cross — they become the followers of a crucified Lord — they put on a yoke, and assume a burden: they must, then, expect the cross inward and the cross outward. To escape it is impossible. To pass to glory without it, is to go by another way than God’s ordering, and in the end, to fail of arriving there. The gate is strait, and the way is narrow, which leadeth unto life, and a man must become nothing if he would enter and be saved, Matt. vii. 14. He must deny himself, — he must become a fool that he may be wise, 1 Cor. iii. 18, — he must receive the sentence of death in himself, that he should not trust in himself, 2 Cor. i. 9. The wise man must cease to glory in his wisdom, and the mighty man must cease to glory in his might, and the rich man must cease to glory in his riches, and their only ground of glory in themselves must be, their insufficiency, infirmity, poverty, and weakness; and their only ground of glory out of themselves must be, that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The believer in Jesus, then, must not forget that if the path he treads is rough and thorny, and if the sky is wintry, and the storm is severe, and the cross he bears is heavy, that yet, this is the road to heaven. He is but in the wilderness, why should he expect more than belongs to the wilderness state? He is on a journey, why should he look for more than a traveller’s fare? He is far from home, why should he murmur and repine that he has not all the rest, and the comfort, and the luxuries of his Father’s house? If thy covenant God and Father has allotted to thee poverty, be satisfied that it should be thy state, yea, rejoice in it. If bitter adversity, if deep affliction, if the daily and the heavy cross, yet, breathe not one murmur, shed not one tear, heave not one sigh, but rather rejoice that ye are led into the path that Jesus himself walked in, that ye “go forth by the footsteps of the flock,” and that ye are counted worthy thus to be one in circumstance with Christ and his people.
The second aspect in which the suffering believer should view his present allotment is, that a state of humiliation or casting down, invariably follows a state of exaltation or lifting up. The Lord empties before he fills. He makes room for himself, for his love, and for his grace. He dethrones the rival, casts down the idol, and seeks to occupy the temple, filled and radiant with his own ineffable glory. Thus does he bring the soul into great straits, lay it low, but to school and discipline it for richer mercies, higher service, and greater glory. Be sure of this, that, when the Lord is about to bless thee with some great and peculiar blessing, he may prepare thee for it by some great and peculiar trial. If he is about to advance thee to some honour, he may first lay thee low that he may exalt thee. If he is about to place thee in a sphere of great and distinguished usefulness, he may first place thee in his school, that thou mayest know how to teach others. If he is about to bring forth thy righteousness as the noon-day, he may cause it to pass under a cloud, that, emerging from its momentary obscuration, it may shine with richer and more enduring lustre. Thus does he deal with all his people. Thus he dealt with Joseph. Intending to elevate him to great distinction and influence, he first casts him into a
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dungeon, and that, too, in the very land in which he was so soon to be the gaze and the astonishment of all men. Thus, too, he dealt with David, and Job, and Nebuchadnezzar; and thus did God deal with his own Son, whom he advanced to his own right hand from the lowest state of humiliation and suffering. “It is the way of God to work by contraries, to turn the greatest evil into the greatest good. To grant great good after great evil, is one thing, and to turn great evils into the greatest good, that is another; and yet that is God’s way. The greatest good that God intends for his people, many times he works it out of the greatest evil; the greatest light is brought out of the greatest darkness.”
The third aspect is, to regard the present suffering as but preparatory to future glory. This will greatly mitigate the sorrow, reconcile the heart to the trial, and tend materially to secure the important end for which it was sent. The life of a believer is but a disciplining for heaven. All the covenant dealings of his God and Father, are but to make him a partaker of his holiness here, and thus to meeten him for a partaker of his glory hereafter. Here, he is but schooling for a high station in heaven. He is but preparing for a more holy, and for aught we know, a more active and essential service in the upper world. And every infirmity overcome, and every sin subdued, and every weight laid aside, and every step advanced in holiness, do but strengthen and mature the life of grace below, until it is fitted for, and terminates in, the life of glory above. Let the suffering believer, then, see that he emerges from every trial of the furnace with some dross consumed, some iniquity purged, and with a deeper impress of the blessed Spirit’s seal of love, and holiness, and adoption, on his heart.
Let him see that he has made some advance towards the state of the glorified; that he is more perfected in love and sanctification — the two great elements of heaven; and that therefore he is meetening for the inheritance of the saints in light. “Every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” Blessed and holy tendency of all the afflictive dispensations of a covenant God and Father towards a dear and covenant child!
But, there is a sorrow, even keener and deeper than this, in which the Spirit, the Comforter, is seen directly and manifestly to work. It is the sorrow of a heart broken on account of sin. A wounded conscience, a humble and contrite spirit, a broken heart, who can adequately describe? Though he may have experienced it, yet no mortal can fully unfold it, as no mortal alone can heal and comfort it. It is the deep and wonderful work of God the Holy Ghost; and he who approaches a spirit wounded by sin, either to describe the state, or to attempt its healing, has need of much wisdom, tenderness, and sympathy. This part of our work addresses itself especially to the poor in spirit, to the humble and the contrite, to the wounded conscience, to the broken heart; let it then be read, as it is written, in the spirit of prayer, that the Comforter, who is the Holy Ghost, may take the work into his own hands, and heal where he has wounded, and bind up where he has broken.
Shall we attempt a faint description of your feelings? Suffer one who has walked, in some degree, the path you are now treading, and who is prepared to sympathise with every tear and sigh that come from a convinced and wounded conscience, with all tenderness and lowliness to draw aside the veil which conceals the deep and con-THE SPIRIT A COMFORTER.
flicting emotions that now agitate your heart, with a view of leading you to Jesus, whose voice alone can hush the tempest, and say to the waves of conviction and guilt, “peace, be still;” and there shall be a calm.
You feel yourself to be the very chief of sinners. You seem to stand out from the great mass, a lonely and solitary being, more vile, polluted, guilty, and lost than all. Your sentiments in reference to yourself, to the world, to sin, to God, and to Christ, have undergone a rapid, total, and surprising change. Yourself ’ you see
to be guilty and condemned, — the world, you feel to be a worthless portion, a cheat, and a lie, — sin, you see to be the blackest and most hateful of all other things, — God, you regard in a light of holiness, justice, and truth, you never did before, — and Christ, as possessing an interest entirely new and overpowering. Your views in relation to the law of God are reversed. You now see it to be immaculately holy, strictly just, infinitely wise. Your best attempts to obey its precepts you now see are not only utterly powerless, but in themselves are so polluted by sin, that you cannot look at them without the deepest self-loathing. The justice of God shines with a glory unseen and unknown before. You feel that, in now bringing the condemnatory sentence of the law into your conscience, he is strictly holy, and were he now to send you to eternal woe, he would be strictly just. But ah! what seems to form the greatest burden? What is that which is more bitter to thee than wormwood or gall? Oh, it is the thought that ever thou shouldst have lifted thy arm of rebellion against so good, so holy, so just a God as he is. That ever thou shouldst have cherished one treasonable thought, or harboured one unkind feeling. That thy whole life, thus far, should have been spent in bitter hostility against him, his law, his Son, his people, and that yet, in the midst of it, yea, all day long, he has stretched out his hand to thee, and thou didst not regard! Oh the guilt that rests upon thy conscience! Oh the burden that presses thy soul! Oh the sorrow that wrings thy heart! Oh the pang that wounds thy spirit! Is there a posture of lowliness more lowly than all others? — thou wouldst assume it. Is there a place in the dust more humiliating than all others? — thou wouldst lie in it. And now, thou art looking wistfully around thee for a refuge, a resting place, a balm, a quietness for the tossing of the soul. Beloved, is this thy real state? Are these thy true feelings? Blessed art thou of the Lord! “Blessed, dost thou say?” Yes! Those tears are blessed! Those convictions are blessed! Those humbling, lowly views are blessed! That broken heart, that contrite spirit, that awakened, convinced, and wounded conscience, even with all their guilt, is blessed? Why? because the Spirit that convinceth men of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, has entered thy soul, and wrought this change in thee. He hath opened thine eyes, to see thyself lost and wretched. He hath broken the spell which the world had woven around thee. He hath dissolved the enchantment, discovered the delusion, and made thee to feel the powers of the world to come. Then, thou art blessed.
But, “is there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there?” There are! The physician is Jesus, the balm is his own most precious blood. He binds up the broken heart, he heals the wounded spirit. See how the Holy Ghost testifies to this, and how he comforts by the testimony: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good
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tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” Isa. Lri. 1 — 3. And if the reader will compare this precious announcement with Luke iv. from the 16th verse, he will find our Lord quoting it, and declaring that it was then fulfilled in himself. “This day,” says he, “is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.”
Jesus is the binder up of a broken heart. All the skill, all the efficacy, all the tenderness and acute sympathy needed for the office, meet and centre in him in their highest degree. Here then, disconsolate soul, bring your wounded heart. Bring it simply to Jesus. One touch of his hand will heal the wound. One whisper of his voice will hush the tempest. One drop of his blood will remove the guilt. Nothing but a faith’s application to him will do for thy soul now. Thy case is beyond the skill of all other physicians. Thy wound is too deep for all other remedies. It is a question of life or death, heaven or hell. It is an emergency, a crisis, a turning point with thee. Oh, how solemn, how eventful is this moment! Eternity seems suspended upon it. All the intelligences of the universe, good spirits and bad, seem gazing upon it with intense interest. Decide the question, by closing in immediately with Jesus. Submit to God. All things are ready. The blood is shed, the righteousness is finished, the feast is prepared, God stands ready to pardon, yea, he advances to meet you, his returning child, to fall upon your neck and embrace you with the assurance of his full and free forgiveness.
Let not the simplicity of the remedy keep you back. Many stumble at this. It is but a look of faith: “Look unto me, and be ye saved.” It is but a touch, even though with a palsied hand: “And as many as touched him were made whole.” It is but a believing the broad declaration, that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinner 8.” You are not called to believe that he came to save you; but, that he saves sinners. Then, if you inquire, “But will he save me? How do I know that if I come I shall meet a welcome?” Our reply is, only test him. Settle not down with the conviction that you are too far gone, too vile, too guilty, too unworthy, until you have gone and tried him. You know not how you wound him, how you dishonour him, and how you grieve the Spirit, by yielding to a doubt, yea, a shadow of a doubt, as to the willingness- and the ability of Jesus to save you, until you have gone to him believingly, and put his readiness and his skill to the test.
Let not the freeness of the remedy keep you away. This, too, is a stumbling-block to many. Its very freeness holds them back. But it is “without money, and without price.” The simple meaning of this is, no worthiness on the part of the applicant, no merit of the creature, no tears, no convictions, no faith, is the ground on which the healing is bestowed. Oh no! It is all of grace — all of God’s free gift, irrespective of any worth or worthiness in man. Your strong motive to come to Christ, is your very sinfulness. The reaeon wherefore you go to him is, that your heart is broken, and that he only can bind it up — your spirit is wounded, 24
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and that he only can heal it — your conscience is burdened, and that he only can lighten it — your soul is lost, and that he only can save it. And that is all you need to recommend you. It is enough for Christ that you are covered with guilt; that you have no plea that springs from yourself; that you have no money to bring in your hand, but have spent your all upon physicians and are nothing bettered; that you have wasted your substance in riotous living, and now are insolvent; and that you really feel a drawing towards him, a longing for him — that you ask, you seek, you crave, you earnestly implore his compassion, that is enough for him. His heart
yearns, his love is moved, his hand is stretched out, — come and welcome to Jesus, come.
And let the reflection keep you from despair, that your present convictions, being the work of the blessed Spirit, shall surely terminate in your full conversion to God. The Lord never leaves his work unfinished. He never wounds but to heal. He never convinces of sin but to lead the soul into the pardon and peace of the Gospel. Think not that he has brought you thus far, to leave and to abandon you, that he has excited emotions but to smother them, and has awakened hopes but to disappoint. Oh no! The first tear you shed of godly sorrow, was a link in the golden chain of eternal glory. The first sigh you heaved from your broken heart, was a pulse of that life that shall never end. Let the thought cheer you and encourage you to advance, that he will perfect that which concerneth you, — that he will conduct you out of the dark storm into the serene sunlight of his previous love. Only we would have you remember, that he has his own way and time. Be not impatient. Press hard after him, seek him in his word, seek him at the throne of grace, seek him diligently, but, seek him with a patient, submissive, and childlike spirit. You shall as certainly find him, as that he is now exalted upon his throne, “a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.”
A word in conclusion. The Spirit comforts the believer by unfolding to his eye the near prospect of the coming glorg. Heaven is near at hand. It is but a step out of a poor, sinful, sorrow-stricken world, into the rest that remaineth for the people of God. It is but a moment, the twinkling of an eye, and we are absent from the body and are present with the Lord. Then will the days of our mourning be ended, — then sin will grieve no more — and affliction will wound no more — and sorrow will depress no more, and God will hide himself no more. There will be the absence of all etfil, and the presence of all good; and they who have come out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, shall taker their stand before the throne of God, and shall “serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more: neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” Wherefore, beloved in the Lord, let us comfort one another with these words, and with this prospect.