I give myself unto prayer. Psalm
119:4
OH, give yourself to prayer! Say not that your censer has
nothing to offer; that it contains no sweet spices, no fire, no
incense. Repair with it, all empty and cold as it is, to the
great High Priest, and as you gaze in faith upon Him who is the
Altar, the slain Lamb, and the Priest, thus musing upon this
wondrous spectacle of Jesus' sacrifice for you, His Spirit will
cast the sweet spices of grace, and the glowing embers of love,
into your dull, cold hearts, and there will come forth a cloud
of precious incense, which shall ascend with the "much incense"
of the Savior's merits, an "offering and a sacrifice to God of a
sweet-smelling savor." Nor forget that there is evening as well
as morning incense. "When Aaron lights the lamps at even, he
shall burn incense." And thus, when the day-season of your
prosperity and joy is passed, and the evening of adversity,
sorrow, and loneliness draws its somber curtains around you,
then take your censer and wave it before the Lord. Ah! methinks
at that hour of solemn stillness and of mournful solitude—that
hour when all human support and sympathy fails—that then the
sweetest incense of prayer ascends before God. Yes, there is no
prayer so true, so powerful, so fragrant, as that which sorrow
presses from the heart. Oh, betake yourself, suffering believer,
to prayer. Bring forth your censer, sorrowful priest of the
Lord! Replenish it at the altar of Calvary, and then wave it
with a strong hand before God, until your person, your sorrows,
and your guilt are all enveloped and lost in the cloud of sweet
incense as it rises before the throne, and blends with the
ascending cloud of the Redeemer's precious intercession. Prayer
will soothe you—prayer will calm you—prayer will unburden your
heart—prayer will remove or mitigate your pain—prayer will heal
your sickness, or make your sickness pleasant to bear—prayer
will expel the tempter—prayer will bring Jesus sensibly near to
your soul—prayer will lift your heart to heaven, and will bring
heaven down into your heart. Mourning Christian, give but
yourself unto prayer in the hour of your sorrow and loneliness,
and your breathings, sent up to heaven in tremulous accents,
shall return into your own disconsolate and desolate heart, all
rich and redolent of heaven's sweet consolations. The holy
breathings which ascend from a believer's heart gather and
accumulate in the upper skies, and when most he needs the
refreshing, they descend again in covenant blessings upon his
soul. That feeble desire, that faint breathing of the soul after
God, and Jesus, and holiness, and heaven, shall never perish. It
was, perhaps, so weak and tremulous, so mixed with grief and
sorrow, so burdened with complaint and sin, that you could
scarcely discern it to be real prayer, and yet, ascending from a
heart inhabited by God's Holy Spirit, and touched by God's love,
it rose like the incense-cloud before the throne of the Eternal,
and blended with the fragrance of heaven
Octavius Winslow
"For as the sufferings of Christ abound in
us, so our consolation also abounds by Christ." 2 Corinthians 1:5
Christian reader, we suppose you to be no stranger to grief; your heart has
known what sorrow is; you have borne, perhaps for years, some heavy, painful,
yet concealed cross. Over it, in the solitude and silence of privacy, you have
wept, agonized, and prayed. And still the cross, though mitigated, is not
removed. Have you ever thought of the sympathy of Christ? Have you ever thought
of Him, as bearing that cross with you?—as entering into its peculiarity, its
minutest circumstance? Oh, there is a fiber in His heart that sympathizes, there
is a chord there that vibrates, to that grief of yours. That cross He is bearing
with you at this moment; and although you may feel it to be so heavy and
painful, as to be lost to the sweet consciousness of this, still it rests on
Him, as on you; and were He to remove His shoulder but for a moment, you would
be crushed beneath its pressure. "Then why, if so tender and sympathizing, does
He place upon me this cross?" Because of His wisdom and love. He sees you need
that cross. You have carried it, it may be, for years: who can tell where and
what you would have been at this moment, but for this very cross? What evil in
you it may have checked; what corruption in you it may have subdued; what
constitutional infirmities it may have weakened; from what lengths it has kept
you; from what rocks and precipices it has guarded you; and what good it has
been silently and secretly, yet effectually, working in you all the long years
of your life—who can tell but God Himself? The removal of that cross might have
been the removal of your greatest mercy. Hush, then, every murmur; be still, and
know that He is God; and that all these trials, these sufferings, these untoward
circumstances, are now working together for your good and His glory.
And what would you know, may we not ask, of Jesus—His tenderness, and love, and
sympathizing heart—but for the rough and thorny path along which you have been
thus led? The glory and fullness, the preciousness and sympathy of Christ are
not learned in every circumstance of life. The hour of prosperity, when
everything passes smoothly on—providences smiling—the heart's surface
unruffled—the gladsome sunlight of creature-happiness gilding every prospect
with its brightness—this is not the hour, nor these the circumstances, most
favorable to an experimental acquaintance with Christ. It is in the dark hour of
suffering—the hour of trial and of adversity, when the sea is rough, and the sky
is lowering, and providences are mysterious, and the heart is agitated, and hope
is disappointed—its bud nipped, and its stem broken, and creature comfort and
support fail—oh, then it is the fullness, and preciousness, and tenderness of
Jesus are learned. Then it is the heart loosens its hold on created objects, and
entwines itself more fondly and more closely around the Incarnate Son of God.
Blessed Jesus! You Brother born for our every adversity! did You take our nature
into union with Your own? And can You, do You, weep when we weep, and rejoice
when we rejoice? O You adorable Son of God! we stand amazed, and are lost in
this love, this condescension, and this sympathy of Your. Draw our hearts to
Yourself; let our affections rise and meet in You, their center, and cling to
You, their all.
Octavius Winslow
"And many other
signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not
written in this book: but these are written, that you might believe that Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you might have life through
his name." John 20:30, 31
All the value and efficacy of the atoning blood is derived solely and entirely
from the dignity of the person who sheds it. If Christ do not be absolutely and
truly what the word of God declares, and what He Himself professes to be, the
true God, then, as it regards the great purpose for which His atonement was
made, namely, the satisfaction of Divine Justice, in a full and entire sacrifice
for sin, it were utterly valueless. We feel the vast and solemn importance of
this point; it is of the deepest moment—it is the key-stone of the arch,
sustaining and holding together every part of the mighty fabric. Our examination
of the claims of Christ to proper Deity cannot be too close; we cannot too
rigidly scrutinize the truth of His Godhead; Jesus Himself challenges
investigation. When personally upon earth, carrying forward the great work of
redemption, on all occasions, and by all means, He announced and proved His
Deity. Thus was He used to declare it—"I and my Father are one." "Verily,
verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I AM." "I come forth from the
Father, and am come into the world; again, I leave the world and go to the
Father." Thus was He used to confirm it—"I have greater witness than that of
John; for the works which the Father has given me to finish, the same works that
I do, bear witness of me that the Father has sent me." "If I do not the works of
my Father, believe me not; but if I do, though you believe not me, believe the
works; that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in Him."
Our blessed Lord saw and felt the importance of a full belief in the doctrine of
His Godhead. If the foundation of our faith were not laid deep and broad in
this, He well knew that no structure, however splendid in its external form,
could survive the storm that will eventually sweep away every lying refuge. And
what, to the believing soul, is more animating than the full unwavering
conviction of the fact, that He who bore our sins in His own body on the tree
was God in our nature? that He who became our surety and substitute was Jehovah
Himself—"God manifest in the flesh?" that, as God, He became incarnate—as God,
He obeyed, and as God-man, He suffered the penalty? What deep views does this
fact give of sin! what exalted views of sin's atonement! Pray, dear reader, that
the blessed and eternal Spirit may build you up in the belief of this truth. It
is a truth on which we can live, and on no other can we die. That Satan should
often suggest suspicions to the mind respecting the veracity of this doctrine we
can easily imagine. That a dear saint of God should at times find his faith
wavering in its attempts to grasp this wondrous fact, "the incarnate mystery,"
we marvel not. It is the very basis of his hope; is it surprising that Satan
should strive to overturn it? Satan's great controversy is with Christ. Christ
came to overthrow his kingdom, and He did overthrow it. Christ came to vanquish
him, and He triumphed. This signal and total defeat Satan will never forget. To
regain his kingdom he cannot. To recover what he has lost he knows to be
impossible. Therefore his shafts are leveled against Christ's members; and the
doctrine, to them most essential and precious—the doctrine of Christ's
Godhead—is the doctrine most frequently and severely assailed. Let no believer
sink in despondency under this severe temptation. Let him look afresh to the
cross, afresh to the atoning blood, and faith in Him, whose word stilled the
angry waves of the Galilean lake, and whose look prostrated to the ground the
soldiers sent to His arrest, will give Him the victory.
Octavius Winslow
"Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in
the heavens." Lamentations 3:41
Prayer is the spiritual pulse of the renewed soul; its beat indicates the
healthy or unhealthy state of the believer. Just as the physician would
decide upon the health of the body from the action of the pulse, so would we
decide upon the spiritual health of the soul before God, by the estimation
in which prayer is held by the believer. If the soul is in a spiritually
healthy, growing state, prayer will be vigorous, lively, spiritual, and
constant; if, on the contrary, the heart is wandering, and love waxes cold,
and faith is decaying, the spirit and the habit of prayer will immediately
betray it.
The spirit of prayer may decline in the believer, and he may not at once be
sensible of it. The form and the habit of prayer may for a while
continue—but the spirit of prayer has evaporated, and all is coldness and
dullness—the very torpor and frigidity of death! But of what real worth is
the habit of prayer, apart from the spirit of prayer? Just what this planet
would be without the sun, or the body without the living, animating,
breathing soul—what but a cold, lifeless form? Yes, and a believer may be
beguiled into this lamentable state, and not a suspicion of its existence be
awakened; he may observe his accustomed habit, and use his empty form, and
not suspect that all is cold and breathless as death itself. Oh, it is not
the rigidly-observed form that God looks at; nor is it great volubility, and
eloquent fluency, and rich sentiment, and splendid imagery, and rounded
periods, that God regards: far from this; a man may not be able to give
expression to his deep emotion in prayer, his thoughts may find no vehicle
of utterance, language may entirely fail him; and yet the spirit of prayer
may glow in his breast—and this—the true language of prayer—finds its way to
the ear and to the heart of God. Reader, look well to the state of your
soul; examine your prayers; see that you have not substituted the cold form
for the glowing spirit—the mere body for the soul. Real prayer is the
breathing of God's own Spirit in the heart: have you this? It is communion
and fellowship with God: know you what this is? It is brokenness,
contrition, confession, and that often springing from an overwhelming sense
of His goodness and His love shed abroad in the heart: is this your
experience? Again, we repeat it, look well to your prayers; test them, not
by the natural or acquired gift which you may possess—this is nothing with
God; but test them by the real communion you have with God—the returns they
make to your soul.
There should be the searching out and the removal of that which hinders
prayer. Many things weaken true prayer: unsubdued sin—unrepented
sin—unpardoned sin (we mean the secret sense of it upon the
conscience)—worldly-mindedness—light and trifling conversation, vain
disputations—much and frequent communion either with unconverted
individuals, or cold and formal professors—all these combined, or any single
one, will, if suffered to prevail, unfit the mind for converse with God, and
cause a decay of the spirit of prayer in the soul. Regard that as injurious
which touches the devotional frame of your mind, which abridges the hour of
prayer, and removes the fine edge of its holy enjoyment.
Octavius Winslow
"So then, after the Lord
had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand
of God." Mark 16:19
The circumstance of the Lord's ascension and exaltation meets with frequent and
marked allusion in the word of God. The Holy Spirit has attached to the fact the
greatest weight. The writings of the Old Testament frequently and distinctly
speak of it. Thus, in Psalm 47:5, "God is gone up with a shout; the Lord with
the sound of a trumpet." It is impossible to misunderstand the obvious allusion
of these words. He came down as God; He went up as "God manifest in the flesh."
The ascension was worthy of His Deity. It was royal and triumphant. He went up
as a "great King," and as a mighty Conqueror, "leading captivity captive."
Attended by a celestial escort, and amid the shouts and acclamations of all the
heavenly hierarchy, He passed within the portals of glory. The demand was made,
the challenge was given, the answer was returned: "Lift up your heads, O you
gates; and be you lift up, you everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall
come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty—the Lord mighty
in battle. Lift up your heads, O you gates; even lift them up, you everlasting
doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord
of hosts, He is the King of glory." Yes, our Immanuel, God with us, is "gone up
with a shout;" the Lord, JEHOVAH-JESUS, "with the sound of a trumpet." And
although no echo of the heavenly minstrelsy was heard on earth, and the cloud
which received Him veiled His receding form from the gaze of His disciples,
hiding from the view the deepening glory which encircled His ascending flight,
yet all heaven reverberated with the song, and grew resplendent with the majesty
of His entrance within its gates.
The scene and the circumstances of our Lord's ascension were of thrilling
interest, and deeply spiritual in their meaning. The period, which it is
important distinctly to specify, was just forty days after His resurrection;
thus affording ample time to establish, by the most irrefragable proof and
tangible evidence, this master-fact of His history. Not only did He take this
occasion to answer all the reasonings, and resolve all the doubts, of His still
incredulous disciples, but He crowded into this brief space of time instructions
the most needed, precious, and momentous to the well-being of His church.
Drawing closer around Him, as if by the new and more powerful attraction of His
risen body, His devoted apostles—the future builders of His spiritual temple—He
proceeds to renew their divine commission to preach the gospel, widening it to
the exigencies of the world that gospel was intended to bless. Opening their
understandings more perfectly to understand the Scriptures, He cleared and
enlarged their view of His Divine nature, the spiritual character of His
kingdom, and the offices, ordinances, and discipline which were to be observed
in each gospel-constituted section of His church. Thus, even after His atoning
work was finished, and the great seal of heaven was affixed to it, our adorable
Lord was still engaged in His Father's business, still intent upon promoting His
glory, and the eternal welfare of His people. Oh, what love was the love of our
Immanuel!
Let us now ascend in spirit with Jesus, and contemplate the glory of His
exaltation. His entrance into heaven was the signal for the full development of
His mediatorial power and glory. This was the promise of His Father, and this
the reward of His death. "I have set my King upon my holy hill of Zion." "Unto
the Son He says, Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever." "I appoint unto
you," says Christ, "a kingdom, as my Father has appointed unto me." Thus His
exaltation at the right hand of the Father was His full induction into His
mediatorial kingdom. Now was He exalted "heir of all things"—now were "all
things put under His feet"—now "all power in heaven and on earth was given to
Him;" and from that moment that He touched the crown, and grasped the scepter,
and the government was placed upon His shoulder, His truth was to advance, and
His kingdom widen, with ever-growing power, until, supplanting all error, and
subduing all kingdoms, He was to reign "King of kings and Lord of lords."
Octavius Winslow
"Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all
mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit
within me. Cast me not away from your presence; and take not your Holy
Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of your salvation; and uphold me
with your free Spirit." Psalm 51:9-12
All religion that excludes as its basis the state of mind portrayed in these
words is as the shell without the pearl, the body without the spirit. It has
ever been a leading and favorite scheme of Satan to persuade men to
substitute the religion of man for the religion of God. The religion of man
has assumed various forms and modifications, always accommodating itself to
the peculiar age and history of the world. But we have observed that the
religion of man—be its form what it may—has ever kept at the remotest
distance from the spiritual; everything that brought the mind in contact
with truth, and the conscience and the heart into close converse with itself
and with God, it has studiously and carefully avoided; and thus it has
evaded that state and condition of the moral man which constitutes the very
soul of the religion of God—"the broken and contrite heart."
The state of holy contrition described in these words of David mark an
advanced stage in the experience of the spiritual man; a stage which defines
one of the most interesting periods of the Christian's life—the Divine
restoring. David was a backslider. Deeply and grievously had he departed
from God. But he was a restored backslider, and, in the portion we are now
considering, we have the unfoldings of his sorrow-stricken, penitent, and
broken heart—forming, perhaps, to some who read this page, the sweetest
portion of God's word. But of the truth of this we are quite assured, that
in proportion as we are brought into the condition of godly sorrow for sin,
deep humiliation for our backslidings from God, our relapses, and
declensions in grace, there is no portion of the sacred word that will so
truly express the deep emotions of our hearts, no language so fitted to
clothe the feelings of our souls, as this psalm of the royal penitent: "Have
mercy upon me, O God, according to Your loving-kindness: according unto the
multitude of Your tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me
thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge
my transgressions; and my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, have
I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight: that You might be justified when
You speak, and be clear when You judge." Thus upon the altar of God he lays
the sacrifice of a broken heart, and seems to exclaim, "Wretch that I am, to
have forsaken such a God, to have left such a Father, Savior, and Friend!
Has He ever been unto me a wilderness—a barren land? Never! Have I ever
found Him a broken cistern? Never! Has He ever proved to me unkind,
unfaithful, untrue? Never! What! did not God satisfy me, had not Jesus
enough for me, did not a throne of grace make me happy, that I should have
turned my back upon such a God, should have forsaken such a bosom as
Christ's, and slighted the spot where my heavenly Father had been so often
used to meet and commune with me? Lord! great has been my departure,
grievous my sin, and now most bitter is my sorrow—here at Your feet, upon
Your altar, red with the blood of Your own sin-atoning sacrifice, I lay my
poor broken, contrite heart, and beseech You to accept and heal it."
"Behold, I fall before Your face;
My only refuge is Your grace.
No outward forms can make me clean;
The leprosy lies deep within."
Such is the holy contrition which the Spirit of God works in the heart of
the restored believer. Brought beneath the cross, and in the sight of the
crucified Savior, the heart is broken, the spirit is melted, the eye weeps,
the tongue confesses, the bones that were broken rejoice, and the contrite
child is once more clasped in his Father's forgiving, reconciled embrace.
"He restores my soul," is his grateful and adoring exclamation. Oh what a
glorious God is ours, and what vile wretches are we!
Octavius Winslow
"I pray with all my heart; answer me,
Lord! I will obey your principles. I cry out to you; save me, that I may
obey your decrees. I rise early, before the sun is up; I cry out for help
and put my hope in your words. I stay awake through the night, thinking
about your promise." Psalm 119:145-148
To be heavenly-minded, in the true and scriptural sense, is to carry our
holy Christianity into every department of life, and with it to elevate and
hallow every relation and engagement. There is no position in which the
providence of God places His saints, for which the grace of Jesus is not all
sufficient, if sincerely and earnestly sought. Nor is there any sphere,
however humble, or calling, however mean, to which the life of Jesus in the
soul may not impart dignity, luster, and sacredness. Christianity, through
all grades, and classes, and occupations, is capable of diffusing a divine,
hallowing, and ennobling influence, transforming and sanctifying all that it
touches. Blessed and holy are they who know it from personal and heartfelt
experience.
But "if we be risen with Christ," what is it to seek those things which are
above, and to set our affections not on things on the earth? In other words,
what is true heavenly-mindedness? It involves the habitual and close
converse with God. The life of the soul can only be sustained by constant
and ceaseless emanations from the life of God. There must be a perpetual
stream of existence flowing into it from the "Fountain of Life." And how can
this be experienced but by dwelling near that Fountain? Of no practical
truth am I more deeply and solemnly convinced than this, that elevated
spirituality—and, oh, what a blank is life without it!—can only be
cultivated and maintained by elevated communion. The most holy,
heavenly-minded, devoted, and useful saints have ever been men and women of
much prayer. They wrestled with God secretly, and God wrought with them
openly; and this was the source which fed their deep godliness, which
supplied their rich anointing, and which contributed to their extensive and
successful labors for Christ. Thus only can the life of God in the soul of
man be sustained. Other duties, however spiritual—other enjoyments, however
holy—other means of grace, however important and necessary, never can supply
the place of prayer. And why? because prayer brings the soul in immediate
contact with Christ, who is our life, and with God, the Fountain of life. As
the total absence of the breath of prayer marks the soul "dead in trespasses
and sins," so the waning of the spirit of prayer in the quickened soul as
surely defines a state in which all that is spiritual within is "ready to
die." Let nothing, then, rob you of this precious mean of advancing your
heavenly-mindedness—nothing can be its substitute.
The believer should correctly ascertain the true character of his prayers.
Are they lively and spiritual? Are they the exercises of the heart, or of
the understanding merely? Are they the breathings of the indwelling Spirit,
or the cold observance of a form without the power? Is it communion and
fellowship? Is it the filial approach of a child, rushing with confidence
and affection into the bosom of a Father, and sheltering itself there in
every hour of need? Examine the character of your devotions; are they such
as will stand the test of God's word? will they compare with the holy
breathings of David, and Job, and Solomon, and the New Testament saints? Are
they the breathings forth of the life of God within you? Are they ever
accompanied with filial brokenness, lowliness of spirit, and humble and
contrite confession of sin? See well to your prayers! "The Lord is far from
the wicked: but He hears the prayer of the righteous." "The Lord is near
unto all those who call upon Him, to all that call upon Him in truth."
Octavius Winslow
"For God, who commanded the light to shine
out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." 2 Corinthians 4:6
That God was under any obligation or necessity to reveal Himself to man, is an
idea that cannot for a moment be seriously entertained. It will follow, then,
that such a revelation of Himself, His mind and will, to fallen creatures,
having been made, it must be regarded as an astounding act of His sovereign
mercy, irrespective of any claim whatever arising from the creature man. The
source where it originates must be entirely within God Himself.
The only full and perfect revelation of the glory of God is seen in the Lord
Jesus; and apart from a spiritual and experimental knowledge of the Son there
can be no true, adequate, and saving knowledge of the Father. "No man has seen
God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he
has declared Him." The vast importance of a correct knowledge of God is a truth
which finds an assent in well-near every judgment. Every awakened conscience
desires it; every believing mind admits it; every tried soul feels it. It lies
at the basis of salvation; it forms the material of happiness; it supplies the
true motive to holiness; it is the ground-work and the prelude of future and
eternal glory.
As all knowledge of God out of Christ is defective and fallacious, examine
closely, and in the light of the revealed word, the source and character of your
professed acquaintance with the nature, character, and perfections of God.
Ponder seriously this solemn declaration of Christ Himself. "No man knows the
Son, but the Father; neither knows any man the Father, save the Son, and he to
whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." Has your knowledge of God overwhelmed you
with a sense of your sinfulness? Have you caught such a view of the Divine
purity, the immaculate holiness of His nature, as to compel you to exclaim, "Woe
is me! for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips,…for mine eyes have
seen the King, the Lord of Hosts; why I abhor myself, and repent in dust and
ashes?" Has your study of His law forced upon your mind the deep and solemn
conviction that you are a fallen, ruined, lost, guilty, condemned sinner, at
this moment lying under the wrath of God, and exposed to future and everlasting
destruction from the presence of the Lord, and the glory of His power? Has it
laid you beneath the cross of Christ? Has it brought you to His blood and
righteousness for pardon and acceptance? Has it led you utterly to renounce all
self-trust, self-confidence, self-boasting, and to accept of Jesus, as "made of
God unto you wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption"? If
it has not wrought this for you, your knowledge of God is but as "sounding brass
or a tinkling cymbal." "This," says Christ, "is life eternal, that they might
know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent." If you know
not the Son, you know not the Father. "No man knows the Father, but he to whom
the Son shall reveal Him,"—Jesus Himself has declared. Consider well the mercy
of having transactions with such a God, in such a Christ. A God so holy and
just, so good and wise, in a Christ so truly human, so spotless, so near, so
dear and precious! God in Christ! Oh the immensity of the truth! Oh the glory of
the revelation! That God reconciled, one with the believer; all His feelings
love, all His thoughts peace, and all His dealings parental; each perfection
harmonizing in the most perfect agreement with all the others, to secure the
highest amount of good here, and of happiness unspeakable and eternal hereafter.
Octavius Winslow
"I have surely heard
Ephraim bemoaning
himself thus; You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock
unaccustomed to the yoke: turn you me, and I shall be turned; for you are
the Lord my God. Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that
I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yes, even
confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth." Jeremiah 31:18, 19
The divine life in the soul of man is indestructible—it cannot perish; the
seed that grace has implanted in the heart is incorruptible—it cannot be
corrupted. So far from trials, and conflicts, and storms, and tempests
impairing the principle of holiness in the soul, they do but deepen and
strengthen it, and tend greatly to its growth. We look at Job; who of mere
man was ever more keenly tried?—and yet, so far from destroying or even
weakening the divine life within him, the severe discipline of the covenant,
through which he passed, did but deepen and expand the root, bringing forth
in richer clusters the blessed fruits of holiness. Do you think, dear
reader, the divine life in his soul had undergone any change for the worse,
when, as the result of God's covenant dealings with him, he exclaimed—"I
have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye sees You: why
I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes?" No, the pruning of the
fruitful branch impairs not, but rather strengthens and renders more
fruitful the principle of holiness in the soul.
It is the will of God that His people should be a fruitful people. "This is
the will of God, even your sanctification,"—the sanctification of a believer
including all fruitfulness. He will bring out His own work in the heart of
His child; and never does He take His child in hand with a view of dealing
with him according to the tenor of the covenant of grace, but that dealing
results in a greater degree of spiritual fruitfulness. Now, when the Lord
afflicts, and the Holy Spirit sanctifies the affliction of the believer, is
not this again among the costly fruit of that discipline, that self has
become more hateful? This God declared should be the result of His dealings
with His, ancient people Israel, for their idolatry—"They shall loathe
themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their
abominations." And again—"Then shall you remember your ways, and all your
doings wherein you have been defiled; and you shall loathe yourselves in
your own sight, for all your evils that you have committed." To loathe self
on account of its sinfulness, to mortify it in all its forms, and to bring
it entirely into subjection to the spirit of holiness, is, indeed, no small
triumph of Divine grace in the soul, and no mean effect of the sanctified
use of the Lord's dispensations. That must ever be considered a costly mean
that accomplished this blessed end. Beloved reader, is your covenant God and
Father dealing with you now? Pray that this may be one blessed result, the
abasement of self within you, the discovering of it to you in all its
deformity, and its entire subjection to the cross of Jesus.
Octavius Winslow
"I acknowledged my sin unto you, and
mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the
Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin." Psalm 32:5
This is just what God loves—an open, ingenuous confession of sin. Searching and
knowing, though He does, all hearts, He yet delights in the honest and minute
acknowledgment of sin from His backsliding child. Language cannot be too
humiliating; the detail cannot be too minute. Mark the stress He has laid upon
this duty, and the blessing He has annexed to it. Thus He spoke to the children
of Israel, that wandering, backsliding, rebellious people—"If they shall confess
their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which
they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me; and
that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land
of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then
accept of the punishment of their iniquity; then will I remember my covenant
with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham
will I remember; and I will remember the land." Truly may we exclaim, "Who is a
God like unto You, that pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgression of the
remnant of His heritage! He retains not His anger forever, because He delights
in mercy." And how did the heart of God melt with pity and compassion when He
heard the audible relentings of His Ephraim! "I have surely heard Ephraim
bemoaning himself thus: You have chastised me and I was chastised, as a bullock
unaccustomed to the yoke: turn me, and I shall be turned; for You are the Lord
my God." And what was the answer of God? "Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a
pleasant child? for since I spoke against him, I do earnestly remember him
still; therefore my affections are troubled for him: I will surely have mercy
upon him, says the Lord." Nor is the promise of pardon annexed to confession of
sin unfolded with less clearness and consolatoriness in the New Testament
writings. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our
sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." How full, then, the blessing,
how rich the consolation connected with an honest, heart-broken confession of
sin! How easy, and how simple too, this method of return to God! "Only
acknowledge your iniquity." It is but a confession of sin over the head of
Jesus, the great sacrifice for sin. Oh, what is this that God says? "Only
acknowledge your iniquity!" Is this all He requires of His poor wandering child?
This is all! "Then," may the poor soul exclaim, "Lord, I come to You. I am a
backslider, a wanderer, a prodigal. I have strayed from You like a lost sheep.
My love has waxed cold, my steps have slackened in the path of holy obedience,
my mind has yielded to the corrupting, deadening influence of the world, and my
affections have wandered in quest of other and earthly objects of delight. But,
behold, I come unto You. Do You invite me? Do You stretch out Your hand? Do You
bid me approach You? Do You say, 'Only acknowledge your iniquity?' Then, Lord, I
come; in the name of Your dear Son, I come; restore unto me the joy of your
salvation.'" Thus confessing sin over the head of Jesus, until the heart has
nothing more to confess but the sin of its confession—for, beloved reader, our
very confession of sin needs to be confessed over, our very tears need to be
wept over, and our very prayers need to be prayed over, so defaced with sin is
all that we do—the soul, thus emptied and unburdened, is prepared to receive
anew the seal of a Father's forgiving love.
Octavius Winslow
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08/18/06