Thoughts on the Spiritual Life

The following chapters have been written as a sequel, in some sort, to two little volumes alreadypublished, “Thoughts on Christian Sanctity,” and “Thoughts on Union with Christ.” The writer here takes for granted much which has been spoken of in detail there. On the other hand, as this book may of coarse fall into the hands of readers who have not seen those, no over-carefiil effort has been made to avoid re-statements altogether.

In most cases the chapters are headed by words of Holy Scripture. Throughout the book the author has sought to keep in constant view the promises, cautions, and precepts of the written Word, as the one sure basis and final appeal in ail things concerning the source and action of the regenerate life. Every year brings its fresh witness to the need of a watchful, loving, and most reverent loyalty to the Holy Scriptures, for all who would not drift they know not where from “the hope set before us.”

vili Prefatory Note.

In writing, the author has had much in his heart and thoughts the spiritual needs of those engaged in more or less direct work for the kingdom of our Lord.

Earnestly does he request the prayers of his readers, whatever be their convictions on the subjects here treated. He asks for the prayer that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Master, may in some way be magnified in these pages, and that His bondservant may know better and better the blessedness of living by Him and for Him alone. To Him, speaking in His Word, what is written is wholly submitted.

Ridley Hall, Cambridge,

St Lukes E-ve, Oct. 17, 1887.

Gal. ii. 20. — The life which I live in the flesh I live by the faith of {i.e., by faith in) the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Joh. vi. 29. — This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.

We are about to engage in some thoughts on the principles and practice of the Spiritual Life. That Life, as to its source and secret, is “in the Son of God,” i Job. the Gift of the Father; in Him who is “the Life,” as well as “the Way and the Joh. x Truth.” As to its reception, it is received in receiving Him; “he that hath i Joh. the Son hath the life.” As to its issue. exercise, and manifestation, it is the doing*

of the Will of God in all things, with a chastened, penitent, peaceful and loving confidence in Him as He is revealed and reconciled in Jesus Christ our Lord. As to its standard, it recognizes nothing lower

ijoh. iii. than His revealed h9liness; “even as He is pure.” As to its purpose and hope, it looks, with a faith reposed upon His

I Thess. promise and power, to “walk pleasing Him” here and now, under the shelter of the atoning Cross, and hereafter to

t Joh.iii. be indeed “like Him, seeing Him as He is.”

As to its beginning and its maintenance, both of them are, from the divine side, by the Holy Spirit, “the Lord, the Giver of Life,” who brings Christ and the soul together. From the side of human experience, both of them are by faith, by submissive reliance on the promise and the Promiser. Faith is the hand that accepts the bread and the water of Life, the mouth that eats and that drinks them. From first to last the Life of God, like the Righteousness of God, “is Rom. revealed from faith to faith.”

First among our detailed thoughts upon this sacred Life I place now this — an enquiry into the place of Spiritual Effort in a life which is as yet in its essence everywhere and always a walk by faith, a life of faith. There is such a place. Work (I speak here of the spiritual and internal kind of work) not only has a function beside that of the happy quietism of a God-given reliance on the Lord and reception out of His fulness; it has a deep relation to it and connexion with it.

This connexion is not always recognized in Christian thought and exposition. Things are sometimes said about the life of holy faith, the life of rest upon and in the Son of God, which leave, or seem to leave, no place for spiritual effort and resolve. Yet the Scriptures have very much to say about these latter things. J Pet. i. They speak of “girding up the loins of Phil. ii. the mind,” of “working out salvation,” Heb. iv. being in earnest “(our English Bible “• renders it” labouring “)” to enter into

2 Pet. i. the “heavenly “rest,” of “giving diligence to make our calling and election I Thess. sure,” of” watching and being sober,” of I’Cor.ix. “keeping under the body and bringing it Col. iv. into subjection,” of “labouring fervently ^^’ in prayer.” We may be very sure, then,

that this fact of spiritual effort is no accident of the Spiritual Life, but a large and vital truth in it. It would be strange if it were otherwise. All conscious personal life has much to do with exercise and effort in the course of its healthful development. A life, conscious and personal, which should be a life of mere and pure quiescence, would hardly be a life worth living. Could we wish for such a condition of the Spiritual Life?

In the passages quoted at the head of this chapter we find some divine suggestions of the true connexion between the repose of faith and resolute spiritual exertion.

i. In the words to the Galatians St Paul puts before us, from his own experience, that delightful truth, dear to saints of all times and very specially called to remembrance in our own — the truth that the believer’s life “in the flesh,” amidst concrete conditions and surroundings in a fallen world, is to be continuously lived by faith. He is to “act, and grow, and thrive,” to deny self, and bear the cross, and bring forth fruit, by faith; by repose and reliance on his Lord and Head, by a perpetual turning to, and looking to, and receiving from, the Lord Jesus Christ, in all the fulness, and glory, and beauty, of His Person and Work.

The divine method of spiritual victory and service lies in this, that our life is by faith, by submissive trust.

By submissive trust we entered, at our spiritual new birth, at our true coming to Christ, beneath the blessed covert of Justification; and there we abide and remain, never to venture from beneath it for one moment to the end; never to step out on to the forbidden and fatal ground of acceptance for our works’ sake, for our state’s sake.

And now meantime, by the same way, by submissive trust, we who dwell beneath that covert are to gather up there this great treasure of power and peace. He who is our justifying and imputed Righteousness is also, by His Spirit, our sanctifying and inherent Life; and it is faith, mere and simple faith, submissive trust, that receives and feeds on Him as such. To His life and victory, lo His holy fulness, we unite ourselves by faith, and by faith only. When temptation comes, our method is to fall back upon and to stand in our King who has conquered for us; to join ourselves, we may say, to His victory; to act upon the fact that we are joined to Him who has overcome, who is the Overcomer. So trusting, so living, His victory is for me, is mine, is as it were conveyed to His member, to me. Here is our answer, for example, to the problem and torture of vain and evil thoughts, that stir as if uncontrollable in the mind. What are we to do.? We entrust ourselves to the Son of God, who by His Spirit, by the Holy Comforter, dwells in us and we in Him. By implicit trust we unite our weary selves, in a special sense for the special need, to Him who in His impeccable and now glorified Manhood has won the victory over every form of evil, for us His members, His body. Again and again let us press home that truth upon our souls. Let nothing becloud it for us. Let no discussion over its details, nay, let no distortions, exaggerations, or parodies of it, make us doubt the thing itself, or forget to use it. The life of peace, of patience, of simplicity, of purity, of hope, of love — the holy liferit is the gift, the ever present gift, of God; and it is given through faith in His blessed Son. Not long ago I met with a passage to this purpose in the life of that truly great Christian, Dr Thomas Chalmers; a man who certainly was no visionary, no dreamer. It occurs in his diary, of the year 1813 {Memoir, vol. i. p. 327): — “Was fatigued by exertion, and instead of following after God by hard straining of the mind, I gave myself to quietism, and feel that looking up for the Spirit through Jesus Christ is the only effectual attitude for obtaining love to God and filial confidence in Him.” *

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