Conversion and Consecration

“I must say that I never have had so close and satisfactory a view of the gospel salvation, as when I have been led to contemplate it in the light of a simple offer on the one side, and a simple acceptance on the other.” — Lhomas Chalmers.

‘‘FULL consecration may in one sense be the act of a moment and in another the work of a lifetime. It must be complete to be real, and yet, if real it is always incomplete; a point of rest, and yet a perpetual progression. Suppose you make ovei a piece of ground to another person. From the moment of giving the title deed, it is no longer your possession; it is entirely his. But his practical occupation of it may not appear all at once. There may be waste land which he will take into cultivation only by degrees... Just so it is with our lives. The transaction of, so to speak, making them over to God is definite and complete. But then begins the practical development of consecration.” — Frances Ridley Havergal.

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CONVERSION AND CONSECRATION.

HESE two facts in our spiritual history a seem to us to be often strangely confounded. We make a radical distinction between them. In conversion we receive; in consecration we give; in the one we accept eternal life from God; in the other we offer up ourselves in self-surrender to God; in the one we appropriate the work of Christ done for us, in the other we fulfil the work of the Spirit in us. Inquirers are not infrequently counselled to give their hearts to Christ, or to consecrate themselves to the Lord. We would not be over-critical with what is well meant; but really this is not the Gospel. The good news of grace is that God hath given to us eternal life and redemption through His Son, and that in order to be saved the sinner has naught to do but to accept it. Indeed why should one be asked to give, when he has nothing acceptable to bring?

“It is more blessed to give than to receive;”

and the Lord who is alone worthy takes this highest beatitude for Himself, and puts the whole race of unrenewed sinners into the position of helpless and dependent receivers.*

“For God so loved the “As many as received world, that Ze gave his only| Him, to them gave he begotten Son.” (John 3:]| power to become the sons 16.) of God.” (john 427128

“The gift of God is eter-| “Whosoever will, Ze¢ him nal life.” (Rom. 6: 23.) éake the water of life freely.”

“Christ also loved the (Rev. 22: 17.)

church, and gave himself “As ye have therefore for it.” (Eph. 5: 25.) received Christ Jesus the Lord.” 1M GOL reso

But having received the gift of God and been made a partaker of His converting grace, then and therefore the divine obligation for service begins to press upon us. The Lord becomes an asker as soon as we have become recipients. “As ye

* “The gospel of the grace of God does not consist in pressing the duty defined by the words ‘ Give your heart to Christ,’ although that is often unwisely urged upon inquirers after salvation as though it were the gospel. The true gospel is, ‘ Accept the free gift of salvation from wrath and sin by recetving Fesus Himself and all the benefits he purchased with his blood.”

—William Reid; Blood of Fesus. ~. 22.

have therefore recetved Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him;’’* let consecration crown conversion, let self devotement to Christ answer to His self devotement for you. Has the reader noticed the significant “therefore” in that earnest plea for consecration with which the xuth of Romans opens? Just previously the question has been asked, ‘Or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?” Had we first rendered something to God, we might look for a return. But, on the contrary, we have received everything from Him — “for of Him and through Him and to Him are all things.” And this is the reason why we should render to Him all that we have. “I beseech you ‘Zhevefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”

One love demands another. If God has shown ‘His love to us by giving His Son to die as a sacrifice for our sins, let us show our love by giving ourselves to live in daily sacrifice for Him. “By giving ourselves,” we say. Self-sacrifice may be scanted in two ways. We may give our posses-

* Coloss. 2: 6.

sions, instead of giving ourselves; or we may give ourselves to God’s service instead of to God himself. In either case our sacrifice is lame and our consecration lacking. There must be self-surrender to Him who surrendered Himself for us, before Christ can be “all and in all.” Have we not found persons giving their money to charity, under the idea that their gift would in some way sanctify the giver and make him acceptable to the Lord? But God requires our persons before He asks our purses. We are to “present our bodies” unto Him, and that will carry our possessions. For the body is “the temple of the Holy Ghost,” and Jesus tells us that it is the temple that sanctifies the gold, and not the gold that sanctifies the temple. The devotement of self therefore must go ‘before devotement of property and possessions. This is the divine order which the apostle so thankfully recognizes in acknowledging the gifts of the Macedonian Christians. For making mention of the riches of their liberality, he adds, And this they did, not as we expected, but jirs¢ gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God.’ * And for this cause he declares

2 (Cor, rose that he ministered the gospel of God to the Gentiles, that being renewed by the Spirit, they might be fitted to give in the Spirit, “that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost.” * And the opposite idea is equally true — that we must devote ourselves Zo the Lord, not merely to some work for the Lord, which may absorb in itself the interest and zeal, which should be bestowed on His divine person.

Now nothing is clearer than the fact that a Christian gets power from God, just in proportion to the entireness of his self-surrender to God. If we ask how this is, the answer is easy. It is not that God keeps a strictly debt and credit account with the Christian, giving so much grace for so much sacrifice, so much power for so much humil-’ ity. It is by the action of a necessary law that it comes to pass. We know that, in the human body, the privation of any one of the senses only intensifies the power of those which remain. If, for example, the sight be lost, the touch and taste become thereby much more acute. Exactly so it

is between the three factors of our human being —

* Rom. ‘15; 16, body, soul and spirit; whatever either one surrenders is carried over to the credit of the others, and inures to their strength. That is why fasting helps communion — the carnal appetites being denied that the spiritual appetites may be awakened to a more hungry craving. Hence the significance of the plea that we present our bodies a living sacrifice. We should have said ‘“bodies and spirits,’ and many so enlarge the exhortation. -But no! Let the body be surrendered up for the enrichment of the soul, fleshly desires repressed, that spiritual desires may be enlarged — the carnal

man, in a word, sacrificed to the spiritual.

We have seen this significant device on an ancient seal — the effigy of a burning candle, and underneath it the superscription, “JZ give light by: being myself consumed.” This is the true symbol of Christian devotedness — giving out light by giving up our lives to Him who loved us — the zeal of God’s house consuming us while we furnish divine illumination to the world.

And this leads us to urge what we believe to be all important to this whole subject — that we should make our consecration a definite, final, and irrevocable event in our spiritual history. It is not enough for us to hear one say that he believes in Jesus Christ; we want a decisive and confessed act of acceptance. And likewise we are not satisfied to urge upon our readers a consecrated life

“merely; we wish to insist on the value and power

of a solemn and definite and overshadowing act of consecration. Let it be made with the utmost deliberation, and after the most prayerful self-examination; let the seal of God’s acceptance of it be most carefully sought; let it be final, in the sense of being irrevocable, but initiatory in the sense of being introductory to a new life — a life that belongs, henceforth, utterly to God, to be lived where He would have it lived, to be employed as He would have it employed, to be finished when He would have it finished. Oh, who is sufficient for such an engagement! But many have made it, and we find in them a living demonstration of its value.

In the spiritual history of George Whitfield we have a striking example of such definite and whole hearted consecration. With the Wesleys in the “Holy Club” of Oxford, he had sought with prolonged prayer and self-mortification for a deeper work of the Spirit in his heart. Whole days he had spent in wrestling with God for the blessing. He found what he sought, and, at his ordination, was made ready to give himself unreservedly te God. He thus speaks of this experience : —

“When the Bishop laid his hands upon my head, if my evil heart doth not deceive me, / offered up my whole spirit, soul and body, to the service of God’s sanctuary. Let come what will, life or death, depth or height, I shall henceforth live like one who this day, in the presence of men and angels, took the holy sacrament upon the profession of being inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon me that ministration in the church.” “I can call heaven and earth to witness that, when the Bishop laid his hand upon me, I gave myself up, to be a martyr for Him who hung upon the cross for me. Known unto Him are all future events and contingencies. I have thrown myself blindfolded, and I trust without reserve into His almighty hands.” *

Such was his vow of self-devotion to God, and it must be acknowledged that his whole subsequent life attested its sincerity. And in what life, we may ask, has the power of consecration been more signally displayed? We speak not merely of his seraphic eloquence, but of the immediate

* Stevens’ History of Methodism, V. I, p. 105.

saving results of his preaching. We judge that other preachers have produced as powerful impression upon congregations — Bossuet, Robert Hall, Chalmers and many more. But that lightning-like penetration of the spoken word which rives men’s hearts, and lays bare their sins, and brings out the tears of penitence — here is the test of power. And from the very first sermon of Whitfield, when fifteen were driven to an agony of conviction, to the last, this was the uniform result of his ministry. John Newton records of him that in a single week he received no less than a thousand letters from those distressed in conscience under his preaching. Surely this was not the fruit of his “sraceful oratory,’ which Franklin and Chesterfield so much admired; but of that power from on high which is promised to those who are ready to tarry in Jerusalem until they be endued with it, How significant the apostle’s description of effective preaching! “For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power and tn the Holy Ghost and in much assurance.” *

Words, kindled and glowing with the fire of intellectual excitement, can rouse and thrill and

* 1 Thess, 1: 5.

overpower, till the effect seems something quite supernatural, But intellect and the Holy Spirit must not be confounded. The highest reach of genius comes far short of the lowest degree of inspiration. To electrify a hearer is one thing; to bring a hearer prostrate at the feet of Jesus is quite another. The one effect is “in word only”; the other is “in power and in the Holy Ghost.” And the latter result we have often seen accomplished through the plainest speech, and by the humblest instruments. But how subtle and elusive is the “power”! He who desires it for the sake of being great, can no more have it than Simon Magus could buy it with money. How many a servant of God has quenched the Spirit in his inordinate desire to shine; how often has the soul-winner gone out of the pulpit because the orator has come in and filled the entire foreground with himself. So then the rhetorician cannot teach us the secret. He can help us in word only. The consecration, by which we put ourselves utterly into the hands of God, to be subject to His will and to be swayed by His Spirit, is the

only true pathway to power.

Of course as there are diversities of gifts from the same Spirit, so the manifestations of spiritual energy will be widely various.

We will select an example which stands in total contrast from that just considered. Stephen Grellet, the saintly Quaker, was endued with extraordinary power as a witness for Christ. ‘Over two hemispheres he bore a testimony adapted, with marvellous wisdom, alike to dwellers in palaces and in slaves’ huts; to the inmates of ecclesiastical mansions and common jails, and yet none the less suited to the periodic meetings of Friends, and to large assemblies of Koman Catholics and Protestants, in Europe and America.” * His was preéminently a ministry of love. The word in the mouth of Whitfield was a sharp two-edged sword, piercing and wounding unto life eternal. From the lips of Grellet that word distilled like the dew, even “as the dew of Hermon that descended upon the mountains of Zion; for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore.”

If we ask whence this strange enchantment which he threw over human hearts so that they opened to his words irresistibly, in spite of preju-

* Life of Stephen Grellet, by William Guest, p. 3.

dice and stern tradition, the answer is easily found. It was the love of Christ acting divinely through one who had given himself up to be led of God, and who, as he wrote on the last page of his journal, had learned the habit of “keeping a single eye to the putting forth of the Divine Spirit.” This good man had had his Pentecost, — blessed and never to be forgotten, from which he dated a new enduement of power. Referring to the time and

place of this transaction he says: —

“There the Lord was pleased, in an humbling and memorable manner, to visit me again and to comfort me. I had gone into the woods, which are there mostly of very lofty and large pines, and my mind being inwardly retired before the Lord, He was pleased so to reveal His love to me, through His blessed Son, my Saviour, that many fears and doubts were at that time removed, my soul’s wounds were healed, my mourning was turned into joy. He clothed me with the garment of praise, instead of the spirit of heaviness, and He strengthened me lo offer up myself again freely to Him and to His service for my whole life. Walk, O my soul, in that path which thy blessed Master has trodden before thee and has consecrated for thee. Be willing also to die to thyself, that thou mayest live through faith in Him.”

Here is a life which constituted a kind of living exegesis of that text, ‘speaking the truth in love.” And, accustomed as we are, to measure power by outward demonstration, it furnishes a most instructive lesson for us. Two chemical elements which are very mild and innocuous in themselves, often have prodigious energy when combined. So it is of love and truth. Those who preach love alone are often the weakest and most ineffective witnesses for Christ. Those who preach the truth alone, not infrequently demonstrate the feebleness of a soulless orthodoxy. But the truth in love is vital, penetrating, and has the dynamic force which we seek. See how Paul, the apostle of truth, and John, the apostle of love, match and supplement each other on this point. ‘ Speaking the truth tn love,’ writes the one. ‘ Unto the well beloved Gaius, whom I love in the truth,’ writes the other. Love furnishing the atmosphere of truth, the medium through which it shines, and by which it is transmitted; and truth lending its gravity and restraint to love, and so preventing it from flying off into a reckless and indiscriminate toleration: — this is the combination which gives true power. “Grace is poured into thy lips; ¢herefore God hath blessed thee forever.” Grace that wings the gentle speech, grace that imparts the heavenly unction; grace that is invested with “the irresistible might of weakness,” — this is the true secret of divine efficiency, — and yet only half the secret. ‘Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” Oh for a conformity to Christ and a non-conformity to the world, that shall enable us to grasp both these gifts. Then the highway of power will be open before us, and we may realize the beautiful ideal of the faithful witness: “He had eyes lifted up to heaven, the best of books was in his hand, ¢he law of truth was written upon his lips, the world was behind his back. He stood as if he pleaded with men; and a crown of glory did

hang over his head.” *

Let it not be presumed, however, that the way of consecration is a way exempt from sacrifices and perils. One who moves in this direction is certain to encounter the adversary at every step. The moment the believer makes any determined advance toward holiness, that moment the evil one moves up his picket line for desperate resistance.

* Bunyan.

Pastor Blumhardt, — who in this generation has wrought such conquests in prayer and faith, — lays special emphasis on this point, telling us that “he who is ignorant of the wiles and artifices of the enemy, only beats the air, and the devil is not afraid of him.” Let the reader study the life of this remarkable man, if he would learn what possibilities of spiritual power are still open to us. Amid the freezing rationalism of Tiibingen University, here was one young heart which kept itself kindled with the fire of Pentecost, and by surrendering itself up in daily consecration, was preparing to give the world a living demonstration of the things which the learned men of that university had set themselves to deny. We see him raising the sick by his prayers, casting out devils, and bringing whole communities to the foot of the cross in penitence. But Satan was always at his right hand to resist him. ‘In interesting myself in behalf of one possessed,” he writes, “I became involved in such a fearful conflict with the powers of darkness, as is not possible for me to describe.” Underscore this passage, oh reader. It has a broad significance. When something extraordinary is to be done for Christ, hell from beneath will be moved to resist it. The marks of Martin Luther’s inkstand on Wartburg castle are not the traces of a pitiable superstition. Here is a man who is to shake all Europe with a new revival, and where on earth or under the earth is Satan so likely to mass his forces as in this monk’s cell. Brother Martin is not throwing his ink-horn at a phantom. when he hurls it at the devil. It is very necessary to touch on this point, because every aspirant after holiness is certain to be assailed with peculiar conflicts and temptations; and it is natural to regard these as indications that dangerous ground has been entered upon, when they are often only evidences that we are entering upon higher ground.

That gifted woman in whom inspiration and aspiration were so beautifully blended, Frances Ridley Havergal, makes a cheering comment ona familiar text of Scripture — “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy.” ‘ Why this is grand,” she writes, “power over all the power of the enemy. Just where he is strongest, there they shall prevail. Not over his weak points and places, but over the very centre of his power; not over his power here and there, or now and then, but over all his power. And Jesus said it. Isn’t it enough to go into battle with?” *

She was encouraging her own heart when she wrote these words. What a lofty path of spirituality she traversed! Has the reader of her biog. raphy marked the open secret of her consecrated career? It is found in the same experience, of which we have spoken elsewhere, of definite, whole souled devotement to God. This is the record of it, which she has left behind: —

“It was on Advent Sunday, December, 1873, that I first saw clearly the blessedness of true consecration. I saw it as a flash of electric light; and what you see, you can never unsee. Zhere must be full surrender before there can be full blessedness. God admits you by the one into the other. We Himself showed me this most clearly. You know how singularly I have been withheld from attending conventions and conferences; man’s teaching has consequently but little to do with it. First I was shown that the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth from all sin; and then it was made plain to me that He who had thus cleansed me, had power to keep me clean; so J utterly yielded myself to Him and utterly trusted Him to keep me.”

* Memorials of Frances R Havergal, p 10

In literature and in life, she served her generation with rare effectiveness. Her works are suffused with a beautiful glow of spiritual health; and in reading her books of sacred poetry and devotion, honored with an almost unprecedented circulation, we wonder if any one in our day has spoken more directly to the heart of man, and more directly from the heart of God. And thus the lesson is pressed upon us anew of the power of a sanctified life.

In treating thus of special acts of consecration, we would interpose a caution against written covenants with God. To yield ourselves up to Him in full self-surrender is one thing; to bind ourselves to do and to suffer certain things for Him, is quite another. The divine nature within us may be strong enough to perform such vows, but human nature is insolvent, and all its promises are but a bankrupt’s bond. And this human nature is still a partner in the firm that makes the contract, just as our Lord so solemnly declared in the face of His disciples’ failure and desertion. ‘The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”’ Dr. Doddridge recommended a written compact with the Lord. ‘Set your hand and seal to it, that on such a day of such a month and year, and at such a place, on full consideration, and serious reflection, you came to the happy resolution, that whatever others might do, you would serve the Lord.” The excellent Samuel Pearce of Birmingham, followed this advice in his early Christian life. He wrote his solemn league and covenant with God, and to make it the more binding he opened a vein in his arm and signed it with his own blood. But when in a little while he found how utterly he had broken this sacred engagement, he was plunged into despair, and only found release when he tore up the document and scattered it to the winds, and cast himself henceforth entirely upon the “blood

of the everlasting covenant.” *

We do not say that such a method can never be of use. It may in some instances. John Frederick Oberlin, the devoted and apostolic pastor, seems to have found it so. He certainly furnishes another striking illustration of the influence of defi-

* John Howe, in his discourse on Self-dedication, tells of a devout French nobleman who made a quit-claim deed of himself to God, and signed the document with his own blood — ‘‘ whose affection I commend,’’ he adds, ‘‘ more than his expression of it.” And well he might. When God takes security he wants a good name, and a trustworthy signature. We are only safe when we present ‘‘ the

name above every name,’’ and trust alone in ‘‘the blood of the New Testament. * o2 THE TWO-FOLD LIFE.

nite and entire consecration. Let one read of the astonishing change effected through his ministry in the morals and condition of his little flock in Waldbach, amid the wilds of Northern France; or let one ponder the exquisite story of the orphan girl, Louise Schepler, so impressed by the holiness and self-denial of this good pastor’s life, that she begged the privilege of serving him without wages or reward, so long as she should live. The clue to his remarkable power may doubtless be found in a document which was left among his papers. It is long, but we give a paragraph which contains its pith and substance: —

“In the name of the Lord of Hosts, I this day renounce all former lords that have had dominion over me; the joys of the world in which I have too much delighted, and all carnal desires. I renounce all perishable things in order that God may constitute my All. I consecrate to Thee all that LTam,and all that I have; the faculties of my mind, the members of my body, my fortune and my time. Grant me grace, O Father of mercies, to employ all to Thy glory, and in obedience to Thy commands. For ardently and humbly, I desire to be Thine through the endless ages of eternity. Should Thou be pleased to make me in this life the instrument in leading others to Thee, give me strength and courage openly to declare Thy name. And enable me, not only to devote myself to Thy service, but to persuade my brethren to dedicate themselves to it also.” *

Strasbourg, 1st of Fan., 1760.
Renewed at Waldbach, 1st Fan., 1770.

We have given quite enough in these examples to exhibit the intimate and certain relation of personal consecration to spiritual power. But in all that we have said, we have assumed that the Holy Spirit is the Sanctifier and Sealer of this consecration. Our Lord Jesus Christ here, as in all things, is our Pattern and Exemplar. “For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.” Exemplar, we said. He is more than this — He is our life. It is His divine nature working in us which can alone effect this great transaction. He acted in and through the Holy Ghost in His self-devotement — “Who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot unto God.” How much more must we rely upon that divine inworking! We need the Spirit by whom to seek the Spirit, Christ’s consecration by which to consecrate ourselves, God’s

* Life of Oberlin, p. 26. + John 17: 19. t Heb. 9: 14

Supreme gift, the Comforter by whom to give ourselves to God. Oh Holy Spirit, who dost make our bodies thy habitation, consecrate that in which Thou dost dwell, that it may be “a vessel unto honor, sanctified and meet for the Master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.”