Righteousness and Holiness

“The great marvel of the gospel, the great triumph of redemption is that God can declare to be righteous those who personally are not righteous; that He can justify the sinner not by deeming him a law-keeper, but even while He judges him as a law-breaker. It is not that being justified by the life of Christ on earth, we are saved by His blood-shedding, but that deng now Justi jied by His blood we shall be saved from wrath through Fim as now risen from the dead,’ — Robert Anderson,

“TRUE sanctification is the result of the soul’s union with the Holy Jesus, the first and immediate receptacle of the sanctifying Spirit; out of whose fulness His members do by virtue of their union with Him receive sanctifying influence. The other is the mere product of the man’s own spirit, which, whatever it has or seems to have of the matter of true holiness, yet does not arise from the supernatural principles or the high aims and ends thereof, for, as it comes from self so it runs into the dead sea of self again, and lies as void of true holiness as nature doth of grace. They who have this spurious holiness are like commen boatmen who serve themselves with their own oars, whereas the ship bound for Immanuel’s land sails by the blowings of the Spirit,” — fourfold State, Thonas Boston,

IGHTEOUSNESS comes before Holiness R in the orde: of redemption, the one being imputed to us on the ground of our faith, and the other being imparted to us by the operation of the Holy Spirit. The way in which we are made righteous is told in the following Scripture: “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, zs faith zs counted for righteousness.’ * It isa hard saying for the natural man to receive; and even the Christian has sometimes staggered at it, and tried to mitigate its seeming unreasonableness by arguing that it is by Christ’s imparted righteousness, and not by his imputed righteousness, that we are justified. This would mean that we are accepted with God on the ground of personal character, while the Scripture declares that we are ‘“‘accepted in the Beloved;”

* Rom. 4: 5.

this theory would require us to be made actually righteous through Christ before we could be justified, while the Bible declares that Christ “zs made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” * In other words, we understand the word of God to teach that the sinner is justified on the ground of Christ’s righteousness reckoned to him, and that being thus justified he is gradually sanctified by the righteousness of

Christ communicated to him.

We can see then the distinction between righteousness and holiness, for there must be a distinction, since the new man is declared to be created “in righteousness and true holiness.” The one is put upon the sinner when he believes, so that by it he is “justified from all things;” the other is begotten within him as he continues to

believe, till he is sanctified wholly. The sunshine “first clothes the dead grass of the field with a garment of light, covering and surrounding it with its warmth; and then little by little the greenness and bloom and beauty are evoked out of the dry stock, as the light is transmuted into life. Here

1 Cor. 13 3 is a true symbol of justification and sanctification. Does the doctrine of imputation stumble you? But “if God so clothe the grass of the field which to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?” Righteousness with which God covers himself as with a garment, he lays upon the sinner as the first gift of his pardoning grace to cover and enwrap him, and then little by little, under the influences of the Spirit, “the beauty of holiness” is wrought out from his heart in purity and gentleness and meekness and love, till “Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” Justification gives us our title to heaven; sanctifica-, tion our fitness for heaven.

The duty of practical holiness we believe needs to be especially and strongly urged in these days. Too many Christians are culpably content with being saved, and take very little thought concerning the duty of being sanctified. And if any are moved to the cultivation of holiness, they are quite likely to be frightened away from its pursuit by the exaggerations and fanaticisms with which the doctrine has been burdened in our times. Indeed

to how many ears does the expression “practical holiness” suggest at once the idea of perfectionism. “The degenerate plant of a strange vine,” we hold this to be. The strange vine is the doctrine that regeneration is ‘‘a change of nature,” instead of the communication of the divine nature. If human nature can be bettered, why may it not be sanctified? And then, why may not perfection in the flesh be attained? But because we believe that the carnal man is incapable of becoming subject to God’s law, we hold that the believer will never attain perfection until he has put off this tabernacle. It is true even now that the Christian is not in the flesh; then it will be true that the flesh is not in him, but the Spirit of the Lord will fill him completely and sanctify him wholly.

But does not God command perfection — “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” ?* Does He not require and enjoin holiness, “Be ye holy for I am holy” ?+ And does He command of us what we cannot perform? Looking at the question on its human side, it is enough for us to answer that no man except

our sinless Immanuel has ever performed it; and

ie

* Matt. 5: 48. hereeet. csar0, looking at it on the divine side, it is clear that if God commands anything he must command perfection — that if he were to fix his standard a single degree short of this he would not be God. But looking at both sides, and endeavoring to reconcile God’s claims with man’s capacity, we observe two facts, viz., that in the life and teaching of Jesus Christ we have the standard of sinless perfection set up, “‘beauteous as heaven, and — alas, as remote;”’ that above it is the inscription, “My little children, these things write I unto you that ye sin not;’’ and below it is the superscription, “And zf any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.’ * Perfection is God’s perpetual commandment, since he can require no less; pardon is his perpetual provision, since we can attain so little.

Now holiness will be very imperfectly understood, if studied as a mere abstract attribute. We can learn most concerning its nature and its secret by seeing its manifestations in the lives of those saints who have most signally exhibited it. To take up once more our figure of the light, we know

Sir Jonna sr.

that a sunbeam can only be truly understood as it is refracted by passing through a prism, and so unbraided into its manifold colors. The pure white ray of the divine holiness in like manner must pass through human lives, and be analyzed and reproduced in human virtues, before it can be really apprehended by us. And so we glide from theology into biography — from the idea of holiness to a consideration of its personal manifestations in the saints of God.

If we were to follow strict chronological order in bringing forward our examples of holy living, we should begin with such names as Bernard and Francis of Assisi and Thomas 4 Kempis. All praise would we give to these devoted souls — the more worthy of our commendation because their light shone amid gross darkness and corruption. If the great Arctic explorer was moved to tears at finding a solitary violet blooming beneath an iceberg, one burst of beautiful life amid universal death, our hearts are no less affected at beholding these true saints living so singly for God amid the desolation of Papal corruption and apostacy. And yet in all of them there are traces of asceticism and superstition which render them imperfect exryemplars in many respects. Their piety needs to be translated into our Protestant dialect before it can be quite adapted to our imitation; and there is much of morbid, fantastic saintship which needs to be eliminated from it to render it practical.

Of Protestant saints who have lived excellently for God, where could we find a more illustrious example than in the character of Samuel Rutherford, of whom his biographer truly says, that “he sought for holiness as unceasingly and eagerly as other men seek for pardon and peace”? ‘“Upon the bells of the horses ‘holiness unto the Lord’” saith the prophet; and as this holy man mounts up to God in his chariot of praise, we seem to hear every note in the silver music of pure worship — love, joy, hope, and obedience, and all mingling their strains together in the ‘Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty.’” We doubt if such words of divine affection were ever penned by uninspirea: fingers, as he employs in setting forth the excellency of Immanuel. Peruse them, oh soul that would be kindled with divine ardor when your love has long waxed cold. The sweetness of Paradise is in them, the joy of Beulah thrills in their every accent, Listen : — “Brother, I may from new experience speak of Christ to you. Oh, if ye saw in him what I see. A river of God’s unseen joys has flowed from bank to brae over my soul since I parted with you. I urge upon you communion with Christ, a growing communion. There are curtains to be drawn aside in Christ that we never saw, and new foldings of love in Him. I despair that ever I shall win to the far end of that love, there are so many plies in it. Therefore dig deep and sweat and labor and take pains for him; ‘and set by as much time. in the day for him as you can; he will be won with

labor.” *

Consecration is the true fruit of holy fellowship with the Lord. Hence with each kindling of affection, and with each deeper view of the heart of Christ, comes the longing for utter self-devotement. Tired of making his own way and ordering

his own plans, he says : —

“Alas my misguiding and childish trafficking with that matchless Pearl, that Heaven’s Jewel, the Jewel of

* Rutherford’s Letters, 1624-1661. ‘‘ Rutherford’s Letters is one of my classics. Were truth the beam, I have no doubt, that if Homer and Virgil and Horace, and all that the world has agreed to idolize, were weighed against that book, they would be lighter than vani:y.”? — Cecd?.

“Hold off the Bible, such a book the world never saw.” — Baxter.

the Father’s delights hath put me to great loss. Oh that he would take a loan of me, and my stock, and put his name in all my bonds and serve himself heir to the poor mean portion which I have, and be accountable for the talent himself! Gladly would I put Christ into my room to guide all; and let me be but a ‘servant to run errands, and act by his directions — let me be his

interdicted heir.”

To an unusual degree the heart of this good man was drawn out towards the coming of the King in his glory. His experience in this respect set a deep seal upon the apostle’s words, “We know that when He shall appear we shali be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And every one that hath this hope in Him, purifieth himself even as He is pure.’ * The heart is as certainly clarified under the influence of this blessed anticipation, as linen is whitened out under the shining of the sun. Holiness is woven into the affections, while love keeps up the sweet interchange between the soul longing for sinlessness, and him who is to “appear a second time without sin unto salvation.” Practice this much neglected apostolic grace, oh reader;

train faith’s eye to “the habit of looking upward

* 3 John 3: 3.

all the day, and drawing down beams from the reconciled countenance.” Waiting for the Son of God from heaven fixes our position on earth, and gives us that true separateness and unworldliness which are so essential to a holy life. He who has learned to say, ‘‘ For our citizenship is in heaven, from whence we look for a Saviour,” * has an unanswerable reason for not investing his affections or laying up his treasures on the earth. This blessed hope has kindled the hearts of saints to the highest fervors, and touched the lyres of poets with the loftiest strains. ft It took such hold of Rutherford that it made him live and act ever as an inhabitant of heaven, rather than as a citizen of earth. Hear his heart’s longings after the King of glory : —

‘‘Watch but a little, and, ere long, the skies shall

rend, and that fair, lovely person, Jesus, will come in

*SPhilsg 320;

t ‘I looke for Thee, my lovelyle Lord, therefore For Thee I wayte, for Thee I tarrye stylle, Mine eies doe long to gaze on Thee my fyll; For Thee I watche, for Thee I prie and pore, My soul for Thee attendeth evermore;

My soule doth thirste to take Thee at a taste,

My soule desires with Thee for to be plast.”’ George Gascoigne, 1547.

the clouds, fraught and loaded with glory. O, wher shall we meet? Oh, how long is it to the dawning of the marriage day? O, sweet Lord Jesus, take wide steps! O, my Lord, come over the mountains at one stride! O, my beloved, flee like a roe, or a young hart, on the mountains of separation. Oh, that He would fold the heavens together like an old cloak, and shovel time and days out of the way, and make ready in haste the Lamb’s wife for her husband. Since He looked upon me my heart is net mine own, he hath run away

to heaven with it.’’*

No holiday sanctity, no holiness of the folded hands and dreamy heart was that of “Seraphic Rutherford.” He longed after lost souls with the heart of Christ, and labored for their salvation night and day. If he did not say with the apostle, “I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh,” he was constantly declaring that his joy and rejoicing would be doubled in every soul he might bring to Christ. To his dear flock of Anworth he writes: ‘‘ My witness is in heaven, your heaven would be two heavens to me, and your salvation two salvations.” Most excellent pattern of

— —

* Letters, p. 94, 276, godliness! How our hearts are stirred to emulate his example!

If we cross from Scotland to France, and study a life which partly overlapped that which we have just considered, we find a type of consecration quite opposite in its character. Rutherford’s piety was ecstatic; Madame Guyon’s was mystical; the one went out of self to the Christ upon the throne and in the clouds; the other went into self to Christ within the depths of consciousness. Since the Scriptures use the words, “Christ in you the hope of glory,” we may be assured that the latter method is not altogether erroneous, though from our want of clear vision it may expose us to serious perils. It is a natural experience that souls should find relief in going in an opposite direction from that wherein they have found trouble and sorrow. And we wonder not that after this earnest spirit had been occupied so long and so painfully with the outward sacraments and symbols of Christ, it should have found glad tidings in the words of a pious confessor, “Accustom yourself to seek God in your heart, and you will not fail to find Him.” It would have been false and useless advice to an unrenewed soul. But there is every evidence that this earnest woman had already appropriated the work of Christ for her on the cross and on the throne, and been saved by it. It was the witness and indwelling of the Spirit, which she longed for and yet hardly knew it, and now found; and as in the parallel experience of John Wesley, it was this which henceforth furnished the secret of abounding joy, and abounding service. What a change was thus wrought, we learn from her own words : —

“These words were to me like the stroke of a dart which pierced my heart asunder. I felt at this instant deeply wounded with the love of God — a wound so delightful that I desired it might never be healed. These words brought into my heart what I had been seeking so many years, or rather they made me discover what was there, and which I did not enjoy for want of knowing it. Oh my Lord! Thou wast in my heart and demanded only the turning of my mind inward, to make me feel thy presence. Oh infinite Goodness! Thou wast so near, and J ran hither and thither seeking Thee and yet found Thee not. My life was a burden to me, and my happiness was within myself. I was poor in the midst of riches, and ready to perish with hunger near a table plentifully spread and a continual feast. Oh Beauty ancient and new! Why have

I known Thee so late! Alas! I sought Thee where Thou wast not, and did not seek Thee where Thou wast. It was for want of understanding these words of thy gospel, ‘The kingdom of God cometh not with observation, neither shall they say Lo, here, or lo! there! for behold the kingdom of God is within you.’ ‘This I now experienced since Thou didst become my King and my heart thy kingdom, where Thou dost reign a Sovereign and doest all Thy will.” *

The fruit of this divine baptism is what it will especially interest us to seek. And this was immediate and blessed. Will the Spirit that cleanses us from sinfulness also keep us from sinning? is a question which is asked with the most painful solicitude by the tempted, oft defeated and well nigh despairing believer. The Scriptures certainly give some very strong and explicit promises on this point. “Walk in the Spirit,and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh,’ says the apostle. And surely there are those who have had glimpses of fulfilment given to them as they have tested this declaration; who have known what it is to be lifted for the time being above the entanglements

* Life of Madame Guyon, by Prof. T. C. Upham, D. D., pp. 52, 53. Gal, 5: 16,

of “fleshly lusts which war against the soul.” If they have not gained full victory, they have at least enjoyed “the truce of God” for a season. There has been a cessation of hostilities, a divine restraint laid upon carnal desires, so that they have been for a time quite subjected to the law of the Spirit. Alas! that such experiences, if they have come, have so often been but transient exercises, not a permanent condition. A sudden misstep and we have stumbled and fallen; and ceasing to walk in the Spirit, the flesh has again triumphed. If we could only walk always in the Spirit! Oh, but there is the difficulty. “In Him is no sin;

”* writes the

whosoever abtdeth in Him sinneth not, apostle John. If we were in such unbroken communion with Him that there were an unceasing flow of the divine life through our souls, sin would be overborne, quenched and destroyed. This experience of perpetual walking with God and perpetual abiding in Christ, is the one into which the Holy Ghost is seeking to bring the believer. And it is certainly reasonable to expect that a marked enduement of the Holy Ghost would issue in defi-

—

nite experiences of overcoming. Hear what this

* 1 John 3: 6.

pious woman says of that which followed this baptism of the Spirit : —

“I slept not all that night, because thy love, O my God, flowed in me like delicious oil, and burned as a fire which was going to destroy all that was left of self in an instant. I was all on a sudden so altered, that I was hardly to be known either by myself or others. 7 found no more those troublesome faults or that reluctance to duty which formerly characterized me. They all disappeared, consumed like chaff in a great fire. Nothing was now more easy than the practice of prayer. Hours passed away like moments, while I could hardly do anything else but pray. The fervency of my love allowed me no intermission. It was a prayer of rejoicing and of possession, wherein the taste of God was so great, so pure, unblended and uninterrupted, that it drew and absorbed the powers of the soul into profound recollection, a state of confiding, affectionate rest in God, existing without intellectual effort. For I now had no

sight but Jesus Christ alone.”

Here is a bright glimpse of the overcoming power of the Spirit. * * St. Theresa of Spain uses very similar language in describing her own experience. ‘‘ From the time that the Lord granted me this grace I was saved from

all my faults and my miseries. I had power given me to become indeed free.”

We can only judge of the divine side of one’s consecration by observing the human side. And when we think of the penetrating, subduing, hallowing character of this woman’s piety, begetting hatred in some, of course, but conquering so many others and bringing them into obedience to the cross of Christ, it goes far to certify the truth of the above strong statements. Friars, priests, nuns, men of the world, women of fashion, nobles and peasants were drawn to her by a strange charm, and that charm lay evidently in her presence more than in her words. ‘The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both tn body and in spirit,” says the Scripture. And hundreds of Madame Guyon’s virgin sisters were immured in convents, seeking thus by retired and hidden communion to become holy unto the Lord. But here was one fulfilling the duties of wife and mother, and yet surpassing them all in her exalted devotion. Like “the holy women in old time who trusted in God, adorning themselves with the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, being in subjection unto their own husbands,” this woman lived and labored and suffered for Christ. She has been called a Mystic and a

Quietist, because she advocated absorption into God, and the stillness and passiveness of the human will that it may be yielded entirely to the Divine; and theologians have said that mysticism destroys obedience by paralyzing freedom of choice. But life is better than philosophy, demonstration of experience than the deductions of reason. And here was one who in her life shone like a seraph and obeyed like an angel; and however we may reason, her own generation and every succeeding generation, has recognized the saint’s halo about her head. Amid the shadows of superstition which rested so heavily on her times, she is the one bright figure, who like the angel standing in the sun, is not only marvellously illumined herself, but causes many others to walk in her

reflected radiance. *

* If she made statements now and then which seem to verge too near an assumption of holiness, let us read them in the light of her last will and testament, made just before her death. It contains this beautiful clause:

“It is to Thee, O Lord God! that I owe all things; and it is to Thee that I now surrender up all that lam. Do with me, O my God! whatsoever thou pleasest. To Thee in an act of irrevocable donation, I give up both my body and my soul to be disposed of according to thy will. Thou seeest my nakedness and misery without Thee. Thou knowest that there is nothing in heaven or on earth that I desire but Thee alone. Within thy hands, O God! I leave my soul, zot relying for my salvation on any good that is in me, but solely on thy mercies and the merits and sufferings of my Lord Fesus Christ.”

—Id., Vol. II., p. 346.

The voice of the Spirit is the same in all lands and in all communions; and how remarkable it is that in the heart of John Woolman, the Quaker preacher, we should find the clearest echo of the teaching of Madame Guyon, the Catholic saint. How shall we describe what we feel as we read the journal of this blessed man? We dare not endorse the verdict of one who calls him “the man who in all the centuries since the advent of Christ, lived nearest to the divine pattern.” It is impossible to give such solitary preéminence to any disciple of Christ. We have called him above all whom we have known, a disciple of the Holy Ghost; and the most worthy exemplar of “the love of the Spirit.” Like many to whom we have referred in this volume, he had had his special divine visitation in which he learned his calling of God. Was it a reverie or a dream which fell on him in deep sleep? We care not to inquire since we introduce it from no craving for the marvellous, but only for the gracious lesson which it teaches. We give his story, abridged in a few unimportant particulars ;: —

“26th of 8th month, 1772.

‘In a time of sickness a little more than two years and a half ago, I was brought so near the gates of death that I forgot my name..... In this state I remained several hours. I then heard a soft, melodious voice, more pure and harmonious than any I heard with my ears before. I believed it was the voice of an angel who spoke to the other angels — the words were, ‘ John Woolman is dead.’ I soon remembered that I was once John Woolman, and being assured that I was alive in the body I greatly wondered what the heavenly voice could mean. I believed beyond doubting that it was the voice of an holy angel, but as yet it was a mystery LOMO yas As I lay for some time, I at length felt a divine power prepare my voice that I could speak, and I said, ‘I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.’ Then the mystery was opened and I perceived there was joy in heaven over a sinner who had repented, and that the language, ‘John Woolman is dead,’ meant no more than ¢he death

of my own will,” *

He seems to have had a clear conviction of what this signified, and he was “not disobedient to the heavenly vision.” For we find him entering at

* Journal, p. 264.

once upon services which only a crucified will would have accepted. At the tables of the rich he bore testimony against luxurious living, warning self-indulgent Christians against pride of apparel, and pride of position, and telling them even with weeping that by such things they became enemies of the cross of Christ. With a tenderness which few could wholly resist, he pleaded the cause of the slave against his master, and again and again succeeded in unlocking the bondman’s fetters. In trials and tears and hardships he wrought continually till his course was finished, acknowledging that “¢hzs state tn which every motion from the selfish spirit yieldeth to pure love,” had been opened before him ‘‘as a pearl to seek after.” Here, if we will look at it, is a high example of practical holiness — not the sanctity of the cloister or the cell, but that which touched every condition of sin and wrong with its gentle rebuke and its tearful sympathy. And in all these circumstances the purest communion with God was enjoyed. Renouncing wealth he found “that inward poverty under which the mind is preserved in a watchful, tender state, feeling for the mind of the Holy Leader;” doing that “which subjecteth the will of the creature,” he was “herein united with the suffering seed and found inward sweetness in these mortifying labors.” Most worthy example for us all was John Woolman. A saint who never “sainted himself;” a servant of God who plunged into the world, that like his Master he might go about doing good, instead of hiding in some sacred retreat, or immuring himself in the cloister of his own heart in order to get good. “Be ye holy in all manner of living,’* writes the apostle Peter; and this character furnishes a most impressive exposition of the precept. In all manner of life he wrought with holy service; in domestic circles seeking to supplant the maxims of selfishness by the law of Christ; in politics mediating between labor and capital, poverty and wealth; in philanthropy putting his shoulder under the workingman’s yoke and thrusting his own hand through the slave’s chain as bound with him. How much the world needs to be reminded of such half-forgotten lives! How the church needs to be admonished by them that saintliness is

something more than a pale contemplative senti-

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ment; that it has been and can still be as manly,

robust, and practical as the most strenuous moralist could wish.;

Now holiness is an emanation from God; something of the divine nature absorbed and reappearing in the lives of the good. But the method of appropriating it varies not a little, different souls finding it each in the different Persons of the Holy Trinity. In Edwards, we behold the saint dwelling on this bare attribute of the Almighty till it becomes inwoven with his spirit — saying ‘the holiness of God has always appeared to me the loveliest of all his attributes.” In Rutherford, we see one gazing in adoring affection upon the person of Jesus Christ, while he is “changed into the same image from glory to glory.” In Woolman, we witness one with eye turned in upon the Spirit dwelling in the heart, and through “a mind clothed with inward prayer’’ receiving his light and love and purity till he is deeply assimilated to Him. ‘ But all these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will,”

We judge it true that holiness is that grace which renders us most like to God. ‘ After God created in righteousness and true holiness,” says the Scripture. Is such a sentiment as humility possible with God? we may ask then, since it is such an essential element in the holiness of man. Looking at God as a Trinity we see that it is, and that it is very manifestly revealed. The Son is ever humbling himself before the Father. “The words that I speak unto you, / speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.” * The Holy Spirit in like manner is ever subject unto the Son. “He shall not speak of himself,. .. for he shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you.” Oh blessed example for us, that even between the persons of the Godhead there is that holy deference and reverent subjection, which makes each to exalt the other and not Himself. May we study the lesson deeply.

And this leads us to borrow still another ray of light on this subject from a well approved life — that of the beloved Scotch preacher, Robert Murray McCheyne — “beloved for the father’s sakes,” we might say, since more than any other in latter times he revived among his nation the spirit and power of the old Covenanters. He sought for

* John 14: 10. t John 163 14, holiness as for hid treasures, and he gained it in such manner that his life produced a kind of awe and anger among formal Christians, so that once even they took up stones to stone him. But as in the beginning, while of the unbelieving “no man durst join himself” to him, believers in great numbers were through him added to the church.

He recognized more distinctly than any with whom we are acquainted, that “the highway of holiness’ can only be entered through the valley of humiliation. So intensely did he realize this truth that he was constantly watching lest his striving for high attainments might become a snare to him, and that he should be proud of his humility and conscious of his consecration. He

writes : —

“‘ Now remember that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone. Looking at our own shining face is the bane of the spiritual life and of the ministry. O for closest communion with God, till soul and body — head, face and heart — shine with divine brilliancy.

But O for a holy ignorance of our shining.” *

Is not here a serious suggestion for such as may

* Memoir of McCheyne — Bonar, p. 118.

have been tempted to make professions of holiness? The most fatal temptation, we venture to say, that can be presented to the Christian heart! The light is clear when we look through it at the object of our vision, and are not sensible of its presence; but if there be something in it of bright vapor or cloudy smoke which attracts our attention, it is evident enough that it is no longer clear. And in like manner it is plain that when our holiness or our humility, instead of being the transparent medium of our communion with Christ, attract our attention and remark, they greatly lack in genuineness and simplicity. Alas! what an omnipresent failing is pride! It is certain to perch on every high attainment like a bird of ill omen to defile it with its presence. Spiritual successes and holy acquirements are no more exempt from its intrusions than temporal. Hear Mc-Cheyne again: —

July 8, 1836. “To-day missed sonie fine opportunities of speaking a word for Christ. ‘The Lord saw I would have spoken as much for my own honor as his, and therefore shut my mouth. J see a man cannot be a faithful minister until he preach Christ for Christ’s sake — until he gives up striving to attract people to himself and seeks only to attract them to Christ. Lord, give me this! ’”*

This is close dealing. It is self-examination cutting to the quick. Would that every minister of the gospel might write these italicised words upon his frontlet, or those other words of good Philip Henry, ‘‘ Preach Christ crucified tn a cruct fied style.’ In no way probably are our efforts after holiness so thwarted, as by the intrusion of self-seeking and ambition into those places which should be filled with Christ only.+

As Michael Angelo wore a lamp on his cap to prevent his own shadow from being thrown upon the picture which he was painting, so the Christian minister and servant needs to have the candle of the Spirit always burning in his heart, lest the reflection of self and self-glorying may fall upon his work to darken and defile it. To show how genuine a trait of holiness this self-repression is, we recall the words of Edward Payson touching

the same point : —

* Memoir, p. 44.

+ We call up John Woolman again to quote his artless words on this point. “I was jealous of myself Zest I should say anything to make my testimony look agreeable to that mind in the people which is not in pure obedience to the cross of Christ.”

“April 1, 1806.

“Spiritual pride. By how many artifices does it contrive to show itself! If at any time I am favored with clearer discoveries of my natural and acquired depravity and hatefulness in the sight of God, and am enabled to mourn over it, in comes spiritual pride with, Aye, this is something like. This ts holy mourning for SU EMIS ES IPUC POUTALLILN 5 wi an What a proof that the heart is the natural soil of pride, when it thus contrives to gather strength from the very exercises which one would think must destroy it utterly.’’*

Let any who may have fallen into the fatal snare of claiming to be holy ponder these words. Here were two servants of Christ who are believed to have approached as near the throne as any in recent times. But what conviction and self-abhorrence did this approach beget. As the light of the knowledge of the glory of God intensified, the shadows of humiliation deepened more and more.

* Payson’s Memoir, p. 46.

4 ‘© From henceforth let us resemble the seraphim, who cover their faces with two of their wings as expressing their humiliation; with two others their feet as concealing their obedient steps from every creature-eye but their own; and with the remaining two flying, to execute the will of God, while they cry one to another, ‘Holy, holy holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.’”

—A. Rochat,

—s

As it was with Edwards, who in the same sentence wherein he says, that God appeared to him as ‘an infinite fountain of divine glory and sweetness, being full and sufficient to satisfy the soul, pouring forth itself in sweet communications like the sun in its glory,” adds also, “Wy wickedness appeared tome perfectly ineffable and swallowing up all thought and imagination like an infinite deluge or mountains over my head,” so it was preéminently with these servants of the Lord. In Payson we have an extraordinary example of the results of spiritual culture. We may call him the Protestant ascetic. In his determined pursuit of holiness he mortified his body to the last degree of endurance. He prolonged his fasts till his friends begged and importuned him to stay his severities, lest his health should give way. And his bodily rigors were only the shadow of his spiritual. He hunted sin through all its retreats, unmasked it, chastised it, slew it with a determination which gave no quarter. We cannot commend his immoderate asceticism, by which his health was impaired and his days shortened. We think also that as in the case of Brainerd, there was a sombreness in his

piety which is not calculated to win men to a love of consecration. But oh, for a few present illus- ‘trations of such holiness as his! How it amazed and dazzled men by its excess of brightness. The anger of the worldling dashed madly against it; the reproach of Christ fell where the image of Christ was so conspicuously fixed. But the holy life triumphed forever when dissolution set its stamp upon his brow. Behold him in the chamber of death. His white face is turned calmly up toward heaven; his pastoral hands are folded across his breast; on his burial shroud is pinned a paper bearing this inscription: ‘“Remember the words which I spake unto you while I was yet present with you.” And as the hushed throng passes by for the last look, it is like the multitude returning from the cross, smiting on the breast and each saying to himself, “truly this was a righteous man.” Payson in his death chamber at Portland, McCheyne, borne from St. Peter’s in Dundee, while the sorrowing multitudes present a scene of lamentation like the mourning over the good king Josiah — let us ponder these two scenes, and be persuaded chat with all it has lost, our poor world has yet an instinct which honors holiness, and will at last lay upon it its tribute of approval.

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Would now that from all these examples of holy living we might gain a strong incitement to follow in the same way. For holiness is the true birth-trait and characteristic of the sons of God. If we are “partakers of the divine nature’ we must exhibit the essential mark of that nature, which is holiness, or, as the Scripture says, we must be made “‘partakers of his holiness.” “This justifies us to be the sons of God, when He hath taken a slip from His purity, and engrafted it in our spirits; He can never own us for His children without His mark, the stamp of holiness. Our spiritual extraction from Him is but pretended unless we do things worthy of so illustrious a birth, and becoming the honor of so great a Father. What evidence can we else have of a childlike love to God, since the proper act of love is to imitate the object of our affections?” *

As holiness gives the strongest evidence and testimony that we are of God and from God as to our spiritual origin, so it furnishes the best warrant of our going to God when our course is finished. ‘Holiness without which no man shall see the Lord,” says the Scripture. Here or here- * Stephen Charnock, 1628-1680.

after, it is impossible that the soul should have any clear vision of God, except through the medium of that purity which is the most essential element of his nature. “In thy light shall we see light” — and holiness is the light with which God clothes himself as with a garment. The more of this we have, the more of present communion shall we enjoy; the nearer we shall come to the spirit of the Most Holy, and the more shall we know of Him whose ways are unsearchable. And so likewise in the future. For in the world to come what would it profit us that heaven’s gates were open to us unless heaven’s garment were upon us? Were we to be placed there in our native impurity we should be unspeakably miserable. The eye of God, under whose gaze all pure spirits rest in holy delight, would bring naught but torment to us. We should wish only to escape from his presence, and to find in the rocks and mountains a hiding-place from Him that sitteth on the throne and from the Lamb forever.

Therefore with all self denial and communion, with all putting off of the old man and putting on of the new man, let us seek to be conformed to the image of God, “to the end he may establish our hearts unblamable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.”